Page 30 of Man of Lies

He barked a shaky chuckle, but it wasn’t laughter making him tremble. I slid my hands up his sides, tracing the line of his ribs beneath the thin cotton of his shirt. The frantic hum under his skin was pure voltage begging to be released. I wanted it unspooled. Wanted it stripped bare and poured all over me. But not yet. I needed to calm him down until we got there.

“You’re shaking,” I whispered, so softly he must have felt it before he heard it. “You’re that worked up for me, huh?”

His head fell back to rest on my shoulder, and he let out a laughing groan. “This is my own damn fault,” he muttered. “The first time I saw you, I should’ve…” His voice caught, and I watched his throat work around the words. “But I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t what?” I asked, letting my breath stir the short hairs at his nape.

“I couldn’t take it. What you were offering, I mean. I’ve been focused on my brothers for so long…” His lips pressed together like he wanted to stop there, but then his expression spasmed, and for the first time, honesty spilled out. “I don’t even know how to want something for myself anymore.”

“Shhh,”I murmured, skimming my palms over his waist, gentling him with my touch. “You don’t owe me that. That’s not how this works, remember? No questions. No strings. Don’t overthink it.”

“Overthinking is my specialty,” he said dryly.

“Not tonight.” I gave his earlobe a teasing nip and then pulled back. “Grab your helmet. I’m taking you somewhere we won’t get interrupted.”

We didn’t take the tree this time, and my knees sent up a silent hallelujah. Mason led me down a wide staircase lit only by the moonlight spilling from tall windows. It felt like a guided tour through a museum. Stern-faced Beaufort ancestors glared down from gilt-framed portraits like they were judging the company he kept. The air reeked of old money: wood polish, faded wallpaper, and laundered linen.

It wasn’t tough to figure out why Mason preferred crashing on a cot at my place over sleeping here. The house was silent but in a heavy and watchful way. The kind of place that didn’t let anyone forget where they came from. If I’d grown up here, I’d have been looking for a way out, too.

Gravel crunched underfoot as we hit the driveway, and on impulse, I reached out and grabbed his hand. His fingers were warm and slender but strong. It caught me off guard. I hadn’t held a man’s hand since…hell, maybe ever. My teenage years weren’t built for romance. A shared cigarette and a grope behind the gym was about as tender as it got. And my adult life? Intimacy had no place in the schedule.

I used to think I preferred it that way.

Mason had a way of changing my priorities.

The Scout sat just off the main drive, matte black and half-eclipsed by shadows.

“Where are we going?” he asked warily.

“You’ll see,” I said, throwing a leg over the bike and patting the pillion seat behind me. “But trust me—it’ll be worth the ride.”

Chapter Fourteen

MASON

The Scout wasall muscle and fury, rattling through my bones hard enough to shake some fillings loose. My Ducati was all about precision and screaming high RPMs. This beast was chaos barely held together by steel and torque. It sounded like a pissed-off grizzly bear tearing up the asphalt.

The world blurred at the edges, a streak of dark treetops and headlight carving up the backroads. I ducked instinctively behind his shoulder, breathing in motor oil, leather, and that warm, spiced cologne I could get drunk on. I leaned into each turn with him, thighs tight against the seat, plastered to the hard muscle of his back. I’d never ridden as a backpack before. But my arms were locked around Silas’s waist, and I hadn’t let go.

I told myself that I hated letting someone else take the lead. But my pulse hadn’t settled since the engine turned over, and the hard truth was, I didn’t want it to. This was why I rode, for the rush and clarity. The illusion of freedom I’d chased most of my life. Except this time, it didn’t feel like running. It felt like exactly where I was supposed to be. A low, unguarded laugh slipped out before I could stop it.

I’d expected him to head toward the Dead End, but he veered in the opposite direction, toward the only hint of elevation in the flatland of the parish. The road curved through the dark, winding higher until the trees began to thin and the night sky spread above us.

Silas pulled off near the edge of a rocky bluff, killed the engine, and kicked down the stand. The sudden silence rang in my ears, broken only by the distant murmur of the Mississippi far below. Even at this hour, the day’s heat still radiated from the rocks beneath our boots, carrying a faint perfume of water and wildflowers. Moonlight spilled across the clearing, painting everything ghost-pale—except for Silas. He was all leather and shadow, solid and warm and real.

I glanced around the empty lookout, searching for landmarks to orient myself. Nothing clicked.

“I’ve lived here all my life,” I said quietly, “and didn’t even know this place existed.”

“Figured you wouldn’t.” Silas tugged off his helmet, shaking out his ponytail and flipping it clear of his collar. “It’s not a spot you stumble across by accident.”

I frowned, trying to catch his expression in the low light. “How did you find it?”

Instead of answering, he said, “Balance us for a second.”

I braced my boots on the ground and locked my knees. He swung a leg over to straddle the seat backward, hands planted on the pillion seat, one on either side of my thighs. The position was tight, forcing our knees to brush and shrinking the space between us to nothing. But his posture was loose and balanced, a king on his throne, like he’d done this a hundred times before.

With whom, I wondered.

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