Page 85 of Sin

When it’s over, I don’t move.

I can’t.

My forehead rests against hers. Our breathing is ragged. Her hands are soft now on my back, no longer pulling, just holding. That’s worse. Because sex I can blame on lust.

This feeling in my chest has no excuse.

Eventually, I pull out carefully. Laurel lies on her side, watching me.

The ring is still on the nightstand between us and the door. Neither of us looks at it. Not at first. Then she does and her expression closes.

I pull her against me before she can disappear somewhere I can’t reach. She lets me.

For a long time, we say nothing.

Then she whispers, “You said never again.”

I close my eyes.

“I know.”

“You meant it.”

“Yes.”

“And this happened anyway.”

My arm tightens around her waist. The guilt is still there. It sits in my chest beside the want, beside the tenderness, beside the terrifying certainty that what happened tonight was not weaker than my shame. It was stronger.

“Yes,” I say.

She’s quiet for a moment. Then, so softly I almost don’t hear it, she asks, “What does that make us?”

I look at the ring on the nightstand. Then I press my mouth to Laurel’s shoulder.

“I don’t know.”

It is the coward’s answer, but it is also the truth.

Laurel’s hand covers mine where it rests against her stomach.

She doesn’t forgive me.

She doesn’t absolve me.

She just holds on.

And because I am selfish, weak, damned, and more alive than I have felt in years, I hold on too.

14

Laurel

The jet has finally reached cruising altitude, so I unbuckle my seat belt and stand.

Sin glances up from his phone. “You good?”

“Just need to use the restroom.”