Page 18 of Breaking the Sinner

Her eyes fluttered shut. “Yeah. You’re right. I thought I told you to forget about that?”

He laughed softly. “Guess I didn’t forget this one.” Cobra’s feet scuffed softly as he stepped closer. The electric hum of the overhead lights rang so loud in the quiet air between them, it sounded like a table saw. “So what happened?”

Gen swallowed a knot. “Is this part of the training stuff or do you just want to know?”

“Both.”

“Okay.” She crossed her arms over her chest, steeling herself to tell the tale. Sometimes it didn’t come out easily. “I was in a car wreck a year ago. My left leg was crushed on impact, and there was some nerve damage. Doctors said I would never walk again.”

So that explained the scar he’d noticed whenever she wore shorts. “But you’re walking.”

“Yeah. Sometimes not very well.”

He sniffed, that chocolate gaze sliding down her legs. Static electricity coursed through her. “I saw. That night I took you home.”

She groaned. “I want to forget that night ever happened.”

A high-grade, mischievous grin crossed his lips. “But you don’t even remember it in the first place.”

She snorted. “Fair enough.”

Cobra snatched a pen from the bench press and clicked it in his left hand a couple times. “Is that why you made the list?”

In the silence after his words, Gen remembered her promise to herself the night before.Time to run with the horses.She lifted her chin. She was tired of cowering, of only imagining how these opportunities might go. It was time to fling herself forward. Even if it ended in a splat.

“This doesn’t sound like it’s related to training anymore.” She attempted a sexy brow lift. “I think you just want to get to know me.”

The hand holding the pen lowered, and something unreadable flattened his expression. She couldn’t tell if she was spot on or about to find a seventh level of embarrassment. “Maybe. But wouldn’t you be curious if you found a list with ‘fix my leg’ on it?”

That was the least of the items on the list. The truth burned in her. “Of course.”Admit you saw the virgin entry already.“Not to mention all the other ridiculous things on that list.”

The pen clicked again, and he watched her so long she thought she might wilt under the attention.

Cobra turned abruptly, returning to his pile of papers. The absence of his gaze felt like a cold wind whipping past her.

“I want to help you with the list,” Cobra said, picking up a sheet. He handed it to her, something molten in his onyx eyes. He stepped closer. Her heart rate picked up, and she started to step backward. The way she’d been trained her whole life.

But she caught herself in time. Stood her ground. Stayed rooted. This washerspace.

“You already are.”

His cheek twitched. “Therestof the list.”

Yesbubbled up inside her and threatened to bellow out with as much force as the politeno thank youalways ready to pop out at a moment’s notice. This was the day of testing her new resolution, apparently. See how far Gen could be shoved into the Discomfort Zone.

She struggled to keep her composure. No handbook existed for this. Too many hormones plus too much repression equaled her: a loose cannon way out of her element, ready to grind up against Cobra right here in the middle of the spare workout room.

Wouldn’t that be a fun snapshot to send home to her siblings and parents?

“I made that list a long time ago,” she said, her cheeks already flaming.

“But you only crossed off one thing.”

Crap.“I don’t keep it updated. It’s not, like, my priority.” She drew a shaky breath.

“Do you want to go get coffee tomorrow?”

She couldn’t even look up at him. Excitement throbbed behind her ribs. “Yes.”

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