Page 122 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
The thing is, no matter what they say to me, no matter what they do, how they pretend, I know the truth.
Words say one thing; actions tell the full story. The actions of these men have solidified any strange, lingering feelings inside of me.
As Reba said, passion has ruined me. Passion has tainted me. But passion is also the only thing keeping me going right now. Joy, as I’ve said before, is so fragile. Passion, on the other hand, burns like fire and destroys everything in its path. It’s meant to cause destruction; it’s meant to burn.
“Do you remember that day in the garden?” he asks me, still looking into the distance and not at me.
“I remember,” I say, thinking of the sound of digging coming from beyond the tree tunnel.
“We were burying our guys.” Sin lights up a cigarette, takes a drag, and then offers it to me. I accept it, turning and parking my ass on the railing. Reba is on a new mission to get me to quit, but come on, I deserve a guilty pleasure, even one that’ll kill me one day. If you really think about it, the club—and these four men I’ve claimed as my own—are the same way.
Deadly.
Sin still hasn’t given me a number, but it’s obvious there were at least a few casualties. A few lives traded for mine. Cat made the choice to come for me, knowing what he was risking. I was that important to him.
That important to them.
“What would you have done if Cat had refused to come after me?” I query, smoking my cigarette as Sin lights up a fresh one for himself. He takes several drags, exhaling gray smoke into the darkness. He’s silent for so long that I wonder if he’s going to answer me at all.
“You have a wedding coming up,” he tells me instead, finally glancing over at me. “What do you want to happen after? What does the rest of your life look like?”
I look over at him, and I ache. I burn. I suffer.
That’s why love sucks. That’s why I hate it so much. Because it doesn’t matter if I love my dog, or I love Reba, if I loved my sisters, if I love these men. Love is pain. It’s also the impetus of everything. The be-all, end-all.
“I’m here because of you,” I whisper, and Sin nearly drops his cigarette, cursing as it burns his fingers, and he manages to get control of it. “And I ran away because of you. Grey, obviously, was a big factor. But the four of you? I knew if I didn’t get away, something bad would happen to me. Something horrible.”
“Something horrible?” he says, his voice dark and low. He sounds annoyed. I can understand that. He … well, I think he cares for me so much that he’d throw me hard and far, watch me fly away and be glad to be rid of me. Because he thinks this life is too hard. Because he wants better for me.
“Falling in love is horrible,” I breathe, and Sin closes his eyes like he’s in pain, turning back toward the woods and letting his head hang.
“You’re not in love with me,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re not in love with any of us.”
“Don’t tell me who I’m in love with, Colton,” I warn him, standing up straight and turning to face him. “Don’t tell me how I feel. Have you ever considered that I don’t want to leave? That I … much as I hate to admit it, that I like this life?” I shake my head, putting the fingers of my right hand against my temple as I close my eyes. “I mean, parts of it anyway.” I open my eyes again to stare at him. “I just don’t like being left out, having decisions made for me, feeling helpless. That is what I don’t like.” I stab my cigarette out in the nearby ashtray.
“You deserve so much more than riding bitch seat,” Sin agrees somewhat reluctantly, standing up and turning to face me. He’s not wearing his usual jeans and t-shirt topped with leather look. Instead, he’s got on joggers and boots, a black wife-beater that shows off all those beautiful tattoos of his. I see the eight ball that once captured my attention when I was younger, the pair of red lips with the white teeth. “Even if I’d rather you were living a different life entirely.”
“For someone who’s so critical of the life, it’s interesting to me that you started being a hang-around at such a young age.” I’ve just changed the subject, and he’s noticed. I hate that, how perceptive he can be sometimes. He’s supposed to be the youngest of my men, the easiest to trick. Instead, I feel as if he’s getting smarter by the minute.
