Page 11 of Sinners Reunion

My weakness has always been a redhead, which is why I’ve steered clear of them. All but one, and she nearly did me in. It was shortly after Quinn’s mother’s death, and I almost lost myself for a second time, albeit for an entirely different reason. I swore off fiery hair of any shade after that.

No, if this girl is a redhead, she won’t be in my RV. That’s like setting a match next to a powder keg.

“Well, let’s get on with it,” I say, ushering Jim forward. “I’ll get the information out of her, and you’ll figure out who can take over my RV.”

“We’ll see,” he mutters.

I reach the door to the boathouse. Water laps against the boat inside, but aside from that, I hear nothing else.

“Are you sure she’s still in there?” I whisper.

Jim nods and holds his finger to his lips. “Dear girl, are you presently awake?”

Feet shuffle inside. “Grocky . . . ass fuck . . . but I defin-ly wake now.”

Her speech is slurred to hell and back, but I can just make out what she’s saying: Groggy as fuck, but I’m definitely awake now.

“How much ketamine did you give her, man?” I whisper. “She sounds as if she’s having a stroke.”

“I told you,” he whispers back. “Two vials.”

“At fucking once?”

Now it’s his turn to roll his eyes.

He steps forward and unfastens the padlock from the door.

Drugged and locked inside? Who is this woman?

Sunlight peeks into the wooden building as the doors open. Glints catch on the water near the walkway by the door, but shadows prevail deeper inside. A gleaming white speedboat bumps against the wooden dock.

“Where are you?” Jim peers into the darkness. “We placed your chair⁠—”

“I wanted to . . . see the water.” Her voice sounds so tired and slow, but it’s less slurred.

“You can’t swim!” Jim shouts as he rushes toward her voice in the darkness.

“You drugged her and stuck her in a boathouse when she can’t swim?”

“Oh god,” she drawls. “Not a British guy. I fucking hate British guys.”

I stop in my tracks. “Well, that’s not very polite.”

“You assholes think you’re so hot stuff.”

“So hot stuff?” My eyebrow rises. “Don’t you mean such hot stuff?”

“That’s the shit I’m talking about,” she says, though it takes entirely too long. “Always correcting people. You think you know such much.”

Jim turns to face me. “See? She’s quite lovely. Now give me a hand?”

Against my better judgment, I help him wrestle the chair into the light. I keep my gaze far away from the little minx with that shade of hair that makes me see a different sort of red—the kind that runs out of veins and mixes with flesh between two willing and very eager bodies.

God, I cannot think about her right now.

She wasn’t the one who got away. She was the one I released for the betterment of society. Together, we were just too explosive. We may have burned brightly, but it would only have been a matter of time before we set everything around us on fire. I cared so much for her that I wanted to leave her with memories of the fireworks, not the smoky mess in their wake.

That, and I knew that if I stayed a second longer, I’d end up burning her and myself.