Page 112 of Sin

It should be. But somehow, with him, I want to give more.

“My parents were great when they were great,” I say quietly. “But they should have never had me. It was always a struggle growing up. Money. Food. Stability. Sometimes they were there. Sometimes they weren’t. And eventually, drugs mattered more than I did.”

His arm tightens around me.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Me too.” I try to smile, but it doesn’t work. “It’s pretty shitty being an orphan by the time you graduate high school.”

I rarely share this bit of information, but with Sin it feels easy. That might be the most dangerous thing of all. The sex is one thing. The way my body wants him is one thing. But this? Telling him truths I usually keep buried? Letting him see the soft, ugly parts of me? That feels far more reckless than taking off my clothes.

“What about you?” I ask. “Do you want kids?”

His gaze shifts to the ceiling.

For a second, I think he won’t answer.

Then he says, “I got a vasectomy when I was nineteen.” His eyes come back to mine. “A month before I married Jenna.”

My stomach twists.

“I’m surprised she was okay with that,” I say.

“She didn’t know. Not for about ten years,” he adds. “When she wanted to see a specialist because she couldn’t get pregnant.”

I sit up a little. “Sin.”

“I know.”

“What happened?”

“She was understandably angry.” His mouth tightens. “I thought our marriage was over then.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?”

He exhales slowly. “Because I didn’t think she’d understand. My father was an asshole. Violent. Cruel. The kind of man who could make a whole house go quiet just by walking into it.” His throat moves. “Part of me was scared that I’d do the same thing to Jenna that he did to my mom.”

My chest aches.

“That’s reasonable,” I say softly.

“It was cowardly.”

“You were nineteen. Give yourself some grace.”

He looks at me then, and something in his expression almost breaks me.

“The crazy part is, I only knew of two of my brothers by then.”

I blink. “Two?”

He nods. “I found out about the others later. One by one. Different women. Different lives. Same father leaving damage everywhere he went.”

I don’t know what to say. So I touch him instead. My fingers slide over his chest, over the scar near his ribs, over the steady beat of his heart.

“You thought if you made sure you couldn’t have children, you couldn’t become him,” I say.

His eyes close. For a second, he looks younger. Exhausted. Human in a way that hurts to look at.