Page 22 of A Sinner's Virtue
Zoe moans as her tongue swirls around mine. Then she breaks the kiss and opens her eyes. “I think we’re doing this anyway.” She smiles. “But I really do need to get back to work.”
“I’ll call you later,” I tell her as she gets out of the car. Then I wait for her to walk into her office building before I drive away. “What the fuck are you doing? You know better,” I ask aloud, to no one but myself.
Chapter Ten
Idon’t know why I’m so nervous. I’ve talked to Izzy and Mikhail about a guy before. They both met my last boyfriend. Well, my first and only boyfriend. And Marcel isn’t my boyfriend. I don’t know what he is, but I do know that I don’t want to give him up just yet.
He doesn’t look at me like I’m broken, even though I know I am. He doesn’t look at me like I’m a project that needs to be fixed or something he’s ashamed of. When Marcel looks at me, all I see is desire. He wants me, despite my sharp edges and shattered parts.
He hasn’t exactly seen the worst of it yet, but he’s not stupid. He knows something happened to me. The way he gives me space when he knows I need it, and then how he just seems to know when I don’t. The way he handles my body when we’re… intimate. It’s a kind of sex I never thought I could possibly like. With Flynn, it was always gentle, slow. Almost as if he was terrified of making me upset. I liked it. I thought it was what I needed.
Or maybe it’s not how the sex is at all. Maybe it’s the man himself. Marcel is everything I don’t want in a boyfriend, and at the same time, he’s everything I want right now. My head is so confused. Maybe I shouldn’t talk to Izzy about him yet. I mean, it’s not even anything serious.
As if the woman has some psychic power, my adoptive mother’s name pops up on my phone, causing the device to dance around the kitchen counter. I’ve been pacing for an hour, debating whether or not to call her, and here she is.
Picking the phone up, I swipe the green answer symbol and bring it to my ear. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. How’re things?” Izzy asks.
“Good, hot.”
“You could always come home. It’s not hot here,” she reminds me.
“I think I like someone and I think it’s someone you’re not going to like, but I really like him and now I don’t know what to do,” I blurt out in one long rush of words.
“Whoa, slow down and take a breath,” Izzy says. “You good?”
“Mhmm,” I mumble.
“Okay, start at the beginning. Who is this someone you like that I’m not going to like?”
“It’s the guy, the one I met that night I went out,” I tell her.
“That was a few weeks ago. You met him again? How?”
“Ah, well, funny thing actually. He’s a friend of Dominic and Lucy’s…”
“Dom knows this guy?” Izzy questions.
“Uh-huh. They’re friends,” I reiterate.
“Okay, we both know Dominic doesn’t have any friends. But let’s pretend this guy of yours is friends with Dom. Continue. What’s going on?”
“We’ve met up a few times. That’s it really. But I think I really like him, Izzy.”
“So, what’s the problem? I’m assuming if you’re going back for seconds or thirds, he’s not a dud in the bedroom.”
“No, he’s really not. He’s… Well, he’s really good.” I laugh.
“Okay. And what’s his name?”
“First, did you know that some of Mikhail’s contacts beat him up five days ago?” I ask instead of answering her.
“Why would I know that? I don’t even know who this mystery guy is. What’d he do that deserved him getting beat up?”
“He followed me into the club. He’s… ah… not exactly on friendly terms with the local Russians.”
“Why?”
