Page 13 of The Bane of a Sinner
“How is that possible?”
“My best guess, someone drugged my beer.” A bitter laugh escaped me, a sound I hated. It felt false, even to my own ears. Did I really not know? The memory of my best friend handing me the drink was sharp, but the faces blurred around him, a swirling kaleidoscope of smiles and shadows. Could I have been so easily manipulated? The thought gnawed at me, eating away at my self-assurance.
“But you said Montana handed you the beer.”
I slowly nodded. “There were so many people there that day. Honestly, Diana, I don’t know who handed me the beer. Only that when I woke up, Meredith was sitting on the edge of the bed smiling, and George Stone was standing in the doorway.” My stomach churned. George’s smug face burned in my mind. And the chilling possibility that Meredith was somehow complicit, in on it from the beginning, twisted in my gut.
“Why would George set you up like that?”
“I’ve been asking that same question for seven years, and I’m still no closer to the answer. All I know is, he told me if I joined the club, no one would ever see the evidence. That he would make it go away.” My words churned my stomach. Joining the club—a brotherhood of powerful men protecting their own—had been a desperate act, a choice born of terror and a crippling lack of any other options. A choice that violated every fiber of my being. I’d betrayed my ideals, compromised my integrity, all to protect myself from a potential ruin I couldn’t fathom facing. “And now I’m part of a club that I hate, and if I leave, the club president will destroy my life.” The admission felt like a confession in a dark confessional.
Reaching for her hands, I looked directly at her and added, “Baby, I didn’t do it. I would never rape anyone. You have to believe me.” But even as the words left my lips, a slither of cold doubt snaked around my heart. What if it were true? What if the hazy memory was a convenient shield, protecting me from the horrifying truth of my own weakness, my own complicity in this nightmare?
Cupping my face, she whispered, “I believe you, August. It’s not in your nature to do harm. You’re built to protect and save the innocent, not hurt them.” Her words were a lifeline, yet they felt insufficient against the weight of my own self-loathing. The knowledge that I’d allowed myself to be manipulated, that I’d become a part of the very system I despised, was a burden heavier than any accusation.
For a long moment, silence hung between us, heavy with the weight of everything unsaid. Diana’s fingers lingered on my cheek, her gaze unwavering, offering a fragile hope. But the tainted hope was overshadowed by the bitter taste of my own failure, my own surrender to fear, and the crushing realization that even if I escaped this accusation, I was already irrevocably changed, tarnished by my association with the very darkness I had sworn to fight. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, a breath that carried the weight of a thousand unspoken regrets.
Chapter Seven
August
That night, I lay in bed holding Diana as she slept peacefully, yet I couldn’t get my mind to shut off. I just wanted a weekend with the woman I loved. No drama, no secrets, no revelations. Just happiness and relaxation. I didn’t think that was too much to ask.
Sleep came fitfully, broken by flashes of memory and anxious shadows that haunted the quiet. Dawn crept in, painting Diana’s hair gold where it spilled over my chest. For a moment, I imagined we were far from all this, somewhere untouched by secrets—her touch, her breath, the only truth I needed.
But the world refused to grant reprieve. By morning, the air in my apartment felt charged, heavy with anticipation and the sense that something was always just about to break loose. Diana stirred, her lashes fluttering against my skin, and I pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, wanting to freeze the moment before the outside world crashed in.
“Have you been up all night?” She yawned, looking up at me.
Combing my fingers through her hair, I tried to smile, the gesture feeling strained and false. “I couldn’t sleep,” I murmured, my thumb tracing patterns on her skin, the familiar comfort a thin veil over the churning anxiety inside. “I just have a lot on my mind.” That was a lie. I knew what was on my mind, and it was a betrayal, a violation of everything I claimed to believe in.
Her smirk felt like a challenge, a knowing judgment. “Well,” she purred, her hand sliding down my stomach, the casualintimacy a stark contrast to the storm raging within me. “How about I take your mind off whatever you’re thinking?”
My response caught in my throat. Part of me, the desperate, yearning part, wanted to succumb. To lose myself in the physical, to drown out the gnawing guilt. But another part, a stronger, quieter voice, screamed a warning. This wasn’t right. This life wasn’t for her. It wasn’t for me either. She deserved better than this hollow imitation of nothing.
Grinning, I teased, “I’m always up for whatever you want to do.” Even as the words left my lips, I knew I was condemning her to the wrong path, a path paved with regret. The choice wasn’t between pleasure and abstinence; it was between momentary escape and long-term damage, between betrayal and honesty, a choice that felt like a slow, agonizing descent into a darkness I wasn’t sure I could get either of us out of.
Her chuckle was light, but my heart hammered against my ribs. Her fingers, nimble and sure, slipped between the bed sheet and found their mark. And with a shuddering breath, I knew I was failing—failing myself, failing her, failing the person I desperately wanted to be.
This wasn’t just a bad choice; it was a surrender, a capitulation to the insidious voice of self-destruction that whispered promises of oblivion and, God forgive me, I couldn’t tell her no. I didn’t want to. For the first time in seven years, I wanted to be a selfish bastard and take what was being offered and damn the consequences.
My heart a frantic drum against my ribs, a silent roar only I could hear, and I seized her. No wasted breath, no preamble—just the brutal, desperate press of my lips against hers. The kiss wasn’t a kiss; it was a collision, a volcanic eruption of need that threatened to consume me whole. Her taste—the faintest hint of wild strawberries and something darker, more primal—burned a path straight to my soul. The scent of her skin—a heady mixof vanilla and musk—intoxicated me. She was the oxygen in my lungs, the blood in my veins, the very rhythm of my existence. And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that the chasm between the firestorm raging within me and the cool indifference in her eyes was an abyss I might never bridge.
“Be certain, Diana,” I rasped. My words tore from my throat like ragged cloth. “Because without you, I’m nothing. A ghost, dust.”
Her gaze, a shimmering pool reflecting a moonless night, held a depth I couldn’t fathom. A flicker of something... was it pity? Or something darker—a recognition of the power she held over me? It was chilling, either way.
“I know,” she breathed, the whisper brushing my skin like a feather, yet carrying the weight of centuries.
“Say it, damn you, say it!” My voice was a raw, guttural plea, a desperate prayer to a God who might not exist. “Say you’re mine. Forever. Truly forever.”
My words hung between us, heavy with unspoken anxieties and a future that felt both incandescent and terrifyingly fragile.
“Forever,” she repeated, the declaration a fragile bridge across an unforgiving gulf.
A primal surge, a reckless rebirth of courage, slammed the door shut behind me. My hands, raw with need, clamped onto her ass and hauled her up in a move as brutal as it was desperate. My kiss—a determined, ravenous claim—never faltered as I spun her onto her back, the soft cotton sheets of my bed a counterpoint to the heat exploding between us. Clothes flew, landing in a crumpled heap amidst the rising scent of her perfume and the musky tang of our combined arousal. My mind was a maelstrom, a raging inferno of lust and a desperate hunger for her.
A slow, knowing smile played on her lips—a dangerous curve that belied the innocence flickering in her eyes. She sat up,offering herself. The silken whisper of her shirt against her skin as I peeled it over her head, her arms raised in supplication—a gesture both surrender and defiance—was agony. But the raw, primal urge to possess her, to consume her, overwhelmed me.
