arms tightly over her chest. I had every intention of kissing her the moment I saw her, and then taking those kisses to all those places we didn’t get to visit the last time I was here, but I feel like I’m taking another very cold shower under that fiery gaze of hers.
“I told you, I’m needed by my club right now,” I tell her. “I’d much rather be here with you all the time, but I can’t right now. How many times do I gotta explain that to you?”
“What would you say if I said I’m gonna take off? Go back to Vegas, see my mom, visit Stormi?” she snaps.
“If that’s what you want,” I say. “But I’d prefer it if you stayed, and then I’ll take you to do all those things as soon as I can.”
“I want to believe you, I really do, but at the end of the day, I’m all alone here, and you don’t even call me when you say you’re gonna,” she says.
I have no idea what more to say or how to convince her. I do know I absolutely do not want her to just disappear from here. I’m afraid I’ll never see her again if she leaves now.
I hold out the two envelopes I’m holding. “Could you look at these pictures and see if they’re all Sinners, that no one’s out of place?”
I’m pulling out the wad that’s just the guys, and what I look up at her face I very nearly take a step back from the cold anger on her face.
“You just came here to use me in more of your murdering schemes?” she snaps, speaking much too loudly given the thinness of the walls in this place. “That’s all you really care about, isn’t it? It’s not me at all, just what I can do for you?”
I drop both the envelopes, the photos flying everywhere, and close the distance between us, pulling her to her feet by her elbows, before I’m even fully aware of what I’m doing. Then I grab the back of her head and kiss her like I should’ve done the moment I walked in here. Like I should’ve never stopped the last night we were together. Like I’ve never kissed a woman before. Not even her.
I want her for her. And damn it, if words aren’t enough to show her that, then I’ll show her.
She fights me at first, her fists jabbing me in the chest as she tries to push me away. But she’s not trying very hard. And before long she slides her hands around my back and pulls me close, kissing me back just as eagerly, hungrily, and deeply as I’m kissing her. We’ve only been apart for two days, but it feels like an eternity and we have to make up for it right away. Not that we ever can.
Brenda
I woke up in the black darkness just before dawn, the time when the whole world sleeps the deep sleep. I couldn’t get back to sleep. All my past mistakes, bad choices, and fuck ups kept popping up in my mind, not least of which leading Josh to his death at the hands of the Sinners over a measly twenty grand split three ways. All because I chose him to take me away from Monarch and the Kings after I grew bored with the old man. Leaving my mom in a nasty, decrepit home because it was what I could afford easily and couldn’t bear to face her glassy-eyed stare each time I visited. I stopped visiting her long before I left. Chasing away my best friend in the whole world—Stormi—who after a lifetime of knowing me couldn’t even tell me to my face that she was leaving. Leaving me behind with the Sinners. Who tried to kill me because of it.
On and on like that my mind whirled, my thoughts stretching between guilt, remorse, regret, anger, and rage. Cycling endlessly. There was no place for love in all of that roiling pile of shit, yet the sweet current of soft flowing sweetness—the river knowing Colt showed me deep inside—was there constantly. Faint and vague, but clearly recognizable, clearly felt.
Despite it, I decided to leave. So when I saw him ride into the parking lot, I stifled the butterflies in my stomach and forced all the happiness from my heart, focusing only on how to send him packing in the swiftest way possible.
It was going according to plan.
I was saying my