Page 16 of Indecent Lies

“Where the hell is your stuff?”

She whirled around. That damntoneof his again.

She might be causing him untold aggravation, she might be a nuisance—God, she recognized it clearly, but she didn’t warrant that tone at all.

“Thisismy stuff, Tait. I didn’t stop to pack.”

The purse was useless seeing as she had no cash inside and she wanted to ditch the wedding gown but thought better of it when Roux told her to sell it.

He made a groaning noise; his hands went to his hips and he pointed his face to the sky before pinning her with his intense gaze.

How had he become more handsome?

He was taller than she remembered and his shoulders wider and his long torso tapered off to a trim waistline. He’d really grown up nicely.

She liked the banged up clothes on him. The leather and denim made him seem like a badass. Nothing at all like those men inside. Sure, some were okay to look at, but none made her heart roll over with fast beats like Tait did.

His face was carved and so striking, he was perhaps six weeks past needing a shave, but it suited him somehow. The dark hair circling his thinned out lips and his vivid blue eyes that looked more navy in certain angles.

Yeah, he’d aged real nice had Tait.

She didn’t have that stupid crush any more,thank God.

Getting to Colorado and to Tait’s help had been her only thought for hours that day.

Looking at him now, with his sour expression and his thick eyebrows drawn down into a scowl and piercing eyes, she knew she’d made a mistake.

“You can take me to a bus station, thank you, I would appreciate it.”

She watched him swing his leg over the huge bike and belatedly realized he wasn’t here in a car with a roof and lockable doors she couldn’t fall out of.

He was riding a beast of a motorcycle.

“You got cash on you?”

Her chin went up. “I’ll manage.”

His sigh was a giant, put upon gust. “You don’t have your credit cards?”

“You mean daddy’s credit cards? No, he canceled them. Probably before I even got to the airport.”

“Jesus, Poppy. What the hell kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?”

She shrugged, avoiding his eyes because she felt stupid under his scrutiny.

“It’s what happens when you go against an Astor, they outcast quicker than a blink.”

He wouldn’t understand how stifled she’d felt.

How she couldn’t breathe another moment in that charade.

“Climb on.”

She blinked. “Climb on that?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t have control of her nervous stomach having never ridden a motorcycle before. Tait’s bike looked lethal and she didn’t run out on a two hundred thousand dollar wedding to be killed skidding across the road face first.