Page 1 of Breaking the Sinner

Chapter 1

It’ll be like an internship, they said.

Genevieve tugged at the vinyl scrap of cloth barely covering her breasts.

It’ll be fun and exciting, they said.

She frowned into the mirror. This strapless bikini top had been made for ladies with a B cup, and her double-Ds barely fit. But that was the point, after all. Her frown deepened, gaze skating over all the exposed sweeps of her creamy skin. Skin that rarely saw daylight, much less a professionally staged photo shoot for her new place of employment, Holt Body Fitness.

Everything about today made her skin crawl. It was one situation of many that she’d been bred to avoid. Being the object of lusty thoughts via this sexy-time calendar? One-way ticket to hell. And here she was, actively getting on the Inferno Express. This was only day three of the job. What else would be on the docket?

Genevieve took a calming breath.This is fine. This is what you signed up for, after all. This is what you came to Los Angeles to experience. Life itself.

She just hadn’t thought she would be experiencing it sovividly.

One of the receptionists poked her head into the locker room. Melanie. She had a slightly suspicious, but mostly friendly, smile. “You ready to go? Travis is rounding everyone up.”

Gen steeled herself. Rounding everyone up, like the sex cattle they were. She shook the thought from her head. That was her father speaking—and also the whole reason she’d come to LA. To getridof that voice in her head.

“Totally, Melanie.” Gen forced out, releasing her iron grip from the edge of the sink. She sounded like the second-rate friend hired for a crappy nineties movie. Melanie held the door open for her, looking natural and effortless in her revealing scraps of fabric. Of course. Because LA girls didn’t care about revealing their bodies or showing off their God-given assets. Body parts were simply parts of the body here, not a sacred gift to be shared with one’s first and last love, Jesus Christ.

Gen had fantasized for years about what it might feel like to flaunt her body in public. To attract the covetous stares of gorgeous men and even women. Now she had the chance, and she quaked like a newborn colt. She followed Melanie out of the bright locker room on wooden legs, trying to exude the confidence she didn’t feel. To put a firm pep in her step. To be every inch the confident, sexy red-head she wanted her coworkers to believe she was.

Not the mousy little white girl from central California who’d never set foot in a single male’s apartment and still didn’t totally grasp the full extent of what “sixty-nine-ing” entailed.

She’d added that to the list of things to learn and do, though. All in time.

Melanie led her down the sweeping arc of the hallway toward the back gymnasium Gen had visited briefly during her orientation two days ago. Talk about a welcoming committee. It was all chatter and white lights, hair flips and bulging biceps. Industrial ceilings yawned cavernous and infinite, the slate gray flooring equal parts sci-fi and modern. Holt Body Fitness: already the coolest place she’d ever worked. Not to mention theonlyplace she’d ever worked.

The entire staff of Holt Body gathered in various stages of readiness. A few vanity tables lined the edge of the gym, round bulbs dotting the shiny mirrors as stylists perfected hair or makeup. Melanie led her toward the empty chair at the third booth.

“Iliana will do your makeup soon,” Melanie said, but Gen couldn’t move her legs to follow. Melanie looked back over her shoulder, her perfectly shaped eyebrows forming a straight line. “You coming?”

“I forgot something,” Gen said, taking a couple steps backward. She forgot a shapeless tunic to cover herself up with, or maybe her dignity, like her father had alluded to when Gen first suggested the idea of moving out and experiencing the world for a year. Her entire family had reacted as though she’d suggested cutting off a pinky and roasting it for dinner. Her eldest sister, Abigail, had even cried.

Gen connected with something warm and hard. A guttural laugh. Gen inhaled sharply and whipped around. Travis Holt, the eponymous leader of this sex carnival. He squeezed her shoulder, smiling down at her. “Party’s this way, Gen.”

He breezed past her, the muscles of his back a map to a world she didn’t know existed. She stared after him, the same way she had the entire first day of their training. He oozed confidence and success, and it wasn’t just the building surrounding them. He held one of those hard-won secrets to life. The type of secret she was dying to get her hands on.

After so many years kept locked away in a tiny God-fearing bubble, it was time.

She straightened her back and followed Melanie. “Never mind. I don’t need it. I’m ready for hair and makeup.”

Melanie patted the back of the hair stylist’s chair facing the mirror, and Gen slid into the spot, her warm thighs greeting the cool leather eagerly. She looked down at the hot pants she’d squeezed into, a fabric so thin and stretchy it barely counted as clothes. Her legs glared white under the attention of the lights, illuminating the jagged scar running over her knee. She tugged up the waistband of the shorts, but it didn’t help. At least a full mile stretched between her navel and the waistband. Her belly skin crinkled as she sank lower into the seat.

“Wow. What gorgeous hair.” Someone raked fingers through her hair. Gen yanked her gaze to the mirror. A blonde lady with a jagged bob lifted auburn chunks, as if inspecting it for purity.

“Thanks.” Gen slid her hands under her thighs, hunching over, but straightened once she saw how much it made her breasts round under the chest tape of a shirt she had on. She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t realize integrating into the rest of the world would feel so difficult. She wasn’t just new, she was an entirely different species, struggling to pass on a planet designed to intimidate.

She could have picked any industry to launch her Year of the List. Why did it have to be among the most beautiful and confident people she’d ever laid eyes on?

“I’m Jas,” the blonde said simply, as though casually identifying a fruit at the market. “Any special way you want your hair?”

Gen blinked into the mirror, trying to think of a style that differed from her previous Plain Jane life: half up, half down, with a cringeworthy neon blue scrunchie. “Uh, whatever you think looks good. I trust you.” She swallowed hard. “And I’m Gen.”

“Jas and Gen! What a pair.” Her voice sounded flat, almost monotone. Gen couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or distraction due to hair styling, or maybe she was the butt of some joke she didn’t understand.

Gen’s gaze wandered over the fascinating landscape reflected in the mirror. Chests that could adorn the romance novel her pastor father had once ingloriously burned during a sermon. Girly butt cheeks hanging out of hot pants. Practically the set of a soft-core porno. She’d seen her first one last week, so she knew.

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