Sinner's Revenge (Sinner's Creed MC #2)(51)
Her olive skin seems to glow against the million-dollar white comforter. Her black hair is messy and matches the thick, black eyeliner she wears. Long, red nails match her perfectly painted toes, and she looks like sin just laying here waiting for me.
I take my time crawling on the bed between her thighs. I drag my hand slowly up her smooth calf, trailing it up her stomach, her chest, her neck, until I’m holding her face and kissing her like I missed her. Like I can’t get enough. Because I did. I can’t.
We don’t speak, we just f*ck—soft and slow, hard and fast, in every position until we both collapse from exhaustion. Then I hold her. And I realize that sleep has never come as easy as it does with her in my arms.
*
We’re still in bed. It’s sometime in the middle of the night and we’re eating crackers and drinking beer. Naked. She’s telling me about how being a wolf worked out in her favor. I tell her the same, only a little more evasively.
“I didn’t realize being a pharmaceutical sales rep could be so challenging.” I smirk. She narrows her eyes on me, clearly pissed with my choice of words.
“And being a website designer, for a company that you run is?” She shakes her head. “You know I don’t buy that bullshit. I just go along with it because I know that whatever it is you’re hiding must be pretty important.” I just smile, not letting my eyes give anything away.
“Actually, I run a large company. It’s worldwide. I have a lot of people who work under me. Most have never even met me before. So, when a guy like me shows up and demands respect, you can imagine why they’re a little hesitant.” I snatch a cracker from the pack lying on her belly. “But you . . . you just sell drugs.”
“Actually,” she says, coming to a sitting position. “I sell drugs to a number of companies. And unlike you, I work for a corporation where there are lots of employees who are on the same level as me. The difference between me and them is that I want to make my way to the top. They want to stay exactly where they are, so they throw their workload on me because they have nothing to lose.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so ambitious.”
“Or maybe I should just become barefoot and pregnant and let some man take care of me like my mother did.” She offers me a sardonic smile, and even though I didn’t mean to, I somehow struck a nerve. The mood seems to shift at the mention of her mother, but she wouldn’t have brought her up if she didn’t want to talk about it.
“Do you really hate her?” I ask, wiping a crumb from the corner of her lip.
She frowns. “No. Not at all. But I’ve always been a daddy’s girl.” Her eyes seem to brighten as she continues. “When I was little, he used to take me to all his business meetings. I became obsessed with the company. He was so powerful and demanding. I used to practice his facial expressions in the mirror. Eventually, I perfected them.”
“Where is he now?”
Her eyes narrow as she peels the label from the beer bottle in her hands. “He’s still around. I’m just not his little girl anymore.”
“Do y’all still speak?”
She nods. “When we can. It’s complicated.”
“Doesn’t seem complicated,” I counter, letting her know her excuses don’t pacify me.
“Well, when you’re surrounded by guards and guns and people telling you what you can and can’t do, it is. You want another beer?” she asks, changing the subject.
“Sure.” I watch her naked hips sway as she walks out. Prison must have been too hard of a word for her to say. I guess having a father locked up was about as bad as not having one at all.
She comes back with the beer, and my eyes zoom in on her tits as they bounce when she literally jumps back on the bed. “What about your parents?” she asks, twisting the top off and handing the bottle to me.
“I don’t have any.” I turn up the beer, helping it wash away the reminder. When I look at her, she sits expectantly, waiting for me to elaborate. “I was born a ward of the state. You know those movies where people drop their babies off on the doorsteps of an orphanage? Well that shit happens in real life too.”
“But you have a family,” she says, and I remember I told her my family was the reason I was away for so long.
“Adoptive family. They took me in, when I was older. Helped me get on the right path.” I look down at my beer bottle, unable to meet her eyes. I’m not lying to her, I’m just not telling the whole truth. In my book, that’s the same damn thing.
“Family is family. And at the end of the day, your family is all you have.” Like she’s done so many times before, her words are rehearsed—like she’s been told that her whole life.
“That’s some Mafia shit right there,” I say, tilting my beer to her.
She laughs. “I guess I’ve been watching too much Scarface. What can I say? I love Al Pacino.”
“Want to shay ’ello to my lil’ friend?” I ask in my best Tony Montana voice.
She pulls her lip between her teeth, crawling seductively across the bed and straddling my lap. “I thought you’d never ask.”
19
IT’S MIDNIGHT. DIEM is laying in my bed, the covers tangled at her feet. And I’m just standing in the doorway watching her sleep. There’s something about it that’s peaceful—a peace I’ve never experienced.