Page 10 of Sinful Chains

As many women as we’d shared, some even right here on this very pool table, it was hella disingenuous of me to act all private now.

I still remember my first time here. I wasn't a virgin or anything; I'd left that behind in my sophomore year of high school. But my experiences had always been with one girl at a time. Soft. Intimate. The occasional rough sex, or as roughas a young man had it in him to be. In my case, not that rough.

Then I became a member of Omega Theta Tau.

My first moresome was with Revere and a sorority girl named Erica. I'm not ashamed to admit I was scared out of my fucking mind. Not ofher, necessarily, but of the logistics of the whole thing.

It started out awkward as hell, limbs everywhere, me and Rev too focused on not touching each other to please her, the sound of her irritated sighs…it was chaotic, to say the least. But once me and Rev relaxed and stopped trying so hard to avoid each other, shit got good.Realgood.

By the end of junior year, we'd run more trains than Amtrak.

I'm not exactly unaware of the homoerotic implications of all of this. I simply choose to see it as a bonding ritual. Only the girls we bonded over were just…girls. Here for a good time, not a long time.

Santari was special.

Cruz grinned. “I'm not trying to get in your business, but is it that you're worriedshe won’t stick around when she finds out what you like?”

I said nothing.

Cruz leaned in, voice low and amused. “Does she even know?”

I held his gaze. “Not yet.”

Titan clicked the lighter again, stoking a flame this time. “You think she can’t handle it?”

“Iknowshe can handle it,” I said. That wasn’t the issue. I just wasn’t sure I was ready to show her that side of me.

Not many women had seen it. The trust had to be right, and I wasn’t sure I was there with San yet.

I learned that lesson the hard way a few years back.

“Well, look,” Cruz said. “She’s in our world now. And she’s here because she wants to be. I don’t see her judging, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I ain’t worried,” I snapped.

"Santari isn't old girl, either," Titan said. "You gotta let that go."

I blew out an exasperated breath. “Where we at with Rev?”

Cruz, being used to my bullshit, wasn’t fazed by the abrupt subject change. He put his feet flat on the floor beneath him and sat up straight.

“I’m working on it,” he said. "That shit with Baarbie threw me off. Felt like I was chasing my tail with that shit, and now we're no closer to an answer."

His frustration was palpable.

We were all still fucked up behind Revere's murder.

I was tempted to speak up just then, to let them know where my head was at. It was the perfect time, really, but something stopped me. I should have said something, because in the business we were in, we couldn’t afford to keep secrets. Secrets are life and death matters.

But I just couldn't get the words out.

I’d tell them eventually, once I had the answers.

But getting there…I was gonna have to do that on my own.

Chapter four

I typed the sameboring budget request into the same boring system, something I’d been doing for years. For the thousandth time, I wondered how much of my adult life had been wasted approving conference registration fees and hotel accommodations.

---