Page 33 of I Was Born Ruined (Death by Daybreak MC 1)
“Why don’t you hang around us anymore?” I whisper, and then realize what I’ve just said. Us. Hah. There is no ‘us’ anymore, just me. Just me, myself, and fucking I.
Sin makes a sound low in his throat, and when I turn to look at him, he’s scowling at me in the worst way possible.
“You’re a young woman now; you don’t need me anymore.” He finishes his cigarette, stabs it out on the tree, and drops it into the mud. When he crushes it out with his boot, I can tell there are layers upon layers of feeling inside of me, trapped so deep down I’ll never be able to free them.
“Clearly, we did,” I snap back, and Sin grabs me by the shoulders, turning me to face him. I look up into his silver eyes, and I feel myself start to shake. Tears roll down my face, mixing with my mascara, tangling with the raindrops already wetting my cheeks. He turns me around then and pushes me against the tree, leaning down and putting his forehead to mine.
“I’m so sorry, Gidge,” he whispers, choking on the words, nuzzling me. It’s the strangest thing, to see this self-proclaimed badass, this twenty-three year old asshole, rubbing on me like a puppy. No, no, not like a puppy at all. One of his hands falls to my hip, and the other lifts up to cup the back of my neck. “If I were there then none of this would’ve happened …”
Of course, he can’t know that.
That’s a privilege none of us are afforded in life, answers to all of those horrible what-ifs. There’s no way to know; constantly focusing thoughts on it is psychological torture that nobody needs.
“It’s not your fault,” I choke out, closing my eyes. It’s not. It’s Cat’s fault, and Nellie’s, and the Grey Wolfe Mafia.
“This is for Kian,” the man said, just before he pulled the trigger with cool indifference, ending my sister’s—and her unborn baby’s—life in an instant. Kian, Kian, Kian. Who the fuck is Kian?
My eyes open again, and I find Sin staring at me with this quiet sort of desperation. I stare up at him, at his slightly parted lips, his breath making little clouds in the air between us. All of a sudden, I find myself wanting to kiss him, and I don’t know why. There couldn’t be a worse time for a kiss in all the world. There couldn’t be a more awful day.
And yet, I reach down and put my right hand over his tattooed left one, pressing his fingers into my hip. My left arm curls around his neck, and then Sin and I are clashing together in a storm, all mouths and teeth and tongue. It’s so cold out that my nipples are already hard, pebbling into even tighter points as he presses his body against mine, slamming me into the tree. Even through the rain and the grief and the ash, I can smell the magnetic notes of his natural scent: leather intertwined with cinnamon and blood mandarin, touched with a hint of tobacco and cloves.
Sin’s hand slides down, pushing my skirt up in a very dangerous way as our tongues tangle together and his hips thrust against me.
What we’re doing is obscene.
It’s disgusting.
It’s so fucking wrong.
And yet … all of this sin wipes away the melancholic agony that has a chokehold on my heart. So long as I’m being bad, I don’t have to remember that things can never be good again. If I’m dancing in the dark and the shadows, I don’t have to keep missing the light.
This is so awful, I think, even as I moan and Sin tugs at my panties. He rips the fabric just enough that I hear it rend and flick my eyes open, catching his.
I’m pretty sure that’s the moment he remembers that I’m not a groupie or a club whore, but his boss’ daughter. It’s that terrible second when lightning crashes into a gravestone and makes me jump, that he remembers I’m only fifteen and he’s twenty-three, and the two of us together is a twisted, fucked-up mockery of everything that’s holy in life.
“Jesus fuck,” Sin curses, shoving off the tree and stumbling away. He swipes his hand down his face and then spits into a puddle, like he can’t stand having the taste of me on his tongue. The rain comes down in sheets, drenching him, as I stand there in the semi-protective embrace of the tree. I take one small step forward, and he holds up a palm to stop me. “No, don’t touch me. Don’t touch me ever again. In fact, just don’t fucking talk to me, Gidge.” Sin turns away as a choked sob escapes my mouth, and I fall to my knees in the mud, just crying and crying and wailing in a quiet cemetery where my heart and soul are buried along with my sisters.
