Chapter 14 #3
He kisses me again. Harder. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer, because apparently knowing has never stopped us from doing anything.
The phone stops ringing. Then starts again.
I look at it.
He doesn’t.
His mouth moves down my neck, teeth grazing the spot that makes my whole body jerk.
“Answer it,” I whisper.
I don’t know why I say it. Maybe because I want him to choose with the choice staring at him. Maybe because I hate myself. Maybe because I want to see how far gone he really is.
He reaches past me. For one wild second, I think he’s going to pick up. Instead, he slides the phone farther down the counter, away from us, screen still flashing.
“No.”
The word is rough. Then his hands are at my hips, dragging me to the edge of the counter. The ring becomes living thing in the room. Just a woman calling her husband while he puts his mouth on my skin and pulls my leggings down my thighs.
I should stop him.
I don’t.
I help.
That is the truth I will have to live with.
His hand moves between my legs, and I bite down on my own wrist to muffle the sound that tears out of me.
“Don’t hide from me,”
The phone rings again and Jenna’s name lights the counter.
Sin pushes two fingers inside me, and my head falls back against the cabinet.
“Oh my god.”
His mouth is at my ear.
“Not God.”
He moves with ruthless precision, watching my face while his wife’s call goes unanswered inches away. Every stroke of his fingers feels like a confession. Every sound I make feels like another sin added to the pile.
I come like that.
On my kitchen counter.
With his hand between my thighs.
With Jenna calling.
With Sin watching me like I am the only thing he has ever wanted badly enough to ruin himself for.
Before I can breathe, he pulls me off the counter and turns me, pressing my hands flat to the cool surface.
“Tell me no,” he says behind me.
His voice is ragged. I look over my shoulder. The phone has finally gone silent, and my own reflection looks back at me from the kitchen window.
“No,” I whisper.
His hand tightens on my hip. “Laurel.”
“I’m not telling you no.”
That is all it takes. He enters me from behind with one slow, devastating thrust that knocks the breath from my lungs. The pace isn’t gentle. It isn’t cruel either.
It is desperate.
It is a man losing an argument with himself and taking me with him. His body covers mine, chest to my back, one arm around my waist, the other hand braced beside mine on the counter.
My name leaves his mouth over and over.
Laurel.
Laurel.
Laurel.
Like he is trying to make my name louder than hers.
Like he can replace guilt with want if he says it enough.
I reach back and grab his hair, needing something to hold onto. He groans against my neck.
“Again,” he says.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I can’t.”
His hand slides lower, finding the place that proves him right.
“Give it to me,” he whispers.
And because I am ruined, because I am weak, because I have fallen so far into Sin I can no longer see the edge, I do.
I come again, shaking beneath him, his arm the only thing keeping me upright.
He follows a moment later, burying his face in my shoulder, his release hitting him with a broken sound that feels too much like pain.
Afterward, we stay like that. Still connected.
The kitchen is quiet. Then his phone buzzes once. A voicemail notification. Sin pulls out carefully and turns me into his arms. I let him hold me, because I am too exhausted to pretend I don’t need it.
His mouth presses to my temple.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I close my eyes. “For her?” I ask.
His arms tighten. “For all of it.”
That should make me cry. Maybe later, it will. Right now, I am numb and warm and shaking and more his than I have any right to be.
I pull back enough to look at him.
His face is wrecked. Truly wrecked.
And because I am cruel in my own way, because I need to know if I’m alone in this disaster, I ask, “Are you leaving?”
He looks toward the dark phone. Then back at me.
“No.”
The answer lands heavy.
I hate him a little for it.
I love him a little for it.
No.
Not love.
Absolutely not love. I refuse to call it that.
He cleans us up in silence. Then he carries me back to bed even though I tell him I can walk. He gets under the covers with me and pulls me against his chest, his bare hand splayed over my stomach.
The rest of Sunday disappears the way the weekend did. In pieces. His mouth at my shoulder. My hand over his heart. Jenna’s voicemail unopened. His ring untouched on my dresser. Every hour makes the affair less like a mistake and more like a place we are choosing to live.
By Sunday night, I’m terrified of Monday.
Not of work or consequences. Not even Jenna.
I’m terrified of the door opening, of him picking up his ring, and of watching Sin become Mason Sinclair again.
Because I know now.
I know how he looks in my kitchen. How he sleeps in my bed. How he says my name when he is too far gone to hate himself. I know what it feels like to fall further into sin.
And God help me, I don’t want to climb out.