Secrets Like Us

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Lily

The bright lights of the truck stop are a relief. As soon as the trucker turns off his big rig, I toss him a twenty-dollar bill and holler a rushed thanks over my shoulder before jumping down to the concrete parking lot below.

Hitchhiking after my car broke down was a stupid choice, and I regretted my decision as soon as I got in his truck. We're closer to the city now, so I’ll get a rideshare in the morning to take me to Edgewood Academy.

My home for the next three months.

My father’s voice rings in my head. “One more term, Lily. Try not to get kicked out of this school.”

I hate how it sounds like a taunt because I did nothing to deserve to be kicked out of the other schools. But despite his best efforts, I’m almost done.

One more term and I’ll have enough credits to go to college. It doesn’t matter that I’m technically an adult. To access the trust fund left for me by my grandfather, I have to get my high school diploma.

I would love to move across the country—or to another country—and lose myself in my studies.

I love school. You would think a girl like me would have breezed through the three other private academies my father sent me to. But just like Edgewood Academy will probably be, those schools were repressive and rigid. The opposite of the type of environment I need to thrive.

Does my father listen?

Nope. He has his own agenda. A dangerous one I want nothing to do with.

Getting myself kicked out of my last school only got me a few months of freedom at a public school before my father found another academy to take me in. Take his money, more like it.

Everyone tells me I have a chip on my shoulder, but they don’t understand what I know.

So to them, I seem like a bitter, rich girl who doesn’t appreciate how good she has it.

Edgewood is my last chance to get it right. To be a good girl, a polite girl, a privileged girl who plays by the rules. I can do that. It’s only three months.

I’ll be free by Christmas.

The irony is, I actually am a good girl. I’ve never been drunk, never had sex, never done any of the drugs that other kids at private schools do. How could I when I know exactly where they come from? I’m just a mouthy brat with an authority problem.

I head into the store. There’s a restaurant on the other side and signs for showers. If I play my cards right, I can find a place here to sleep for the night.

I’m lingering by the refrigerators of cold drinks, hoping to overhear someone ask the cashier about the showers.

Like how much they are, or if anyone would notice if I bunked in one all night—when a tall, broad-shouldered man comes in from the gas station side.

He pulls off a sleek black helmet and stops just inside the entrance, rolling his neck like he’s just been on a long motorcycle ride on the highway.

He unzips his leather jacket as he stalks in my direction, and when his gaze collides with mine, I quickly look away. But from that moment of connection, heat zaps through me. My chin lifts again as if pulled by an invisible force, and I catch him looking at my legs as he stops a few feet from me.

I’m frozen to the spot, which is unfortunate because he clears his throat and points behind me. “Can I…?”

I turn and realize he wants a soda.

Not looking at my legs. Wondering how to get the awkward girl out of his way.

Stammering, I shift sideways, then pretend I’m looking at the orange juice in the next section.

“Thirsty?”

I jerk my head back to him.

He’s really tall, and his hand, when it settles on the handle of the glass door, looks like it’s twice the size of mine. He opens the door and gestures at the juice. “If you want one, I’ll buy you a drink.”

I laugh. “Is that how you usually pick up women? Buying drinks for them from the convenience store?”

“I rarely buy women drinks,” he says seriously. His eyes lock on my mine, dark and intense. “But you look like you need something, and I like to help people.”

I almost snap that I don’t need anything.

But something stops me. I look at him again.

He’s beautiful in a wild animal kind of way.

His hair is thick and standing up on end, and his eyebrows are dark, angry slashes over hooded eyes.

But for all his fierce beast-mode aesthetic, he seems like a gentle giant.

He likes to help people. That has to be a line, right?

I deliberately run my gaze down his body, from the leather jacket down to where his dark jeans hug both muscular thighs and a prominent bulge at his crotch.

I jerk my gaze up to his face, and one of those dark brows lifts in surprise, like he wasn’t expecting me to check him out.

I wasn’t expecting to, either.

We stand there together for a silent, extended beat, and then he nods at me and backs up. Clearly, I don’t want him to buy me orange juice because if I did, I’d say something, right?

But I’m not sure what I want.

Then he frowns and stops, and a second later, I feel an unexpected warm heat behind me.

I spin around to find the trucker I caught a ride with leering over me. “Hey darlin’, you ran away so quick. I was hoping we could get a bite to eat together.”

I jerk backward and collide with Mr. Motorcycle’s front. He smoothly moves me to the side, putting some space between our bodies, then steps in between me and the trucker before glancing back at me. “You okay?”

I nod.

He jerks his head at the other guy. “Do you want to have dinner with him?”

I shake my head.

A grin, bright and unexpected, appears as quickly as it disappears before he turns back to face the trucker. He schools his features into a more serious look as he pointedly addresses the other man. “We’ll let you get your juice in peace, then.”

And without a word of conflict, he somehow moves the trucker away from me, pointing the older man to the restaurant.

I can tell they’re both older, but Mr. Motorcycle looks like an actor who would play a hot dad on TV, and the trucker looks like… well, my actual father, if he wasn’t rich and was missing some teeth.

I shudder and grab the orange juice I was just pretending to want. I’m looking at chips at the end of the aisle when Mr. Motorcycle returns and grabs the soda he had initially been looking for.

I step back into view. “Thanks for intervening.” My face heats. I know I don’t need to explain more, but an explanation tumbles out anyway. “I caught a ride with him, and he clearly got the wrong idea.”

“You were hitchhiking?”

“I’m done with that now. This is my destination.”

He frowns and looks around. “This truck stop?”

“This city.” I don’t elaborate, not wanting him to know I’m here for school. I want him to think about me as a woman. Tonight is my last night of freedom before I need to behave for three months.

Tonight, though, I want to misbehave. And I want to do it with Mr. Motorcycle. “I start a new job tomorrow. It comes with lodging, so I’m just looking for a place to stay tonight. Thought about crashing here, but if you have a better idea….”

His frown deepens, like he didn’t hear me just hit on him because he’s apparently fixated on my choice of accommodation. “You were going to spend the night at a truck stop?”

I shift uncomfortably under the stern appraisal of my not-great idea. “It would be fine.”

“Do you need money for a motel?”

A rush of heat colors my cheeks. It hadn’t even occurred to me to get a motel room. “I have money. But that’s a good idea. Thanks.”

I spin on my heel, but I don’t get far before his hand catches my elbow and turns me around again.

He’s closer than he was before, almost right up against me, and I catch my first whiff of his scent.

Warm, spicy, masculine. He smells nice, not like a bad guy at all.

And definitely not like a man who would fool around with an eighteen-year-old girl desperate to break free from the confines of her life.

Which isn’t a thing one can tell from a scent, but it’s the entire package. The concern in his eyes, the stern furrow now etched between his eyebrows.

So much for the lasting appeal of my bare legs.

“Look…” He stops. “What’s your name?”

“Lily.” I infuse confidence I don’t feel into my reply. “What’s yours?”

He smiles. “Sebastian.”

I don’t know what I was expecting. Duke or Hank or Mr. Motorcycle. Not something as elegant as Sebastian.

“Look, Lily, I’m on my way back to work myself. I have a curfew of sorts.” I get another smile at that, like there’s an inside joke there I don’t get. “I’d like to see you somewhere safe, though. There’s a motel across the highway. Can I take you there?”

I shrug. “That depends. You wanna come to my room when we get there?”

The stern frown is back, and his gaze drops to my mouth. A stern frown isn’t a no, though. I move in closer. Who is this woman saying this shit? Because it is not me. Virgin Lily would never. Has never.

But maybe tonight is the night Virgin Lily disappears. “Or maybe we could go back to your place.”

He winces. “The thing is, I also have the kind of job where I live where I work, and we’re not allowed to bring people back there.”

I glance toward the showers. “Then we should make do right here.”

“You want me to fuck you in the showers of a truck stop?” He blinks in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”

“I’ve never done this before, I swear. I don’t know why I’m suggesting this, but tomorrow will be the start of the longest three months of my life. I could use an escape tonight, you know?”

He mutters something under his breath, and I sway even closer.

Close enough that he has to catch me in his arms, his hands going around me, then traveling down my back and settling low on my hips.

Close to the hem of my jean skirt. His body is hard and hot, and just rubbing up against him is more exciting than I ever thought possible.

Of course, I’m nervous. And a little terrified. But there’s something about him that soothes my fear in doing something this out of character.