He releases me suddenly and stands up straight, but he’s still too close. Always too close to me.
Sin reaches into the pocket of his sweats and produces a new phone; it doesn’t have scratches on it or a cracked screen the way his does.
“I owe Cat a lot, Gidge. I owe this club a lot.” He hands the phone over to me. “Your father doesn’t want you to have a phone, but he won’t explain why. I think he’s worried. I think he knows more than he’s letting on.” Sin taps the screen with a single finger. “Keep this hidden and keep it close.” He lifts up a finger, and I cock a brow. “Don’t make me regret this.”
Then he turns and heads for the balcony doors.
“Wait.” I chase after him and he pauses, looking back at me, his blue faux hawk turning purple in the light from the fire, just like it was during the night we first fucked each other. I had to pry it out of him then. It seems like I’m playing the same game, even now. “So that’s it? You’re going to tell me all of these things and then just leave?”
“My shift is done, Gidge,” he says, turning fully around to look at me. I can’t see his eyes now, but he’s limned in fire. “Beast should be here any minute to take over.”
I take a step closer to him, my bare feet shushing against the carpet.
“Stay a little longer?” I ask, holding the phone to my chest, wishing and wanting for an impossibility. I’ve never demanded something as ludicrous as a happy ending. The world just doesn’t work like that. What I do want, what I would love to see, is a happy for now. A moment in time that I can look back on the way I look back at my sisters, and not regret a single second of. Something that, were I lying in a bed in a dark mafia palace, I could dream about and not be afraid if I never woke up.
That’s it.
That’s all I’m asking for.
Memories that will light the way into the darkness.
“I’ve got to prepare for the wedding,” he says, rubbing at his forehead again. “I need to sleep, Gidget. And I … should give you your distance.”
“What if I don’t want distance?” I breathe, but Sin just shakes his head, already backing away from me. I take a step toward him, sliding my new phone into the narrow pocket on the side of the leggings.
“You’re marrying Beast. At the very least, he can keep you safe.” Sin stares at me, wetting his lower lip with his tongue. The motion fascinates me, captivates me, keeps me enthralled in the dark nightmare that is this life. I live for those little moments, you see. I absorb them.
“Did you not hear me tell the women that you were mine the other day?” I ask, moving over to stand in front of him and curling my fingers around the waistband of his sweats. “Stop fucking running from me. It might’ve been cute when I was sixteen, but I’m eighteen now. I’m in this shit balls-deep, Sin. The Grey Wolfe Mafia thinks I sabotaged the wedding to Grey; they want to kill me. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t leave. Not now. Not unless we were to wipe them out entirely.” Or put Grey in charge. That might work. But I don’t say that bit aloud.
Sin opens his mouth like he might actually try to argue with me, and then curses violently, grabbing me by my hair and putting his lips to mine. No wonder he promised never to kiss me again. Sin’s lips taste like that forbidden fruit that Beast so warned me about.
Forbidden. Impossible. But yet destined.
That’s us.
Sin forces me back until my ass bumps against the railing. With hot hands, he grabs me by the hips and lifts me up. My fingers grip his strong shoulders as he leans in close and puts his mouth near my ear.
“I won’t let you fall,” he tells me, and then that sinful mouth of his is on my throat, his hot tongue tracing my pulse as his hand finds it way between my thighs, his thumb stroking over the seam in my leggings. Beneath the fabric, my body pulses insistently.
Sin’s melancholy for his sister matches mine perfectly. That, and more than anyone else in the world save me, I think he mourned Queenie and Posey most of all. More than Cat. More than Nellie. He cared about them, and he blames himself for their deaths.
I thought that I did. Maybe after telling me the truth—that he turned down a position as head of our family’s security team—he thought I might also.
In the past, I might have. I might’ve blamed him and hated him the way I have for years. Only … I don’t.
“I don’t blame you,” I whisper, and he goes completely still. His entire body stiffens beneath my hands, and he adjusts his gaze over to me. “For my sisters. I don’t. If you’d stopped by that day like you said, you’d just be dead, too.” I glance away, feeling this surge of weird, sticky emotions travel through me.
Anger, I can handle. Sadness, got it. Violence. Jealousy. Pain. All of those are as familiar to me as a sunrise, constants that I can count on.
But forgiveness? Hope? Love? I don’t know. Passion is understandable; love is weird.
“That I couldn’t handle,” I tell him, feeling my voice crack. With each death, each loss, the world gets a little heavier, drags me down a little farther. Something needs to buoy me. I deserve that.
For the first time in my entire fucking life, I really believe that.
“Couldn’t handle losing me?” Sin asks, turning his head slightly to one side. His thumb starts to stroke me again, stoking that fire, drawing that heat down to my core.
“I couldn’t,” I agree, reaching up to turn his face back to mine. We look at each other, the music streaming from his pocket just loud enough to provide ambience but not enough to intrude on this moment. It feels pivotal, somehow. Vital.
I get that strange ache in my lower belly, just like I did the morning of my wedding to Grey.
Something bad is going to happen. Maybe not tonight, but soon. Nothing good is ever doled out to someone like me without darkness roiling along in its wake.
Sin exhales sharply, making my hair waft around my neck and bringing chills up on my skin. His hand moves up to the waistband of my leggings and dives in, finding the excruciating need between my thighs. He pets me with strong, hard fingers, teasing my curls, pressing against my folds.
“Why?” Colton meets my eyes, and I feel so many strange and unusual possibilities unfurling around us. We could have fun together if we allowed ourselves. As much as I care about the other men, I don’t really see that in them. I see love, fire, passion, heat, conversation, arguments … but fun? We have the greatest chance here, me and Colton Young. “You really love me, Gidge?”
My hand grasps that metaphorical knife inside my heart and yanks it out, spraying blood across the surface of my soul.
Our new relationship is built on the back of a lie; I cannot lie to myself any longer.
“I do. I have for years.” I let out a small gasp as Sin puts a single finger inside of me, putting his mouth against my ear.
“Do you want to know something?” he asks me, working that one finger in and out, nice and slow. Patient. He’s much more patient than any of the others. Sin presses a kiss to the side of my head, making me shiver. If he were to let go of me, I could fall to my death. I would pinwheel and twist in the darkness until my body met the hard surface of the pavers below. My entire life is in Sin’s left arm, wrapped securely around my waist.
My heart rests on a pinhead, waiting for his reply.
“I fell in love with you when all we could ever be was a dirty secret.” Sin punctuates that sentence with a second finger, using his thumb on the hard nub of my clit. I’m so wet, drenching his inked hand as he works my body up and then pushes closer to me, leaning me back, giving me that sensation of being weightless.
But I’m not afraid. Not at all.
I allow myself to relax against his arm, letting my head fall back as I look up at the stars. I’m holding onto Sin’s shoulders, but it truly is only his arm keeping me here. He takes his time with me, fucking me with his hand until my body’s quivering around him.
Pleasure coils in my spine and then springs forth, zinging through my veins, making me bone
less, weightless. I sag even further against him until I’m draped over his arm, hanging, dangling above the patio below.
Surprised gasps of pleasure flutter past my lips as Sin gathers me up and carries me back into the room, laying me on the bed and yanking my leggings off. He tosses them aside before helping me with my top. I’m naked in an instant, fine beads of sweat glistening on my skin in the fire’s light.
He sits there between my legs, looking down at me. He’s still wearing his wife-beater and joggers, his shoulder holster with the gun he inherited from Cat, even his boots are still on.
“If you want this, Gidge,” Sin starts, exhaling and then reaching up to rub at his face. “Then I’ll do it.”
I sit up slightly, waiting for him to drop his hands so we can look at one another. His hair is gorgeous, like the surface of the sea beneath a blazing sun. The silver hoops in his ear catch the light as he reaches up to tug on one.
“I don’t know what Beast is gonna say,” he continues, glancing to one side before looking back at me. “But if you want me around, I’ll be here.” He quirks a bit of a smile, and I reach up to run a thumb over his scar. “I’ll even fight Beast if you want. Might die, but I’ll do it.”
My own mouth twists into a bit of a smile. The expression feels strange, foreign, almost sacrilegious.
“Please don’t,” I reply with a small, husky laugh. The sound of it causes Sin to bite my thumb, sucking my finger into his mouth. I can’t help but notice the way his hair matches the red, white, and blue of his tattoos, the way his eyes glimmer like stars. “Worst case scenario, we could run away together and open up a chop shop in another state. I know how to price out car and motorcycle parts, and how to sell them without getting caught.”
He smirks at me and leans down, capturing my hands and pressing them into the mattress.
“If you really want this though, just be aware: I will be all over your ass.”
“Which is sort of the point?” I tease, but his face takes on a serious tint.
“No, I mean it. You’re new to this side of the life. You defer to us; you listen. You don’t take unnecessary risks.” Sin studies me as I give him an acerbic look back in response. “I’ll apologize in advance: I can be controlling.” He shrugs his shoulders, but not like he’s sorry. Just like he’s relaying a simple fact. “I just want you to be safe. That used to mean leaving here. But with the mafia actively trying to kill you? You’re safest with me. Just remember that once you’re in, you’re in. You belong to me.”
“Just remember that I might also rebel at times and punch you in the face,” I admit, reaching up and touching the side of his nose with my thumb. Guess it isn’t broken, but he sure did bleed a lot. “Does that work?”
“Will you at least try to listen?” he asks dryly, but it’s my turn to shrug. He curses at me again, putting more weight on my hands, leaning over me. “As a man, I want to take care of my girl.” Here he sighs and his face takes on an exasperated quality. “Even if she is marrying another guy.”
“Your macho crap isn’t going to work on me,” I tell him, but he just gives me a saucy frown and sits back, releasing my hands just long enough to take off his shoulder holster, dropping it on the floor beside the bed. “You should know that, right?”
“I want to be a provider,” he says, running his hands over my rib cage and down my belly. My muscles contract as I inhale. He traces his fingertips over my curls, over my wet cunt, my thighs. “I want to take care of you; it’s what I’ve always wanted, what I’ve always tried to do.”
“I can take care of myself, Colton,” I tell him, which is true, but also, I’m hoping it’ll tick him off just a little at the same time.
“That might be true, but you’re not asking four older dudes to be your lovers and expecting that things won’t change at all.”
I slide my foot along the back of his leg, tempting him.
“What’s new? The four of you have been bothering me and playing daddy kink games with me for years.”
“Daddy kink?” Sin asks with a scoff. “Please. It doesn’t have to be weird, us taking care of you. Don’t make it weird.”
“It’s weird,” I reply, and that annoys the shit out of him.
“I’ll pamper your ass if I have to tie you up each and every time you need it.” He climbs off the bed, tearing his shirt over his head as he goes. He drops it on the floor and squats low next to one of the dressers.
“What are you doing?” I ask, rolling onto my side to watch him. The slide of muscles in his back is a treat for the eyes. Sin glances back at me, his face bathed in shadows. The only part of him I can really see is that sharp mouth of his.
“You know that I live here, right?” he asks, but I didn’t. It hadn’t really occurred to me until now to wonder where these men lived, where they laid their heads, where they … I won’t think about other girls. I won’t. It’ll just infuriate me. Sin turns back to the dresser and opens the bottom drawer. “This is my room.”
“This is your room?” I ask, looking around. It hasn’t changed much at all since it belonged to my grandmother. But I guess that isn’t really Sin’s thing, interior decorating and all. Where would he find the time?
“I lived in the dorms for a while, then one of the cabins up the way, then here.” He stands up suddenly, something shiny dangling from his fingers. So … from living with his asshole father, to the dorms, to those shitty staff cabins, to my grandmother’s house where bodies are buried?
It occurs to me then that Sin has never really had a home.
We could be each other’s homes, I think, and then I almost gag on the idea. Since when did I get it in my head that things might actually work out here? That eventually, I could find some small sliver of happiness. This is going to come back to bite me in the ass, isn’t it?
“Your father doesn’t want us to fuck with anything in here,” Sin says, swirling his finger around in a circle. “So pardon the décor. Old lady chic isn’t really my thing, but I’ve at least got my own clothes in the dresser.”
I watch as he moves back toward me, playing with the item in his hands.
“At least I know you never brought girls back here,” I tell him as he sits down on the edge of the bed.
“How many of them did you fuck in my bed?” Sin retorts, studying me and hiding the item he was carrying in his lap.
“Just Crown,” I say with a bit of a smarmy smile. “Balances out, considering I saw you fuck a groupie of the hood of Gaz’s sportscar once.” That gives Sin pause, and he cants his head slightly to one side.
“I always made an effort to keep those sorts of things from you,” he admits, which I already knew. I’ve been aware of that since I met the guy. Whenever my sisters and I came to the clubhouse, he would accommodate us. If he had a girl on his lap, he would push her off.
“I know. I snuck out of the clubhouse and watched you from the bushes.” I sit up slightly, trying to see what it is that he’s got in his lap. “You’ve got game, Colton.”
“Colton,” he repeats with a snort. “Call me Sin.”
“I’d rather call you ‘Ryan’,” I start, and then he’s turning to me and snatching my wrists up in his hands. The jingling metal manifests into a pair of handcuffs that he uses to latch me to the headboard. I yank on them, a small surge of fear striking through me as I’m transported back to that bed in the Grey Wolfe Mafia stronghold.
“If you call me Ryan, you’ll regret it,” he promises, and then he pauses when he notices the way I’m trembling. “Gidge?”
I close my eyes and take long, slow breaths to steady my racing heart. I survived that. I want this. Two very different things.
“They chained me up,” I tell him without opening my eyes, “the mafia.”
The bed creaks as Sin adjusts himself, and I know without even asking that he’s moving to take the handcuffs off.
“No, no, leave them.” I open my eyes to find him hovering over me, staring down, trying to figure out if he should tr
ust my words or the slight trembling in my naked body. “I’m over it.”
He frowns at me, but he doesn’t take the handcuffs off.
“You’re not,” he says, adjusting himself so that he’s lying beside me. “You don’t always have to walk through fire and pretend like you didn’t get burned. Be honest, Gidge. Feel the feelings. Otherwise, they’ll take control of you; they’ll own you far better in denial than they ever could in acceptance.”
His words are wise enough, but practicality doesn’t always work in this dark, twisted life we live.
Sin takes his phone from his pocket, setting it on the windowsill behind him. Music is still playing; I recognize HELL TO HAVE YOU by Our Last Night and Sam Tinnesz.
“I like this song,” I breathe, trying to fight back the fear. I did it with the bike; I can do it now. I’ve never allowed a single one of my life’s many tragedies to mark me; I don’t do triggers. I fight them. I destroy them. I, as Sin stated so aptly, walk through fire.
“Yeah?” he asks, listening to it for a moment. He smiles then, and I see it again, a hint of possibility. Of fun. I mean, I am handcuffed in a house of murder with a large, wealthy crime syndicate trying to assassinate me, a father who’d shoot me in the face if he knew the truth, and a brother that’s a two-timing snake. But still. Close enough.
I definitely do not expect Sin to lean in toward me, tracing his fingers over my lips as he starts to sing.
He’s singing.
He’s singing to me.
Sin’s very clearly heard the song before; he has no problem keeping up with the rap portion in the middle, doesn’t skip a beat of the chorus. The lyrics are so appropriate, almost disturbingly so. He sings them to me, his voice molten, comforting; it fills in all the cracks inside my twisted psyche. I knew it! I knew this boy could sing.
As I’d always expected, Colton Young is wasted potential in a leather cut.
If my hands were free, I’d bury them in his hair and drag him to me. Instead, I rub my thighs together and turn toward him as much as I can, the chain on the handcuffs clinking against the headboard.
I Am Dressed in Sin: A Reverse Harem Age Gap Romance (Death By Daybreak Motorcycle Club Book 2) Page 32
