Sin Bin

by Maureen Smith

  “Jesus,” Logan hissed in angry disgust. “What a sadistic fuck.”

  She nodded, agreeing with him. “I shared a room with this girl named Meghan. She was a year younger than me. We used to call ourselves ‘the M&Ms.’ She was so pretty and sweet, and she had the most beautiful dark skin,” Meadow recalled with a smile. “It was so radiant and smooth. I wanted her complexion so bad, I used to pray for it.” Her smile faded slowly as she continued her story. “For some reason, Ms. Bellamy hated Meghan and me even more than the other kids. She used to call me a weirdo, make fun of my name, yank me by my hair and slap me for the slightest infraction. She was just as cruel to Meghan, calling her horrible names and making all sorts of derogatory jokes about her dark skin.” Meadow shook her head, her stomach clenching with hot anger. “I hated that woman so damn much.”

  “With good fucking reason.” Logan’s voice was a low growl, his fury palpable.

  She forced herself to go on. “One night we were in our room doing our homework when Ms. Bellamy came bursting through the door. She was yelling and accusing us of stealing her new bottle of perfume. She started ransacking the room, tearing everything apart. When I told her we hadn’t stolen anything, she backhanded me so hard that I hit the wall and fell to the floor. She kicked me twice in the stomach, then turned around and started beating up Meghan.”

  Meadow’s jaw tightened, her nostrils flaring with emotion. “She was sobbing and begging Ms. Bellamy to stop. But she wouldn’t. She was in such a rage, I thought she was going to kill Meghan. I got up and tried to push her off Meghan, but she was too strong. I saw a pair of craft scissors on the desk. I didn’t think. I just grabbed them and stabbed Ms. Bellamy in the arm. I wasn’t trying to seriously injure her. I just wanted to stun her enough to make her stop hitting Meghan.”

  She drew a shaky breath before continuing. “I watched her grab her bleeding arm and run screaming out of the room. She called my caseworker and told her that I had just attacked her and tried to kill her. She said she didn’t feel safe and wanted me gone immediately. Then she hung up the phone and forcefully dragged me outside, making me wait in the rain until CPS arrived. I was removed from her home that night, and of course the incident went in my case file. Because I’d used a weapon on my foster parent, I was labeled ‘violence prone.’ That was the last foster home I was placed in.”

  “Shit,” Logan whispered, his voice harsh with fury. “That abominable bitch.”

  “She was abominable. Horrifically so.” Meadow let out a slow, painful breath and shook her head. “That’s how I ended up at the group home with you.”

  Logan’s gaze was filled with raw compassion. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you.”

  She nodded and blinked back a sting of tears.

  “What happened to Meghan? Please tell me they got her away from that fucking monster?”

  “They did,” Meadow assured him. “But not right away. By the time my caseworker arrived that night, Mrs. Bellamy had cleaned up Meghan’s face and concocted a story about her getting beat up by a bully at school. My right eye was nearly swollen shut, so she had to come clean about slapping me. But she claimed that I attacked her first. I told my caseworker that she was lying through her teeth, but none of the other kids backed me up. She’d probably threatened them while I was waiting outside. Not even poor Meghan was saying a word. She was scared, you know? Scared of Ms. Bellamy. Scared to be placed in an even worse foster home. Thankfully my caseworker opened an investigation, and Meghan and the other kids were eventually removed from Ms. Bellamy’s home.” Meadow sighed. “The good news is that she lost her foster care license. The bad news is that she was never charged with child abuse or neglect.”

  “Of course she wasn’t,” Logan said with bitter scorn. “People like that have no fucking business being entrusted with the care of children. Yet somehow they always manage to slip through the cracks and escape punishment for their crimes.”

  Meadow studied Logan’s ferocious expression. She knew he had to be speaking from personal experience. Before she could probe further, he turned away and stared out across the lake to the distant mountains.

  After a long stretch of silence, she whispered, “Did you used to pretend to see your mother?”

  Slowly he turned his head to stare at her. His dark eyes were haunted, his features strained. “What?”

  “I used to see my parents,” she explained. “I used to pretend they were still with me, helping me with my homework, tucking me into bed at night, taking me to the planetarium. They seemed so real, I felt as if I could reach out and touch them. But then reality would intrude and…” She trailed off with a mournful little smile. “Maybe they really were there. My adoptive mother used to tell me that our departed loved ones visit us sometimes. To comfort us and let us know they’re okay.”

  Logan was deathly silent.

  Meadow gave him a long, searching look. “So…did you have a Ms. Bellamy?”

  He glanced away from her. She could feel the tight web of tension radiating from him, giving her an answer even before he said in a very low, contained voice, “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  She nodded, trying not to feel stung at his unwillingness to share with her after she’d opened up to him.

  He took a deep breath, his shoulders expanding before they relaxed again. “It’s not that I don’t want to confide in you. I do. It’s just…hard to talk about the past. And I want us to bond over more than our fucked-up childhoods.”

  “I understand,” she said softly.

  The night breeze picked up along the lake and stirred her hair, blowing the dark strands around her face. They stood quietly for a long time, gazing up at the stars twinkling from an endless sea of black velvet.

  Logan’s soft, reminiscing voice broke the silence. “Remember that time I woke up in the middle of the night and found you stargazing in the backyard? You wanted to get rid of me, so you started reciting a bunch of facts about the solar system.”

  Meadow let out a quiet laugh and shook her head. “I was hoping you’d get bored and leave me alone. But you didn’t. You stuck around just to annoy me.”

  “Yup.” His grin was a flash of white in his shadowed face. “You enjoyed my company. Admit it.”

  She snorted. “I’ll admit no such thing.”

  “Not now, maybe. But someday you will.” He grinned up at the sky. “Tell me something about Jupiter. I need a quick refresher.”

  “Hmm.” She was smiling. She couldn’t help it. “Let’s see…Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and by far the largest planet in the solar system. It also has the shortest day. One day on Jupiter only takes about ten hours—meaning, that’s how long it takes for Jupiter to rotate or spin around once. It’s surrounded by seventy-nine known moons.” She grinned. “One of those moons—Amalthea—is shaped like a hockey puck.”

  “Yeah? A hockey puck?” Logan playfully bumped his shoulder against hers. “See? That’s another reason Jupiter is my favorite planet.”

  She smiled at him, her skin tingling where he’d made contact. When he winked at her, she pushed off the tree to stand in front of him, figuring that might be safer.

  He stared back at her with hooded eyes.

  Okay, maybe not so safe after all, she thought, licking her dry lips.

  His eyes flickered to her mouth and lingered.

  She found herself returning the favor. The lush fullness of his lips had her thinking about sex. Hot, forbidden, mind-scrambling sex.

  She glanced away and cleared her throat, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Um, before I forget, Ana’s sister has a crush on you.”

  Logan let out a throaty laugh.

  She frowned at him. “What’s so funny?”

  “Aww,” he teased. “Look at you playing matchmaker. How cute.”

  She bristled a little. “I told Ana I’d tell you about her sister.”

  “You really don’t have—”

  “Her
name is Inez and she’s in fashion design school. She loves wearing pretty clothes and she enjoys going to the beach. She had a great childhood, so she’s probably lots of fun to be around.” Unlike me, Meadow thought forlornly before adding, “She thinks you’re really amazing and would love to meet you sometime.”

  Logan leaned his head back against the tree, gazing at her from beneath his lashes. “You trying to get rid of me, Jupiter?”

  “What?” She was unaccountably flustered. “Why would you think that?”

  “Well, first you lied about having a boyfriend—which has never happened to me before, by the way. And now you’re trying to foist me off on some chick. I don’t know, Jupe. What’s a guy to think?”

  Her cheeks heated. “I’m not trying to get rid of you, Logan.”

  His eyes twinkled. “Because you like me. You always have.”

  “For the millionth time—” She stopped herself and held up her hand. “You know what? Forget it. Think whatever you want.”

  A grin played at the corners of his lips. “Jupiter likes me,” he crooned in a singsong voice.

  “Whatever.” Her lips hurt from trying not to laugh. “Anyway, this has nothing to do with me. I promised to put in a good word for Ana’s sister—”

  “And now you have,” Logan said.

  She eyed him expectantly. Waiting. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What should I tell Ana?”

  “Tell her thanks, but I’m not interested.”

  “How do you know you’re not interested? You haven’t even met her sister.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t do relationships.”

  Meadow frowned. “Ever?”

  “Nope. Not my thing.”

  “Why not?”

  He raised one dark, sexy eyebrow. “You asking for Ana’s sister or yourself?”

  “Her sister, of course.”

  “Of course.” Logan’s eyes gleamed. He didn’t believe her.

  She wasn’t so sure she believed herself.

  He startled her when he suddenly pushed away from the tree to step close to her.

  Her stomach fluttered wildly and her breath quickened.

  When he brushed a tendril of hair away from her face and stared down at her, her heart thumped a few extra heavy beats. He was so close that only a sliver of air came between them.

  She stared up at him. God, she could drown in those endless dark eyes.

  When his gaze dropped to her mouth, she realized that he was thinking about kissing her. The realization should have sent her running for the hills—or at least made her back away from him.

  She didn’t back away. She didn’t run.

  She stood there, breathless, watching as his hands came up to cradle her face.

  Staring into her eyes, he slowly lowered his head toward hers. When their mouths were just inches apart, he paused as if he were waiting for her to pull back. When she didn’t, his lips came down over hers.

  She clutched at his rock-hard arms, her knees almost buckling as her heart rate went ballistic and her body lit up like all the stars in the galaxy. Logan made a rough sound, a primitive growl that radiated from his body to ricochet through hers.

  His lips were even softer than they looked, addictively plush and firm. They moved possessively over hers, parting them, filling her with his breath, with his heat. She could smell the worn leather of his jacket, the lingering spice of his aftershave and the heady scent that was all him.

  She rose on tiptoe to absorb more of his mouth as a fierce yearning mushroomed inside her, obliterating everything but the searing pleasure of his kiss.

  Without releasing her lips, he shifted to back her up against the tree. The bark was rough behind her, Logan hot and hard in front of her.

  She shivered and quaked, her temperature escalating as he deepened the mind-blowing kiss. She could feel the hard jut of his erection against her belly. Holy asteroid. He was massive.

  Her bones dissolved as he swept his tongue into her mouth and explored her in hot, thigh-spreading strokes. God, the man knew how to kiss.

  She tasted his need, the fierceness of it, the focused intensity. It matched the crazy urgency she felt for him.

  He licked her bottom lip and she sucked his tongue, tasting chocolate and a smoky hint of whiskey. She felt positively intoxicated as his hands slid under her jacket and gripped her hips, pulling her tighter against his huge body.

  Her breasts swelled in throbbing response, nipples pebbling against the powerful slab of his chest. She whimpered and reached up to cup his face, her fingers rasping across the rough-soft stubble on his jaw.

  He shivered and kissed her even more feverishly, like he was drowning and she was his only source of oxygen.

  When he whispered her name—Meadow, not Jupiter—she felt that quivery heart-stopping thing that not even rom-coms got right.

  But this was no movie, and there could be no happily ever after with a man like Logan Francisco Matías Brassard.

  So she broke the kiss, gasping into his wide chest.

  He shuddered and pressed his forehead against the top of her head, their ragged breaths dueling in the night.

  Her heart was pounding chaotically, her body trembling so hard that she had to slump back against the tree for support. Her eyeglasses were fogged up and her panties were mortifyingly damp.

  Logan leaned over her with one hand braced on the tree above her head, the knuckles of his other hand tenderly stroking her cheek.

  She couldn’t help touching her swollen lips as she stared into his glittering eyes, still rocked by the intensity of the kiss. She’d never experienced anything like it before. She’d been seriously missing out.

  “I’ve been dying to do that ever since I saw you again,” Logan confessed huskily.

  His words nearly took away what little breath she had left.

  “Well,” she managed weakly, “now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity, we should probably avoid any repeat performances.”

  A shadow darkened his face. “Curiosity,” he repeated the word with a sarcastic edge. “Is that what you think it was?”

  She didn’t answer him. She didn’t trust her voice.

  He dropped his hand from her cheek and took a step back.

  Regret immediately tightened her throat, which made no sense since she was the one who’d ended the kiss and—

  Holy moly, she thought, sidetracked by the very substantial bulge at his crotch.

  Her eyes must have bugged out because he turned away from her. Through her fogged-up glasses, she saw him adjust himself in his jeans. His predicament made her feel a smidge better about her damp underwear.

  Licking her still-tingling lips, she took off her eyeglasses and wiped them with the hem of her sweater.

  Logan turned back to her as she put her glasses back on. He seemed a bit more composed. She couldn’t say the same for herself.

  “Ana’s sister.” He pulled his phone out of his back pocket. “What’s her IG?”

  Meadow blinked. “Her what?”

  “Instagram.” His smile was almost a smirk. “It’s a social media platform.”

  “I know what it is,” Meadow huffed. “But I don’t know what her handle is or if she even has an account—”

  “She does. Everyone does—except you.” He pulled up Instagram on his phone. “What’s her name again?”

  “Inez. Inez Gutierrez.”

  Logan found her page and let out a low wolf whistle. “Nice.”

  Meadow felt a weird pang in her gut. “Nice?”

  “Very nice.”

  Curiosity had her moving closer to look at his phone. The screen was filled with photos of a young, pouty-lipped Latina in various sexy poses.

  “She’s gorgeous,” Meadow murmured.

  “Mmm.” Logan swiped his thumb across the screen, scrolling through more pictures.

  Meadow gave him a wry, knowing look. “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about going out with her?”


  He didn’t answer, distracted by a photo of Inez wearing only a thong. She had her back to the camera and was peering seductively over her shoulder.

  Logan enlarged the image with his fingers, undoubtedly to get a closer look at her ass. When he lecherously smacked his lips, Meadow punched him on the arm.

  He gave a shout of laughter and tucked his phone away.

  She rolled her eyes in disgust. “Pig.”

  “Aw, don’t be jealous, Jupe.”

  “Jealous?” She snorted. “Hardly.”

  He grinned. “So you won’t mind if I slide into her DMs and ask her out?”

  “Of course I won’t mind. I want you to go out with her. That was the whole point of me telling you about her. Duh.”

  That knowing gleam returned to his eyes.

  When she realized that he’d been trying to make her jealous, she was seriously tempted to kick him in the balls.

  But then he trailed a finger down her cheek and murmured disarmingly, “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being here.” His voice stroked her with tenderness. “For being you.”

  She swallowed hard. Her heart was doing strange things in her chest. Scary, reckless things.

  “We should go,” was all she could say. “You have an early flight.”

  He gave a small nod.

  Together they folded up the blanket, which Logan tucked under his arm.

  As they walked back to his Harley, he took her hand, linking his fingers loosely with hers. His palm was big and warm and callused. The feel of his skin against hers made everything inside her melt.