Despite my anxiety, I offer a little smile back and roll my eyes. “Because you held me captive, you big brute.”
Sin shakes his head. “Nah. I may have kidnapped you, but you’re the one who’s held me captive.”
My stomach sinks again. I reach up and grab his shoulders, yanking him down until his perfect lips are on mine again. He gets so many kisses for saying that. I never want to stop kissing him. I lock my legs around his hips, pulling him against me. I want him inside me, but I’ll settle for as close as I can get him. As I kiss him, I push my fingers through his hair, overcome with tenderness, bursting with affection. There’s nothing better than his naked body pressed against mine.
I feel him getting hard again and it triggers arousal in my core. Before I can get too excited and think he might actually fuck me now, he breaks our kiss and pulls back to look at me.
“Don’t you want to know who the others ones are for?” he asks, like he was waiting for me to ask.
“Sorta.” I cock my head in consideration. “But I also really want you to fuck me, and I feel like that’s close to being on the table.”
“I’m not going to fuck you before I tell this story. If you distract me you will get an orgasm out of it, but I’m not going to fuck you.”
Sighing heavily, I relent. “Fine. Let’s do this. Tell me whatever dark secret is lurking in your past. It’s not going to change anything for me.”
“Well, I hope not, but I have to be sure. Things with you have gone way too far beyond casual for me. I fuck you, that’s it. That changes things between us, things that can’t be changed back again.”
I remember him saying something similar when he thought I’d slept with Rafe again after the night I saw Sin with Marlena, how I might not have been Rafe’s before, but I changed that when I slept with him. “Sex is permanent for you,” I say. It’s not a question. I don’t entirely understand, but the evidence points to that conclusion.
“Sex with someone I love is.”
My eyes go wide and his gaze drops.
“Ah, Christ,” he mutters, raking a hand through his hair.
“No.” I reach up, my heart pounding in my chest, by tummy filling up with butterflies. “It’s okay. I love you, too, Sin.”
“I’ve never fallen for someone this fast before,” he says, like he’s trying to explain. I don’t know why he thinks he needs to, given I suffer from the same affliction.
“I have a theory,” I tell him. “Sometimes people in… I don’t even know how to describe our situation and circumstances, but… Sometimes when two people go through something together, they form an attachment to each other. My sister could probably explain it better, but the point is, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us. I think our circumstances opened a door, and our compatibility with one another lured us through it.”
“Does it last?”
He asks so earnestly, it makes my heart ache. Reaching a hand up to caress his face, I nod my head. “Sure, it can. It’s like any other kind of connection. What happens next is up to the two people involved. It could amount to nothing, or you could choose to build something that endures. The connection is just the beginning, Sin. We decide if it lasts.”
“I want it to last,” he tells me.
“So do I,” I assure him.
His gaze drifts past me at the bed for a moment, like he’s lost in thought. All of a sudden he climbs off me, moving over to his side of the bed. I climb into my spot, preparing to lie down and cuddle with him, but he doesn’t lie down; he reaches into his nightstand drawer.
A moment later he turns around with something in his hand, something so small that I have no idea what it might be with his hand closed. He hesitates another moment, then unclenches his fist.
My eyes widen as the light in his room catches on a golden band nestled in the palm of his
hand—a wedding ring. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it, so after staring at it for a moment, I look up at him.
“I used to be married.”
That’s the logical assumption to draw from him presenting a wedding band, so I don’t know why his words cause my stomach to drop, but they do. “Okay,” I say with forced calm.
Nodding at the kneeling angel on his right arm, he says, “That one is for my wife.”
I cringe, hearing him say those words. Shit, that shouldn’t sting. Clearly she isn’t his wife anymore. I wish he would call her his ex-wife, but this isn’t the time to be territorial, so I shake it off.
“Paula,” he adds. “Her name was Paula.”
I don’t know if I should keep urging him, or just wait for him to tell me everything, but it seems like he’s trying to get the words out. Or maybe trying to get them right? For now, I remain silent and let him talk in his own time.