Page 94 of Sinners Atone
“You haven’t even tried,” I bark.
As if brought back to life by my tone, she wriggles and squirms like a fish on a hook. Tugging at the binds, shoulders rolling, hips shifting. Her skirt rides up her thighs, inch by inch, as she bucks.
A flash of pink, and I’m on my knees before I can stop myself.
Awareness prickles the nape of my neck, and I grow rigid. Regret churns through me as I force myself to look down and take stock of what I’ve done.
I’ve pinned her beneath me. Knees pressed against her thighs, a hand by her head. My gaze climbs over golden hair fanned out like a halo, down her slogan tee and the chest heaving beneath it. Across the inch of tanned stomach and her clenched fists, down to my other hand, yanking down the hem of her skirt.
She looks down at my hand and swallows. “What are you doing?”
Good question.
I saw bare skin.
I saw pink lace.
I sawred.
I acted on instinct, and it wasn’t a gentlemanly one. There’s only one other man on this boat, and he’s halfway dead already, but he’s not the fucking problem.
I am.
I let go of her skirt and glare over the side of the boat out to sea, trying to compose myself, but it’s fucking impossible. I’m too aware of every inch of her beneath me. Soft, warm, bleeding through my clothes and burning low in my gut.
Seconds drip by. A bead of sweat glides down my back.
“Um,” she mutters. My jaw clenches as she shifts her hips an inch. “So is there a trick or something? L-like, do I need a hairpin or… Hey, what happened to your face? It looks painful.”
I look down as her bound hands rise to my cheek. She moves slowly, watching me as though I might bite, before spreading her fingers like a flower in bloom and brushing them over the welt.
Every muscle in my body seizes. Her touch is as light as a whisper; soft enough to hurt. I don’t stop her. Can’t.
Instead, I stare at her and wonder if her gaze would soften like that if she knew why I have it. If she knew she is behind every slash, bruise, and ache in my body right now. If she knew how sick I am, howdesperateI am to know her secret.
If she knew she is lying five feet from a man in a fucking body bag.
The lump in my throat swells as her fingers trail south over my cheekbone. When she reaches the corner of my lip and slides her thumb across it, my cock twitches, and something within me snaps.
I catch her finger between my teeth. A rough warning bite—not hard enough to hurt, just enough to make itstop.
She blinks up at me and lets out a puff of air.
“Do you bite every woman that touches you?”
I don’t reply. Mainly because my brain’s spinning too fast to think of one, but partly because I wouldn’t know. In my thirty-two years on this earth, she’s the only girl I’ve met who’s been brave enough to touch me with such a gentle caress.
I hold her finger between my teeth longer than I should, deciding what to do with it. Half tempted to bite harder to wipe the warmth from her face, half tempted to suck it and taste her skin and the sweetness underneath.
Instead, I use every ounce of restraint I have and pull back with a low grunt. I grab the knife at my ankle, and with a clean slice between her wrists, the moor line falls away.
Arms dropping to the deck, she’s all flushed cheeks and parted lips, hazy gaze and ragged breaths. Lying there like I’ve just fucked her into oblivion.
My stare lingers a beat too long. Just enough to etch the image into my brain for later before I stagger back to the helm.
I book it back to the coast, my balls tight. She sits behind me in perfect silence, like she should have fucking done in the first place.
Once I cut the engine and moor up at the dock, I turn my back to her and glare out to sea. Not just to hide my hard-on, but because now that I’ve seen her hurdle a bench like an Olympicathlete, I know she can very well disembark without me having to touch her again.
