Page 23 of Breaking the Sinner

“I think that’s up to us. We’re new. We get to decide.” He kicked at some stones on the path, watching them disappear into the mulched beds lining the sidewalk. What he wanted to do was jump right to item number nine of her list:Have sex.Scratch that. He wanted to jump to item number ten:Have GOOD sex.And then repeat it five times over.

Every last part of him craved Gen, and just as much of him knew that she was the last girl he should get involved with.

Was that why he’d offered to help her with the list? Otherwise, rationality would have led him away from her. Now, he could pretend he was doing her a favor. Teaching her something. Showing her new things. Whatever the reason, it was a temporary lending hand. Cobra knew where he fit and who fit with him. Without the list, she would have been another girl who was wrong for too many reasons.

“I dunno. Maybe we should go to the library?” She squinted up at him, one eye pinched against the glare of the late-evening sun.

Warmth trickled through him. He wanted to laugh, but not at her. More like the way proud parents in the sitcoms he used to watch did when their kid did something special. But more than that, too. Like he could eat her up, all at the same time.

“Why do you want to go to the library?”

She shrugged. “A place to hang out.”

Too innocent for words. “I’ve never hung out in a library before.”

“Maybe you should start.”

He caught a hint of sauciness in her tone and knocked his hip into hers. She inhaled sharply.

“I didn’t see the library on your list. But we can still go, if you want.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be on the list, silly. I’ve been going to the library since I was a little girl. My community had a small religious library.”

Cobra sniffed. “It would be sorta new for me. I think I went to the school library once or twice.” He paused, gauging her reaction. They were more different than she could even fathom. “Like, for class.”

“You went to a regular school?”

The question floored him. “Of course. Didn’t you?”

She remained quiet for a few moments, adjusting the cream top stuffed loosely into a pair of high-waisted olive shorts. “I was homeschooled.”

“Ah. Yeah. I know about that.” He nudged her again. Electricity shivered through him. God help him if he ever got this woman naked and alone. He might explode. “They threatened to homeschool me ’cuz I was bad.”

She sent him a sharp glance. “Threatened to?”

“Yeah. Like, if I couldn’t keep my grades up and stop beating people up, they’d make me get homeschooled.”

Sunlight glinted off her auburn tresses, sparkling wild and red in the beam. “I guess it is sort of a punishment. I would have done anything to go to a regular school.”

“Wasn’t that great, I can tell you.” He scuffed his foot against the uneven brick pavement. “Lots of kids. Lots of drama. Lots of homework.”

“What classes did you take?”

He shrugged. “Regular shit. Biology. Math. Chemistry. English.”

She blinked a few times, tracing her fingertips over her cheek as if she’d discovered it for the first time. “Chemistry?”

“Yeah, ever heard of it?”

He’d meant to be funny, but when she didn’t respond, the distance between them—their upbringings, their life experiences—spread open like a gulf. What the fuck was he doing with a chick like this? She basicallywasan alien.

“You didn’t miss much,” he hurried to add. “Lots of chemicals, beakers, and shit. Bunch of equations that I could never keep straight. I failed it, so…”

Silence stretched between them again, and Gen had slowed. Cobra stopped, watching as she bent down to examine spiky plants bursting out of a planter. A smile curled through her lips. She looked up at him, the sunlight washing over her face.

She was an angel.

“I love flowers,” she said simply, popping to her feet. She rejoined him, and they continued walking. “Don’t you?”

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