Page 36 of Sinners Reunion

“No worries there, young lady. I’ll be locked in with you tonight.”

“That’s worse,” she grumbles, but it’s enough to move her feet.

And it is worse. I realize that as I climb the steps behind her.

Her figure, her beauty, her wit—it’s more than one man can deny for an entire night, and deny her I must. If I make a move too soon, it could derail everything, yet being so close to her makes me do insane things.

I’ll make her sleep on the floor.

It’s safer.

Once we’re in the RV, I pull some blankets from the cubbies above the bed and do my best to make a sort of nest beside it. There aren’t any extra pillows, so I retrieve a few couch cushions and prop them up.

“There, that should do nicely,” I say, but when I turn to look at Josie, she’s already fast asleep on the bed.

I keep silent and look down at her. A bit of moonlight streams through the window and dances over her cheek. For a moment, I’m thrust backward five years to a night like this. No one would have been sleeping on the floor then.

Why now?

I remove my suit jacket, followed by my tie. Then I climb into bed behind her. She murmurs something about putting on the kettle, and my heart squeezes in my chest.

Some old habits die hard.

Whenever I was forced to take a job I couldn’t tell her about, or whenever I’d return from one, we’d say I’d just popped into the next room to put the kettle on.

Then one day, I popped out and never returned.

She knew it would happen eventually. I told her it couldn’t be forever.

She told me she understood.

Only one of us was lying.

I turn onto my side and try not to think of her warmth crowding my back. My god, the woman is still a furnace; her body puts out enough heat to melt the ice caps. If a human had the propensity to spontaneously combust, it’d be this one.

And her pussy is just as warm.

I close my eyes and beg for sleep. Anything to drag me away from this very stressful situation. The Carter family’s secret will be out of the bag by the end of this trip, and that’s only if we can survive the Ice Pick Cuckold mystery and keep Josie’s needs within my domain.

This is going to be a glorious time.

Chapter Eleven

Josie

Iwanted to scream and back away the moment I opened my eyes this morning. It was as if Luca Brasi paid me a visit, but not even Don Corleone would be this cruel. A horse’s head is nothing compared to waking up beside your ex.

Also, fuck all these shit-ass butterflies in my guts. They’ve been swimming in stomach acid and making a real mess of things since I woke up. Beside him. In a bed.

The flutters only persisted as he politely apologized for not discussing sleeping arrangements first. Then he brought me breakfast—two eggs, scrambled, with a bit of ketchup over the top—and I damn near asked him when he wants his dick sucked. King hasn’t pampered me like this since the night he left me.

And as he’s donning a camo getup and trying to find the armholes in a blazing-orange hunting vest, that’s when it strikes me.

King is up to something. He buttered me up all those years ago so that the blow wouldn’t strike its mark quite as hard, so what is he buttering me up for this time?

I push my legs into a pair of hideous camo pants and smirk to myself. He thinks he’s playing a game, but I’m the one with all the cards. I know that he slept with Ice Pick’s lover, and shame on him for that. Also, shame on him for being a shitbag and making everyone play along so that I’d keep calling the poor guy the wrong fucking name.

If he thinks he can just keep sweet and get back in my good graces after fucking that Dolly Parton wannabe, he’s in for a rude awakening, but I’ll let him keep it up. For now.