Exquisitely Broken (A Sin City Tale Book 1)

by M. Jay Granberry

  “Don’t say that,” I say, my voice cracking.

  “Okay. Then what is this?” He shifts his body, dragging his skin along mine. “If not proof.”

  “Chemistry? Sexual attraction? I don’t know. But this has always been the easy part with us. It’s everything else that’s hard”

  “It’s only as hard as we make it,” he says playfully, bumping his hips against mine.

  “Or as easy as I walked in and saw you with another woman.” Just saying those words seems to steal the oxygen out of the space between us. I try to unwind my body from his so that I can take a breath, but his hand tightens on my thigh, keeping us sealed from our chest to our toes.

  “That wasn’t easy. I was… it was…” He blows out a hard breath. “The whole thing was fucked up. If I could change hurting you, if I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away, believe me I would, Sin, in a heartbeat. But I need you to stop pretending like that one horrible thing is the culmination of us. It’s not true now and it wasn’t true four years ago. I don’t deserve your forgiveness but give us a chance. Give yourself this, and I’ll spend every day for the rest of my life working for your forgiveness. Proving to you that you made the right choice.”

  The words tumble out of his mouth in a stilted cadence punctuated with an earnest desperation. I need a minute, or two, or thirty for them to sink in. But he keeps going.

  “I’m not giving up on us. Not anymore. I know you and Adam are a thing now. That you have a kid—”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t have a baby.” His muscles turn to stone under my touch. “And if I did have a kid, he or she would never be Adam’s.”

  “I saw you, Sin. You and Adam and the girl. All of you. On stage the night the show opened. Just like four years ago I saw the Facebook post of the two of you laying on a couch backstage kissing.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about? What Facebook post? And that little girl you saw is his sister, Jake. Why would you just assumed she was mine?” I push back in his arms scrutinizing his face. He’s serious. Dead serious.

  “Start at the beginning because I need to understand this Facebook thing.”

  “Forget it.”

  “No! You just accused me of sleeping with Adam. Is that why you…”

  He squeezes his eyes shut.

  “It is, isn’t? You thought I was sleeping with Adam. When I was on the road. Before I came home… you actually believed…”

  His eyes peel open, and I wince at the pain in their depths.

  “You were topless, laying on a sofa, kissing him, Sin. What was I supposed to think?”

  “You were supposed to ask me. I would never… I never cheated on you. I remember that picture. I had on one of those backless tops and tripped over my shoe. Adam caught me. And we were most definitely not kissing,” I say flabbergasted.

  All these years he thought he’d caught me cheating. It explains so much. “Jake, Adam is… He’s… Adam is gay.”

  He blinks once and a frown creases his brows.

  “And his little sister is named Tori. She is one of the main reason’s we’re back in Vegas.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me he was…”

  “Because it’s not my secret to tell. Because it shouldn’t matter one way or the other. I told you who he was to me, who he’s always been, and it should have been enough. Because he’s not out. Shit I shouldn’t have said that. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “I wouldn’t do that. Not to him or you.”

  “Please don’t. If it gets out, he’ll—”

  “Trust me. I’ve been jealous of him since the first time I heard his name. I never guessed… but fuck, I needed to hear that.”

  He melts under my fingers, the tension oozing out of his body one limb at a time. I don’t know what’s more problematic, the fact that he thought I cheated with Adam and that we have a child, or the fact that he came here tonight with the intention of seducing me even when he thought I was with someone else. No. Not just someone. He thought I was with Adam.

  “How are you even here if you thought I was with Adam?”

  “Because I’m over here fighting, Sin.” He pushes both hands in my hair, dropping a hard, stinging kiss on my mouth, and even in his harshness, my body responds.

  “And if I had a baby there’d be nothing to fight for, right?”

  “Wrong. I’m all in. There is no plan B. So even if you had a kid with another man, it doesn’t change that fact that I want you. And not just this…” He moves his growing erection through my slippery folds.

  “I want it all. Your trust.” A light kiss touches my lips. “Your body.” His tongue plunges deep, thrusting against mine. “Your music.” He rolls me onto my back, his body hovering over mine. “Your everything.” This time when our mouths touch, it’s the luscious meeting of two lovers reconnecting, the exchange perfect in its simplicity. He strips me down to my basest desires. The ones I’ve been afraid to even admit to myself.

  Jake doesn’t take his time. He’s uncontrolled. Panting between searing kisses and barely coordinated thrusts of his hips. We both moan in anticipation when I reach down, my fingers wrapping around his shaft and guiding him into my entrance.

  He enters me, thrusting hard. Forceful pumps that move us up the bed. I stretch my hands over my head pushing my palms against the headboard, to save my skull, as I rock my hips, taking him deeper. And God this man. Every single time is better than the last time. Good in a way I was sure I’d only imagined. If anything, my memory didn’t do him justice.

  Gone is my suave lover, but I like him like this. Emotional. Severe. Overpowering. His body is not asking for permission but instead taking, what he wants. Possessing me from the inside out.

  He rears back on his knees, firm hands working my hips up and down his length. The new angle is almost too much. From this position, he’s nearly too long, too thick. He leans forward tangling my hand with his. Our joined hands glide on my sweat-drenched skin to settle on my sex and move in slow circles around my clit.

  “Show me what you do when you’re alone and this insatiable pussy needs to be filled. Let me see how you make yourself come,” he rasps.

  He goes back to thrusting with abandon, and my fingers move around my sensitive flesh. At first, slow, tentative. I’ve never done this in front of any man, including Jake. Especially not while he’s inside me. But it feels so good. My fingers strum my clit faster and holy hell… I explode.

  The orgasm barrels into me like a Mack truck, starting in my chest and moving to the very tips of my toes. He gets in a few more uncoordinated thrusts before he jumps off the cliff after me. He collapses against my chest, our sweaty skin sealed together, our breaths haggard.

  My mind is blissfully empty except for one thought. What am I getting myself into now?

  NOW

  Jake

  The last several hours with Sin are the culmination of a thousand whispered prayers and infinite dreams. The last four years weren’t gone, but tonight I think we got from under the shadow. One night doesn’t erase years of history and hurt, but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

  Sin makes me earn every touch and every kiss, and each time she lets me inside, every high-pitched moan and every stinging scrape of her nails on my shoulders is worth it. She brings out the Jerry McGuire feels. For the first time in four years I feel complete. Unlike the night on the balcony, she’s not turning away or hitting me with an unaffected attitude that hardens her face into an unrecognizable mask. Tonight she met each kiss with equal passion, and that gorgeous body took everything I offered, and in some instances, demanded more.

  As much as I wanted the sex. I want this. The intimacy that comes from lying beside her while she sleeps. The knowledge I’m the man that took her bed and put her asleep, the one she’ll see first thing in the morning and the one she’ll hopefully turn to in the middle of the night.

  I run my hands up and down her spine and revel in the feel of her under my fin
gertips. Soft and taut. By the time I close my eyes the sun is peaking over the top of the mountains, casting a golden glow across the room, highlighting her dark skin to a copper hue. I pull Sin’s sleep heavy body closer. And with her legs tangled in mine and her exhales synced with my inhales. finally I sleep.

  Jesus who left the blinds open? The sun blazes its way over the top of the mountain and tries to singe my retinas even behind closed eyelids. I turn my face away from the window only to get a mouth full of hair.

  I move her hair to the side and brush a kiss on her shoulder, and just because I can, I do it again. Sin shifts at my movement, blinking her eyes open. For five, maybe ten seconds, she looks at me like she used to with possessive hunger and tender devotion. But I watch her as the worship fades to confusion, her soft brown eyes become guarded and her body starts to hum with barely concealed anxiety.

  She slips out of bed, eyes everywhere but on mine, uttering an excuse as she hurries to the bathroom. The door snaps shut, and the shower starts a couple of seconds later.

  Don’t do this, baby. Don’t shut me out. Not after last night. Not when for the first time in four years we could be in perfect accord. I move stiffly to the edge of the bed. The late hours and multiple rounds of sex makes me sluggish.

  Sin wants distance. Why wouldn’t she? The last time we were together, really together, it didn’t end well. I hurt her. Bad. The right thing would be to back off. Let her come to me. Give her the space she rightly deserves. I’m solidly on the wrong side of right. She knows how to freeze me out, did it for four years and I’m done being stuck in the cold.

  I glance at the closed door for a full minute before I walk to the bathroom to test the handle. Unlocked—good sign.

  The door quietly opens and there she is, behind steam-covered glass, warm water cascading over her curves. She doesn’t utter a sound when I join her inside the shower stall or when my hands find the soapy skin along her ribs.

  “You hiding in here?” I ask, pulling her farther under the spray.

  Sin looks at me through eyelashes spiked with water. Her brown eyes glued to mine when she mumbles. “Not well.”

  “Not at all.”

  “We don’t have to do this,” she says, shaking her hands in front of her like she’s shaking off bad vibes. “We don’t. Now that we’ve gotten whatever this is out of our systems, we can go back to our respective lives. Let’s not do the long, drawn out discussion.” She tries to move away, but I use my body to back her against the shower bench.

  “Last night was the first time in years that I felt normal. That I didn’t feel like something was missing.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend like it’s more than it is. That it’s more than sex.”

  “It’s more.”

  “I can’t do another trip down memory lane.”

  “Me neither,” I say gruffly. “I want to make new memories.” I bend my head, brushing my lips over hers and gliding my fingers over the gentle slope of her jaw to turn her face. She lets out a shuddered breath. The first kiss is rigid. Her lips don’t open under the pressure of mine or when my tongue tries to explore her mouth. “Kiss me,” I say against her lips. “Kiss me and let the rest go.” I drop kisses at the edge of her lips.

  “Jake, we shouldn’t—” she says in a breathy voice. Her shoulders sag and her head tilts at just the right angle so I can’t see her eyes.

  “We should.” I use my thumb under her chin to push her face up to mine. “We absolutely should, and we already have,” I say right before I kiss her again. My tongue flicks at the crease of her bottom lip. My hands shift down her body, and my thumbs instinctively rub her hardened nipples.

  “Oh…” she groans. Her hips jerk forward. So, I do it again.

  Sin turns fully toward me. Standing on her toes, her lips crash onto mine, and I open up, let her tongue inside my mouth. I offer no protest when she pushes me down on the bench and straddles my legs, rubbing her slicked pussy along the achingly tight skin of my shaft. I don’t need a gentle seduction. I just need her, and at this point I’ll take her anyway I can get her.

  “Use me, Sin,” I demand, wrapping my hand around the base of my dick. Standing the hard column up, the broad crown teasing her entrance.

  Bracing her hands on my shoulders as she eases her weight down. Her pussy unfolds around my shaft, the lips perfect and silky. She’s tight, so fucking tight. Sin sets the pace, a slow grind up, followed by a hard bounce down.

  “Fuuuuuck, baby,” I pant, leaning forward to wrap my lips around her nipple and laving the tight bud with my tongue. Sin arches her back pushing more of her breast into my mouth as her hands wrap around my head, holding me to her chest.

  “Don’t stop, Jake,” she whimpers. “Right there. I’m right there,” she says, moving faster. Her drenched pussy dripping down my balls.

  My hand skims down the flat plane of her stomach to her clit. The barest touch makes her shudder.

  “Ohhh…”

  My thumbs circles that sensitive flesh, and it swells beneath my touch. Sin constricts around my length, her orgasm milking me in deep pulsing waves. I’m a man barely holding on to the edge of sanity, and each pulse pulls another finger off the ledge until I’m falling into the abyss with her.

  We don’t move for several minutes, our breaths ragged and our hearts beating hard in our chests. It isn’t until the hot water turns lukewarm and then cold that I ease out of her. Sin stands and turns off the water. I grab her hand before she can walk out, and she pulls me into the bathroom.

  She grabs two towels hanging on the rack, tossing one in my general direction. “Here you go.”

  I catch it and wrap the thick white cotton around my waist. I follow her into the room where we tiptoe around each other in a silence weighed down by the awkwardness of two people with a broken past and an uncertain future, who, over the last eight hours, have shared enough to make us vulnerable and uncertain how to proceed.

  At least that’s how I feel. Maybe it’s different for Sin. Maybe she just wants me out of her villa and doesn’t know how to politely ask. She keeps her back turned to me as she rubs oil into her skin and pulls on black exercise shorts that barely cover her curves and a Def Leppard tank top that does nothing to cover the fact that she didn’t bother with a bra. Her skin is luminous and fragrant, and my dick immediately takes notice.

  Not right now, you randy fucker. I take my eyes off Sin because even after the shower I want her again. Right now. But I’m not pushing my luck.

  I should say something. Open my mouth and convince her to let me stay but the only time I get past the walls Sin is hiding behind is when I’m inside her. So instead of begging yet again, I locate my discarded clothes.

  I take my time pulling on one rumpled garment after the other. Throwing glances her way hoping to catch her eye.

  “I’m going to go ahead and go,” I say fully clothed now. She doesn’t object so I head toward the door. She follows a couple of paces behind me, and when I’m standing on the other side of the door, she finally meets my gaze. And nope. I’m not getting past those walls right now. We stare at each other over the threshold, waiting for the other person to make the first move. Like always, I cave first. I wrap my fingers around the back of Sin’s neck and brush my thumb across the tip of her collarbone.

  “You good?” I ask because what else can I say? Sorry that I hurt you. Sorry that I cheated. Sorry that I’m still stupidly, head over heels, in love with you. But next time will be different. Just watch. She knows how I feel.

  “I’m…” Her head lowers to my chest before she brings her eyes back up. “Okay.” Her tongue swipes her full bottom lip.

  “I must be losing my touch if you’re just ‘okay.’ ” I use my other hand to make air quotes and chuckle. Last night was spine tingling, toe curling, fucking phenomenal. It was better than all the times we had before and anything I’d had with other women. Never in the history of us has sex been “okay,” and we both know it.

  “I
guess we need to get in more practice so that I improve,” I say jokingly. The smile on Sin’s face dies so fast you would’ve thought I broke the secret to her that there’s no Santa Claus.

  “Jake,” she says softly. “All the stuff that happened on the balcony and everything that went down last night… that was closure, you know?”

  I study her face long and hard.

  Wow. Sin’s serious.

  “This was a one and done. You know that, right?” She attempts to step back into the room, but I tighten my hold on her neck, stopping her retreat. “We needed that one last time. Get it out of our systems,” she murmurs.

  The word closure scrapes my already exposed nerves raw. Closure my ass. I don’t know everything, but I know a little bit, and last night wasn’t closure. It was a new beginning.

  But if that’s what she needs to tell herself, so be it. The train wreck that is Sin and I is my bed, and I’ve been lying in it for four years. It’s time to buy a new mattress and change the sheets. After years of yearning for one more time, the finality of her words sucks the air out of my lungs and chill my body.

  This is what hell feels like. Having everything you want, everything you desire at your fingertips, and not being able to fully grasp it. I can’t help wondering if this is how Sin felt when she found Tina and me.

  “I’m not asking for a relationship,” I say roughly, and I’m not. At least not yet. She’s skittish enough as it is, and I have the feeling if I push too hard, she’ll run again. I have to give her just enough space and time to find her way back to me and I have no hesitation in using our attraction to lure her in or convolute the waters to get her to stay.

  What I’m not doing is accepting this one-time bullshit.

  We stare at each other. She’s stiff and guarded and I’m grappling with how to scale those walls.

  “It doesn’t have to be complicated,” I say finally, dropping my forehead to hers.

  “Have we ever been anything else?”

  “I think so. You don’t remember? It wasn’t that long ago.” I move my hand into the soft hair at the nape of her neck.