Sins & Secrets 3

by Jessica Sorensen

  Sighing, he removes the keys from the ignition. “If you’ll come inside with me, I’ll tell you what I know.”

  I stare down at his weapons in my lap. What do I have to lose? There’s nowhere else for me to go.

  “There’s just one more thing I have to ask you.”

  He hesitates. “Okay.”

  “That guy at the hotel … the one who … Well, you know, tried to … rape me. What happened to him?”

  His gaze darkens. “Do you really want me to answer that? He tried to rape you, Lola. That should tell you enough.” He reaches across the car and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m not going to apologize for what I did.”

  I could ask him to tell me exactly what he did to Tenner, but honestly, I’d rather not know the details. I can see in his eyes that Tenner won’t be attacking any more women anytime soon, if ever. As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t feel bad about it.

  Without saying another word, I climb out of the car with his weapons, hoping I’m not making a big mistake.

  Layton doesn’t say a word as he gets out and walks around to the popped open trunk. He starts digging around as I round the back of the car, half-expecting to see a dead body inside, perhaps Tenner’s. There are just a few duffel bags. He picks one up and swings it over his shoulder before moving around the side of the motel with me trailing behind.

  As we approach one of the rooms, he withdraws a key, and then unlocks the door. When he enters, he drops the bag on the floor then motions me inside without turning on the lights.

  I enter with reluctance, glancing around at the unmade bed, the clothes on the floor, the wrappers and soda cans on the table, and the single lamp turned on.

  “How long have you been here?” I ask, turning toward him as he closes and locks the door behind us.

  He shrugs as he pulls the curtains shut. “Since I came to Glendale about two to three weeks ago.” He looks around, as if searching for something. Then he hurries past me and over to the nightstand.

  I stand near the door, waiting for him to explain why he’s been around for that long and not made it aware to me until now, but all he does is start digging around in the drawer.

  “I’m waiting for you to tell me something—anything—that will explain what the hell’s going on.” I set his weapons down on the bed and make my way across the room toward him. “Layton, you have to give me something.” When he still doesn’t respond, I put a hand on his shoulder. His entire body jolts, surprising me. I’m not sure what’s going on or how to handle this. “Layton, I don’t—”

  My voice is silenced as he spins around and crashes his lips against mine.

  My initial reaction is to jerk back. No kissing, no lip contact. Then I remember how much I’ve wished I could have kissed him properly. I don’t ever want that to happen again—regret something like that. So, I let him kiss me, my pulse throbbing at kissing him back.

  There’s so much passion and desperation behind the kiss, and something snaps inside of me. Maybe it’s because he’s alive and not dead. Maybe I’m giving in to my own emotions. I don’t care. I kiss him back fiercely, grabbing him.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this since the last night I saw you. I’ve been dreaming about it for almost two years,” he whispers against my lips. Then the metal of his tongue ring grazes against my teeth as he kisses me deeply, fiercely, as if trying to steal my oxygen.

  He tangles his hands through my hair before drifting them down my back, pulling me closer. I moan, biting his lip as I slip my hands up the back of his shirt and drag my nails against his flesh.

  I feel every part of the moment. Every single damn emotion pours through my body, ones I’ve been suppressing for almost two years. Passion. Anguish. Guilt. Pain. Sadness. Anger. Anger. Anger. For making me think he was dead.

  Before I even know what I’m doing, I pull away from him and slap him across the face.

  “Oh, my God.” I throw my hand over my mouth. “I don’t even know why I did that … I was just so … so upset over thinking you were dead.”

  He places his hand over his cheek. “It’s okay.” He winces. “I probably deserve that. I should have known what to expect. You are my feisty Lolita.” His lips quirk.

  I want to smile back, but I feel so terrible.

  “No, you didn’t.” I lower my hand from my mouth and step toward him. Lifting his hand from his cheek, I look at the damage I’ve done. A bright red handprint marks his cheek. “I’m so sorry … I just … I was feeling too much … It’s been a long time.”

  His gaze bores into me. “I know it has.” He caresses my cheek. “God, I’ve missed you.”

  I don’t even know what to do with what’s going on inside of me. Even before everything happened, I wasn’t the best with my emotions. Now, after two years of separation from them, it’s overwhelming to the point where I find something as simple as breathing complicated.

  “Layton …” I say, my voice shaking with nerves. “I really need to know what’s going on.” I look at him. The intensity in his eyes almost makes me buckle. “Before we do this … I need you to tell me what’s going on.” Despite my words, I start to lean in again, magnetized to him.

  He takes a deep breath, his lips parting, but I start kissing him again. I’ve never instigated a kiss before and this one’s packed with heat, need, and a lot of things I’ve never felt before.

  The kiss starts off slow, our tongues tangling together. Then the slow pace quickly heats up. Suddenly, I’m yanking his shirt off, and he’s tearing off mine and unclasping my bra. Then his hand find my breast, and every time his finger grazes my nipple, I moan.

  “Harder,” I hear myself moan, not sounding like myself.

  Layton briefly smiles against my lips then pinches my nipple harder. God, it’s been so long since I’ve felt this. So long since I wasn’t just going through the motions, completely detached.

  Suddenly, thoughts of what I have done creep into my mind. How many men I’ve touched like this, the things I’ve done. I again feel a flicker of shame. However, I do what I’m good at and shove the emotions down.

  I fumble with the button on his jeans, our lips still fused, our bodies welded together. We start to back toward the bed, stumbling over each other’s feet.

  Right as we reach the edge of the bed, he flips us around, and I fall onto my back. Seconds later, he’s yanking off my jeans and panties.

  As I sit up to reach for him, he takes me off guard by dipping his head between my legs.

  I feel the flick of his tongue ring first … Good God, that tongue ring. It drives me mad. Everything he does drives me mad. The way his tongue pushes me toward the edge, the way he grips my thighs, the way his nearness makes my heart slam against my chest, the way my body responds to him, writhing, moving on its own freewill, in the best way possible.

  I need more.

  Now.

  “Layton … please …” I pant out as I reach down for him.

  His tongue ring flicks my flesh again before he moves away from me, slipping off his jeans and putting on a condom. Then his body is covering mine, and he’s kissing me again. My fingers tangle in his hair, pulling him closer.

  “This time will be better,” he promises me as he kisses me slowly but deliberately.

  “The last time was fine,” I murmur then drag my teeth along the bottom of his lip.

  “Fine isn’t what I’m aiming for.” He thrusts his hips and sinks deep inside me.

  Oh, my God! The pain mixed with ecstasy is almost too much. And the feeling only grows as he rocks inside of me.

  The way he moves, the way our bodies meet, the feel of his tongue and hands, the way our chests brush together, the way my nipples harden … I haven’t had an orgasm in forever, but I can feel myself getting there fast, falling into blindness, my fingers clawing into the flesh of his shoulders, desperate to hold on to something, afraid to fall all the way.

  And then I’m gone. Lost inside everything that is Layton.

>   For the briefest, most wonderful moment, I am free. Then I return to reality, and it all hits me at once.

  Before I can stop myself, I start to cry.

  Chapter 3

  Lola

  I haven’t cried in forever, so I’m not sure how to turn it off.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell Layton as he slides out of me with a worried look. “I don’t even know what the hell’s wrong with me.”

  He looks like he understands as he wraps his arms around me.

  It takes a while for the tears to stop, but finally they do. Without asking any questions, he lets me go and helps me get dressed. Then he slips his jeans and shirt back on and sits down on the bed beside me.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asks, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

  I shake my head, wiping the last of my tears from my cheeks and eyes. “No, I want to talk about why you’re here and have been here for a couple of weeks without telling me. And why you found it necessary to fake your own death.”

  His lips part then snap shut when we hear a soft knock on the door. I quickly move for one of the guns on the opposite side of the bed while Layton grabs a gun from the nightstand and rushes over to the window.

  “Stay down,” he instructs as he pulls back the curtain and peeks out.

  I linger near the bed with the gun aimed out in front of me. “Is it them? Is it Frankie’s men?”

  “No. Dammit, I thought I had more time before she showed up. Fuck.” Shaking his head, he turns to me. “Lola, I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re always saying that.” Nervousness bubbles inside of me. “What are you sorry for this time?”

  “For what’s about to happen.” With heavy reluctance, he goes over to the door and opens it.

  I’m not sure what to expect on the other side. Part of me believes that it’s going to be Frankie’s men, that Layton has betrayed me, that I just had sex with someone who’s going to help kill me. Quite honestly, I don’t know what to think about what I actually see.

  A woman about the same height as me, with the same color hair and eyes, similar lips and facial features, dressed in leather pants, boots, and a jacket. The woman in leather?

  She looks like some sort of badass ninja assassin from the movies with a gun on each side of her belt and boots that hug her legs and go up to her thighs. Her dark hair is pulled into a tight ponytail.

  She stares at me as she strolls into the room, and then glances around at the back area and the bed. “You weren’t supposed to be seen, Layton. Tell me that, through all the crap that just went on, none of Frankie’s men saw you. They need to think you’re dead. Otherwise, we’re both fucked.”

  “I’m not sure. I hope not.” He closes the door and flips the lock then slides the chain over. He turns and gives me an apologetic look while the woman continues to stare at me with curiosity.

  “I thought she’d be prettier,” she says.

  “Who the hell are you?” I elevate the gun at her. “Start talking, or I’ll shoot.”

  She rolls her eyes. “We both know you’re not going to shoot me. You have a history with freezing up.”

  Okay, I already don’t like her. She’s struck a nerve. A deep nerve.

  “Layton, who the fuck is this?”

  He starts pacing the area between the bed and the door, gun still in hand. “If I could just—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” I point my gun at him. “No more running around and distracting me with sex. Spill it. Now. Who is she?”

  The look he gives me makes my skin tingle all over. “The sex wasn’t about that, and you know it.” He grows uneasy again. “God, you’re going to hate me after this.” Another sigh as he stops between the ninja girl and me. “Lola, this is Solana.” He pauses, biting his bottom lip. “Your half-sister.”

  “Nice try. I don’t have a half-sister.” I put one hand on the bottom of the gun handle to steady it. “I’m an only child, and you know that.”

  Layton starts to step toward me. “Your mother’s letter that you found wasn’t about you. It was about her.”

  I’m trying to keep composed, just like I was taught, but it’s becoming hard when my life is getting more and more flipped upside down.

  “How do you know about the letter? No one knows about it … No one alive, anyway.”

  “A couple of people do.” Layton stops short of me. My gun is pointed at his chest, proving he’s not afraid of me, proving he knows me too well. “Well, not so much the letter, but what the letter contains.”

  “A couple of people?” I ask. “Like my father. Is that why …?” Is that why my mother’s dead?

  “Your father does know about it. About Solana.” He offers me a sad smile. “Frankie knows, too, and a couple of others. It’s part of the debt your father was in with Frankie.” His gaze flickers to Solana who remains stoic, looking directly at me with her arms folded. “He helped keep her hidden from whom he considers the wrong people, and in return, your father owed him a lot of money. When he didn’t pay … Well, you know the rest.”

  “Why would he need to keep her hidden?” I ask, feeling lost. “It doesn’t make any sense. Who are these wrong people?”

  “He doesn’t want my real father to find out,” Solana intervenes, taking measured steps toward me. “Everson Milantes. I’m sure you recognize the name.”

  It’s starting to make sense, the few things I didn’t quite understand in the letter, things that didn’t seem to pertain to me.

  “It wasn’t me she was talking about,” I say more to myself. I glance at Solana. There’s no denying we’re related. Very, very closely related. “I still don’t get it. Why would he want to keep you hidden from everyone, including me? And why can’t Everson know he has a daughter?”

  She lets out a hollow laugh. “Because our mother cheated on Larenze Anelli, and not just with anyone, but with another Anelli.”

  “But the letter said it was Everson Milantes.” I glance back and forth between Layton and her, wondering why they’re telling me this. “Not Anelli.”

  “That’s because he changed his name,” Solana explains, sitting down on the dresser nearby and letting her legs hang over the edge. “See, your father once had a brother who didn’t want to be part of this shitty drug world, but Anelli’s have no choice. So instead of accepting his fate and either taking over or getting killed, Everson ran, kind of like you,” she muses.

  “But it said you might not be Everson’s,” I tell her. “That my mother—our mother—wasn’t sure.”

  “Oh, I am,” she assures me with disdain. “Your father made sure of that right before he sent me away.”

  “But I was born right after my parents were married,” I argue, unable to wrap my head around the fact that I’ve had a sister all my life and never knew about her. “And they barely knew each other before that … I mean, how far apart are we in age?”

  “I’m a year older.” Her eyes turn icy cold. “But don’t worry; all your precious stories are true, except for when they met. They still got married on the same day. Still had you right after. They just forgot to include me in the stories. That’s probably because, for most of them, I wasn’t in them.” She pauses, as if debating whether or not to say something. “It doesn’t matter. Even if there was some chance I wasn’t Everson’s daughter, what’s done is done. I can’t erase the past. I am who I am, and there’s no changing that.”

  Her voice carries a drop of sadness. It makes me wonder …

  “Where were you? All these years … Where did you live?”

  Something flashes in her eyes, but when she speaks, her voice is impassive. “I lived with your Aunt Glady until I was old enough to go to a … a special school … Although I wasn’t old enough—”

  “Wait a minute,” I respond, noticing that Layton shuddered at the mention of the school. “My aunt Glady knew about you?”

  “Our aunt Glady does,” she says without expression.

  All these years, not only did my parent
s lie to me, but my aunt Glady, too. I thought I could trust her, but I guess I was wrong. My whole family is a bunch of fucking liars.

  “So why the fuck are you suddenly showing up now?” I swing the gun back and forth between the two of them. “And leaving me notes, I’m guessing.” My attention lands on Layton because, now that he’s here and alive, it’s starting to make sense. The reason the handwriting looked so familiar, the woman in leather being at The Dusky Inn, the note on my hand after the Tenner incident.

  “It was the only way I could think of to make contact with you without giving myself away.” His gaze welds to mine. “I was trying to get you to leave Glendale, trying to get you to leave before …” He scratches the back of his neck then looks at Solana for help.

  “Before what?” I cock the gun.

  Solana rolls her eyes at Layton then looks at me. “Before I have to kill you.” Her expression is dead serious, her hands hovering over her weapons. The look in her eyes tells me she’s planning on doing exactly that. “You broke the rules, though, Layton,” she says, hopping off the dresser. “We had a deal. No contact with her ever again.”

  “Well, it was a stupid, pointless rule,” he growls as he starts to stalk to her, raising his gun. “One you made up just for your own fun.”

  “I have my reasons. Besides, it doesn’t matter why. You still broke the rules by seeing her.” Her eyes drift to the unmade bed. “And fucked her, apparently.” She glances back at him. “You’ve been a bad boy.”

  I should kill her. Kill her now and protect myself. Yet I know I can’t. I know from too many experiences it’s not going to be easy.

  “So, you’re here to kill me?” I ask in a surprisingly firm tone.

  I eye her over, wondering what to do next. Maybe I can lunge and wrap my fingers around that pretty, little neck …

  I trail off at the sight of a tattoo on her neck. A triangle with the Roman numeral ten inside of it. Bloody fucking hell. My muscles ripple, tighten.

  “Who the fuck are you for real?”