Page 21 of Sin

Too late, I realize Sin is lazily watching me watch him. He turns on his side so we’re facing each other. “Do you like what you see, Cassidy?” He brings his hand over the muscles of his chest, pausing at his nipple, which he pinches, causing me to let out a whimper.

“Give me your hand.”

I hesitate, and he becomes impatient. “Give me your hand,” he demands.

Slowly, I reach my hand toward him. He takes it and places it on his chest, directing it over the strong swell of his muscles and the tangled softness of golden blond chest hair, to the nipple he pinched earlier, and roughly rubs the palm of my hand over it, again and again. “That’s good,” he says, releasing a sigh.

His praise lights me up and makes me brave, and I’m the one who begins to guide my hand down over his six-pack stomach, but as I reach the waist of his boardshorts, my bravery runs out, and I stop my exploration.

“You like the fire, don’t you, Cassidy?” he asks.

It’s a truth I’ve tried burying so many times, but I can’t lie to him any longer. “Yes,” I whisper.

“Then,” he says, bringing my hand down lower, “follow the fire with me—all the way to hell?”

“Wake up, Cassidy.”

I bolt up and for a second I’m disappointed that I’m not in the back of Betty Jo next to Sin. Then, as I start to wake up more, I realize I’m at home, in the library, and Sin is staring down at me.

I must have fallen asleep next to my laptop after finishing tutoring my last client. Between a heavy load of classes at Thurston and taking on additional tutoring students to pay my bills and save up to move out, I haven’t had much time for sleep. I’d barely been able to keep my eyes open through my last tutoring session.

I’m wide awake now and a strange combination of turned on and disturbed from the dream I just had. The images replay in my head, a weird reimagination of yesterday’s events. A mix of Gideon’s fiery sermon and the afternoon I spent riding aroundwith Sin in Betty Jo—minus the X-rated part of the dream, of course.

It's more than just images of the dream flashing through my mind. As Sin stands over me, I remember how it felt to touch him, almost as if it had been real.

“Must have been some dream.”

I go still.Was I sleep talking? Did I call out his name in my dream? “What makes you think I was dreaming?”

He shrugs. “I slammed the library door when I came in, and you didn’t stir at all. You were tossing and turning, and then you stopped, and a big smile showed up on your face.”

Thank God he didn’t realize I was dreaming about him.

“Want to tell me what you were dreaming about that made you so happy?”

“I don’t remember my dreams,” I lie. I actually remember most of them, especially the ones about Sin. They’ve been a constant since I was fifteen, and meeting him set off both a wicked crush and my teenage hormones. I’d been pretty sure I was gay before meeting Sin, but I knew it as a fact from the first moment he gave me a sullen head nod, and my heart almost beat out of my chest.

Only to be told seconds later that he was my stepbrother.

I knew it was wrong to lust after him. That he’d be disgusted if he ever found out. It didn’t stop my dreams, though. I eagerly went to bed each night waiting for my subconscious to take me to a place I could indulge in all the fantasies about Sin that tormented me during the day.

Then he had his father send me to Bellmore. Three years and thousands of miles away from him, I’ve tried to tell myself that his coldness had done away with my silly crush, but my dreams are still an almost nightly reminder that I still want him.

“Shame,” he says. “I could use a distraction.”

Something in his tone hints at more than just boredom. I twist to get a better look at him. His eyes are icy gray, which happens when he’s angry, and his muscles are tense like they’re ready for a fight. “You said you slammed the door when you came in. Were you angry?” I ask, though I’m pretty sure of the answer.

“My father called me into his study to ream me about a video I posted showing me dancing with Elodie Summers and Ezra Griffin, I took the last time I was in LA.”

I’d seen the video he posted at least half a dozen times. Unable to stop watching the footage of him bare-chested, chugging a bottle of Clase Azul, and dancing between the indie artist couple as the three of them bucked against each other to the beat of the techno music playing.

“I take it he didn’t give the post a like then?”

“No, but I expected that. Counted on it, honestly. Trying to ruin his day is kinda my hobby.”

“Then what made you so mad?”

“I’m pissed off at myself for letting two innocents get hurt in the war between my father and me.”

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