“Not yet, sir,” she said with a shy smile.
Stu gave a tight nod of acknowledgement. He still sometimes looked at Liam and Min with that institutional disapproval that came from years of having to deal with professors’ impropriety with students, but he was working on accepting their relationship, for the sake of the family.
Throughout dinner, Noah felt his uncle’s eyes on him—when he rested his hand on Callie’s knee, when she leaned her head against his shoulder and he pulled her close, when she laughed and wiped a smudge of chocolate sauce off his lower lip. As dessert was cleared, Liv tapped her spoon against her water glass to get everyone’s attention, rising to her feet.
“Aren’t we supposed to do that for you?” Pattie teased, clanging her spoon against her own glass and staring down Daemon with a challenging quirk of her bright red lip.
Daemon huffed out a sigh as though he were terribly put out, but the smirk on his face gave him away. He rose to his feet and swept Liv up against him, planting a thorough kiss on her lips.
“No one needs to see that,” Jamie grumbled, tossing a balled-up napkin at the couple.
Liv laughed as she pulled away, her happiness overflowing around her. Noah couldn’t help his own smile at his little sister’s joy, though there was something bittersweet about it that he couldn’t put his finger on. A melancholy longing he couldn’t define.
“Alright, alright,” Liv said to quiet the hooting encouragement rising from the table. “Daem and I just wanted to thank everyone again for spending this week with us. Tomorrow evening is the rehearsal dinner, but my fiancé and I will be spending the morning doing press calls forSabrinaso you are all off the hook until the afternoon.”
“I think I know how Liam and Min will be spending their morning off,” Callie whispered to Noah, her breath tickling his ear. She inclined her head towards the couple. Min’s bottom lip was drawn between her teeth, her chest rising and falling rapidly. If Noah were a betting man, he’d wager good money that Liam had his hand up her skirt.
Noah wondered if Callie would be as discreet if he were to slip his hand beneath her skirt. Would she be able to maintain her control when his fingers sank into her, or would she let loose one of those delicious gasps she’d given him in the shower? He wrapped his arm around her shoulder to hold her against him as the others began to gather their things and leave the dining room.Just for another minute, he thought, though he couldn’t help but ask, “And how do you want to spend your morning off?”
Heat flared in her gaze, her eyes darkening, only a moment and then it was gone. She turned her face away from him. But it was too late. He was on fire, his fingers tightening on her shoulder.
“Use your words, love,” he whispered into her hair, his voice rough with the promise of sin.
She lay her hand on his leg, just a little too high up his thigh to be polite. “You first,” she said.
Could he have real sex with his fake girlfriend? All the reasons he knew it was a horrible idea escaped him as her hand inched higher on his leg, her thumb drawing ever widening circles that were dangerously close to brushing against the place where he was already half-hard.
“Noah, have a drink with me,” Uncle Stu boomed from across the table, shaking Noah from the sex-filled haze of his thoughts.
Fuck.
She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll see you upstairs,” she said, getting to her feet and joining the others on their way to the elevator.
He watched her go, sure that she was swinging her hips like that just to drive him out of his mind. The skirt of her dress swished about her legs, revealing tantalizing glimpses of her plush thighs—thighs he had pressed his lips against mere hours earlier. Some distant part of his brain blared a danger signal, warning him that he was approaching an uncharted precipice with her, one from which they would not be able to easily return. He wasn’t sure he'd want to.
Stu took Noah by the shoulder and led him over to the bar in the corner of The Barclay’s restaurant. They made small talk about Stu’s drive while they waited for the bartender to bring their drinks, all the while his uncle cast that too-keen eye on him, like he could see beneath the layers of his skin.
Uncle Stu took a deep drink of his Scotch. Keeping his eyes trained on their reflection in the mirrored backsplash behind the bar, he finally spoke. “When I told you not to get caught with your pants down in a broom closet, I didn’t mean you should move the display out in the open.”
Noah bristled. “I’m not—”
“That girl. Liv’s friend. Wolf will be here the day after next. You’re meant to be proving to him that you have some self-restraint.”
Noah took a long sip of his drink, steeling himself to repeat the lie. “She’s my girlfriend.” Funny, it didn’t feel like as much of a lie as before.
Uncle Stu snorted. “You’ve never had a girlfriend in your life. Not that you’ve lacked opportunity.”
“Callie’s different. I’m—” He stopped short.I’m different.Did he mean that?
“Why didn’t you tell me about her when we talked a few days ago?”
A reasonable question, and one he definitely couldn’t answer honestly. He shrugged, too nonchalant. “We hadn’t decided whether or not to tell people yet.”
Uncle Stu narrowed his eyes at his nephew. “What game are you playing?”
“No game.”
His uncle was too good at sniffing out a lie. Noah would need to lean into the truth if he wanted to convince him. But what was the truth?
