Page 42 of Protected by the Sinner (The Sinner’s Touch #2)

No planning. I’ve just realized we’ll always be like this.

No matter how carefully I try to organize our story—trying to fit it, in my naturally pragmatic way, into a neat compartment—what I feel for Amber has a will of its own.

“I don’t need labels for us, Beau, but I’m afraid of what I don’t remember.”

I open my arms, and she comes to me. She jumps into my lap, her legs wrapping around my waist.

I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in a few times.

My arms lock tightly around her. “We’re not perfect, and we’re not a fairytale, but I never wanted that either.

Until I met you, I didn’t even know I was searching for anything.

But from the very first second I laid eyes on you, no matter how much I tried to tell myself it was temporary, I knew I could never let you go. ”

“I don’t care if you don’t say the words . I just need to know I’m not alone in this crazy feeling. It’s terrifying to love in the dark. Without remembering how it all began or what brought us to where we are now.”

I start walking again toward our room, but I don’t let her go. Instead, I open the balcony door and sit with her in my lap.

It’s past midnight, and aside from our breathing, the silence of the New Orleans night surrounds us.

“You’ll remember.”

“Will I?”

“It doesn’t make sense that the only part you can’t recall is the time we spent together before the accident.”

She nods. “Tell me something about yourself. You said we never talked about each other’s pasts. Change that. Let me in here too,” she says, touching my forehead.

“I don’t know how. I don’t have any memories of a normal family. We moved all the time,” I say, grossly simplifying the hell that was my childhood and teenage years.

“Then we have that in common.”

“Yeah, but you were forced to. My family lived a lie. Everything I believed in was fake. I only found out I was adopted as an adult,” I tell her, certain she doesn’t remember me saying it before.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, but I will. For you.”

She squeezes my hand.

“Our life was a performance. My mother—the adoptive one, because I never met my real parents—pretended we were normal, but we were nowhere near it. On top of never staying in the same place for more than six months, my father was always gone. And when he did come home, he’d usually beat me or my mom. ”

She looks at me, and I can see the pain on her face.

I close my eyes for a second, trying to stay detached, like I’m telling someone else’s story.

“He did that until I got big enough to fight back. One day, he was beating her and I gave him a taste of his own medicine. I probably would’ve killed him if she hadn’t stopped me.

After that, he started coming home even less, barely lived there anymore, but still forced us to move around.

I never understood why she always took him back, after everything. ”

“Maybe she loved him too much.”

“Probably. Though I’ll never understand how anyone can love someone who hurts them. Anyway, when I turned eighteen, I left home. Not long after, he left for good—ran off with a much younger woman. I started taking care of my mother.”

“Where did you go? You said you left home.”

“I can’t talk about that, Amber. And it’s not about trust—it’s to protect you. Just know that being with me means you’re not with the hero of this story. I’m one of the bad guys.”

“Bad to whom?”

“What?”

“Whom do you hurt? Honest people?”

“No.”

“Then maybe they’re just getting what they deserve,” she says in a way only someone who’s seen the darkest side of people could. “You said your mom only told you about being adopted when you were an adult.”

“I wasn’t adopted, Amber. I was stolen from my family. The people who raised me—or at least one of them—killed my parents.”

“Oh my God!”

She leans into my arms, and my first instinct is to push her away, keep her at a distance, because I don’t know how to share. But when I feel her hands in my hair, I start to relax again.

“I found out the same day my adoptive mother died. She told me she didn’t want to take the secret to the grave.”

“And what did you do?”

“I killed my adoptive father.”

She doesn’t move from my arms. I study her face carefully, and she doesn’t look shocked.

“Now you know almost everything about me.”

“ Almost? Are there parts you’ll never tell me?”

“Yeah. There are parts I’ll never share. That’s what I’ve got to offer. You can be sure of one thing—being with me won’t be a dream. I live surrounded by danger and threats, and I hit back just as hard. I don’t spare enemies, and I don’t give second chances.”

As soon as I finish speaking, a voice echoes in my head: until I met you.

“Why do I get the feeling you expect me to walk away after everything you just told me?”

“That’s not what I want. I want a life with you. I want our child raised by both of us. But you’d be smart to tell me to go to hell.”

“You said you’re crazy about me and that you want our child, Beau. I’m not going anywhere. Your story’s not pretty? Neither is mine. I was raised among fanatics. Does that make you think less of me?”

“None of what you went through was your choice. I chose this life.”

The truth is, I think she and Elodie are miracles. Not just for escaping the clutches of those sick people but for managing to live relatively normal lives afterward. Yeah, they ran—but they had each other.

“ Choice ,” she repeats, like she’s lost in her own world. She pulls away from me, suddenly agitated.

“Amber?”

“Beau, I just remembered something. Why we kept running, even after all those years.”