Page 68 of Sins and Virtue

Soft flames of heat flared in my face.

Was there something on my face?

“What?” I said in a low, fluttered voice.

“Where did you come from, Blair Morgan? How are you such a bewitching woman?”

His voice was filled with lingering softness, and somewhere in between his gaze, it made my heart unfold and bloom like a rose.

Not used to this type of flattery, I made a joke. “I always said I was left behind by the aliens.”

“Oh please, don’t tell me you’re a conspiracy theorist.”

“Hey, there is critical evidence proving there is other life besides humanity. Besides, do you really believe we’re out here in the universe? The God who is all-powerful and knowing would just believe in one race of imperfect beings while there is a whole cosmos out there.” I shook my head, refusing to believe in a small impossibility. “There has to be a world filled with magic and awe— one better than this one anyway. Without fighting, arguing, poverty, inequality, and killing. So much killing that we keep tearing ourselves apart. Families apart.” Indignation raged in my words, watching the world crumble and my family too as I had succumbed to the evil I spoke of.

He nudged me with his shoulder, his hand holding mine tightly. “Why? What happened?”

I had said too much. Especially to someone like him who was nothing more than a stranger… Yet for the first time in a while, this stranger made me feel normal.

“I…” My throat went dry, my nose scrunching as I froze, wanting to change the topic completely.

“What’s wrong with you, kotyonok?” he asked, his tone serious all of a sudden.

I raised a brow. “What do you mean?”

“You have that look, and that means some shit bothered you.”

“What look?” My pitch cracked.

His eyebrows pulled together, drawing a line in between them as he wrinkled his nose, and his lips formed a thin line. The façade of a dark, mysterious stranger disappeared, making him look like a big, cute Doberman. Perhaps a Siberian husky was more politically correct, but regardless, he looked absolutely ridiculous. “This look,” he gritted out, signaling to himself.

There was that change in personality. Ironically.

A peep of laughter escapes my throat as I bite my lower lip to prevent myself from breaking out in a fit. Denying his claim. “I do not.”

“You do. You tend to do that when you’re annoyed. Happens quite often, if I do say so myself.”

Was he observing me?

Don’t know why, but that prompted a soft happy twitch in my chest. Distracting me from whatever else.

“Well, I am a very expressive person.”

“Mmhm.” He deeply sighed, not believing an ounce of my bluff.

Caving in and telling him because it felt safe enough to confess. “The head nun is on my case, and for the love of everything that’s holy, she refuses to give me a break. I swear, she hates me.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Oh, yes, she does. She would love to drag me to hell herself, then give me a compliment.”

“It would be hard to hate someone like you.”

“Why? Because I’m so special.”

His dark, heated gaze held mine. He took out a pack of cigs; his slender fingers grasped one, dangling it from his lips, and lit it. Inhaling a long drag before filling the space between us with smoke. Making the space feel tight and small, my heart began racing beneath my ribs. “Something special, indeed.”

A flash of light caressed the shadows of his face as something shot up in the air, and a loud boom followed.