Page 51 of Dirty Big Sins

“I haven’t felt this way about anyone before. It’s crazy.”

My stomach jolted. Was he saying what I thought he was saying? I didn’t want to assume anything, especially about something this dangerous, but hope slammed into me anyway.

“Never?” I asked, letting all the lingering doubts flood out in that single little word.

“Not exactly. I’ve been consumed before, but not like this.”

“What does that mean?” My fear had not dissipated, but the need to know more about this beautiful man who lived a brutal life overcame everything else.

The look in his eyes changed and I could have sworn took on a note of resignation before he turned me away from him and reached for the soap.

“Face the wall.”

I did not want to look away, I wanted to demand he make me understand the sudden change in his demeanor. Instead I took a deep breath and allowed his now soapy hands to caress their way along my skin, touching every inch of me with a sensual, but also almost reverent sensation.

“Obsession is dangerous and it leaves no room for control. With no control bad things follow.”

I didn’t know if my shuddering breath had more to do with his hands or his words, but it didn’t matter. I needed more.

“What kind of bad things?” I had a feeling he had somehow stepped back into the past and that there was a good chance I wasn’t going to like what he had to say. Still. He had to tell me. “What happened?”

He took his time responding while he grabbed the shower head from its holder and rinsed every inch of me as deftly as he’d washed me. This kind of gentle care flew directly into the face of the ominous danger he referred to and turned him into a dichotomy of confliction.

Just when I thought he would finally tell me more, the shrill ring of my phone went off in the distance.

“Fuck,” he muttered, then shut off the water and grabbed a towel to wrap around me. He didn’t rush as he gently dried me off, but I could see the difference in his demeanor. Whatever he’d been about to say was gone. The spell of what we had in that shower had been broken.

“You should get that. I’m sure your producer needs you.”

“But— ”

He shook his head. “It can wait.”

He said the words, but they rang hollow. Whatever he’d been about to tell me was more important that my fucking phone. Besides, it had already stopped ringing and gone to voicemail.

“Don’t do that. Please. You’re worried about something. Is it the fight?”

“Not exactly.” Those two cryptic words were followed by him wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him back to front. “But I do have something I need to tell you.”

I waited breathlessly, ignoring the electric warmth of our bodies touching. He made it way too easy to get distracted when I couldn’t be in his presence for five minutes without thinking about us getting naked. To ignore the arousal when we were actually naked made it one thousand times harder.

A few minutes had passed before I realized he still hadn’t said anything more. I tried to turn around, but he only tightened his arms to prevent it.

“What is it?” I could feel my anxiety rising the longer he prolonged whatever it was he had to say.

His muscles bunched and tightened as the silence between us grew. That feeling of doom returned tenfold and if he didn’t say something soon, I was going to implode.

And as if on cue, my damned phone began ringing again. I tried to ignore it, but this time it didn’t stop. The continued relentless sound cut into my psyche like a razor-edged knife in its intensity. I half expected blood to begin dripping from my ears. Something was wrong and it wasn’t just whatever Vincent was about to confess.

“Go. Whatever it is it must be important.”

To my credit, I tried to resist, but that sinking pit in my stomach was as unforgiving as my caller.

“I want to hear— ”

When a second phone began to clang at the same time as mine, Vincent nudged me in the direction of the bathroom door. “Seriously. Go. We can talk later.”

For a half a second more I curbed the need to find out what had happened before I gave in to the compulsion. Gripping the edges of the towel, I made my way back into the bedroom and searched for my purse.

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