Page 36 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
“There are things beyond this point you don’t need to see.” Sin turns to look at me, and even though his face is bathed in shadow, I can still see the silver of his eyes. They remind me of Grey in a way. In another way, they’re not like Grey’s at all. Grey couldn’t get me twisted up like this. Grey couldn’t make me wonder what might happen if I wrapped my arms around his neck and ground my pelvis into him. Would Sin lose himself and fuck me the way he did outside the cabin? Or would he find the strength to resist?
“Why are you taking care of the plants?” I ask him, and he cocks a brow at me.
“Beautifully manicured gardens don’t often hide bodies, Gidge.” He crosses his arms over his chest, muscles rippling, his Americana tattoos a red, white, and blue festival across his biceps and forearms. I reach out to stroke the wing of an eagle, and he catches my hand in midair. “Don’t.”
I exhale sharply and reach up to push my hair back from my face. A prospect could—should—be doing something as menial as gardening. He’s bullshitting me, but for what reason, I can’t discern.
“I’ve been chasing after you since I was fourteen,” I admit, and he cringes. Like, visibly cringes. If you think about it, he’s twenty-six now and I’m eighteen. It’s not a terrible age gap. “Why are you always running away from me?”
Sin looks away from me for a moment, turning to stare down the length of the tunnel. He’s clearly in the middle of club business right now. This is why my family never spent much time in this house after my grandmother died. It’s club space. We aren’t meant to see what happens here. I can only imagine that Cat’s keeping us here now out of an abundance of caution.
He just crashed a mafia wedding.
Dozens of higher-ups were killed.
This isn’t going to end on a peaceful note.
I wonder what happened to Grey. I figure he must still be alive because I would’ve heard about it if the club had managed to track him down. My hope is that he escaped both the club and the mafia in one go. There’s not much of a chance he can ingratiate himself with his family after that fuck-up.
Eventually, I realize that Sin isn’t going to answer my question, and I turn away.
I’m just about to exit the shadows of the tunnel when I hear his boots on the cobbled stone beneath our feet. He surprises me by wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me in close. This isn’t about licking my scars or thinking horrible thoughts, this is something more.
Yep, world’s greatest romantic gesture and I have no idea how to handle it.
Lying to the club. Lying to Cat. Lying for me.
“I wish it were me,” he breathes, his mouth against the side of my neck. I end up putting my hands over his where they’re clasped together around my waist. His skin is hot from working all day in the sun. I savor the roughness of his fingertips, wishing I could feel them play across every part of my body, all my soft places and the new rippled pinkness of my legs. “I wish you’d chosen me.”
I close my eyes and lean back into him, letting his cinnamon and leather scent swirl around me. It mixes with a hint of jasmine from the nearby trellis, the buzz of bees and the distant sound of digging entangled with the chirping of birds. Digging. Somebody’s dead. Somebody’s getting buried. I barely care anymore.
“You know that I couldn’t,” I whisper back, because it’s true. Doesn’t make it any less difficult. When I think about taking Sin as my husband, curling my arms around his waist and breathing in the leather scent of his cut, my heart soars. What goes up however … must always come down. When it does, sometimes it shatters.
“I’m ready to tell you about my sister,” he whispers, pressing a smoldering, sharp-edged kiss to the side of my neck. I arch back into him, putting my left arm up to curl my fingers in his hair. But, as he always does, he stops at a kiss. It’s as if he’ll only allow himself to stray so far from the beaten path. A kiss is daring. Just daring enough to get away with.
Sin pulls away from me. I don’t turn to look at him. That didn’t exactly go well for Orpheus and Eurydice, now did it? Might be a Greek legend, but it’s just the sort of tragedy I could imagine being summoned by the stygian power of this place, of my tempestuous heat for Sin.
I keep his words in mind as I walk away, heading back toward the house and another of Nellie’s surprisingly good lunches. I’m not ready to hear about anyone else’s sister, not just yet, but if he’s willing to tell me, that means we’re making progress.
