My Sinful Longing (Sinful Men Book 3)

by Lauren Blakely

  I ran my tongue along her wetness, and she rose up, arching into me.

  I took my time with her, making her feel so damn good, tasting her, kissing her, savoring her until my beautiful woman came undone on my mouth, her sweetness on my lips, her pleasure flooding my tongue. Her heady taste was all over me as she cried out my name like the chorus of a classic rock anthem.

  51

  Elle

  I dangled my bare feet in the stream as the water gurgled between my toes.

  The sun beat down hellishly, but tall trees with lush green branches shielded us from the bright rays, and a soft breeze circled. We’d walked on one of Colin’s favorite trails, which wound its way along a small creek.

  “Did that mega intense hike get you all ready for your triathlon?” I teased, nudging him with my elbow as we perched on a rock at the edge of the water.

  “Absolutely. Did you know the Badass Triathlon now includes a mile-long nature stroll?”

  I pumped a fist. “Excellent. Sounds like my kind of race.”

  He draped an arm around my shoulders. “Kind of ironic, too, that you’re the one with the splint and yet you worry about me doing crazy stuff.”

  I turned to him, dropped my hand to his leg, and squeezed his strong thigh. “I do worry about you, Colin,” I said, meeting his gaze.

  He flashed a small smile. “I like that you worry about me.”

  “I worried about you yesterday too. I worried how you were going to take the news from Marcus,” I said softly. “How was it?”

  A bird chirped on a nearby branch, and Colin gazed at the rocks on the other side of the creek as he told me about meeting his half-brother, from the utter shock, to the sparks of humor he said he saw in Marcus, to how Michael and Shan had reacted when he’d told them—which was in much the same way he had. “Honestly, I didn’t know how Michael would take it, since there’s no love lost with him and our mom. I was worried he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Marcus.”

  “But he didn’t react that way?”

  “Oh, he was surprised as hell, and had a few choice words to say about Dora Prince. But he’s always looked out for us younger ones, and I guess Marcus is part of that now. But the whole thing is this big reminder of my mother, and how I barely know who she is. She’s like this strange, evil magician presiding over all of us still from behind bars. Or maybe a master puppeteer, and she pulls all the strings whenever she wants,” he said, holding up his hands to demonstrate an evil mastermind, adding in a cackle.

  “She didn’t pull this one,” I pointed out. “Marcus came to you on his own.”

  He huffed. “I know, but she played her part by not saying a word for years.” He shook his head in disgust. “How do you keep a kid a secret? Why? I don’t get her. I don’t know what language she speaks, if she’s even human. I seriously don’t understand how I’m connected to her. I hate that I’ve ever had anything in common with her.”

  He turned to me, the sunlight streaming through the branches and illuminating the deep frustration etched on his handsome face. I ran a hand gently through his hair. “I don’t know her at all, but I don’t think you’re like her. You’re such a good person, Colin. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever known.”

  He cupped my cheek. “Thank you,” he said. But he didn’t seem to hold on to my words, because his tone turned dark again as he let go of my face and clenched his fist. “Most of the time, I can deal with the stupid decisions I made as a kid, but sometimes I hate that I had friends who were connected to the Royal Sinners. I can’t believe I associated with them even peripherally.”

  “And yet you didn’t wind up in it. You didn’t venture down that path.”

  “But I was such a mess as a teenager,” he said, gritting his teeth.

  “Please. It’s not like I have some spotless record as a teen. I got knocked up.”

  “Yeah. But something good came of that. Your kid.”

  “True. But still, I was pregnant when I graduated from high school. Of course I don’t regret it, but my point is, you shouldn’t let the past gnaw at you either. You are your present, and what I see in front of me is pretty great.” A light breeze swirled the water at our feet as he smiled—a soft, tender smile. “Hate is a hard thing to hold on to. It can eat away at you.”

  He nodded a few times, like he was letting my remarks sink in. “Do you think that’s what’s happening to me?”

  “I know a lot of it’s directed at her, but I think you’re mad at yourself too, Colin,” I said softly, placing a hand on his arm, tracing his tattoos that I loved. “Because you’ve struggled with some of the same things your mother struggled with. And I think that’s the thing you hate—that you have this one small thing in common with her. Perhaps the person you need to forgive is yourself.” Then I softened my voice as I said the thing that I knew would be hardest for him to hear. But the thing that needed to be said. “Maybe to do that, you need to see her.”

  He sat ramrod straight, as if he’d been jolted with high-voltage electricity. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No. I’m not. And I’m just putting it out there. That’s the social worker in me. But I think you beat yourself up because you used, and she used. And maybe seeing her once will help you to let go of the hate you feel toward her. To see you’re not like her. Because it’s really a part of yourself that you’re mad at.”

  He didn’t say anything at first, just ran his hand over his chin and exhaled hard as he stared out at the stream. A small bead of worry rolled through me, and I hoped I hadn’t crossed a line with my suggestion, but I didn’t want to take it back either. I truly wanted him to consider it. “I think seeing her would be less about her and more about you. Almost as a way of making that last amends to yourself.” I tapped his chest lightly. “To forgive yourself.”

  The corner of his lips curved up. “You’re too smart for my own good. I’ll think about it.”

  “Good.” Warmth spread through me at the fact that he was open to the possibility.

  “Is this coming from experience? Did you hate Sam?”

  I answered immediately. “No. I felt sorry for him. I was sad for him. I felt completely helpless. But I had to let go of all those feelings. He wasn’t a good dad. He wasn’t a good man, and there was nothing I could do to change him. I had to stop fighting all the battles with him. I couldn’t make him a better father. I couldn’t make him stop using.”

  He nodded sagely. “You can’t make anyone hit bottom. They have to find it on their own. And man, am I glad I found mine. Even if it took collapsing in a race to do it,” he said with a wry note in his voice. “Because I’ve come far since then, and it all led me to you.”

  52

  Colin

  Forgiveness was granted in all of a minute by the fourteen-year-old.

  “He’s your brother?” Alex’s jaw dropped, and then he asked me for every last detail.

  I gladly shared the story with Elle’s son over pizza at Gigi’s Pizzeria that night. Alex shook his head in amazement in between bites of cheese pie. “I guess I can let it slide this time that you missed my mom’s match. That’s a good enough reason. Even though there’s no next time—she’s out for the season.”

  “You know what that means?” I asked, as the waitress cleared the table. “When the Fishnet Brigade wins big, we need to plan an awesome celebration for her and all she did to get the team there.”

  “Totally.”

  Elle didn’t say much. She simply smiled, and nothing could have made me happier than seeing her relaxed and comfortable at dinner with me and the most important person in the world to her. We’d come so far. We’d made it past so much already. I’d never expected to knock down her walls so soon—or at all. But it had happened, and here we were, making our way through together.

  When the check came, Elle reached for it, but I grabbed it sooner and paid. And as we left the pizzeria, I tossed out a question to Alex. “Ever been to the Zombie Apocalypse store?”

 
“No,” he said, his eyes wide and curious. “What’s that?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. It’s over in Chinatown. It’s a small shop where you can work on your skills in preparation to go to battle with the undead. It’s tongue-in-cheek, lots of novelty items, but it’s a lot of fun.”

  “Mom, can we go?” Alex asked, looking like a dog asking for a bone.

  “Only if we can go now,” Elle answered.

  The three of us spent the next hour in the odd little store, where Alex plied the store manager for tips on how to stay ahead of the brain-eaters.

  It was as perfect a night as one could be, and I wanted to remember it as the start of a whole new chapter with the woman I adored.

  53

  Elle

  After Alex crashed and I got ready for bed, I sent Colin a good night text.

  Elle: Today was perfect. Thank you.

  His reply landed in seconds.

  Colin: It was. Let’s do it again soon. All of it.

  I was closing out of the text app when a new message appeared. But it wasn’t from Colin. It was from an unknown number.

  Hey, pretty lady. Don’t you be messing around with that new guy. WJ

  54

  Ryan

  I turned off the engine in my truck, hopped out, and headed inside the convenience store off the highway. I grabbed a bottle of iced tea, walked to the counter, then nodded to the cashier. My little brother.

  “That’ll be one dollar and twenty-one cents.”

  “No family discount?” I joked.

  Marcus smiled and shook his head. “Sorry, man.”

  The convenience store was empty, so I rested my hip against the counter, opened the bottle, and took a gulp. I tapped the plastic. “Can I treat you? It’s hot as hell outside.”

  “Sure.”

  I returned to the cold shelves, grabbed another bottle, paid for it too, then handed it to the guy who I used to think was stalking my family. Now I was getting to know the kid. We weren’t instant buddies, and I hadn’t signed the two of us up for kumbaya-with-your-long-lost-bro classes. But I did want to get to know Marcus, so I was trying to do it in a natural way. I’d taken him to lunch yesterday, the day after we’d met, and Marcus had told me he worked at this store to save money for community college, and that he was living with friends.

  Which made me wonder if the kid was on the outs with his dad.

  His dad was another reason I was here today.

  “Listen, Marcus,” I said, as a car pulled up to a gas pump in the lot. “I want to see your dad. I need to talk to Luke because I really want to get some info about the affair and about the pregnancy, and see if that played into why our mom killed my dad.” Those words—they tasted like dirt. For so long I’d believed my mom might be innocent, but I’d been coming to terms and to peace with her guilt. Still, I was determined to help solve the case and do everything I could to help find the other men involved.

  Or at least to learn what had motivated my mother. The more information I gleaned, the greater the chance the cops had of nailing the other guys. John said he was still gathering evidence, but TJ and Kenny Nelson hadn’t been found yet, and by all accounts, those two had left a trail of destruction behind them over the years. My chest burned with rage over the fact that two killers were walking free.

  If it were up to me, I’d have knocked on Luke’s door already and demanded some answers from the man who’d screwed my mother behind my father’s back, then hid the kid he’d had with her. I’d done it once, but I couldn’t do that now. It wouldn’t be fair to Marcus.

  “You want to talk to him?” Marcus repeated.

  “I have before, yes. And I want to talk to him again. I want to see what he knows. But to do that,” I said, gesturing from the kid back to myself, “I’d have to let him know I know about you.”

  Marcus shook his head. Adamantly. “No. Please no.”

  I tilted my head, my radar going off, detecting fear in Marcus’s eyes. “Why? He told you about your mom. You said it wasn’t a secret.”

  “I know. But he doesn’t know I talked to you guys.”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “He would freak.”

  “Are you sure?” I was asking for myself, but for Marcus too. I didn’t want to see this kid heading down the path of secrets like I had.

  His eyes shifted around, a worried look in them. “I just don’t think he’d be happy about it. I didn’t tell him I was going to meet you guys. I haven’t seen him much since I moved out.”

  “Why not?”

  Marcus shoved a hand through his hair. “We don’t always see eye to eye. If he knows I’m talking to you, he’s going to worry about Stefano’s friends. About Kenny and TJ. He’s going to think they’ll come after my sisters and my mom.”

  That was understandable, but I had to help him face it head-on. “But is that a real threat? If it is, maybe we need to deal with it, rather than ignore it,” I said in a calm voice. “I can help you with that, you know. That’s the business I’m in.”

  Marcus leaned forward and pressed his palms against the counter. “See, I have no idea. All I know is he’s terrified still of what went down back then. I heard him talking to my stepmom when I was younger, telling her those guys threatened him—that if he said anything, they’d go after him. He made them seem like the guy from Saw or Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hell, the other day some dude with a goatee came in here chomping on potato chips, complaining about his phone, and generally kind of being creepy, and for a split second, I started thinking he was one of them.”

  “Why? What was he doing?” I asked, my hackles rising.

  “Because he was . . .” Marcus started, then shook his head. “I don’t know. He just seemed like the type of guy who’d stir shit up. That’s all.”

  “Okay, I hear you. He set off your radar, and you have to listen to that. Now that you’re connected to us, and that’s started to come out, you’ve got to be careful, Marcus. We can talk about a security detail for you too, if you want, but you really should talk to the detective.”

  “I will. Soon. I was supposed to, but had to cancel because I got called into work, and then my car was in the shop. I know I need to see him.”

  “I can help arrange it if you need me to. Are you worried your dad doesn’t want you to talk to him?”

  “I don’t know,” Marcus said, barely audible.

  I had no choice but to relent. I didn’t know Luke Carlton well enough to understand his father-son relationship with Marcus—hell, this was all brand-new to me. But I’d have to work with this wrinkle, not against it.

  “Hey, do you want to come over for dinner sometime?” I asked, my voice gravelly now. It was an awkward request, but Sophie had insisted I ask, so I was doing it.

  Marcus’s eyes lit up. “That’d be cool.”

  “I’ll make sure to invite the whole crew. Michael, Shan, Brent. We can have Colin and Elle. And Alex too, if you’d like.”

  “I would,” he said with a smile.

  I had the sense that Marcus had been missing something his whole life, and it wasn’t his biological mother. It was a connection to the rest of his family. And that was easy enough for me to give.

  55

  Marcus

  After Ryan left, I dropped my forehead to the register. My heart beat furiously, as if I’d been sprinting. My hands were clammy. That was what talking about my dad did to me lately.

  Freaked me the hell out. Damn near set off an anxiety attack.

  I couldn’t tell my dad that I’d found the Sloans. I couldn’t take that chance yet. I’d already taken a big enough risk meeting them. But knowing they existed had gnawed at me for years, and I’d longed to know them, especially since I’d been growing apart with my dad. For reasons I wasn’t entirely sure I could give voice to.

  My phone buzzed and I looked up. My stepmom had texted.

  Angie: How did you do on your math test? Any results yet? Fingers crossed.
<
br />   My heartbeat turned more regular as I wrote back.

  Marcus: Got ’em earlier today. Aced it!

  Angie: Proud of you!!! Way to go! Sundaes at Baskin Robbins to celebrate with the girls?

  Marcus: Ice cream is always a yes.

  Her excitement reminded me that I had to think of her and my sisters too. It had been one thing for me to reach out to my family on my mother’s side, but I did still have a connection to my dad’s family, no matter how strained things sometimes got with him.

  I couldn’t arrange a meeting with Ryan and my father right now. Things were too new, and too tense. My dad didn’t want to revisit the past. Besides, there were too many people who wanted a piece of my dad, like Stefano’s friends. My father had taught me to fear them. To keep quiet. They were rogue, uncontrollable men. So for now, I had to keep my two lives separate.

  The bell rang, and I raised my head. A hot blonde wearing tight shorts wandered in. She bought a cherry slushy and started drinking it as I rang her up. Her pretty lips on the straw made me stop thinking all about my family.

  56

  Elle

  Monday morning after I took Alex to school—waiting in my car until I saw him walk through the front doors and safely inside—I called Colin and told him about the creepy text I received from WJ Saturday night.

  “Come to my office. Let me see the text,” he said.

  Twenty minutes later, he was studying the message at his desk.