Page 31 of Blind Sin

“Good luck with that!” Mercier says, moving close to her and miming licking her ear.

Fucking moron. We’ve behaved like fucking well behaved schoolboys for Lucinda’s benefit, but watching Mercier is pissing me off. His hand is on her knee in such an easy way. A wave of bitterness washes over me, filling my veins with a toxic mix of frustration and resentment. A pang of jealousy hits me again, but under it there’s something else. I like it. I watch his fingers tapping lightly on her knee. There’s nothing sexual about it. Lauren’s not making anything of it and neither is Mercier. Both of them are absorbed in their books, but as I watch, I find I want him to move his hand upward, under the hem of the yellow sundress Lucinda brought back for her from the mainland. My mind dissolves into a full blown fantasy of watching my best friend fucking my girl over the chair.

“I think Nolan mentioned we should stop before reaching this point,” Lucinda remarks, her voice tinged with amusement. Taking control, she gently takes the pan handle from my grasp and turns off the heat.

I glance at the charred mess in the pan. “Fuck!”

A hint of self-deprecating humor enters Lucinda's voice as she responds, “And here I was thinking I was the worst cook here.”

My lips moisten with a flick of my tongue as I reach out to reclaim the pan from Lucinda, deliberately ensuring that our hands brush against each other. She shoots me an odd, questioning look that immediately sends waves of unease crashing through my stomach. What the fuck am I doing? I don't want Lucinda, so why am I flirting with her? Because I think fucking her will be like a surrogate for fucking Lauren? Or am I simply so pitifully jealous of the easy connection between my best friend and Lauren that I'm willing to stoop this low? Maybe I should just step back and let him have her, if only to exorcise the tormenting images of them together from my mind.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?”

My stomach squeezes as Lucinda pulls me away from the kitchen, away from Mercier and Lauren and into the corridor to our bedrooms. I guess the dinner will have to wait.

I’m pretty sure she’s about to ball me out for flirting with her, or tell me to get Mercier to back away from her sister. What I’m not prepared for is her going in for a kiss. It’s like being kissed by my mother, a peck on my cheek. I don’t know what to think as she pulls back and smiles at me.

“Want to tell me what the fuck that was about?”

“I want to think you for watching Lauren this afternoon.” She pauses. “I didn’t want to leave her with you. I wasn’t sure if I could trust you, but it seems maybe I was mistaken.”

Guilt bites at me over what happened in my room earlier. Sure, it was only a kiss, but if Lucinda and Mercier hadn’t gotten home when we did, I’d have had Lauren in my bed. The promise I made to Lucinda is already broken, if only in my thoughts, because I know now that if Lauren pulls another stunt like she did earlier, I won’t be able to resist her.

I don’t say anything because I’m not about to lie to her. Any other words I choose would only ring false and I’m not like Mercier. I can’t bullshit people without some remorse.

Lucinda bites her bottom lip in the exact way Lauren does which sends a thrill right down to my cock which I have to ignore if only for the sake of my sanity. “I want whatever Mercier and Lauren has.”

So much for my sanity. “What Lauren and Mercier have?” I know I’m going to regret asking, “What do they have?”

She gives me a shy smile and lowers her eyes. “You want Lauren and you’re jealous because Mercier has been rubbing his fingers up and down her leg for the last hour.”

I snap my head toward the kitchen in shock, but of course I can’t see them from here. They are just round the corner out of eyesight. Fuck. Remembering what he did when he was left with Lauren alone last time floods into my memories. “It doesn’t bother you? After what you said when we came onto the island?”

She follows my gaze then turns her eyes back to me. “What I said still stands. No one is fucking her. Not Nolan, not you... not Josh, but yes it bothers me. I feel about them the same way you do.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” I say as an image of Mercier and Lauren consume my mind, his hand up her dress. I don’t bat it away, but let it linger as Lucinda continues.

“You don’t need to pretend. I see the way you look at her. You’re jealous and so am I, except instead of one of you, I have three of you to be jealous of... Well, I guess I’m jealous of just Lauren and I hate that. She deserves the world.”

I’m totally at a loss with how this conversation is going.

“What about you and Nix?” I say, desperate to change the direction of this conversation before I say or do something I’ll regret.

As soon as I mention Nix’s name, her smile melts into a sad frown and not for the first time, I wonder what unfinished business there is between them. “Nix won't even talk to me,” she confesses. “But that's neither here nor there. I love him with all my heart, and I always will, but he was looking at Lauren the same way you and Mercier do on the boat. As though he wants her.”

So much for pretending I don’t give a shit about Lauren. Lucinda sees more than she lets on and that’s going to make it harder for all of us.

“Nix is complicated. I know what happened is a long time in the past, but Nix took a hit that I don’t think he ever recovered from. When we found Lauren, I think he thought that he’d gotten a second chance he never expected to get. Sleeping with Lauren didn’t get you out of his system, it only made things more complicated.”

Her eyelashes flutter downward and I see an eternity of sadness locked up in this woman. “You know I never meant to hurt him.”

I want to pull her into a hug, but I get the feeling that she won’t appreciate it. She’s had men take advantage her whole life, and something that I might perceive to be as simple as a hug might trigger her. Instead I give her what I think she needs more than anything. The truth. “Nix loved you. He was consumed by you as any fifteen year old would be with such a beautiful young woman and he believed you loved him...”

“I did love him. I loved him with every part of my soul,” she says clutching her hands together.

“I know you did and Nix knows it too. I think that’s why this is so hard on him.”

“That’s why I broke up with him.” He voice breaks slightly. “I’ve tried explaining that I broke up with him to save him, but he doesn’t get it.”

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