Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)

I flash her a smile. “Believe it. And get in.”

Moments later I’m pulling the cherry-red muscle car out of the hotel’s driveway and we’re screaming down California Street like a scene from a classic film. Violet’s red fingernails grip the dashboard as she squeals in a mix of fear and delight, her cries getting louder as we burn through green lights until we brake to a hard stop near the ferry building.

“Holy shit,” she says, looking at me in awe. “I’ve always wanted to pretend to be Steve McQueen.”

She’s breathless, her face flushed, eyes bright and shiny. She looks like sex. It takes all my control to keep my hands on the wheel, my attention on the road. That heated urge to possess her is climbing through my veins and I have to take a deep steadying breath to quell it. I’m not used to having my desires kept in check—I’ve always been brutally upfront about what I want. But with Violet, I have to be careful. I can’t scare her off.

And honestly, I don’t want to. Every moment I’m spending with her is another layer unwrapped, and another challenge lying in wait.

I love challenges.

San Francisco is a hilly collection of one-way streets, and while I obviously don’t know the city well outside of what I learned from the guidebooks, I take the car down the Embarcadero, past the piers and the trams that trundle between Phoenix palms, past yacht clubs, beaches, Crissy field, until Violet is telling me to pull over.

“I thought you were directing me to old Fort Point,” I say, gesturing to the decaying old military fortress beneath the pillars of the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Too cliché,” she says, getting out of the car. “Come with me.”

We stop at a café where I buy her a decaf latte with almond milk, and then head out onto Torpedo Wharf which sticks out into the bay like a broken thumb.

At the end of the pier, we find a spot where no one is fishing and she leans against the wood railing, staring silently at the bridge.

The fog is continuing to roll in, bringing a briny mist that you can taste. Only the tops of the bridge remain visible, the orange red seeming to glow against grey skies, while shadows of the structure come and go as the fog moves in.

Violet stares in quiet fascination, her dark eyes taking it in. I can see the fog reflected in them, giving her an eerie quality. She appears to be listening but whether it’s the fog horns, the chatter of the fishermen, the lapping waves, or the dull roar of the bridge traffic, I don’t know. Could be something else entirely.

I don’t want to break her concentration or bring her back from whatever world she’s in. I just stand beside her and let her be. If anything, it says a lot about her comfort level with me if she lets herself drift away.

After a few minutes, she slowly turns to me and blinks. “How long did you say you were going to be in San Francisco for?”

“I don’t know,” I say carefully. “It depends if I find what I’m looking for.”

“And what are you looking for?”

“A reason to stay.” I hold her gaze with mine. The sea breeze picks up a few strands of her hair, moving them across her face like a black veil. Without thinking, I reach over and brush them away, tucking them behind her ear.

I could kiss her. I should kiss her. The feel of her skin against my fingers ignites a million torches inside.

Then she looks away, uncomfortable, the silence between us changing.

I steer the subject onto her. “You said your mother is a famous photographer. Does she have a studio?”

She lets out a soft sigh, her eyes back on the bridge. “Yeah. In the Mission District.”

“And you don’t want the same for yourself?”

She rubs her lips together in thought before looking down at her hands that hang over the side of the railing. “As I said, I don’t know what I want. I’m not sure I feel comfortable with the idea of having a studio. My mom does portraits of people. That’s not what I like to shoot.”

“Not a people person?”

A wry smile cracks her lips. “No. Not really. It’s too…intimate. My mom is great at it because people feel comfortable with her. She can…I don’t know, manipulate their feelings.”

Interesting. Very interesting.

People like my father.

“So they end up exposing pieces of themselves that they don’t see. I guess I have the same intuition as her but the one on one is too much for me. I prefer to work with nature. With this.” She gestures to the fog. “No one else really understands how beautiful this is to me.”

I look back at the fog, moving faster now. I wouldn’t call it beautiful. Moody. Dark, maybe. If anything, her beauty stands out more because of the bleakness around her.

“My goal is to take photos that show how I see the world. All the beauty in it. The world is such an ugly and beautiful place, horrible and hopeful. I want to show the light in all the dark places.” She pauses and gives me a sheepish look. “Sorry. I know that must have sounded hella pretentious.”

I slowly shake my head because she sounds anything but that. She sounds real. She sounds like something I want to shake loose from her, to let free and run wild.

“You’re not pretentious,” I tell her, my voice low. “Not even close.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

“What do you hear?” I move in closer to her, the distance between us just a few inches. She doesn’t back up. “What does the world tell you you are?”