Guilty As Sin (Sin Trilogy#2)

She stared down at me for a few moments before she closed the window and the light went out.

Fuck. Seriously? She’s just going to shut me down like that?



All this time I’d been telling myself that it was Ricky and Asa and Karma keeping me away from Whitney, but maybe I was wrong.

Maybe she didn’t want to see me at all.

Maybe she couldn’t get over what happened.

Maybe this was all for nothing . . .

I watched her window for another sign of life, but it didn’t come. Frustrated, I jammed my hand into my hair.

“Come on, Blue . . . just give me a chance,” I whispered.

“That’s what I’m doing, but we have to get out of here.”

Whitney’s voice came from beside me, scaring the living shit out of me.

“Jesus Christ. I didn’t—”

“Where’d you park? We gotta get out of here before someone sees.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I grabbed her hand, and together we jogged down the street to where I parked my truck a block away so no one would see it.

Just having her hand in mine felt so good, I didn’t want to let it go. I kept a tight grip on her until I opened the passenger door and helped her in. She was in tiny white pajama shorts, a tank top, no bra, and flip-flops.

God does exist.

As soon as I shut her door, I hustled around to my side and jumped in.

“Where can we go that’s safe?” she asked. “The cabin?”

When she looked at me, all I wanted to do was drag her across the center console and hold her in my arms.

Not yet.

“Yeah. That’ll work.” As I turned the key, I thought of what happened last time I was there, and how Commodore made me hide out until the black eyes faded, which was yesterday.

I pulled away from the curb and reached out to find Whitney’s hand. She grasped mine and kept a tight grip as we drove through town.

We both held our breath as we crossed the bridge where our parents had died. The guardrail had been replaced, and aside from the marks on the pavement, you’d never know it had happened.

“I’m so sorry about your dad.” She spoke so quietly that I barely heard her say it as we cleared the other side of the bridge. “Really sorry. I can’t believe . . .” Her voice broke.

“I know. It’s not your fault. None of it. I’m so fucking sorry about your parents. I’m sorry about every single fucking bit of it. That I didn’t listen to you about Ricky. That we fought. For what my mother said at the hospital. All of it.” I looked over at Whitney in the passenger seat, and the street lights illuminated her stricken face every few seconds. “Please don’t cry, Blue. Please.”

“It still doesn’t feel real, does it? I mean . . . if I try to forget the funeral, sometimes I can almost convince myself that I just haven’t seen my parents in a couple weeks, and they’ll walk through the door anytime. It doesn’t feel like they’re gone forever. Like I’ll never get to see them again.”

I couldn’t stop the tears tracking down her face, but I did feel every bit of the anguish in her tone and understood exactly what she meant. “I get it. It’s like my dad is on an overseas business trip and is ignoring the fact he has a family.”

“Why does it have to be real? Why do so many bad things have to happen? And why—”

I didn’t know what other question she was going to ask, but she cut herself off.

“What?”

“Nothing. I don’t want to think about it tonight. I don’t really want to think about any of it. That’s all I do, is think about it. I’m so tired of feeling broken.”

I squeezed her hand harder as we turned down the gravel drive that led to the cabin, and I parked. “Let me help put you back together, Blue. That’s all I want.”



I helped her out of the truck and kept her pressed tightly to my side as we entered the cabin. As soon as the door closed, I wrapped my arms around her and held her against my chest. I rested my chin on her head, and together we stood there in silence.

“I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry.”

Her body shook, and I rocked her from side to side until she finally looked up at me. “I didn’t know how much I needed that until right now.”

I threaded my fingers into her hair and cradled the back of her head. “I’ll help you any way I can, Blue. All you have to do is tell me what you need.”

Her arms wrapped around my neck.

“You. I need you.”





48





WHITNEY





I’D BEEN DROWNING in grief for what seemed like a million years, sleepwalking through every minute of every day, but as soon as Lincoln wrapped his arms around me, it was like I snapped awake.

“I don’t want to talk about what happened,” I told him. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to drown anymore.”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. I’ve got you. I won’t let you go until you tell me to.”

I never want him to let me go.

I pulled Lincoln’s head down to mine and took control of the kiss. Power flooded my veins, and I finally felt like I had control over something in my life. It was a heady illusion, but I was going to take every bit of it I could get.

“Blue—” He said my nickname against my lips, but I wasn’t stopping.

“Just kiss me.”

“Whatever you want. Tonight’s all about you.”

He bent his knees, slid an arm under my legs, and picked me up. I gripped the muscles of his shoulders and they flexed and hardened.

Just the simple act of having my hands on him reminded me that I was alive. I hadn’t felt alive since they told me my parents were gone.

No. Not thinking about that.

Lincoln laid me on the bed, and I snagged the hem of his shirt before he could step away.

“Off. Take it off.”

He didn’t question me, just whipped the shirt over his head.

“I don’t want sweet or soft. I want . . .” My words trailed off because I didn’t know how to express what I needed. “I want to feel alive.”

A wave of emotion flashed across Lincoln’s face, but it was gone before I could identify it.

“I know. I need that too.”

I sat up and reached for the button on his jeans, flipping it free and letting them fall. When he was standing naked before me, the sight was enough to block any coherent thought from my brain other than this feels right.

He stepped forward, and I reached for him as he slipped my straps off my shoulders. “I’ve missed you so fucking much.”

“Hurry.” I shimmied out of my shorts and tossed my tank over my head.

Thoughts of how it was the last time we were here and how it ended start to invade my brain, and I had to block them out. I bolted up to my knees and threw myself at him, my chest against his, my hands tangling in the ends of his hair.

It was like flipping a switch on Lincoln. His hands clutched my shoulders and then one dropped to my ass. I bucked my hips against him, trapping his cock between us.

“God, Blue.”

“Stop talking to God and take me.”

I dropped to my butt and spread my legs wide, pulling him between them.



“We need—”

“I don’t care right now. I just need to feel this and forget everything else.”

Lincoln’s expression hardened as if he was fighting a battle with himself, and clearly, I lost. He didn’t push inside me, bare, the way I expected. No, he dropped to his knees and his mouth found my center. His tongue swept my lips apart, lashing me over and over as he teased my clit. My hips lifted, and he used one hand to hold me down as the other circled a finger around my entrance.

“You want me here.” He pushed in to the first knuckle before pulling free.

“Yes.”

His fingers slid inside, but it wasn’t his fingers I wanted. But the pleasure assaulted my senses, and I let it build. Blood pounded in my ears, drowning out my own moans as he added another finger. His lips latched onto my clit and he sucked, tripping me over the edge to orgasm. My inner muscles clamped down on his fingers as I came.

“Fuck, Blue. Fuck.”

He pulled free and seconds later, I was full again, but this time his cock stretched me wide as he pounded into me.