Page 123 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Sin tells me, and somehow, I get that this is both an answer to my question and also a reminder that I do. That I could. I could have somewhere else to go. “Why else would a sixteen-year-old ever step foot in this place?” Sin sighs and rubs at his face with an inked hand. “I’ll admit: you weren’t the reason I came, but you were the reason I stayed. That’s why it’s hard for me to imagine you doing the same for me.”
“You stayed for me?” I query as he steps forward, sliding his knuckles along my jaw. His touch ignites me in a way that I can’t explain, like more than just our bodies are interested. It’s like, we have these two, broken souls with impossible edges, edges that are too twisted to fit with any other human.
Except for another broken one.
That’s what it is.
“You and Posey and Queenie,” he says, and his voice breaks, snaps, shatters. He loved my sisters as surely as I did. He loves me. Whether that’s as a sister-like figure or … fuck. Why would he do what he did in the basement if … I choke on my next breath, like his grief is perfuming the air and I can smell it. “You needed someone.”
“You were only a year older than Queenie,” I remind him, but he just smiles sadly.
“True. But I didn’t have school. I didn’t have a home to sleep in. I didn’t have anything. It was easier to take care of you three than it was to think about myself.” Sin slides his fingers through my hair, touching the back of my neck. His touch is so faint, it may as well be a graze. Just a light fucking grazing that makes me crazy. “You know I had a sister. You know that.” His eyes darken and he shakes his head. “She was killed, Gidget.” Here Sin stops, like he isn’t entirely sure he wants to go through with it. He casts me a look, as if he’s gauging my ability to handle this. “I told you I don’t give out second chances, right?”
I smile at him. It’s a real smile, which is rare for me, but it’s also tinted with pain and heartache. Nothing in our world can be beautiful without being tainted somehow, someway.
“Only me,” I tell him, and he nods, stepping back and releasing me from the thrall of his touch as he leans his perfect ass up against the balcony railing. He slides his phone from his pocket and selects a song. More noise to obscure our words. We might not be talking betrayals and traitors just now, but Sin doesn’t want anyone else to hear this story.
Just me.
Only me.
I lift up on my tiptoes to stare at his phone screen, watching as he selects Play With Fire by Sam Tinnesz and Yacht Money. It’s a slow, sultry song, one that seems to whisper the very rhythm of my soul. I identify with it immediately.
He slips his phone back in his pocket, muffling the music a bit.
For the duration of the song, Sin says nothing. It’s clear that he’s gearing up to tell me a story, so I stay quiet. These men are not the easiest people to get information out of, and I’m not blowing my chance with mindless chatter.
Instead, I lean my forearms on the railing and look down at the Edison bulbs strung across the back patio. They’re not on right now; I don’t even know if they work. But I imagine how pretty that spot would be if there was a big wooden farm table, a bottle of wine, and good company.
Hah.
May as well have imagined a unicorn.
We’re more likely to see skeletons rise from their graves and start sweeping the patio than to see any sort of normalcy or joy out here. The wind tousles my hair, but when I reach up to brush it behind my ear, Sin intercepts me. Our hands brush together, his touch a scintillating flicker as he tucks my hair back for me.
He withdraws his hand, and I bite my lower lip to stifle a protest.
“My father was a bastard,” Sin says, getting out another cigarette and lighting up. I watch his inked fingers as he lifts it to his mouth, imagining what his lips might feel like on my aching cunt. I want to try it all, with all of them. Everything. No exchange is too personal or too much. “Always was, but he got so much worse after my mom died. He used to disappear for days at a time, play cards, drink, whatever. One day, he brought a man home, someone he owed a debt to.” Sin’s voice is twisted, his expression far away. “He offered up my sister to satisfy the debt.”
