I would’ve been worried I had done something wrong but the front of his pants were stretched like he was carrying a bottle rocket. My thighs clenched and shifted at the erotic sight of it, slickness creating an easy glide.
What was this man doing to me?
Despite being the one to push me away, Carlos took a step towards me. Then he paused, hands fisting at his sides. I tilted my head, watching him. Emotions played over his face, a feature film twisting and shifting so quickly I couldn’t pick them out easily. Hunger played a leading role. So did trepidation. Whatever internal battle he was waging, it was a fierce one and I couldn’t pinpoint the source of it. Nor did I know which side I wanted to win.
“Take this,” he barked suddenly, tossing his key ring towards me.
Carlos turned and stalked out into the rain before I could pull them from midair, and I watched in a sort of frozen shock as he set off down the street. I actually opened my mouth to call out. To stop him. But my throat closed up and nothing came out. Tears of frustration stung my eyes and I dashed them away angrily. Whatever spell he had cast on me moments ago had faded and I already missed the fleeting comfort.
He started disappearing into the shadows between each streetlight, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I couldn't see him at all.
I absently touched my lips before my phone started buzzing urgently in my back pocket. My fingers were clumsy as I pulled it open and slid the screen open to a text from Kane. I read the translation twice, then silently mouthed the word.
Goddess?
My phone buzzed again. Something from Lizzy. I opened up the attached picture and felt my heart lurch painfully, a spike covered in barbs stabbing me directly in the chest. I didn’t send a response.
I put everything down and followed Carlos into the rain.
CHAPTER 9 - Carlos
Stubborn woman.
Most people would've at least pretended to be sneaky when they were following someone. Not Sylvia. She was only a few steps behind me, her long strides almost matching mine.
I was sure both of us looked like fucking idiots to every passing car. Walking in the rain without umbrellas, when the temperature was already dropping. What was the point of my dramatic gesture if she was going to follow me? Inwardly, I cursed my own lack of self control that had brought us to this point.
Over ten years spent carefully picking and choosing every battle. Triple checking every decision. Grinding my enemies beneath my loafers until they were dust without so much as blinking in the wrong direction.
One slight brush of her lips, and I was a domino swaying beneath her influence.
In my defense, no amount of planning could have prepared me for her sweet laugh, her enchanting smile, the sublime eagerness in her expression before my mouth slid against hers.
Despite being wreathed in death, the piercings and attitude an evident display of her fierceness, I now had first hand confirmation my woman was in there. She was buried far beneath a pain and fear I could never imagine. But she was in there, and I would save her if it was the last thing I did in my life.
Push too far, too fast, it very well might be.
I was very close to pushing too far. Had I not walked away when I did, I would have pawed her like an animal and fucked that pretty mouth of hers with my tongue. The cold and rain wasn’t helping keep the urge at bay, and instead of being safely away from me - somewhere I couldn’t reach out and drown the both of us in the tide of my desire - only a few feet separated us. It wasn’t enough.
“We're both going to catch a cold,” I called over my shoulder. Talking was good, even if the conversation was one-sided. It would keep my focus off how badly I wanted to turn around, pin her against the side of a building and-
Enough, you idiot. That’s not helping.
There was no response. Not very surprising. Yet an impact of something resembling disappointment hit me in the chest.
What did you expect? That she was going to become a chatterbox after saying one word? Don’t be a fool.
“Stop.”
I froze so completely my foot lingered in the air above the concrete before I brought it down. Slowly, I looked back over my shoulder.
Sylvia was a few steps away, breathing harder than the easy pace we'd walked warranted. As I watched, her hands opened and closed erratically at her sides and her throat bobbed up and down like she was choking. Her eyes were a dark grey, swirling with agony.
A deep frown creased my brow and I moved closer, feeling a bare echo of her pain stab me. Back at the office, she’d admitted she could talk. Given what I knew of her past, I took her refusal for dislike. Why would she offer her words to the rest of the world when it had already taken from her without asking?
Looking at her now, I knew the accuracy of my assumption had landed far from its target. This wasn't something as simple as dislike.
There was panic etched in the tight lines of her face. Raw and real and uncomfortable. She looked like she’d lost something. Why? I didn't understand it. She hadn't reacted this way earlier. Then I shook myself. I would do my best to find out in due time. Until then, I wasn't willing to let her go through it alone.
Making my decision, I reached up and ran my hand over her wet scalp, fingers drifting through the soaked, platinum blonde hair falling towards one side. I waited for her to react to my touch, and even braced, it was a kick in the chest. She closed her eyes, releasing a shuddering breath. She made no move to reject my advances.
I pushed my luck a little further, cupping her neck, feeling the tension there. I wasn't sure which of us was more surprised when she let me pull her closer.
Sylvia tucked her head into the side of my neck, warm breath fluttering against my soaked skin. Every atom in my body was struck by lightning at the rightness of feeling her there. I stayed still as a statue, hoping it would never end.
“This is wrong,” she whispered against me.
“Says who?” I rumbled, grateful for the cold nipping at me. Her low, husky voice was better than foreplay and twice as potent. I would offer up anything and everything to keep her talking.
Sylvia was silent for a moment. “I need more answers.”
I smiled in the dark and lightly ran my thumb along the nape of her neck, playing with the soft hair there. “Not without another condition.”
She made a small sound. Half laugh, half snort, fully captivating. “Always a price,” she said, echoing my earlier sentiment.
The only thing I cared about was that she hadn’t said no.
“Let's go.” I wasn't about to give her a chance to change her mind.
Sylvia stepped away from me and I lamented the loss of her closeness. Testing the limits again, I turned us and let my hand rest on the small of her back, right above her perfect ass. The rain made her shirt cling so tightly against her I could feel the dip of her spine and the blaze of her skin. She glanced up at me before we started walking, gaze openly measuring, but I didn't move my hand and she didn't step away from my touch.
Progress. The sweetest melody in existence.
It didn't take any time to make it back to the car, and I shook my head when she held the keys in front of me.
I held the driver's side door open and she quirked a brow at me.
“If you tell me you can't drive stick, we're going to have a problem.”
Her cheeks twitched, tiny dimples showing. “I have a map of every major artery in the body memorized. Of course I can drive stick.”
Slow and steady, I reminded the same urges currently causing my dick to swell.
“Those two things don't relate. I mean, at all.” Hopefully, my grin was more teasing and less, I want to fuck your brains out from now until the heat death of the universe.
Her mouth opened, most likely with an argument on the tip of her tongue.
“You're cute when you're being indignant.”
Wrong thing to say.
Sylvia's expression closed itself off in a heartbeat, and she lowered herself into
the leather seat without another word. She didn't look at me as I closed the door. When I lingered, she made a show of adjusting her seat and the wheel, pretending I didn’t exist. I sighed, crossing towards the diner and the yellow satchel she'd left behind on the ground.
Two steps forward then a fucking kilometer back. I'd anticipated needing to navigate a minefield. My mistake was in thinking I would actually be able to pinpoint the mines before they blew up in my face.
I knelt and grabbed the bag, barely catching her phone when it came spilling out. Maybe it was providence or lucky blood on some side of the family I didn't know about, but her phone wasn't locked. So when I turned it face up, it opened to a picture of an angelic looking blonde girl holding a small, sleeping infant.
Lizzy and Abby say hi, the caption read.
Which made the blonde in the picture Texas’s wife, and the small bundle his kid. Maybe there was some human DNA inside those monsters. Who would’ve known? My brothers and I had a running bet the three founding Sinners had been spewed directly from Hell in the shape of men.
No reason to waste this opportunity.
I put my number in her phone and locked it before taking everything back to the car and stashing her bag in the trunk. I slid into the passenger seat and Sylvia kept her eyes forward, hands at ten and two on the wheel. Awfully respectable of the law for someone who probably had a rap sheet long enough to write a novel.
She twisted her fingers, knuckles turning white. “I know what you're doing,” she said carefully.
“Yeah?” I pressed a button and the engine rumbled to life. A few taps on my own phone and the gps announced the route to my penthouse. “What am I doing exactly?”
Sylvia accelerated out onto the street, but she didn't answer. I was pretty sure she wanted to. Her throat bobbed, and she kept glancing at me. No sound emerged. Either she wouldn't say anything, or she couldn't. More and more, the mystery of her silence deepened.
It didn't take long to reach the towering complex I called home, and despite the odd hour, a valet was beneath the canopy, waiting for us when we pulled up. A new kid, I noted, emerging from the car. Barely out of his teens by the looks of him.
His eyes widened when he got his first good look at Sylvia, wet clothes stuck to her, showing shapes and curves he had no business noticing. His attention lingered. Enough he barely noticed her holding out the keys to him.
I growled low in my throat and stomped around the car, snatching the keys and slamming them into his chest with enough force to send him backwards several steps. “If you want to keep your job, I suggest you actually do it.”
His eyes widened in recognition, followed closely by fear. “Y-yes, sir. Mr Ortega, sir.”
Sylvia sighed, collecting her things. The boy scrambled into the driver’s seat and took off. I watched him go, tail lights glowing red as he rounded the corner into the parking garage. Maybe he would learn to keep his eyes to himself once he lost this job and found no one in the city interested in hiring him.
I caught movement from the corner of my eye before an elbow slammed none to gently into my ribs. My breath hissed out of me from between clenched teeth, and Sylvia stuck her white board in my face. More steps backwards.
“Don't be a dick.” She had underlined it several times.
I met her hard, silver stare and matched it. There were many areas I would bend, where she was concerned. This was not one of them. “He was ogling you.”
“And you don't?”
You're mine to ogle, was on the tip of my tongue. This time, I saw the mine. Smelled the munitions. Sidestepped it.
I pushed the board down out of my face and headed towards the sliding double doors. She caught up to me quickly and I nodded towards the doorman who buzzed us through to the elevators. Not that I needed to be let in. This building belonged to my brothers and I. The tenants were handpicked by Isaac. They were filthy rich, private, and utterly unconcerned with who I was. A nice change of pace from the tedious day to day.
“Pool?” Sylvia whispered, finger hovering over the labeled button. The elevator doors closed, sealing us in. She smelled like rain and lemonade, and I felt my dick react. Again. My cock was on a hair trigger in her presence.
I glanced down at her. “Indoor and heated.” Excitement lit her up from the inside out and I found myself standing straighter, chest puffing up. “You want to swim?”
Her small shoulder lifted in a shrug and she looked down at herself. “Already wet.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. She’s killing me and she doesn’t even realize it. I groaned out loud as heat stirred. “Don't say shit like that.”
Her head tilted, then a slight blush stained her cheeks and she looked away. I was catching glimpses of the woman beneath the tough exterior and she was so much more than I had ever dreamed of. Sylvia was saved from responding as the elevator dinged, opening up on my floor. She scurried out like she was being chased and I chuckled beneath my breath.
The hunt started years ago, sweetheart. I promise I have an insurmountable head start.
If she was impressed by the lavish penthouse, decked in deep purples, blacks and silvers, she didn't show it. Sylvia kept her expression neutral as she looked around, focusing on everything, lingering on nothing.
“A bit much, isn't it?” I prompted.
Her surprise was fleeting but there, and she nodded warily like I was setting a trap.
“Appearances-”
“Must always be kept,” she finished softly, and her fingers traced over her hip where I imagined one of her many knives would be.
Chills swept through me and my stomach lurched, swift and fierce.
Until now, the specter of what my father had done to this woman - my woman - was just that. A specter. Something floating uncomfortably in my peripheral vision, out of sight enough to be ignored and overcome but there all the same.
Hearing his words come out of her mouth? There was something fundamentally wrong about it. The phrase skittered into my ears with too many legs, grating across my soul. A colossal beast digging its nails into what made me who I was.
Sylvia’s eyes swirled with emotion, none of them pleasant.
My jaw clenched, teeth grinding together.
I crossed the room towards her. She didn't retreat. It wasn’t in her. Instead, her stance changed, weight redistributing to the balls of her feet. A hydraulic press smashed my heart flat and I couldn't hide my wince.
“The Devil himself could take my soul and I would still never hurt you, diosa.”
Her face twisted into a cruel sneer. I stopped a foot away from her and it might as well have been a mile. “Right,” she said, voice cold. “Because you joined up with the worst scum on the planet, for me. How could I forget?” She shivered suddenly, jaw trembling. “You know what, I’m out of here.”
Sylvia strode past me, shoulder bumping mine.
Slow and steady?
Nah. Fuck that.
If I let her pull away now, the walls would go back up twice as high, three times as strong. I knew it like I knew there would always be a hole in my chest if I lost her. An aching void only she was capable of filling.
“Do you know the only way to fight a disease?” I called to her back, watching her pause in the reflection of the dark, rain streaked window overlooking the sleeping city. “From the inside, Sylvia.”
She didn’t move for a long beat, then she looked back at me over her shoulder.
“Bathroom is on your left, end of the hall. Get out of those wet clothes and I’ll tell you everything.”
She could’ve walked away. She wouldn’t. What did the reaper’s scythe yearn for more than a neck offered willingly?
CHAPTER 10 - Sylvia
I leaned over the elegant sink, staring hard at the reflection in the mirror. Everything about my appearance was the same. Short, platinum hair carelessly laid to one side, since I didn’t have the time or energy to work on my usual mohawk. Silver and black bars in each eyebrow. Another through the bridge of my no
se. A black hoop for my septum. Silver studs in each cheek and hoops bracketing my lips on either side.
I’d had them all for so long they were as much a part of me as the head on top of my shoulders.
But I didn’t recognize the woman looking back at me.
Men in general were on my no fucking way list. Men like Carlos? Tall, dominating, with features chiseled to perfection and a body meant for conquest? They were on my never in a fucking million years list. And that was before I added in the people he’d associated himself with. I had no business being alone with him, much less being inside his fucking house.
What had I been thinking? I knew better than most how easily a snake could disguise itself as a man. This was a bad idea. If I was smart as I thought I was, I would be running out of here like my ass was on fire.
Yet here I was.
My fingers held the edges of the sink, short nails clicking against glossy marble as I ran everything I knew so far back through my mind.
Since I was apparently planning on staying, I needed to at least remain focused on the task at hand and get my mind back on the right track. Starting with how he dared to imply I was the cause of him being involved with the Cartel in the first place.
What kind of lame ass reasoning was that? If anything, the perfect chance to walk away from it for good had been offered to him on a silver platter. Instead of lifting the lid and taking hold of his freedom, he’d tossed it out.
His mistake. His problem. Not mine.
My problem - a big, fat, whopping one - surprisingly didn’t revolve around the kiss.
In the safety of my own mind, I could admit to enjoying the way his lips brushed against mine. Endlessly soft and gentle. Achingly sweet and brief. There weren’t a whole lot of those in my past. So few, in fact, I had forgotten how much I used to love them. They were always the most delicious tease, leading to that first tentative touch of tongue against tongue.
I touched my lips, picturing them swollen and well-kissed. We hadn’t made it that far. I should’ve been thankful. Except truth was a wayward branch determined to smack me across the face. Had it been up to me, we would’ve gone father.
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