Page 39 of Sin

“Look,” He runs his hands through his thick, dark hair, “I’m in a kind of fucked up situation and I acted out,” he admits. “And Sin had his own devils he was trying to burn off tonight. We were just using each other in the moment. We both knew it didn’t mean anything.”

“What do you mean by devils?” I demand.

“That’s for him to tell you,” Mercer says, “I have a feeling they’re all about to come out tonight anyway. Do me a favor, though.”

“What?” I ask suspiciously.

“Don’t let Sin hide from you or ice you out, Cassidy. He can be a cold bastard when he wants to be, but if anyone can thaw him, it’s you.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I stay quiet.

“But whatever happens, I’m sorry for the shit show that tonight turned out to be.”

I’m caught by the genuineness of his words. “Thank you,” I say and mean it.

The smirk makes a reappearance. “Does that mean you hate me a little less now?”

“Maybe by about this much less.” I place my thumb and index finger about an inch apart.

“I can work with that,” he says, reaching over and giving me a small, playful shove.

“The biker wasn’t enough?” Sin’s icy voice fills the room. I turn to see him freshly showered and wearing just a pair of sweats, standing in the doorway of his bedroom. “Now you’re flirting with my best friend?” He walks into the room and places himself between us. He glares at me. “Are you going to kiss him too?”

“I didn’t kiss anyone.” I shoot back. “I’m the only one in this room right now that can say that.”

“Okay.” Mercer claps his hands. “Looks like it’s time for me to get the hell out of here. You,” he points a finger at Sin, “behave. And you,” he winks at me, “give him hell, Cassidy.” Mercer says and lets himself out.

As soon as the door shuts behind him, Sin turns and crowds me up against the hotel wall. His gray eyes, cold and sparkling with fury. “I can’t believe you let a stranger kiss you.”

From Sin’s angle, he must have missed that the biker had never kissed me. Even after I’d begged him to, all I’d gotten from him was a brush of his lips on my cheek.

I refuse to admit that to Sin. That another man besides him also found me so lacking that he could only force himself to drop a light, chaste kiss on me.

“So that ginger-haired guy you and Mercer were dancing with. The one wearing the see-through shirt. Do you know him?

“No.” Sin waves my question off like an irritation. “Never saw him before.”

“So, he’s a stranger, then?” I wait for Sin to get his inherent hypocrisy, but he seems to be clueless to my point. “The man neither you nor Mercer knew, but took turns kissing and rutting against.”

He finally gets my argument, but doesn’t seem to take it seriously. “That was nothing,” he scoffs.

I laugh. “You and Mercer both have really strange ideas of what constitutes nothing.”

“I didn’t go off with some tattooed bastard who is way too old for me,” he growls.

“You don’t get to tell me whom I can kiss,” I tell him. “You’re my brother, not my lover.”

“Stepbrother,” he snarls, his arms coming up to rest against the wall, leaving me trapped against him. “Is that what that was about, Cassidy?” he demands his breath almost a caress on my cheek. “You going off with that older biker to do god-knows-what in that dark corner?” He leans into my ear and whispers, “Were you trying to get big brother’s attention?”

Sin leans in closer, our bodies almost touching. I strain to close the space between us, but his hold on me is too strong, keeping us a torturous inch apart. Frustration fires through me. This is what he does. He teases me. Provokes me. Forces me close to him, only to throw up a distance between us that he never lets me scale.

I’ve had enough. I’m finally going to call him on it.

I pointedly glance down at Sin’s jeans that show a prominent bulge, and look back up at him, challenging him to deny it. “I think it worked.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Sin gives me a cold, pitying sneer of a grin. “I had to go chase after you, so Mercer didn’t get to finish what he started with the tequila.”

He waits to watch how his barb lands, and when he sees that it has done its intended damage, he pulls back. “Good night, Cassidy,” he says, releasing me and stalking into his bedroom.

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