The Affair (The Evolution Of Sin #1)

by Giana Darling

  The surf was calm and silky as we moved through the cove. Sometimes we swam together amidst a school of yellow and silver fish, their touch like cool kisses against my skin, but after a while we abandoned the serious snorkeling and began to horse around. Sinclair was an excellent swimmer and when I asked him about it he divulged that he had been a swimmer since high school and all through college, which explained the delicious cut of his lean body. We swam for over an hour before I dragged myself to the beach, collapsing in exhaustion on the caramel sand.

  Sinclair laughed as he emerged from the waves, pushing his wet hair back from his forehead as he stood over me. “My siren can’t be tired already.”

  I wanted to close my eyes but it was difficult to take them off of him. “A certain someone tired me out last night. I didn’t get much sleep.”

  His lips curved softly as he bent down, running two fingers down my chest to collect the drops of water lingering there. “You won’t get much rest tonight, either.”

  No, I wouldn’t. The promise in his shaded eyes drew heat of a different kind across my bare skin.

  “You could be a model,” I murmured, sitting up to run my fingers over the rippling mass of muscles in his abdomen.

  His fingers froze at the line of my bikini bottoms and a cold anger settled into his previous contented features. I watched his mouth twist before he sighed and dropped to the sand beside me.

  His shoulders were rounded as he stared out at the ocean and he let me take one of his slack hands in my own. “I was a model actually.”

  My eyes widened comically. I was thankful his gaze remained riveted on the sea.

  “My foster mother discovered me, she was my agent before she became my mother.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care but I could feel his sadness seep into my skin where we touched. “I only did it for a handful of years. They found… other talents of mine to be more beneficial.”

  I shifted on the sand until I sat behind him, my legs spread wide by the sheer width of his body between my thighs. He tensed as my arms slipped around him in a gentle embrace but when I pressed a kiss to his salty skin, he sighed raggedly and relaxed.

  “Parents shouldn’t make their children sad,” I said, because I could remember the despair that Seamus Moore always left in his wake.

  “You are very sweet and very correct but that does not stop it from happening.”

  “What did they do to you?” I whispered, almost afraid to press him when he was being so inexplicably open.

  He was quiet for a long time and utterly still but for two fingers that slid back and forth gently over my forearm.

  “Nothing so bad. They used me mostly, to position themselves in society. Sometimes it was as easy as making friends with the right sons of important men, or modeling to make enough money to support my father’s campaign.” His knuckles swept up my wrist and over the back of my hand so that he could link our fingers. “Sometimes it was about seducing the right person. Like I said, it wasn’t so bad.”

  “That’s not funny, Sin.”

  “No.” He pressed a kiss to our combined hands. “Mais comme des gens disent, c’est la vie.”

  “Not anymore,” I said with more ferocity than I intended.

  “Not anymore,” he agreed. “Perhaps it is easier to understand my need for control now.”

  It was. My heart ached with the influx of love and sympathy. If there had previously been any hope of emerging unscathed from this affair, it was gone.

  “Are you still in touch with them?” I mumbled against his salty shoulder.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Why do I have the feeling most things with you are?” I teased, poking him in his unyielding stomach in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  He lifted one of my hands and pressed it to his slightly smiling lips. “Just be grateful you are rid of me in three days.”

  “More like two,” I retorted flippantly even though my chest tightened dangerously. “And for all you know, I could be as complicated as it comes.”

  He snorted, an undignified sound that was so at odds with his sophisticated persona that it made me laugh. “I highly doubt that. Your straight-forward innocence is one of the reasons I find you so irresistible.”

  “Irresistible, huh?”

  He bit gently into one of my fingers. “No man can resist the taste of this skin.” His tongue darted out to soothe the fading pain, inciting a sigh from me.

  I was tempted to cave into his seduction but if he was going to speak freely than this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

  I pressed my cheek to his back once more and murmured, “My family has been broken for a long time.”

  Sinclair pulled my arms closer around him so that I was flush against his back. His lips against my open palm urged me to go on.

  “My father was a drunk,” I said, as if that explained everything. Why my sister had runaway, why my brother had moved soon after to America, why my eldest sister hated me – all of it.

  “Is he…?” His body tensed so that I felt like I was hugging a wooden board. “Is he the reason you weren’t a virgin when we met?”

  It took a moment for his question to settle in. I shuddered but shook my head vigorously. “In a way. If you’re asking if he sexually abused me, he didn’t. But maybe if he had been around?” I shrugged.

  We were quiet for a few minutes, just holding each other. We were both sticky with salt and sweat from the brilliant afternoon sun but I was so happy my blood fizzed and danced like champagne. It was hard to tell what Sinclair was feeling, especially when I couldn’t see his face to search for his tells, but it was probably better that way.

  Two days. Only two more days with this brilliant and beautiful man. My arms tightened around him.

  Sensing my mood, he gently reached back to swing me around to his front, settling me over his lap. The feel of his large hands spanning my waist delighted me.

  “Are you mad?” I asked, reaching up to run a hand through his silky hair. Under the blazing Mexican sun, it was an astonishing shade of copper.

  He lifted his knees so that I could rest my back against them and leaned back on his hands, presenting his long, flat torso to my other wandering hand.

  “For?”

  “Well, we haven’t exactly stuck to your rules. Drunk fathers and exploitative foster parents aren’t business talk or sex.”

  The left side of his mouth quirked as he said, “No, not exactly. But I gave up on the rules relatively quickly, if you haven’t noticed.” When I pursed my lips, he shook his head as if I was dense. “Sleeping beside you, taking you fishing, fucking you last night after I promised myself I wouldn’t…” His hand slipped up the curve of my waist, over my breast and up into my tangled hair. “I think it’s pretty obvious that I can’t control myself around you.”

  I snorted. “You’re never not controlled.”

  His eyes flared and I gasped when he sat up and sunk both hands in my hair, holding me tight so that even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t move.

  “Challenge accepted,” he murmured darkly before slanting his firm lips over mine.

  I moaned into his mouth, opening eagerly for the feel of his hot tongue against mine. My nails raked up his back and locked around his neck, tugging him closer as I wrapped my legs around his torso. I rocked over his erection so that the fabric of my suit rasped against my clit.

  His hands plucked at the sides of my string bikini and tugged it off quickly so that his fingers could find me, already weeping with desire for him. There was desperation to our movements, a neediness that inflamed me. It didn’t surprise me that I was already aching with want. When two fingers played through my damp curls and swirled at my opening, I groaned and ground down on them. He trapped my bottom lip in his teeth, warning me to stay still as he teased me.

  “I don’t want to come without you inside me,” I panted into his mouth before skating my teeth along his jaw, tasting the salt of the sea and of him against my tongue.

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nbsp; His jaw tensed under my lips and he quickly undid the tie to his swimsuit, exposing his cock to my waiting fingers. I placed him at my entrance and wiggled over the tip, waiting until his dark eyes met mine to slam down hard onto him.

  We both groaned at the sensation. There was some pain but it only contrasted the pleasure, heightening it. Sinclair took my hips in his hands and tilted my pelvis, hitting a new angle inside me that made my legs tremble. Somehow, I was already close to an orgasm.

  Seamlessly, Sinclair rolled me onto my back, spreading my legs open with his palms on my inner thighs, his thumbs teasing me where we were joined together. He was watching himself plunge in and out of my slick depths, his eyes glazed with arousal and two streaks of pink slashed high on his cheekbones. I had never seen anything more attractive.

  I shuddered when he picked up the pace and one thumb found my clit. He circled it firmly, pushing me into a sudden and intense climax that wracked my entire body. I cried out long and low, repeating his name like a chant. I was still out of it when he tilted my hips and began to plow into me, scraping against the sweet spot deep inside me with each thrust as if he was desperate to claim all of me. His features were warped with pleasure and the sight of him lost in rapture, knowing that I was capable of making him loose control, made me dizzy.

  “Elle,” he groaned, bottoming out inside me and burrowing his face in my neck as he came.

  Afterwards, we lay in the sand. His body was too hot and heavy on top of mine but when he tried to move, I whimpered in protest and linked my legs with his. I could feel him smile into my shoulder and when he raised himself onto his forearms I was rewarded with the sight of his smug satisfaction.

  “Now, did that seem very controlled to you?” he asked, playfully tweaking my nipple.

  I scrunched up my nose. “No. In fact, that was almost barbaric.”

  He laughed and licked a bead of sweat between my breasts, smacking his lips. “I told you, the taste of you is intoxicating.”

  “Mmm.” I tightened my inner muscles against his softening length, watching his mouth open and his eyes unfocus slightly. “As is this.”

  When he began to harden again inside me, it was my turn to gasp. “You’re insatiable!”

  He nodded solemnly. “I only have two days left to enjoy this body, you better bet I’m going to take advantage of it.”

  I closed my eyes against the dual sensation of panic and desire that bloomed in my chest when he dipped his head to take my nipple in his hot, sucking mouth.

  Two days. Only two more days with him.

  Chapter Twelve.

  I sat on the deck of Sinclair’s expansive resort suite, wrapped up in an overlarge fluffy white robe with my feet tucked up underneath me and my freshly washed hair curling dry in the light breeze off the ocean when Sinclair’s phone rang. We had been suspended in the kind of natural silence that usually takes years to form, only occasionally breaking from his work and my painting to smile like fools at each other.

  The entire day had taken on a slightly hazy, almost dream-like nature. After taking me again on the shore, we swam back to the boat and returned to the resort. He had spoken on the phone while we crossed the grounds to his room but he caught my hand in his, tucking his fingers into mine so that I wouldn’t feel ignored. I blushed when heads turned to watch us, their eyes lingering on Sinclair with varying degrees of lust and envy. He squeezed my hand when he caught my wide eyed stare roving over the hall and the side of his firm mouth twitched in a private smile just for me.

  After a quick shower where we mostly refrained from inappropriate touches, he lead me to the patio without hesitation, swinging open the French doors to reveal an large wooden easel laden with a fresh canvas and the basic tools of my trade. When I had turned to him, my mouth slack with surprise, he shrugged and suggested that because he had to work, it was only prudent that I had something to occupy myself with too.

  Now, I sat before the canvas with a soft lead pencil and a nearly completed outline of the Frenchman sitting across from me. It was a three quarter profile to showcase the strong cut of his jaw and the slashing lines of his high cheekbones. I hadn’t even brought his face to life with color or depth but I could feel the intensity of his eyes, the texture of his twitching lips as they struggled to hold back a smile under my fingers as I feathered them over the canvas. There was a gaping space to the side of his slightly parted lips where I knew a woman’s face would appear, head tilted at a desperate angle, mouth open beautifully but tired like the fading bloom of a rose, unfurled and red. I closed my eyes to imagine the heat in her gaze, her flaming sexual intent. Though he appeared to be the aggressor, dark and overwhelming in blacks and shadows it was she, this woman on the very precipice of desire, who brought the passion into focus.

  The sharp trill of the phone cut through my imagination and for a moment, I wasn’t sure where the noise was coming from. Sinclair frowned at the cell phone vibrating on the table beside him, the white light from his computer screen casting his features in stark relief.

  I knew immediately who it was when he looked up at me with compressed lips.

  I tried to shrug casually as I returned to my work. “You should get that.”

  His eyes were hot on the side of my face. “I’ll leave.”

  “No. I don’t mind if you stay.” I turned to look at him even though I was worried he would see the sadness in my eyes.

  He looked hard at me before nodding curtly and sweeping across the touch screen to answer the call.

  “Darling,” he answered.

  My lips twisted involuntarily. Darling? That didn’t seem like a pet name Sinclair would use. But I guess it suited his buttoned up personality.

  “The four thirty,” he confirmed. “I understand, I’ll catch a cab in… No, it’s important that you are at the party when she gets there and I really don’t care.” He paused and I snuck a look at him. He tugged at a longish lock of hair, a nervous gesture that made him seem vulnerable and when his eyes met mine they were foggy with confusion and strain.

  I stood up, aware that my movement towards the door made Sinclair tense up.

  When I returned to the deck a few minutes later, he was still speaking with her. His head snapped up and I could tell he wanted me to look over at him but I reclaimed my seat with a calm expression and took up my palate, swirling a cerulean blue with a dab of bright chartreuse in attempt to replicate the electricity of Sinclair’s blue eyes.

  “I’m looking forward to meeting her,” Sinclair was saying, his voice cool and modulated. “I know it will be hard on you but seeing your family happy will more than make up for it… Yes, I know. You’d be surprised by how resilient family ties are to the passing of time.”

  Was it just I or could the girlfriend sense the sorrow in his tone? I wondered how much she knew about Sinclair particular brand of sorrow; if she took special care to distract him on Father’s Day, what they did together on Christmas and if he was close with her family. These questions sloshed between my ears like leftover seawater, making me nauseous and unbalanced.

  “I don’t know, darling.”

  There it was again. Darling. I tried to picture her, conjuring up someone with golden hair and a golden smile, tall of course, with legs for days and perfect breasts. If we met or if, God forbid, she found out about me, she would sneer at the sight of me. This, she would say, is who you chose?

  “I have to go now but please try to enjoy the meeting, it’s not often you get to meet a Clinton.”

  A Clinton? Oh great, so Darling was not only beautiful, she had a glamorous job that was also intellectual. I sighed heavily, indulging in my self-pity for one more minute before resolving to obliterate it completely. Sinclair wasn’t mine and it was unfair for me to take my frustrations over the fact out on him.

  So when he came to stand behind me, close but carefully not touching, I leaned back into him and tipped my head back to smile.

  “Hi.”

  His eyes were guarded. “Hi.”<
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  “Sit down,” I urged, glaring at him when he hesitated to do so. Only when he was seated did I follow him across the deck and fold myself into his lap.

  He stared down at me in surprise but his arms wrapped around me instinctively and after a moment, he relaxed, sighing into my hair.

  “I wish you hadn’t heard that.”

  I wish you hadn’t had to take it.

  “It was fine, Sinclair, I know how this is… How it ends.”

  His arms tightened around me almost painfully and he only let go when I wriggled uncomfortably. I wanted to move on, to keep my promise to myself and enjoy the moment with him while I had it, but niggling questions about his girlfriend continued to plague me.

  “A Clinton, hey?”

  He adjusted in the chair, pulling me closer and tilting me so that I was more comfortable. One hand stroked through my hair and he watched as the sunshine caught the strands and turned them into fire.

  “She’s fresh out of law school and fairly political.” He waited to see if I wanted to hear more and continued when I nodded. “She works most of the time.”

  “What’s she like?” I asked quietly, paralyzed with apprehension.

  He pressed a kiss to my crown. “Elegant, composed, extremely intelligent. When we first met, through her glamorous sister, I couldn’t believe they were related.”

  “I know what that’s like, my sisters and I couldn’t be more different.”

  I thought of the inscrutable Elena, composed and tragic like a queen forced to abdicate her throne and Cosima, sunlight incarnate. I’d been envious of them for years, striving to emulate every one of their formidable attributes.

  “I can imagine. You are unlike anyone.”