Stolen Lies (Fates of the Bound 2)

“A naked reward?”

Lila closed the trunk softly.

After a quick drive to the gate, she waved to Sergeant Nolan, barely slowing.

The guard cocked her head, clearly sensing the chief was up to something, but she damn sure wasn’t going to ask.

Lila rolled through as soon as the gate lifted. She didn’t stop for several blocks, not until she’d left the Randolph dominion. Pulling to the side of the road, she popped her trunk.

A very annoyed Tristan uncurled himself from the trunk, eyeing his location. “Roomy,” he said as he climbed out.

Lila opened the driver’s-side door with a flourish. She jiggled her keys like a treat bag and jerked her chin toward the wheel. “Your reward.”

Tristan cast a bemused look toward the roadster.

“I know you want to drive it. Just don’t wreck it, okay?”

“Screw you. I’m an excellent driver.”

“I’m sure you are,” she said, hurrying to the other side.

Tristan hopped into the driver’s seat and pulled back onto the road. He wasted no time zipping down the empty streets, slaloming around the occasional delivery truck. His grin nearly split his face, as though he were a child who’d finally gotten to play with a toy he’d always wanted. Or perhaps it was merely the smile of someone happy, someone not afraid to show childish wonder in front of someone he cared about, someone he’d just bedded.

Lila approved of the look. His eyes had always been a bit too old. The product of too much responsibility thrust upon his shoulders too early. It was something they shared, something that had been pushed onto them by birth or by circumstance, but he still had it in him to be childlike.

Did she?

Lila wasn’t sure anymore. It was the first time she felt the age difference between them. Though he was twenty-four, he had not yet attained the breadth of a man, still a touch too rangy and slender.

Perhaps his mind was no different. Perhaps he was still growing into the man he would become, settling into his moods, now thinking twice about charging into the fray half-cocked whenever the chance arose.

Perhaps she should stop being so hard on him, expecting him to have all the answers, trying to make decisions for him when she didn’t like the ones he’d made. She’d done that in the past, slighting him when whatever plan he came up with was imperfect or too impulsive.

She’d been trained by the best all her life and sculpted into a leader. She’d been told over and over that it would be her destiny. Tristan had been trained by no one. He’d been forced to wing it, managing to earn the respect she’d only attained from her prosperous birth.

She had to admit, he was doing much better than she would have. Perhaps at twenty-eight she hadn’t grown into the woman she would become, either.

Who was that? Who was she?

Was she her mother? Was she her father?

Right now, she didn’t want to be either.

Tristan stopped the car two blocks away from the shop. “This is a fabulous car. I really must get one for myself.”

“You mean steal one for yourself?”

“Stealing makes it more satisfying. Of course, Shaw would be on my ass in two seconds. Only a handful of heirs in all of Saxony have a car so fine.”

“I’ll let you drive it again.”

He pulled her face to his and kissed her slow and deep. “Come find me after you get back. We’ll compare notes.”

He grazed her cheek with his thumb and got out of the car, slipping into the night.

Lila watched him disappear, then slid into the driver’s seat and turned the car toward the airport. On the way, she typed a familiar number into her palm.

Her mother would feel her wrath.