Page 12 of Sin

I’d just turned seventeen and come home from school one afternoon to find my father sitting on the couch next to a beautiful blonde woman whom he introduced as Sheila, and her son, Cassidy, who looked to be a few years younger than me. He was too thin, had a mop of black, curly hair that covered his eyes, and wore patched, too-big clothes that looked like thrift-store rejects. I took one look at the expensive designer dress and shoes Sheila wore and then at Cassidy’s shoes, which had quarter-sized holes in the treads, and I hated the woman on the spot.

Before I could even drop my backpack to the ground, my father stood up, locked hands with Sheila, and announced that they’d been married that morning.

By seventeen, there was little my father could do to surprise me, so I took the news like everything else he threw at me—with a shrug of my shoulders and a fuck-you grin. Cassidy’s reaction was different. At the announcement, I watched him turn chalk white, blink back tears, and then pretend to be happy for his mother, who barely noticed he was in the room. Then he shyly approached me, offered his hand, and told me he would try to be a good brother to me. I looked down at his shaking hand and the vulnerable shine in his eyes, and something shifted in me. Instead of delivering a biting comment meant to cut him to ribbons and walk away, like I did to most of the people who tried to get close to me, I took his hand and welcomed him as my brother.

I couldn’t understand it. The protectiveness I felt for him immediately. Even now, I can’t put a name to all the confusing feelings I felt that first summer Cassidy came to live with us. Lust wasn’t part of it—not until years later. All I knew was that for once, I was almost grateful to my father for getting married and making Cassidy my stepbrother. It gave me a claim. Abinding tether to him that helped explain why, when I looked at him, I was overcome with the need to call Cassidy mine.

At first, I thought my possessiveness over Cassidy was because as my stepbrother, he gave me a family tie I’d never had. Except for my mother, whom I only had shadowed memories of, I’d never had family I cared about before. By this last summer, though, calling him stepbrother began to stick in my throat. That tether between us began to strangle. It was too tight to fit the way I felt when I began to notice the fullness of his lips, or how I felt when I accidentally brushed past him and felt the softness of his skin.

I think back to last night. As soon as I was sure Cassidy was sleeping, I sneaked back into his room to make sure he didn’t have another attack. I sat and watched his breathing all night.

The open window by his bed let in the moonlight, which acted as a spotlight for his unbelievable beauty, highlighting his pale skin and dark hair, and giving him an aura of purity.

Looking at him like that, lying spread out before me like a gift, I knew my father was right earlier. I was born bad. No good man would want to climb into his stepbrother’s bed, wake him up, and, with every touch, strip away that purity until I’d thoroughly acquainted him with sin.

Chapter 6

Cassidy

After a few hours, I begin to feel like a caged animal in my room. Knowing that pacing a marathon and angsting over Sin might trigger another asthma attack, I grab my new inhaler and a bottle of water and decide to change my scenery. I take a long walk over the grounds, only stopping when it gets dark.

Not wanting to go back to the house yet, I make my way up to the pool, which has always been my favorite spot at the compound. Unlike the rest of the property, where its greenery has been manicured into resembling a golf course, the infinity pool is surrounded by natural indigenous plants and looks out on the valley below.

I stand at the back of the pool admiring the view, letting the beauty and quiet relax me.

“I should have known you love this place too.” Sin’s voice booms in the quiet space, making me jump. I turn to find him sitting at one of the bar stools, watching me while he sips on a heavy pour of what looks to be whiskey. The glassiness of his stare tells me it’s not his first one.

“My mother designed this area before she married my father. He’s gotten rid of every other sign that she ever lived here with his never-ending renovations. So much sometimes Ithink I can’t remember what she looked like.” He waves at the beautiful scenery around him. “But then I come here and I can see her bright and happy and tending to her flowers.”

A day ago, hell, a few hours ago, I would have soaked up Sin’s recollection, but as much as a part of me aches to stay and listen, I know I can’t let myself open up to him again.

I turn to head back to the house and make it as far as the patio of the pool house. “Don’t go.” He stands up from his bar stool and stalks over to me.

“No,” I refuse, “you don’t get to try to bribe me to disappear and then act like it never happened.”

“Cassidy,” he tsks, “don’t you know this dance of ours by now?”

“You’re wrong,” I insist. “I’m. Not. Forgiving. You.”

“Yeah, you are.” He takes another long draw of his whiskey. Once he drinks his fill, he puts the glass to my lips and offers me a sip. My nose wrinkles at the strong smell and I shake my head. He takes one more generous sip and puts it down on the patio table. His arms come to rest on the brick wall behind me, leaving me caged in.

“Never,” I insist, flattening my hands against his muscled chest and giving him a big push that fails to move him even an inch.

“Sure you are.” He brings one arm down and takes one of my stray curls between his fingers. “You’re going to forgive me because you’re good,” he says, leaning into the curve of my neck and inhaling as if he’s breathing me in. “So very fucking good, and you can’t help giving a sinner like me another chance.”

I start to protest, but he doesn’t let me speak. Just crowds me against the wall until our hips are almost touching. “You shouldn’t though,” he says, his lips so close I can smell the expensive whiskey on his breath, and unlike when it was in the glass, now I hunger to taste it.

“Don’t make excuses for me. Don’t dress it up as if I’m misunderstood.” He raises his head so I’m looking into his gray eyes that burn with conviction—and something else I can’t name. “I’m bad and you should have run a thousand miles from me and the trainwreck that’s our family when I gave you the chance, but you stayed, which means?—"

“Means what?” I demand.

He pulls me closer and at the same time yanks my curl hard. I let out a small whimper as the pain ignites every nerve in my body in a rippling pleasure.

“It means I’ll just hurt you all over again,” he says, releasing me and leaving me suddenly cold and shaking as he picks up his drink and walks back into the darkness of the night.

Chapter 7

Cassidy

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