Page 78 of Sinners Atone
Gabriel shot the lights out.
At the sound of slow-moving footsteps, the ice spreads to my chest, then my pulse begins to thaw when the heat of his body brushes over my bare stomach.
I let out a slow, trembling breath. “Did you kill him?”
“Would you snitch if I did?” The rough timbre of his voice grazes my throat and slides south, vibrating every cell on the way down. I hadn’t realized he was soclose.
“Yes,” I breathe out, dizzy on gasoline and gunpowder. The dark shields me like armor, making me brave and reckless. “It didn’t happen in the dark.”
His steady breaths grow ragged; I feel each like a shot of hot adrenaline in my veins. “And if it did?”
I swallow thickly. “It didn’t happen.”
A deep hum of approval touches my ear. “Good girl.”
Christ.
Two words, little more than a whisper in an empty room. I’ve built my entire world around hearing them, but they’ve never made my fists curl and my back buck like this.
I’m so hyper-aware of my remaining four senses that I can hear theswishof soft fabric moving, followed by a light chill fluttering across my waist.
And when I feel a concentrated heat roll up the curve of my hip, I stop breathing.
It feels like a too-close candle. Its flame dances up my rib cage, raising every hair and goosebump in its wake. It must be Gabriel’s finger or knuckle, and My God,the mere proximity, the merethoughtof him touching me, is all-consuming.
As the heat drifts along the band of my bikini top, a cramp of desperation seizes me. I need more than his near-touch or his praise. I need his grip, his friction. I need to feel the scratch of his beard between my inner thighs, the sharp points of his teeth sinking into my flesh. I need to know what it’d feel like to be pinned between his body and a mattress.
I need to hurt every woman who already knows.
The thought slices through my lust-fueled haze. It thumps at the base of my skull and churns my stomach. The rain roars louder, and somewhere beyond it a cackling laugh rings out.
Panic grips me; realization slaps me in the face.
This is a very dangerous game.
“Stop!”
It shoots from my lips like a flare thrown into the dark. Though I can’t see I know where it lands, because I sense Gabriel stiffen.
The heat lingers for one heavy breath, two. On the third, it retreats into the unknown.
Sweat cooling on my skin, I blink as hard as I can, trying to recover my bearings. But there’s nothing out there to guide me but silence. It stutters over heartbeats, stretches into seconds.
A bead of unease slowly trickles through my core, dragging all my thoughts south.
Oh, God. This is bad. I’m shackled, half-clothed, and at the mercy of a monster I have no business being alone with in a dark garage. I can’t see anything—not even his outline, let alone his expression or the weapon he fired just moments ago. I can’t study the intent in his eyes or predict his next move.
Curse my stupid habit of romanticizing everything. Darkness isn’t freeing. It just makes you vulnerable.
Panic chews away at my edges, and when I can no longer stand its bite, I choke out a desperate breath.
“Y-you’re scaring me.”
More silence. More stillness. Fear itches like a rash on my skin. It flares up when the heat returns to my chest and brushes up my arms, and fades to a dull relief when with a sharp tug, my arms drop back down to my sides.
Blood rushes through my veins so fast I feel lightheaded and, strangely, more vulnerable than I did when tied up.The darkness warps around me. I can hear glass crunching underfoot, but I can’t tell whether it’s coming or going. When it stops and another noise starts, I freeze.
It sounds like bones grinding into dust. Only when a puddle of light seeps out from the dark do I realize it’s the sound of the garage roller door rising.
