Page 115 of Sin

Heavy and warm and breathing hard, his bare hand still wrapped around mine. For a long time, neither of us speaks. Then he lifts his head.

“Are you okay?”

No.

Yes.

I don’t know.

I touch his face. “That wasn’t like before.”

His throat moves.

“No.”

Neither of us says what it was because it was something that will hurt so much more when it ends.

He rolls onto his side and pulls me against him. I go willingly, tucking my head beneath his chin while his arm folds around me.

“I don’t want to go back tomorrow,” I whisper.

His hold tightens.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to pretend nothing changed.”

His lips press to my hair. “Neither do I.”

“But we will.”

Silence.

Then, quietly, “Yes.”

The word breaks something small and fragile inside me. Still, I stay in his arms. Because tomorrow is coming whether I want it to or not and eventually, Sin will have to become Mason Sinclair again, and I will have to become Laurel Cross, lead designer, professional, composed, untouchable.

But tonight, in Seattle, with his ring left behind and his body wrapped around mine, I let myself pretend we are only two people in love.

Even if neither of us is brave enough to say it.

The flight home is quiet and tender. He sits across from me on the jet with his laptop open, but I don’t think he reads a single email. I pretend to review launch notes, but the words blur every time I remember his mouth at my temple that morning. The way he held me before we left the hotel. The way he looked at me like boarding the plane physically hurt.

We don’t touch. Not where anyone can see. But when the flight attendant disappears behind the partition, Sin reaches across the small table and hooks his pinky around mine. It’s the smallest touch we’ve shared in weeks and nearly undoes me.

When we land in Chicago, the sky is gray and hard. Reality has terrible lighting. His truck is waiting. He loads my bag. Opens my door. Drives me home through traffic while we talk about work because apparently cruelty comes in many forms.

Anything but the fact that my body still aches from the way he loved me.

When he pulls up outside my apartment, neither of us moves. The city moves around us. Cars pass. People hurry down the sidewalk. Someone laughs under an umbrella.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.

His jaw tightens. “At the office.”

“At the office.”

His hand moves like he might reach for me but stops himself. That hurts more than if he hadn’t moved at all.