Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,146

me draw it on paper first I'll never know."

"Because this is original, just like you."

"To look at you, you'd never realize you were a charmer."

I smiled up at the ceiling, my attention on that now and not on her. "Only for you."

"See?"

"Is that a complaint?"

"No, not exactly, but it is when I'm nervous and want to get this right. So don't get me wet.” Then she tacked on, grumbling, “Again.”

Despite myself, despite the situation and how nervous I actually was, I choked out a laugh, hard enough that I sat up to let it loose, uncaring that it fucked with my ribs, just joyful at her sass. I saw her eyes were twinkling though, and took heart from that.

"Did you ever imagine you'd be grumbling over that?" I queried dryly.

"Nope, but a girl can grumble when she wants, and this is one of those moments. I don't need arousal to fuck with my head. And again, I never imagined I'd ever say that either.” She smirked at me. "The best kind of first world problems."

I shared the smirk with her, before I settled back down, focused on the ceiling again, and said, "I'm ready."

"Tough, because I'm not. My hand is still aching—"

"No," I interrupted, "I meant I'm ready to tell you..."

"Your secrets? Good. I'm ready to hear them. You know everything about me, or at least it feels that way. Everything that matters, everything that made me me, so while I know what counts, I think it's only fair that you share whatever it is that’s making you all gloomy tonight.”

Gloomy. Right.

"I agree, otherwise we wouldn't be here. Doing this," I reminded her, wanting her to know that I could have evaded this conversation for a lifetime. But she deserved more. And I wanted to give her that.

More...

She bowed her head in agreement, and murmured, "You can't look at me when you tell me this, can you?"

That she picked up on that shouldn't have surprised me. She was detail-oriented, after all.

I released a shaky breath and muttered, "I'm about to tell you something that is the exact opposite of my finest hour."

She didn't say a word, but the humming of the ink gun began, and I was grateful for the out.

"I was always an introvert," I started roughly, "always with my nose in a book, learning stuff because it was easier to do that than make friends. Surprise surprise, I didn't have many, and it made it easy to get through high school pretty fast. I had so many AP classes that getting into college at sixteen was easy.

"I took two majors at the same time, completed them in five years, drifted onto a doctorate, after my Masters, and all before I was twenty-five.

"It was then, when I was studying Chemical Engineering, that I met Dean. Back then, I considered him my first and only friend, because you can't exactly count goldfish, and until then, Goldie was pretty much it for me."

A laugh rumbled from her, surprising me from the story. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but Goldie? You weren't very imaginative, were you?"

I smiled a little. "Chemistry, Structural Engineering then on to Chemical Engineering… What about that path in college tells you that I was imaginative?"

She snickered, and her amusement lightened the stress I was under. Of course, I hadn't gotten to any of the bad stuff yet, so she wouldn't be laughing soon, but still, it made the deep breath I inhaled flow a little easier.

"Anyway, I thought Dean was like me. Just interested in learning. I was starting to turn into a career student, because I was whizzing through my doctorate, and intended on taking some classes afterward instead of heading into the real world.

"I never did well in the real world, it's probably why I do well with the Sinners. I don't feel like that world is real either. It's brutal, so in that sense the reality is hard to avoid, but it's not regular."

She smoothed her hand along the other side of my waist, as she whispered, "I know what you mean, it's okay."

It was only then I realized my throat was a little thick. Not from emotions, but from memories.

Memories of betrayal.

My betrayal hadn't been as bad as hers, there was no competition, but mine had led me down a path where there was no repentance.

"Dean and I started to hang out, we got friendly, bonded over a love of science, of cold logic and reason. I thought he was like me, but