The Sinner - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,53

feeling him get softer.

He was breathing hard. Sweating and his heart pounding under his skin. I could feel it in his dick. The tender spot on his hips where I put my hand.

“Come here,” he groaned, reaching for me, pulling me towards him and I imagined what he wanted. What he would do with his lips. And tongue. His fingers. And I was so close. So close I didn’t need it.

My plan had been to suck him off and leave. A gift like he’d given me. But I was too selfish maybe. I grabbed his hand and put it between my legs and he, clever man, took it from there.

His fingers speared into me, his thumb on my clit. He sat up, his other arm wrapping around me, as his mouth found my breast and sucked me through the silk of my robe.

I put my own hand over my mouth, to stifle my cries as I came against his fingers. So wet I could feel it. So wet when he touched my hip, he rubbed my come against my skin.

Like I said. Animals.

He rested his forehead against my chest and both of us just took a second.

But then I stood, tied my robe shut, pushed back my hair, like I could hide what we’d done.

“What was that?” he asked from the sheets of his bed.

Goodbye? A mistake? Yep to both of those things. And to a million smaller things I couldn’t name.

So, I didn’t answer him. I turned to leave and he grabbed my hand, his thumb pressed against my palm in a way I felt under every inch of my skin.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

And I got the hell out of there.

SAVANNAH

Monday morning, I climbed the stone steps to the Bonne Terre Library and unlocked its heavy wooden doors. Inside, the cool, still air smelled like books, wood cleaner and damp from the basement that had never dried out from Hurricane Katrina.

“Lucy!” I said with my best Desi impression, “I’m home.”

I got to work, occupying myself with the piles of tasks that had accumulated in my absence. But even with the work, Matt was there. Lingering in the corners of my mind. My body was still sending off sparks. Every time I crossed my legs I felt the tug in my clit. The emptiness of my body.

And that thank you. Man, that really got to me.

He was different. Changed. He might not be able to see it, but I felt it last night—the way he’d let himself be touched. Loved, even.

I wished, stupidly, that his letting go of his grief and guilt might mean something for me.

Like he’d stick around.

But he wouldn’t. No one ever did.

By noon, the air conditioner was battling the humidity that pressed down from outside and the summer school kids were at the computers.

Including Garrett and Owen.

Looking at them, my blood literally boiled. Two weeks since the first break-in and there they were, as if nothing had ever happened. I had to drink a big glass of cold water to stop myself from incinerating.

I reconsidered my thoughts of revenge—maybe that letter to their parents? But it didn’t seem like enough. Nothing seemed like enough.

“Hot one today, huh?” Janice, my assistant, asked. We stood at the sink, Janice filling up the WeightWatchers water bottle she kept at her desk—along with the Fannie May sampler box she didn’t think anyone knew about. Balance, she always said and I liked that about her.

“Hey,” I turned sideways and rested my hip against the counter. “So what’s happening with the love triangle out there?”

“Well.” Janice nearly shook with sudden excitement. “I caught Garrett and The Cheerleader kissing down by the drinking fountains.”

“Does Owen know?”

“Not at all.” Janice shook her head, her eyes twinkling.

I, as I had since the moment I’d hired Janice, felt like hugging the woman.

“Why?” Janice asked. “You suddenly interested in the love lives of summer school students?”

I shrugged, heading to the front desk and the stacks of mail I needed to go through. “No reason.”

But Matt’s words hummed through my bloodstream.

Guilt deserves to be punished.

While I was convinced the adage no longer applied to Matt, it sure as hell applied to the two kids smirking at me over their computer screens.

I shrugged off the chains I kept around those O’Neill impulses and when I finally saw Owen’s girlfriend head for the bathroom, Garrett not far behind her, I strolled up to Owen.

“I need to do some maintenance on that computer,” I said. “Why don’t you take a bathroom