I feel icky that Rafe ever touched me, even before Sin. I wonder if I should tell Sin that while I didn’t have sex with Rafe since I got involved with him, that doesn’t mean I didn’t do anything with him.
Then again, this is probably not the time.
Reaffirming that supposition, Sin keeps one hand tightly fisted in my hair and spins me around, planting my hands against the wall with the other one. I close my eyes as he drags his lips along my neck and across my shoulder. A horrible thought leaps to mind, that awful waitress and that horrifying date I saw them on.
Reaching back to loop my arm around his neck, I stop his kisses so I can have his attention.
“Sin.”
“Hmm?” he murmurs, nuzzling his face into my neck.
“Did anything happen with Marlena?”
The nuzzling stops, and my stomach sinks. Oh, no, that can’t be good. “What?” he asks, faintly guarded or surprised or… something.
“I don’t know why I need to know,” I say quickly. “I’m not even sure it’s fair, all things considered. I just feel like if we don’t address it now, I’ll always wonder, and maybe that’s worse than knowing.”
“You mean sexually?”
I frown, confused. “Of course I mean sexually. How else would I mean?”
Now the kisses start up again, his lips moving up and down my neck. “No, nothing sexual.”
That should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. Does that mean he maybe had an emotional draw to her? Did he actually like her? I desperately wanted to believe he was covering for Rafe, but then those awful text messages come to mind. I would hate for him to like her, too. “Did you like her? What does that mean, not sexually?”
Sighing, Sin gives up kissing me for the moment. “I had no interest whatsoever in Marlena. I was keeping tabs on her to see if Rafe was fucking around on you, that’s it.”
“Was he?” I ask, out of curiosity.
“I’m not positive. Gio says he was. I forgot to ask Marlena. Didn’t really care at that point.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s dead,” he says, gathering my hair and pushing it over my shoulder so he can kiss the other side of my neck.
The news that someone I vaguely knew is dead lands like a rock in my gut. “Wait, what? When did that happen?”
Barely pausing in his neck kisses, he murmurs, “When I got verification that she tried to poison you.”
My blood freezes and I push back against him, but he doesn’t budge, so I remain plastered against the door. “Wait, what? Does that mean you killed her?”
“She tried to hurt you,” he states, like this is all the explanation he owes me or anyone else.
I can’t breathe properly. My face feels stuck in a permanent gape. Not similarly afflicted, Sin spins me around so he can look into my eyes.
“Is that a problem?” he asks levelly.
“You killed for me?” I ask, a little breathless.
He takes my hand, bows his head, and kisses my knuckles like a soldier swearing his fealty. I guess in a way, he is. Only Sin’s fealty is supposed to be to Rafe, not me. I have a feeling maybe he has changed allegiances.
I have a feeling Rafe isn’t his king anymore.
I have a feeling now he serves his queen.
And I’m his queen.
Jesus, that is so hot.