The Secret (The Evolution Of Sin Book 2) Read online

  My current partner, a handsome all-American kind of guy in the last pieces of the suit he had probably worn to his job on Wall Street, ran his hand up my knee to my thigh and hitched it over his leg to bring our pelvises closer. I closed my eyes and focused on the pulse of the bass rich song and the swirl of alcohol tingling in my blood.

  Cage was beside me, somehow dancing equally with three girls at the same time, his dark brow glittering with a crown of sweat that made him appear sexier, less civilized and more heathen. He was keeping his eye on me but it didn’t feel obtrusive. He was my fun keeper, assuring that every moment I spent with him was filled to the brim with it.

  My partner, Tim or Jim, pressed his nose into the damp hair above my ear and whispered, “You are so fucking sexy.”

  I pulled back, pressing one hand to his damp chest and smiled coyly as I bent at the knees, dragging my hand from his sternum to his hip as I descended. His groan vibrated against my hand.

  He wanted me. The shape of his arousal through his slacks was obvious and the heat in his eyes was blatant, almost pleading. I wondered hazily, if it wouldn’t be a good idea to go home with him. I’d never had a one night stand and Sinclair had awakened a neediness within me that I couldn’t quench alone, in the dark of my room with my fingers.

  I was just opening my mouth, my lips grazing his dimpled chin, when he was jerked away. I lost my balance as I had been flush against him and it took me a second to right myself and see what was unfolding. A man I had never seen before – massive and currently scowling – drew back one corded arm to pound it into Tim/Jim’s nose. Blood erupted immediately and made it almost impossible to discern his curses as he crumpled in on himself.

  I watched in a daze and reached behind me to find Cage. His hand snagged on mine and threaded our fingers. Still distracted by the fight – it couldn’t have been because of me, I didn’t even know the guys – it took me a moment to recognize that the hand in mine was too lean to be Cage’s, the fingers long and strong. My breath caught in my throat and slowly because I feared that he would fade away like an apparition as soon as I laid eyes on him, I looked over my shoulder.

  Before I could turn fully, he was off, dragging me through the gathered bodies without issue. We passed close to Cage who was looking at me intently, the end of his braid in one hand brushing the tail against his lips.

  Sinclair didn’t break pace until we were off the main dance floor and climbing the steps to the open second level. The atmosphere was slower than the strobe light thrum of sexuality downstairs. Here, it was thick with sensuality. People spoke in low velvety voices, close together in semi private booths obscured by glossy black curtains. A few people mingled on the dance floor, touching each other in slow motion with a deliberateness that spiked blood pressure.

  I barely had time to observe the VIP lounge though because Sinclair powered across the floor without speaking to any of the people who tried to stop him. Finally, we came to a stop at the far side of the second floor after shimmying through a small door in the bar. Without a word, he swiped a card and pushed me gently into the room. I whirled around to yell at him but the door had already closed and I could hear him speaking to someone on the other side. I tried to yank open the door but someone on the other side was holding it closed.

  Furious, I spun back around to face my temporary prison. It was a medium sized office, the front wall made entirely of glass in order to overlook the main dance floor bellow. The floor thrummed slightly with the force of the music and the dark room flashed with colored lights. Suddenly cold, I rubbed my hands hard up and down my arms and decided to snoop a little. If Sinclair was going to shove me into a room like a freaking Neanderthal then I was going to take advantage of it.

  The large matte black desk was L-shaped, facing both the door and the windows, and it was clear of paraphernalia. Frustrated, I moved around to sit in the high backed red leather chair in order to open a few doors. I was just about to close the first one when I noticed the white edge of a Polaroid photograph sticking out from between two black folders. My heart picked up speed as I carefully pulled it free and looked at a picture of me. In it, I lay on my back with my red hair a swirling mass around a sleepy, satiated face. My lids were low over slightly smiling eyes and one hand rested against the creamy top of my breast. I barely remembered him taking the photo, sometime after the move from the balcony to the bedroom on our last night together. I couldn’t believe he had kept it but somewhere beneath my shock, a sense of powerful calm was rising.

  I didn’t look up when the door opened and closed. Instead, I crossed my legs, aware how high the hem of my dress rose over my thighs, and continued to look down at the picture.

  “Pretty risky, having something like this laying around.” I was grateful that the tremor in my heart wasn’t echoed in my words.

  “As I recall, it wasn’t exactly ‘laying around’.”

  I leaned back in the chair, steeling myself to look up at him. “Why do you still have this, Daniel?”

  He stood halfway between the door and the desk as if he was unsure about approaching. I had never seen him unsure about anything and I wondered, hopefully, if I was making him nervous.

  I sighed when he remained silent. “Fine. How about you tell me how you knew I was here? Or, better yet, what happened downstairs.”

  Amusement tipped the corner of his firm lips. “Don’t feel like it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He shrugged and strode across the space confidently to take a seat in the chair across from the desk. “I don’t feel like talking to you about that.”

  “Oh?” Indignation vibrated through me. “Well, I don’t feel like being here.”

  Ha! How would he like that?

  Again, he shrugged.

  “Stop playing games with me Sinclair. Why the hell am I here?”

  His too blue eyes flamed and he leaned forward, arms on the table so that he could move that gorgeous face closer to me.

  “I love it when you say my name.”

  That caught me off guard. “Daniel?”

  “Sinclair. You know, before you, I hated my family name.”

  “Why does everyone call you Sinclair then?”

  “Cage always has and he has a way of influencing people. It’s his way of reminding me where I came from.”

  “Oh.”

  He smiled slightly at my lack of eloquence, his confident mask secured firmly over his face. “And you are here precisely because I don’t want to play games with you. You’re here because I saw you dancing in the pit with a dozen different men wearing my favorite dress and my favorite smile and I couldn’t stand it.” Slowly, keeping eye contact with me the entire way, he got to his feet and stepped around the desk to stand in front of me, so tall that I had to tip the chair back to look into his eyes. “You are here, Giselle, simply and complicatedly, because I miss you.”

  My tongue was pasted to the roof of my mouth, stuck to the back of my teeth so that I could barely breathe let alone respond. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and I realized with mortification that this was where the moisture had gone. But his gaze on me was tender and open, asking to receive whatever response I was able to give him.

  A knock at the door jolted us both and Sinclair chuckled softly as he called for them to come in. The young woman who entered was beautiful and all skin, the tiny crop top and black skirt she wore only covered the essentials. She licked her lips and beamed at Sinclair as she carried in a tray and placed it on the coffee table where he had directed her. They were speaking, polite small talk, but I was too focused on Sinclair’s declaration to tune in.

  He missed me.

  My heart was too warm in my chest, like the sun over my tossing oceanic stomach. I was at once deathly ill and too alive, suspended on the rack of desire and pain with no sense of escape.

  By the time the girl left, I was basically breathless.

  Without a word, Sinclair reached down to take my hand and led me to the small lounge area to
wards the heavenly smell of… chocolate. I frowned down at the assortment of chocolates, mini cakes and candies on the large gold lacquered tray and back up at Sinclair.

  He grinned, one of his rare full and boyish smiles that hooked my heart and dragged it through the waters straight towards his net. “The club is called Sinner’s for a reason. We cater to all the indulgences here, including gluttony. There is a dessert bar on the second floor.”

  I mouthed wow and took a seat on the low red love seat. Sinclair tugged one of the velvet chairs closer and sat down too.

  “Drink.” He nodded at the tall glass of water. “And eat.”

  I took a long draught of the cool liquid, grateful for its effect on my dry throat, and carefully bit into a chocolate covered strawberry, my eyes fluttering closed at the explosion of bitter and sweet on my refreshed tongue.

  When I opened them again, Sinclair was staring at me. I shivered, poised like a gong waiting for the hammer strike to bring me alive.

  “You should be forbidden from eating in public.” He shook his head and propped one ankle on his opposite knee. “I’d almost forgotten what a pleasure it is to watch you.”

  I swallowed hard and fought for purchase on the slippery surface of my morality. “You shouldn’t be saying things like that.”

  “I would amend that statement. I should say things like that. Every. Single. Day. But you’ve assured me that you don’t want to hear them so…” He opened his palms wide, at a loss.

  “Are you…” I sighed. “What are you doing, Sinclair?”

  “I’m renegotiating our agreement.”

  “We don’t have an agreement.”

  He nodded, completely unfazed, and gestured to the tray of bite-sized sins. “Eat, please.”

  I looked between him and the sweets, both representing tempting threats to my body. I picked up a cocoa dusted truffle, choosing the lesser of two evils.

  “I didn’t know you owned a club,” I said, because I felt impotent in our current line of conversation.

  “It was my first asset, actually.” He chuckled softly at my expression. “I was twenty one years old, fresh out of university and still living with my controlling, conservative parents. It was a pretty cliché trope. I hoped, if they wouldn’t let me leave, that I could get myself kicked out and owning a club seemed like the way to do it.”

  “I heard something about them. You didn’t tell me they had adopted you.”

  “I didn’t tell you a lot of things, that was part of our agreement. And the subject of my parents and my fruitless rebellions is not something I like to discuss.” He glanced sidelong at me, a mischievous light in his eyes.

  I found myself leaning forward, mouth slightly open like a fish hooked by the cheek. “So?”

  “So what?” he said, a smug smile in his eyes.

  “Did it work?”

  “Not quite, but I did get a surprisingly profitable club out of it and my first million.”

  I leaned back with a huff. “So not exactly a classic teenage trope.”

  He laughed again, louder this time, and I realized this was the most I had ever heard the stirring sound. I wished my mind was clearer, unclouded by the copious amounts of liquor in my system, so that I could better absorb it.

  “No, not exactly.”

  He stood up with a grace that made my mouth water and moved to stand over me again. I kept my eyes on the confections but I wasn’t sure if it was to ignore him or because the restless submissive was shifting and fighting for purchase inside me.

  “Do you want to know what it taught me, Giselle?” His voice was deeper and his faintly accented words tingled like ice sliding down my spine.

  He was so close that my cheek was almost pressed to his trouser clad thigh. I wanted to take off those pants with my teeth and use my mouth, hands and throat on him.

  “It taught me the art of patience. Have you ever heard the saying, good things come to those who wait?”

  I shook my head slightly even though I had heard it before.

  His breath was warm and whiskey scented over my crown as he leaned down to gently tip my chin up with one finger so that my neck was craned and my eyes rested on his.

  “Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace, Grace is a little girl who doesn’t wash her face,” I said.

  I was close enough to see his features collapse, slowly at first like a loose domino tumbling a dozen more, into laughter.

  When he was finished, he stared down at me with caged eyes filled with stars. “You always surprise me.”

  The cell phone on the desk vibrated angrily and he swiftly turned away from me to answer it, leaving me mid-shrug. He picked up and listened without saying a word of greeting.

  “I don’t care who his father is, get him the fuck out of my club.”

  My eyebrows shot up at his harsh tone and less then formal language. I was pretty sure Sinclair never raised his voice. Triggered by his sudden mood change, the air in the room stiffened and pressed against me until I was locked into place.

  He placed the phone back on the cradle with a slow calm but when he looked over at me his face was implacable, his eyes just a color.

  “As I was saying, you always surprise me. But tonight, I was not happy with your behavior. Drunkenly dancing with men like that.” He shook his head. “I thought you would want to be more careful after the incident in Mexico.”

  I flinched as his dart landed with deadly accuracy in my breastbone. “Don’t talk to me about Mexico. I was perfectly safe and aware tonight, Sinclair. And, if it appeals to your idiotic French misogyny, Cage was close by.”

  “Still, I did not like it.” He wasn’t speaking sternly now, in fact, his accent had thickened slightly and he seemed more disturbed than angry.

  I shrugged beautifully, as if I wasn’t affected by his concern, his potential jealousy. “You have no right to do anything about that.”

  “I have the right, Giselle, and I will always have that right. I am closer to you than any other man has ever been or will ever be.”

  “No.”

  “Mais oui,” he confirmed with that infernal, casual arrogance of the French. “I know things about you, the dark places and the deep, that even you do not like to explore. I know the things you hate about yourself, and I? I nurture them because I know them to be beautiful.”

  “Stop it,” I breathed, suddenly aware of the slight tremor wracking my frame.

  He lifted one shoulder insolently and tucked his hands in his pockets. “It is not something I can stop knowing.”

  “What do you want from me?” A scalding tear rolled over my lid and slid down my cheek.

  Sinclair reached out to sweep the burning trail with his thumb. “We could be friends.”

  My laugh was soggy with my tears. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I can’t say anyone has every accused me of being ridicule before.”

  “Je le crois pas,” I said wryly, I don’t believe that.

  “See, this is why we must be friends. You are the only person I have ever met that makes me feel like a boy.”

  I frowned, unsure if that was a compliment or not.

  “You know le Petit Prince? There is a quote, it goes ‘only children know what they are looking for.’”

  I waited in silence for him to explain but he only stared at me with those inscrutable eyes.

  It didn’t really matter what the motivation was behind his offer of friendship, I was desperate to grab it, to snare anything that represented time with him. Because he was right, of course. He knew me better then anyone. Even Cosima, who I loved devotedly and yet knew so little about, even Brenna, who hadn’t replied to my emails in over two weeks. A friendship with Sinclair meant that I could smile at him genuinely, that I could speak with him in front of our family like I knew him and spend time with him casually as if I had a right to.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Yes, I mean okay. I think we should be friends too.”

  We s
tared at each other without smiling because our joy was concentrated in the eyes. I wrapped myself in the warm blue hues and stopped breathing. He reached out slowly and wrapped his long fingers around my hand, gently pulling me to my feet.

  His eyes creased slightly with the effort of holding back his smile. “I’m taking you home.”

  Desire plucked my strings like a puppet master, my mouth dropping open to gasp.

  “Friends don’t let drunk friends drive or get into cabs alone,” he pointed out, stepping away to gather his wallet and keys from the desk.

  I took the moment to suck in a deep, necessary breath. Right, friends. I had never needed to memorize and carry a piece of information so badly. I watched his lean form from the corner of my eye, the colored lights flashing against him like the light of a camera. I released the enormous breath and dragged in another to fill myself with my new mantra, just friends.

  I knew the minute we opened the door that Cosima wasn’t home, the air was cool and dark, unpunctuated by the habitual fire and music crooning from the surround sound speakers. I wasn’t sure if her absence was a blessing or a curse because the current of electricity that crackled constantly between Sinclair and me snapped with ferocity as soon as we understood our aloneness.

  “Drink?” I murmured as we moved towards the kitchen at the back of the apartment.

  Without waiting for an answer, I started to rifle through the fully stocked cupboards. I had no idea where Cosima kept the liquor and I was too frazzled to properly guess at where she may have placed it.

  “You sit,” he demanded in that quiet, stern voice that made my bones shake with desire. “I’ll fix us both a drink.”

  I nodded gratefully and slipped onto one of the stools at the large wooden island. I watched him maneuver about the kitchen gracefully, locating the ice, tumblers and whiskey as if he himself had placed them there.