Page 2 of Glorious Sinner

He shook me again. “Let’s go. I want to be inside before they get here.”

I shook my head. “I’m not just some brainless bimbo you can flash around. I’m your girlfriend. And what business are you doing? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Inside, Steph, now,” he said, voice colder this time.

Right then, I didn’t know him. This Ryan, he wasn’t my Ryan. This was someone else, someone I didn’t want to be around.

I shook my head again, my heart pounding so hard I could hear the blood rushing through my ears. “No.”

He gripped my jaw and forced me to look at him. “I said now.”

“There a problem here?” someone said from the shadows. The voice was rough and low and lifted goose bumps on my arms.

Ryan spun around and froze, cursing under his breath.

When I saw who it was I froze as well.

Tomas Mendoza.

He used to work for my dad until recently, banging nails for his small construction business. I’d convinced myself I was in love with him, drooling after him for the last couple of years. It was humiliating, especially since he’d only ever treated me with polite indifference. Not surprising, since he was seven years older than me and seemed to have a different woman every week.

He stepped forward, the glow of his smoke getting brighter in the night as he drew on it, eyes never leaving Ryan, not once.

I shivered at the look in his eyes. So cold.

He was wearing all black. Black jeans and boots, a black T-shirt, that showed off his tattooed arms and hands.

There were a couple of other guys with him, but they hung back, watching.

“Tomas, good to see you, man,” Ryan said, a cocky grin on his face. His arms came around my neck and he pulled me into his side. “I’m ready to do business when you are.”

Tomas’s almost black eyes slid to me, smoke drifting out between his lips. “Okay, Stephanie?”

I nodded, unable to make my mouth work. He almost always used my full name, and always said it in that deep voice, with that slight growl that made my skin break out in goose bumps. I glanced at Ryan. He looked nervous. What business could Ryan have with Tomas? What the hell was going on?

“You sure about that?” Tomas said.

My mouth opened. Closed. Ryan’s hold got tighter. Talk, Steph. Answer him. “Y-yes, I’m fine.”

Ryan chuckled, and I looked at him because it sounded forced. “You know what women are like, sometimes you have to—”

Ryan stopped midsentence, his face turning pale, and my gaze shot back to Tomas. His eyes weren’t just cold now; they were ice cold, and terrifying.

“Go ahead, Ryan. Finish what you were going to say,” Tomas said, voice so low and full of grit I felt it all the way down to my toes. “What do you have to do?”

Ryan shook his head, face red, sweat beading on his forehead. “I just meant…I was just…I didn’t mean anything.”

Tomas came right up to me. Ryan stumbled back a step, his arm slipping from my shoulders as Tomas gently took my chin between his thumb and forefinger. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe as his gaze dropped to my mouth. The muscle in his jaw jumped then his thumb swiped across my lower lip.

I swallowed hard. I knew my eyes were huge but I didn’t know what was going on, and Tomas was just so damn gorgeous and terrifying that looking into his eyes had me frozen to the spot. He was beautiful without doubt, but he had an intensity, a darkness that scared the shit out of me, and having all that directed on me was too much.

He let me go suddenly and held up his thumb, showing me it was streaked with my blood.

“He hit you?”

Ryan reached for me, all but snarling, but dropped his hand when Tomas’s dark gaze slid to him. That was it—just a look and my boyfriend backed off.

“Answer me,” Tomas said.