Page 90 of Under the Lies

Noah coughs a laugh.

“Oh, I think you’ll like this.”

Noah waits.

“A fight. You. Me. A week from now.”

“What’s in it for me? Aside from kicking your ass.” Noah’s indifference doesn’t change, but he’s intrigued. I can tell by the subtle way his stance changes, the widening of his legs, the crossing of his chest.

“Information.”

“Like you have anything we’d want,” Thea says, hands on her hips.

Seamus spares her the briefest of glances before turning back to Noah. “So you don’t want to know who’s after that hot piece of ass behind you? Or where you can find her sister?”

When we get back at Noah’s, we venture off in two different directions.

He heads for the bar, grabbing the first bottle within reach, while I go into the little bathroom near the kitchen, ransacking the cabinets for supplies. Thankfully, Noah keeps his first aid kit stocked.

Quickly, I grab hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, and whatever else I can carry before leaving the bathroom to find Noah sprawled out on the couch, the bottle of whiskey dangling between his fingers.

The apartment isn’t as messy as I remember it. Most of the damage is confined to the kitchen and surrounding areas. The couch and the space surrounding it, including the coffee table, where Reeve was painting is surprisingly the cleanest. Those naked models were good for more than one thing it seems.

As I walk toward Noah, he lazily watches my approach.

He looks relaxed, dazed out in bliss, but I know he’s anything but.

Our car ride home from the harbor was in tense silence. Noah didn’t speak as he escorted me to his car leaving his friends and Jenkins with Seamus. He didn’t make a sound as he drove through the city.

I watched him the entire way. How the cuts on his face bled, at the stretched, cracked skin on his knuckles. He didn’t show he was in pain, but my poor, weak and caring heart wanted to tend to him nonetheless.

His eyes continue to follow me as I sit across from him on his coffee table, conscious of our ongoing chess game, not wanting to knock it over.

He doesn’t ask me what I’m doing as I methodically soak a cotton ball in peroxide and bring it to his face. He doesn’t wince as it touches his cut, instead he keeps his chaotic eyes on me.

But the stillness is a façade. Being this close, I can feel the energy buzzing through his veins.

Ignoring the hum that’s always present when we’re this close together, I go about tending to his wounds, putting bloody cotton ball after bloody cotton ball on the table next to me.

We don’t talk. But we don’t need to.

My skin is warm under his stare. I try not to focus on that as I soak another cotton ball, but it’s impossible. The magnetic pull that is Noah Kincaid is getting to me. Like a lasso around my body, he makes me want to lean in closer and closer until there’s no space left between us.

I try not to look directly at him as I bring the cotton to the cut by his mouth. My hand rests on his cheek and I pretend not to notice how he tilts his head into my palm. I pretend I don’t feel my chest beating to the point of pain.

I pretend to be wholly unaffected.

Until I look up.

And lock on his lips.

His lips that smirk when I’m unable to look away. It’s been too long since I’ve felt them move against mine. So long since I’ve felt the commanding touch of his.

Needing to distract myself, I ask the question that’s been on my mind since we left the wharf. “Why’d you do it?”

He doesn’t ask what I’m talking about. He knows.

Why’d he agree to the fight with Seamus? I mean, I know why. He wants to fight in exchange for information—secrets—his favorite bets to place. What I want to know is the who.

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