Make Me Shine (Six Silent Sins #1)

by Colt, Elodie

  It could have been Luka, but for some reason, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t him. That I didn’t have anything to fear. That I was safe as long as he was with me.

  If you want to believe the mythology, dragonflies can travel between dimensions. Seeing one in your dreams is a sign of caution. It means that something in your life is hidden. That a truth is being kept from you.

  The last time I dreamed of a dragonfly was a few days before Mom died—and dropped the bomb about my parentage. Now, I’m not superstitious by any means, but this was just too much of a coincidence.

  With the thoughts reeling in my mind like the gusts of wind, I tear my gaze away from the lake and make my way back to the parking lot. I know that the man in my dreams was Ross. The only man that managed to connect with me in a way no one else could in a long time. The thought is as relieving as much as disturbing.

  He hasn’t sent me an invitation for our second date yet, and it’s nearly been a week since we dropped our clothes in the bubble. No messages in the private chat, either. Radio silence. It’s driving me nuts.

  Is he waiting for me to make the first move this time? Is he going to bail out?

  ‘You’re not a screamer,’ he said, and while he sounded more amused rather than disappointed, I can’t shake off the nagging feeling that our first time together didn’t meet his expectations.

  And who can blame him? I was lying there on my back, not exactly unresponsive but not really compassionate, either, letting him do all the work. Too absorbed in the sensations. Too scared to let go.

  I could pull out my phone and send him an invitation right now. Or I could just type a nonchalant, ‘How’re you doing?’ but I’m scared that he’ll turn me down. He said he wanted to meet again, practically trapped me in his huge frame and forced me to say ‘yes,’ so why not let his actions speak and just send me that damn invitation?

  “Ah!”

  My boot jams in a root sticking out from the ground, and I flail my arms as I tumble down like a sack. A stinging pain shoots up my knee, and I wince as I look down to assess the damage. Lucky me, I’ve hit a sharp rock that ripped my jeans and tore my skin, leaving a gashing wound.

  “Shit, are you okay?”

  I whirl my head around to see a guy looming over me, looking down in concern. He extends a hand to help me up, and I recoil, scrambling up in a hurry.

  “That looks nasty,” he says with a glance at my bloody knee and swivels his backpack on his shoulder to the front. “I’ve got some bandages—”

  “I’m fine,” I interrupt him, taking a step back.

  There’s not a soul in sight, and this guy with his damn ash-brown, curly hair, and hollow cheeks has to run smack into me.

  “Hey, that cut is really deep.” He unzips his backpack. “Let me just—”

  “I said, I’m fine! Leave me alone,” I snap, hoping to drive my point home this time, and judging from the way he gapes at me, it worked.

  Raising his hands in a gesture of peace, he shoulders his backpack and, with a scoff, trudges away. I lean against a tree, shaking my head as I watch the guy disappear in the distance. Damn, I’m such a bitch. I was crude to him just because he had the same features as Luka Sokolov.

  Clenching my teeth, I push away from the tree and limp the rest of the way. When I finally reach my bike, I fish out the first-aid kit and sloppily apply a bandage. Blood seeps through almost immediately, but this will have to do for now.

  After half an hour of painful riding, I pull the bike to a halt in front of Holly’s Ink and hobble inside. The tattoo parlor is going to close soon, so the waiting room is empty. Zoya emerges from a curtained-off room with a customer in tow. Her eyes fall on me, and she smiles before her gaze drops to my bloodied jeans. I quickly motion to her that I’m fine, knowing she was close to making a scene, and wait for her to see the customer out.

  As soon as the customer is gone, she hurries to my side. “What the fuck happened?”

  “I figured my life was boring and grabbed a razor but, stupid me, I cut the wrong body part,” I joke, but judging from Zoya’s glower, she doesn’t share my humor, so I quickly rectify, “I tripped.”

  Grabbing my hand, she ushers me into a vacant room and motions for me to lay down on the tattoo chair.

  “I guess we agree that your jeans are ruined?” She fetches a pair of scissors and snips them twice.

  “Go ahead,” I huff, and Zoya cuts open my pant leg.

  Cocking her head, she assesses the damage before she shuffles over to the fridge, pulls out a bottle of vodka, and shoves it into my face. I unscrew the cap and knock back a few gulps to dull the pain.

  “Ready?” Zoya asks as I wipe my sleeve over my lips, and I nod, gritting my teeth.

  She pours the liquor over my flesh, and I swear it feels as if she’s using a welder to burn the skin from my bones.

  “Fuck!” I claw my fingers into the armrest.

  “It’s over, it’s over…” Zoya croons and presses a gauze pad onto the wound.

  Holly pops her head in through the door. “Jesus, is everything alright?” Her gaze lands on me. “Oh, my God, Ella, what—”

  “She tripped,” Zoya says.

  Holly closes the curtain behind her as she enters and walks over to me. “That looks bad,” she says with a hiss as if feeling my pain. “Why didn’t you go to the hospital?”

  I roll my eyes. “This isn’t the first time Zoya’s patched me up. She’s better than any nurse.”

  “Yeah, remember when we went skating and you—”

  “—fell on my ass and tore open my jeans from the butt down,” I finish Zoya’s sentence with an annoyed huff, reminding her that she’s already told that story a thousand times.

  Holly giggles, and her electric blue, feather drop earrings sway with the motion. The sight reminds me of how Ross and I made jokes about the glowing condoms, and I press my lips together to hold back a grin.

  “What’s that look for?” Zoya leers at me while Holly slides closer on a rolling chair to clean my wound.

  “Nothing.” I shake my head and grab a magazine from the table next to me.

  “Uh-huh,” Zoya mumbles in a tone that tells me how convincing I was. “You don’t do hidden smiles, Ella, and I’ve never seen you blush in all my lifetime.”

  Flipping to a random page, I hold up the magazine, pretending to read while trying to hide my face.

  “Huh, looks to me as if something naughty is going on in your head. I like naughty,” Holly adds with a wink as she applies a bandage.

  “Yeah, spill the juicy details, sister,” Zoya throws in.

  I groan, knowing I can’t get out of this one. “Yes, we did it. Yes, it was great. No, I don’t know if we’re going to meet again because he hasn’t sent me an invitation… yet.”

  I trail off when a picture in the magazine catches my attention.

  A young man in a suit and a pretty woman in her fifties, clad in a daring, black number with a forty-pound diamond necklace, smile into the camera, but it’s the man in the background that draws my eye. Gorgeous in a navy suit and one head taller than the others, he stands on the sidelines, his hands clasped in front of his white shirt. A strand of his short, mocha-brown hair overshadows one of his smoky gray eyes—stony eyes that don’t match his brilliant smile. I scan the bold headline.

  Steep rise for Crawford Crescent after biggest heist in history.

  “Who’s that?” I want to know, flipping the magazine around and tapping a finger onto the picture.

  Holly leans closer. “Nathan Crawford from Crawford Crescent.”

  “The jewel gallery?” I ask, and Holly nods. I glance at the picture again. “I saw him a few days ago in front of that funky store with all the junk. Looked like a rich ass. Is he famous or something?”

  Holly chuckles. “He’s Crawford Crescent’s CEO and Vincent Crawford’s oldest son.”

  Scratching my temple, I arrange the snippets in my memory. “Vincent Crawford… He was the guy who stole the di
amonds at the airport in Israel, right?”

  “Yeah. It was the scandal of the year,” Holly says. “Brooke tried to sweep it under the carpet, but it leaked eventually.”

  “Brooke?” I ask with a frown.

  “Brooke Crawford, Vincent’s wife.” She nods to the blonde woman in the picture. “It nearly ruined her. I think she was close to slicing her wrists after they threw him in jail.”

  So, his father is a con. Just like mine, I’ve heard.

  I shake my head slightly. “How do you know all this?”

  “Holly worked at their gallery in Manhattan for some time,” Zoya explains and sticks tape over my bandage.

  “Brooke was my boss,” Holly throws in. “A devil of a woman. Melodramatic to no end, but incredibly smart.”

  “Why did you quit?”

  Holly sends Zoya a sweet smile. “Because then this pretty girl here swept me off my feet, and we decided to do our own thing.”

  Zoya bends down to kiss her cheek.

  “And that other guy in the picture?” I press.

  “Nick Crawford, Nathan’s younger brother,” Holly enlightens me.

  I squint, leaning closer. They don’t resemble each other at all. The younger one, Nick, takes clearly after his mother, but Nathan’s features don’t match any of theirs.

  I remember him very clearly. It was right after I went to the pet store to buy a bag of blood worms. I could practically feel his eyes on me, and it drew my gaze like a magnet. His eyes were eerily intense, pinning me to the spot as I took him in—his suit jacket stretching over his broad shoulders, one hand buried in his pocket while the other fumbled with something around his neck. I knew immediately that he was high up on the social ladder. He stared me down as if trying to figure out if we crossed paths at some point in the past, and strangely, I thought the same, which was why I freaked in the end and dismissed him with a scowl.

  A knock-knock sound comes from my phone, and my heart short-circuits in the fracture of a second it takes me to realize that I saved that ring tone for my Silent Sins app.

  “Ella?” Zoya sends me a quizzical look when I go rigid.

  “Uh, yeah. Thanks for patching me up,” I mumble and hop off.

  Zoya stares at me in bewilderment. “Where’s the fire?”

  “Gotta go, sorry.”

  I give Zoya and Holly each a peck on the cheek before I sneak out with a hobble. Hurrying to my bike, I pull out my phone and check my messages.

  Rosswell: Are you going to leave me hanging for three days again if I send you an invitation?

  A smile seeps through my lips. Good to know that he can’t stand me leaving him in the lurch, either.

  The green dot above my avatar shows that I’m online, so I should think fast about what to reply. I tap a finger against my lips. Better to go for something not too enthusiastic but also not too unassertive. Sounds good, right?

  Devonport: Depends. Will you leave me hanging for a week again until you send me an invitation?

  The dots move. Then stop. And then move again. I bite my lip, fighting a grin.

  Rosswell: Not if you agree to the terms we’ve been talking about last time.

  My grin sobers. Terms? Shit, I don’t remember any terms. I quickly go over every word we exchanged but come up empty.

  Devonport: What terms?

  His answer comes almost instantly, and I grab the handle of my bike as my legs turn to jelly.

  Rosswell: That you’ll be the one who’s naked first.

  My heart is torn between slowing down in relief and pumping faster in excitement, so it decides to do a weird three-sixty that churns my stomach.

  Deal, I start typing but then pause.

  I don’t want to fuck this up again. Maybe it’s time to expand my horizons. Show him that he’s not the only one with weapons in his arsenal. Prove to him that there’s more his best match has to offer.

  With a slight nod to myself, my fingers fly over the keyboard.

  Devonport: Well, if you think you can get me out of my clothes faster than I can get you out of yours…

  Rolling my lip between my teeth, I wait. The dots don’t move for a long time. I clearly took him off guard. High-five, Ella!

  Rosswell: Game on.

  His official invitation comes right after, and this time, I hit ‘Accept’ without hesitation.

  With a stupid smile on my face, I turn and walk back to Holly’s Ink.

  He wants to see me naked first?

  Then he’ll have to work for it and peel off all my layers.

  Unbelievable how long a day at work can be if you’re counting the hours.

  Hell, who am I kidding? I’ve been counting every damn, crawling minute since my alarm startled me out of a hot-as-fuck dream that ended with a faceless woman singing my name in ecstasy.

  And, no matter how hard I try, I can’t get those husky, licentious moans out of my head. I swear they are a worse earworm than Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off.’

  The only difference is, I like Devon’s song.

  I’ve never been so quick to get out of my office. I don’t even stop for the usual after-works-chat with Nick before I dash up to my apartment to get ready for my Silent Sins date number two.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m on my way to Hotel Astra in Queens—the same location where we had our meeting. The digital clock on the dashboard says I still have more than an hour to kill, but I don’t want to take any chances in case I get stuck in the Halloween traffic.

  The city is under a state of emergency tonight. Walking skeletons, screaming kids, and glowing jack-o’-lanterns at every corner. A trio of drunk teenagers masked as ghosts tumble into my car, and it’s all I can do to keep my temper in check before they take the trick-or-treating too far and bombard my BMW with caramel apples.

  My fingers drum the steering wheel as I halt to let a Japanese woman masquerading as a bloody knife with her three-year-old kid wrapped in a sushi costume hurry over the crosswalk. A guy who looks like he just escaped the set of The Walking Dead staggers up behind his girlfriend to startle her, and she shrieks, holding a hand over her heart.

  I’m going to make Devon scream tonight. She can try to hold back as much as she wants, but I’m going to break through to her, no matter how hard I have to tug at her gorgeous hair or how often I have to lick her sweet pussy.

  Other than my father, I’m not a man with a gigantic ego, but I have to admit, Devon not even uttering a moan when I made her come rubbed me the wrong way. Or maybe I’m just so used to Aiko screaming out her lungs whenever I gave her nub a flick that I don’t know how to work for it. Not that Aiko’s bloodcurdling screams were the biggest turn-on, but at least, they kept my pride intact. So, either I forgot how to fuck a woman properly, or Devon is a hard nut to crack.

  Doesn’t matter. That girl is going to give me a fucking sound tonight.

  Maybe I was a tad too cautious with her. She was a scared kitten when I first met her, but I know there’s a wildcat slumbering underneath her innocence. A feisty animal that likes to ride fast bikes and hard cocks.

  After parking my car in the garage, I take the private elevator and cross the secret passageway. The standard security procedure doesn’t take longer than a minute, and I enter the luxurious changing room.

  The clock tells me I still have twenty minutes to kill—time I’ll use to think about how I’m going to screw Devon tonight. My rings clink together while I strip out of my clothes.

  ‘I need to know if I’m ruining a marriage here.’

  Fuck me. She pulled the rug from under my feet with that one. The two times we met, she barely initiated a conversation, let alone revealed any information on her own accord. Buttoned-up from head to toe, but still standing up for her beliefs. It was all I could do to convince her that I’m not married, knowing she would have bailed out in a heartbeat if I couldn’t battle her doubts. After we parted ways, I wasn’t so sure if I’d accomplished the task which was why I didn’t contact her for almost a week.


  In the end, she surprised me once again after her response came right away—a response that let my imagination run wild.

  ‘If you think you can get me out of my clothes faster than I can get you out of yours…’

  Considering I’ll go without the cookie pants tonight, clad in nothing more than my boxer briefs, I guess this won’t be hard for her to accomplish. Unless she decides to throw away her inhibitions and walk in as naked as God made her, but I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet.

  Well, I’m going to find out now because the clock says it’s time I venture inside.

  As usual, the lights go out as soon as I swipe my wrist over the scanner, and the door slides to the side with an almost inaudible hiss.

  Devon’s changing room is dark, I realize in surprise. Shit, did she cop out?

  No, she’s already in The Room. Her silhouette moves in front of the door, her bracelet glowing in the dark. There are two sharp points protruding from her head, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s wearing a cute pair of devil’s horns.

  A playful grin stretches my lips. “I knew you were a little devil.”

  “Yeah, I hid my horns last time. Figured it wouldn’t make a good first impression,” she whispers the last part as if sharing a secret.

  The second her sexy accent reaches my ears, my heart rate picks up, and suddenly, I’m as giddy as when I saw tits for real the first time in my life.

  Raising my hand with the glowing bracelet, I beckon her to me. “Come here, little Satan.”

  “Careful, Ross,” she drawls, shuffling over with a slow swagger. “I might burn you.”

  “Oh, I’m counting on it.”

  She’s in flirting mode today. A new side I haven’t encountered yet, but one I like very much.

  The second Devon is within reach, I pull her closer by the waist, my hand sliding over sequins instead of the flannel shirt she wore last time. Now it makes sense why she thought I’d need longer to strip her bare. She’s wearing an elaborate Halloween costume that will take me some time to shed.