Sin (The Waite Family) (15 page)

Carl
thought
he might hurt himself thinking about the expression on the guy
’
s face when
he’d
told him about the
décor.
He
was still laughing when he went to dinner with the
m
ayor, in his home no less.

~Chapter
9
~

Sin brushed angrily at the tears.
Fat lot of good they’ll do you
,
she thought viciously.
She looked down at the gun in her hand. But this…this would solve a great deal.

“You going hunting tonight, Sydney?
Seems kinda late
,
don’t you think? And that isn’t a hunting type of weapon anyway.”

Coop’s voice startled her. She hadn’t even realized she’d been followed
,
she’d been so upset.
She dropped the gun back down and behind her.

“Go back in the house.
This…I have some things to work out and I do that better when I’m alone.
I have things under control now.”

She nearly screamed when
,
instead of turning to go back
,
he took two steps toward her.
Damn it
,
she needed him gone, not right here.

“I was
thinking that too.
That you have things under control…or so you think you do.
What’s going on?
Sometimes talking it over with someone can make things less overwhelming.”
He took another step toward her.
“But then talking is highly overrated too.”

“That’s what I was thinking. You go away. I don’t want to talk to you.
I mean it. Just go back…stop walking toward me
,
damn it.” Coop had taken two more steps and now he was within five feet of her.

“It’s a full moon, did you
notice
? And here I am with a lovely woman…makes a man have cravings, wants, desires.
You have desires, Sydney?”
His voice was smooth, calm.

She brushed at the tears and took several deep breaths to calm
herself
.
He would never leave
if he
saw how upset she was.

“Yes, Payton. It’s a lovely night. I have desires…a desire to be alone for a bit.
Could you just…just go back in the house and leave me to it?”
Her voice cracked and sounded watery even to her.
Sin hated herself and him at that moment.

“You didn’t answer the question.
You going hunting?” Another step
brought
him
so
close she could reach out and touch him.
“You won’t do
a very good job with a handgun. Why don’t you give it over and let me take it inside?”

She raised the gun to his chest, her temper snapped tight.

“You don’t want to do that, Sydney.
S
hooting an innocent man isn’t your style.”

“How
do you
fucking know what my style is?
For all you know I could be a killer hiding out here and I’ve lured you out here to murder you too.”
She waved the gun at him.
“Go. Into.
The fucking.
House.
Please?”
She wanted to scream at him when he stepped closer
,
the gun touching his chest.
Lifting the gun straight up, she fired.
She expected him to tackle her, try to take the gun, but he let her put it back to his chest.
“What is wrong
with
you? Are you nuts?
” Sin felt the tears threaten again
. “
Go away. Please, I’m begging you.
Go
into the house and leave me be.”

He ran his finger down her cheek as they stood there. “You didn’t ask me what my desires were.
I have one, a powerful one
,
truth be told
.
I’ve had it since the first time I saw you.”
He gently laid his hand over her wrist.
“
I’ve a desire to taste your mouth
again
.
To se
e if it tastes as delicious as it
did
.”

“Don’t. Please don’t do this. It’s too late, too late for everything. Go into the house.
You can just tell them you didn’t know.” She wasn’t sure how he’d known what she was going to do, but she wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t going to happen just because he did.

With his free hand he slowly cupped her neck and then brought her to his mouth.
“No, you don’t want to be alone, Sydney.
Trust me.”

The kiss was breathtakingly gentle. A simple brush of his mouth over hers. He didn’t touch her anywhere else but her neck and her mouth
,
but the overwhelming power of that nearly made her knees buckle.
Neither
did he take the gun f
ro
m her
,
she realized
,
but only touched the wrist that held it.
When he raised his head she could see the moonlight reflecting back at her and she could see that his eyes had darkened with something.

“
Do you
want children
,
Payton?”
Her voice was a mere whisper
,
but he seemed to hear her.

“
Yes. Yes, I do.
Lots of them with dark hair the color of
midnight
sk
ies
and eyes the color of summer days.
You have children
,
Sydney?”

Sin laid her head on his chest, too tired to…too exhausted to fight anymore. Especially him.
“No. No children.
”
Never for her, never any children like the ones in her family.
They’d taken that, all of that
,
from her.

“
Then what’s this about
?
Why are you out here in the middle of the night with a gun in your hand?
Target practice?
Maybe you thought you heard something that frightened you
.”

She
started laughing and stopped when she realized how insane it sounded.
“I highly doubt that.
Very little frightens me, Cooper.
I want you to go away and leave me be. Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong.
”

He stared at her for a full minute.
Then he
brushed away another tear with his thumb before answering her.
“
Are you meeting a lover perhaps?
”
He shifted closer to her and she felt his erection.
“
Maybe you hoped to lure me out here to have your
evil
way with me.
I’ll tell you right now, I’m not going to be much of a challenge.
You say
get
naked
,
and I’m right there with you
.”

This kiss was different
,
s
till gentle, but more.
When his tongue touched her lips, she opened for him gave him her mouth.
Another shift of his body brought his cock into her soft folds and a moan from him.
They
lined up perfectly, their bodies fit as one.
When he pulled back slightly
,
she whimpered.

“Sydney, I need you to decide which steel you want to hold onto.
I ach
e
for your hand on me, love. Drop the one in your hand so I don’t have to be jealous of it.”

Confused for a second
,
she remembered the gun in her hand. He hadn’t taken it from her. He hadn’t touched it at all. But this was a test, a test only she could take and she didn’t know what to do.

If she didn’t drop the gun she knew he wouldn’t walk away
,
but he would try and take it from her. That she knew.
She wasn’t sure he could, but he would try.
She also knew that one if not both of them would be hurt if he did.
And
not just
physically. If
she dropped it
,
then what?

Was she saying she would try later? Or was this admitting she’d been wrong contemplating
shooting herself in the first place
?
Did
she even want to anymore?

“I can’t
imagine
what you might be feeling right now.
I do know that I would never have pegged you as a coward.
A woman as full of spit and vinegar as you taking your own life rather than fac
ing
what ifs and could have beens.
”

His voice touched something inside of her.
“Let me go.”
He did so immediately.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.
You have no idea what those men…what they did to me.
You’ve no—
”

“No one does. You’ve got your entire family walking around on egg shells
,
to
o
afraid to ask you how you’re feeling to try and ask you the important questions. What did they do
to
you
, Sydney?
We all know they beat you, shot you.
But as far as I can tell that’s about all they did to you physically.
What did they do to fuck with your head that has you running so scared you’d rather eat a bullet than face it?”

“You want to know? Fine, I’ll tell you.
Then you can analyze me all you want.”
She threw the gun at him and he caught it to his chest. “I was out on patrol, me and
one of
the
men they’d sent me from headquarters who knew the lay of the land.
Little did I know they’d been sent there to take
us
out, to lead
us
to
our
death
s
.”