Page 78 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
“Tell you?” I bite back, giving him what I hope passes for a haughty teenage sort of look. I’ve long since shed that persona, and we both know it, but it makes it easier for us both to pretend. “You want to know if Beast likes me to spit or swallow? If he enjoys it from—”
“Alright, alright, enough of that shit,” Cat snarls out, giving me a look with his lip curled up at one corner. “I should rightfully kill the man for touching you, you know that? You’re both damn lucky.”
I hold his stare, but at the same time, I bite my tongue. Just like I did during my engagement dinner to Grey. Bite, bleed, burn. Burn and rage. Rage. “Like you did to Kian?” sits heavy and potent on my lips. But I don’t say it aloud. I don’t dare bring that up.
Yet.
Cat turns and leaves the room, slamming the door closed behind him. A few minutes later, Sin opens the doors from the balcony and lets my dog back in. My dad’s seen him. Beast was assigned to check the Kellers’ place out, I discovered. Technically, the only rule he broke was taking me.
“Come here, Fem-fem,” I coo, tapping the blanket and then throwing my arms around his neck when he jumps on the bed. Sin watches me from the doorway, one shoulder leaned up against the jamb.
Our conversation hangs heavy in my mind, but it’s obscured by the fear I feel for Reba.
“I’ve been thinking about your key,” Sin tells me, tapping the toe of his boot against the floor in a rhythmic pattern, one that promises all those ideas I have about him and music … they might be true. “I’ll go over the records again, look for patterns. Maybe even interview some of the girls—”
“With me present,” I correct, and he gives me this look.
“Oh, we’re going to play the possession game, are we?” he queries, sounding so young and cocky that I want to melt. Want to, being the key word. I most certainly will not do that, not after he tied me up with his belt earlier. “You’re going to get pissy about me talking to a bunch of hookers with missing teeth, but I have to watch you marry Beast? Fuck Crown? Make eyes at Grainger?”
I give him a sharp look, one that demands his full attention.
“I have never once made eyes at that man. If you say that again, I might reconsider the possibility of having any sort of relationship with you.” Feminist growls in response to my words, his lips curling up over his teeth. Getting shot has only seemed to make him more aggressive than he was before. I’m going to have to work on training him to allow the officers near me.
They’re all damn lucky they didn’t pull the trigger on my dog; the only part they were present for was when that prospect dumped Fem in my lap. Even that was almost too much for me. Knowing them as I do now, I imagine they weren’t fans of that little stunt.
“I’ll work on a list and meet with the girls after we switch rotations.” He taps his boot against the floor again as I stare at him. “What? You really want to meet with those women? You might not like what they have to say.”
“How so?” I ask, feeling my skin prickle with imagined conversations. I’m pursuing four bikers. Four much older bikers. I’m not even quite sure how I ended up in this situation, but here I am. And despite the sheer bizarreness of it, the unbelievability, it feels so damn right. More right than anything I’ve experienced in my life thus far. “You’re familiar with these women then?”
I really don’t mean to make my voice sound so … snooty? But there it is. My estimation of all four men hangs in the balance of this conversation.
“Familiar?” Sin asks with a bit of a scoff. He shakes his head. “I could never … after my mother.” He bites the inside of his cheeks, as if cutting off a painful memory. “No, Gidget, I don’t hire hookers.”
“Crown?” I query, thinking about Amber, how he used her name against me once yet barely remembers dating her at all. Or so he says. Anyway, she is most definitely not engaged to him.
“He dates groupies and …” Sin trails off and then shrugs. “Well, he dated groupies anyway. Before he started pining after you.” A slight twitch of his lips is the only outward sign of annoyance. “Does he sleep with prostitutes? I doubt it.” Sin pushes up from his position and double-checks to make sure the balcony doors are locked before closing the heavy drapes. I like this, seeing him do something domestic. It reminds me of the past in the best possible way. “When I told you he was into you, I wasn’t fucking around.” His voice sounds dry and irritated, stretched and peppered with jealousy, the same voice I was using on him earlier.
