Page 77 of Breaking the Sinner

Cobra flopped onto his back, studying the ceiling as if the words he should use might be written there. What else was there to say? “I don’t deserve you. Not even a little bit.”

Her eyes snapped open, and she pushed herself up, searching his face. “I don’t get it. How can you not deserve me?”

“You’re too good for me.” He held her gaze, even though it hurt. This was the truest damn thing he’d ever said. “You’re pure light, Gen. And I’m…” He shook his head. “I’m the shit that nightmares are made out of.”

“You haven’t been a nightmare,” she murmured. “Not for a second. You’re like a dream.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true!” The ridge of her brows returned. “Meeting you has been a dream. More than a dream. A fantasy I never knew could become real.”

A hundred ways to negate her words came to mind. But he kept his mouth shut. She’d only come back with more justification, and he didn’t want to hear that.

“I know family is technically blood and all that,” she went on, “but…sometimes I think you and Sophie are as important to me as family.”

His chest tightened, confirming the reality: she was far too deep. And maybe he was too. He should have bowed out of this weeks ago.

“So what am I,” he croaked. “Your brother?”

A dazzling smile spread across her face. The kind that made him want to throw everything else in his life away, just for a chance to be with her.

“You can’t have sex with your brother,” he teased.

“You’re like my…” She shook her head. “Never mind. But you’re still family.”

“What am I?”

A flush crept up her neck. “Nothing.”

“Say it, Genny.”

She rolled her lips inward. “For the sake of the metaphor…you’d be like my husband.”

The word punctured him at the same time it soothed. He’d never be anyone’s husband.Yet…“Which means for the sake of the metaphor, we should be having sex by now.”

A giggle rippled out of her. “Easy there, hubby.”

The joking pet name didn’t bother him as much as he expected. But still, it pointed at the problem once more. He ran his knuckles along her jawline. Let the silence settle, thick and restorative, before he continued speaking.

“I’m serious. You can’t be with someone like me.” These were the words he told himself every day. To remind himself. To make it true. “Even if you think I’m family.”

Her eyes fluttered shut. “I don’t get it.”

“You deserve someone so much better. Someone who went to school. Someone who wants kids. Someone who at least believes in God.”

Her voice was so small he almost didn’t catch it. “But I wantyou.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. So he didn’t have to see the hurt on her face. “Gen. I’m nobody. That’s what you don’t get.”

When he opened his eyes again, she watched him as if he’d spoken in a foreign language.

“Don’t talk to me like I don’t see the world around me. I might be sheltered, but I’m not an idiot.”

“I didn’t say you were—”

“I’m not blind. I see your greatness. I see your beauty. I see yourgoodness.”

Cobra scoffed, ready to refute her, but she barreled on.

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