Free Knot a Liar (Knotted Up Book 1) by Rose Ann Bridges

girl panties.” And get Grace to deal with Patricia.
    His throat releases a moaning groan. “I’d like to see you in those panties.” He says it so softly that if I wasn’t attuned to the conversation I wouldn’t have heard it. I did hear it though, and again it set off my internal alarm bell.
    I look up to meet his eyes and respond, “That doesn’t sound very gay.”
    His eyes widen before he says, “What? Being gay means I can’t see women in their underwear? How else can I tell them if it looks good or not?”
    I rest my head again his chest, breathing him in, being comforted and aroused in the same breath. “You confuse me. You aren’t like the other gays I know. Although I don’t know a whole lot, but I can tell you are different. You are macho, a typical straight alpha male, but gay. I can’t make sense of you.” Confessing, I again tilt my head up to study his features.
    With an enigmatic smile he says, “Well that’s a compliment; I hate being cliché.”
    He looks down on me and laughs. If I’m an accurate judge, it’s a rather cunning laugh that curls up his lips.
    There’s something beguiling about Sam that pulls me into him. He’s gay, but… That’s all I’ve come up with, which by his behaviour is an exact description of him. He’s the ultimate contradiction. A living, breathing paradox if there’s one. He’s someone I would date and probably fall in love with if he weren’t gay. He is sweet, endearing and protective. He’s funny and can charm the skin off a snake if he wanted. He’s also addictively sexy and attracting. Or distracting, depends on how one views it. I guess it’s both sides of the same coin.
    Sam tilts his head to the right as if further thinking of what I said.
    “Hmm… but that’s one way to sum me up and view me. But I can think of another way, a more enjoyable way. It’s more correct as well. I don’t think you’re quite ready for that though.”
    I am taken aback by that sly remark, which, again, if I’m not wrong, is ambiguous in meaning.
    I’m deciding not to indulge myself in the mystery that is Sam anymore for the rest of the night. I still have tomorrow to face. I’ll reserve my energy for then.
    The network of people that this deception will involve comes to the foreground of my mind. How am I going to explain this to Grace, to Alex?
    Alex. For all that is good and fair, swallow me, end me now before Alex does. I don’t want to imagine her wrath, the disappointment I’ll face.
    Needless to say, I wish I could turn back the hands of time, take Alex’s advice and come alone. But no, I had to be sneaky, conniving and devious in my thoughts and actions.
    All I can hope for now is that I don’t wake in the morning. That’s the only way I see me escaping humiliation.
    I decide to indulge Sam and stay the next hour. Sitting alone at a corner table, sulking and imagining the different ways Alex Sam skin me alive consumes most of the time. Sam rotates between spending time with me in the land of desolation, getting hard liquor to drown my sorrows and taking trips to the bathroom. One man can’t pee that much, he must have a bladder problem.
    I sit wanting to pee, but refusing to move. In the event Patricia is in the bathroom when I’m there, I’m sure I’ll spill. I didn’t go through all that deception and Sam’s hard work to have my mouth leaking the truth and causing a personal apocalypse.
    Sam returns for the umpteenth time and sits to stare at me. His face bearing a new level of terror, making me afraid to ask what new drama has unfolded with him.
    He sits staring at the new drink he brought with him; perhaps hoping it’ll contain the solution to the question of why we told such a lie.
    “My parents know and believe we are married.” That’s what he said. What I heard was ‘My hares o mumble, mumble, mumble…’
    “What?”
    He groans, looks up and squeezes the bridge of his nose before repeating the final nail in our very sealed