Page 60 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

Chapter

Forty-Five

“She wore the moonlight like lingerie.”

― Atticus Poetry, Love Her Wild

Théo

The last few days had been a fucking mess.

Ghosts I’d never invited. Feelings I thought I’d buried deep enough to forget. All of it crawling back now, thick in my throat, burning like smoke I couldn’t cough out.

And because of that, I hadn’t done my fucking job.

I should’ve found the bastard who had stepped into Scarlett’s place. Should’ve handled it. Buried it. Burned it out of existence.

But my head was somewhere else.

Back in a room that stank of bleach and regret. Back in a chair beside a man who couldn’t speak my name anymore.

My father was still breathing. Still here. But whatever made him a man was gone. Floating somewhere I couldn’t follow. And that hurt more than if he’d been dead.

After we left the hospital, I’d brought her home.

The house I’d grown up in.

The one I had avoided for years like it was cursed. Every fucking wall echoing with things I didn’t want to remember.

My mother had met us at the front door. Eyes still red, but smiling. She’d hugged me hard enough to knock the air out of my chest, then yanked Scarlett inside like they’d known each other for decades.

“Come,” she said, dragging her straight to the kitchen.

Scarlett didn’t even have time to breathe before the albums were cracked open.

“This one,” my mother said, tapping a glossy photo, “he used to cry if his socks didn’t match. Said it threw off his balance. Dramatic, no?”

Scarlett grinned. Shot me a look that made me want to bite back a smile.

Then came the photo of me at four, standing on the kitchen table in nothing but a diaper and a crooked red bowtie, holding a spatula like I was ready to go to war.

“ Maman ,” I groaned.

But they were already laughing, loud and raw. My mother’s hand on Scarlett’s knee, Scarlett wiping fun tears from her cheeks. I hadn’t seen my maman that soft in years.

Not since before the accident.

Scarlett had looked at every photo like it was holy. Asked questions. Listened.

Later, I took her upstairs.

My bedroom door creaked open like it hadn’t been touched since I’d slammed it shut the night I left.

Nothing had changed.

The bed was still made tightly. Old posters still stuck to the walls. Notebooks lined up in perfect goddamn rows on the desk.

Scarlett stepped in first, her heels hitting the hardwood. She dragged her fingers over the shelves and dresser, her gaze lifting to the ceiling.

She spotted them right away.

The stars.

The same glow-in-the-dark ones she had in her room. Mine had been stuck there since I was nine. Back when I was still scared of the dark and too ashamed to admit it.

My parents put them up after I’d had a nightmare that made me scream through the whole house. I’d never taken them down.

We’d truly lived similar lives, drenched in guilt and self-loathing an ocean apart.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at me.

“I meant what I said at the hospital, Théo.”

Her voice didn’t shake. It didn’t try to soften the truth.

“All of it. Every word.”

Je t’aime, Théo .

I just sat next to her, close enough to feel her warmth. Close enough to want more.

Then I reached for her hand and kissed it.

We’d had breakfast and left, and I’d spent the last three days working in the kitchen or by the pool, fingers on the laptop, my eyes on her a few yards away on the beach.

I sent the security camera footage to Lazzio, the newest frame zoomed in on the intruder’s face. I had a guess, but I needed proof before I started hunting him.

Lazzio texted back, saying he’d check with his private investigator later today, see if the image matched who we both probably knew it was.

I turned off my phone the second I saw the front door swing open and got out of the car.

I had called Captain Pascal twenty minutes earlier, telling him to bring me my black Porsche Panamera. The one my father had given me when I turned eighteen.

I hadn’t touched it in years. But tonight, I needed it.

My baby wanted a ride. I was giving her the best.

She walked out of the villa in a tight beige coat, heels high enough to snap necks, red hair straight and sleek falling down her back, makeup dark and smokey.

Putain de merde .

I opened the door for her, waited until she was seated just right, then closed it and got behind the wheel.

“Where to, Miss Harper?”

She smiled, that slow, dangerous kind of smile that made my grip on the wheel tighten, then tapped an address on the screen.

Ten-minute ride. Not long. But long enough to fuck with my head.

She turned on the radio, let some soft jazz bleed through the speakers, and leaned into the seat, her eyes focused out the window. Saying nothing.

The sky was violet, the kind of color that turned her skin to silk. Her hand rested on her thigh, dangerously close to the edge of that coat.

I kept driving like I wasn’t seconds from yanking the wheel, pulling over, and dragging her onto my lap.

Minutes later, we hit the edge of the cliff.

The road turned rough, gravel crackling under the tires. Trees closed in on both sides, brushing the windows.

The headlights cut through the dark, catching nothing but more black ahead.

“Stop here,” she said.

I hit the brakes. The engine hummed, low and hungry.

“What your mom said stayed with me, Théo.”

I glanced over. “What, that I was the worst cook she ever met?”

She let out a quiet laugh, her fingers dragging slowly across my forearm, tracing the lines of my ink.

“No,” she said, voice lower now. “That the darkness brings out the stars.”

Her hand then rose to my cheek. She touched me like I might vanish.

“If I hadn’t been dragged through every fucking storm I thought would kill me?…?I never would’ve found you.”

Her thumb brushed my chin.

“I’d survive it all again if it meant ending up here. With you, soldier.”

My jaw clenched as her thumb caressed my lips.

“I don’t care what it took to bring you to me,” I said, my voice so low it barely passed through the air between us. “Pain, blood, fire. I’d take it all twice. I’d fucking beg for it if it meant ending up right next to you again.”

Her hands cupped my face as she brought her lips to mine, but I stopped her.

I needed her to hear it first.

“I’d let the world flay me open if it meant I got to keep your name in my mouth. You understand me? There’s no blade I wouldn’t kneel for, no hell I wouldn’t crawl through, no ocean I wouldn’t drown in if the price was you in my arms, Scarlett.”

I fucking meant it. The pain of all these years alone drowning in sorrow was worth it.

She was worth it .

Her lips crashed into mine, hot and wet, tongues dragging slowly and filthy until she pulled back just enough to breathe.

“Let me give you your surprise.”

She unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door, glancing back over her shoulder.

Her lips curved, eyes glowing in the dim light.

“Stay inside,” she said. “But follow me.”

She shut the door and walked out in front of the car. The trench coat flared slightly with each step.

I gripped the wheel tighter.

She walked ahead, hips rolling, heels crunching on gravel. She raised one finger and curled it toward me. No words. Just that filthy little motion that made my cock press hard against my zipper.

I eased my foot off the brake and let the car crawl behind her.

Ten feet.

Six.

Three.

She didn’t turn around. Just kept walking toward the cliff edge like she was leading me straight to heaven.

Her hands disappeared in front of her, then her coat slipped down her arms and collapsed at her feet.

And fuck .

There she stood, her back to me. In sheer thigh-high stockings that hugged her legs, a black lace thong that didn’t cover a goddamn thing, and a corset so tight her waist looked tiny.

Her red hair fell forward, baring the smooth line of her shoulders, the sweet dip of her lower back, and the obscene curve of her ass, round, soft, barely hidden.

She swayed her hips again, slowly enough to kill me. Her hands slid down her thighs, then up her hips, thumbs grazing her ass cheeks, spreading just enough for me to see the line between them.

My jaw locked. My cock pulsed hard. The edges of my vision went dark.

She wasn’t teasing. She was stripping herself bare like an altar. Made to be worshipped.

And I was already on my knees for her in my fucking mind.

She didn’t stop walking until we reached the hill’s crest, where the cliff dropped and the world spread wide beneath us.

I hit the brake, hands clenching the wheel.

The moon hung high behind her, soaking her skin in pale silver. Stars shimmered across the sky.

She turned, hands resting on her hips before sliding behind her back. Her fingers worked the laces of her corset, one slow tug at a time, until it unraveled and fell to the ground at her feet.

I almost fucking whimpered.

She stepped toward the car like a goddess.

Her tits were pushed up high in a silk bra, so tight they threatened to spill out, bound up in black ribbon like a gift made to be ripped apart with teeth.

I had to lean back in my seat, running a hand over my mouth. I tasted blood from where I bit down too hard.

She planted a hand on the hood.

Then she fucking crawled.

One knee, then the other, dragging her body up the hood. Her back arched, tits swaying, her thighs parting wide.

She started touching herself.

Both hands roamed. Her fingers skimmed her own throat, slid down between her tits, rolled over her stomach, dipping low until her thighs trembled.

Her eyes never left mine.

She rocked her hips, teasing, showing, fucking claiming me without laying a finger on my skin.

Then she dragged one hand down her side, cupped her own ass, and squeezed. Her other hand trailed along the line of her thong, teasing herself over it. Grinding. Making a mess. Moaning so loudly I swore I could taste it.

She was giving me a fucking show, and now I understood why she’d been crowned Entertainer of the Decade. If my cock were a judge, she would’ve won unanimously.