Breaking The Sinner (The Breaking Series Book 4)

by Ember Leigh

  Fuck it. He needed to get out of the apartment, high or not.

  Cobra splashed water on his face, as if it might help, and then he bolted into his bedroom, scooping up the bare necessities. House key, wallet, his knife. Then out the front door before Klay could even ask where he was going.

  Thrust into the bright bustle of LA traffic, Cobra drowned his thoughts in hip hop music. The unceasing sunlight tempered his high. Part of him wanted to still be on the couch at home. His idealism had gotten the best of him. Wasn’t it always better to stay home, stay comfortable?

  Traffic moved slow, and he got there ten minutes late. The library was a grand old structure, something that looked more like an old courthouse. Cobra parked in a neat lot lined with palm trees. Before he could open the door, Gen trotted up to the side of his car.

  Relief blossomed deep in his chest at the sight of her. She pressed her nose against the window, twisting her lips into a funny shape. Red hair flowed around her—she was like Ariel, his own little mermaid turned into a human. Through the window he could hear her girlish giggle.

  Damn. This was nice.

  Cobra poked his fore and middle finger against the glass where her eyes were. She giggled again, tugging open the door.

  “Beat you here,” she teased.

  “You don’t give a guy time to even take a shower,” he said, stepping out of the car. She wore a simple cream tank that showed off her cleavage a little too well. The shirt was tucked into jean shorts embroidered with flowers near the pockets.

  “Is that why you smell like incense?” she asked, peering up at him.

  He smirked. Every time they talked, she revealed new depths of her innocence. “Yep.”

  “Well, I like it.” She flashed him a grin, grabbing at his hand. “Come on, let’s go!”

  He let her lead him to the grand entrance of the library. Wide stone steps led to an underwhelming front door. Even still, childish excitement burbled up inside of him. This was…fun, sorta.

  “Why are your eyes so red?” She peered back at him.

  “Um…” He searched for an excuse and found nothing. “I’m really fucking high.”

  He watched her for a response. His words didn’t seem to register. They entered the cool, sepulchral air of the library.

  “What do you mean?” she asked in a whisper. They stood in the middle of a foyer the likes of which he’d never seen his entire life. The black and white tiled floor stretched ahead of them, with golden light spilling from sconces on the wall. The walls arched upward into a dome, where a chandelier hung like an overseer.

  “I smoked a lot of weed,” he said in a low voice. Her eyebrows shot up.

  “Oh. Yeah. That’s…I totally knew that’s what you meant.”

  He couldn’t hide the chuckle. “Sure you did.” Library patrons flitted around them, quiet as ghosts. “Where should we go?”

  She quirked her lips. “Are there any book you need to take out?”

  He looked at her like she’d spoken in French. “Uh…have you seen me? I don’t read.”

  “Isn’t it time to start, then?”

  Something obvious and sweet passed between them, like a sudden lilac breeze. She had a point. Even when he was trying to show her how wrong he was for her. How undeserving.

  “That ship has sailed,” he said.

  “Then why’d you come to the library?” Her words were full of simplicity. Full of honesty. Talking to Gen was devoid of the snark and doublespeak he was used to on the street. She wanted to fucking know.

  “I wanted to see you,” was all he could say.

  She grabbed his hand, smiling up at him so sweetly it was impossible not to return it. “Well, now you can see me and pick a book. I’ll take it out for you on my account. You just have to promise to return it on time.”

  Her offer left the smile lingering on his lips. He followed her into the main section, through aisles marked with letters and numbers and decimal points, observing the world around them in slo-mo. He should have been coming here high all along. It was like he’d stepped into an alternate universe.

  “Have you ever taken out a book before?” Gen’s fingertips tripped over the spines of books as she maneuvered through the aisles, on a mission all her own.

  “Maybe. I can’t remember.”

  “I thought I was the one who hadn’t done regular stuff in life.” She sent him a playful look.

  “Don’t worry. You still are.” He reached for a book that caught his eye. “Russian? Shit, I didn’t know you could learn a language from a book.”

  She assessed the book, then picked up a different one. “Or maybe German?”

  “Nah. None of those, thanks.” Cobra pushed the book back into its spot, and they wandered farther. Gen dragged a creamy index finger over the spine of the books as she walked.

  “Oh, hang on.” Cobra slowed, blinking to focus his lazy gaze. Figures 101. Drawing for Dummies. Mastering the Landscapes. He read each spine, then moved to the next shelf down. He must have been super focused, because when he stood up, Gen had a wry smile.

  “Do you draw?”

  She had wandered up a bit farther, a few books stacked in her arms. He hadn’t drawn in years…but it had always been his secret love. “I used to.”

  Drawing had gotten him through some of the darkest times of his life. He’d stopped because it wasn’t cool to be good at anything. Unless that something was beating the shit out of another guy.

  He yanked his fingertips away from the books and kept moving. “What books you got there?”

  “Some research.” She shrugged. The top book in her arms said A History of the Ottoman Empire. “I have a lot to catch up on.”

  If she thought he knew a damn thing about the Ottoman Empire, she was mistaken. Yet he was supposedly the normal one. “Why don’t you know so much? What happened to you?”

  Emotion flashed in her gaze, and she turned her head. “I was raised very conservatively. That’s all.”

  Somehow, it didn’t seem like all. “Conservatively how?”

  She lobbed a sigh. “Like, very religious. Very strict. Very…sheltered.”

  “So, what, you had a curfew?”

  “Yeah. A curfew for everything.” Her gaze danced over more spines as they strolled down the aisle together. “No swearing. No dancing. No movies. No nothing.”

  “Is that why you won’t say ‘fuck?’”

  “I said it,” she reminded him.

  “Fine. So why all the rules?”

  “Because Jesus,” she said. She paused in front of a shelf, then slid out a book titled The Infidelity of the Bible. “Sinning was forbidden in my community.”

  “Movies don’t sound like sinning.”

  “Oh, they are.” She sent him a heavy look. “Trust me.”

  “Then I’m the biggest sinner of them all.”

  “You probably are.” She laughed. “But I won’t tell.”

  They wandered a bit farther until they found the cooking section. Gen grabbed for a book about vegetarian dishes. The stack in her arms became a mountain.

  “Red. You seriously gonna read all these?”

  She nodded without looking at him, then picked a book titled Thug Kitchen. She giggled after reading the cover. “This one looks good. Maybe you’ll want it after me.”

  Cobra frowned as he peered over her shoulder. He hadn’t cooked a proper meal in his entire life. It was all takeout and leftovers for him, but maybe he should learn a thing or two. Travis always harped on whole foods.

  “I don’t know how to cook,” Cobra said, tugging at the longest part of his hair at the front. “Maybe I’m the sheltered one.”

  Gen looked back at him, softness written all over her face. “Then let’s learn together.”

  Cobra didn’t respond, just gently eased the books out of her arms. “Let me carry these for you, Red.”

  She sent him a private smile, one that made him feel like they’d been coming to the library together for lifetimes. “Thanks, C
obra. We should try out some of these recipes tonight. Want to?”

  Emotion bloomed inside him, made his throat thick. “Sure.”

  “Good. One more book, then we’re done.” She led the way back to the earlier section, where all the drawing books were. She picked out the book Cobra had held in his hands only minutes before and added it to the top of the stack.

  Chapter 15

  She couldn’t believe it.

  Next to Cobra, she was an expert in the kitchen.

  “Hold it like this.” She showed him the proper grip for the onion. He rubbed his palms on his shorts, sniffing.

  “I’m not crying,” he said.

  “I know.” She fought a grin. He was a fish out of water, the living embodiment of how she’d been feeling for the last month. It was nice to see this confident man falter when presented with a vegetable. “Onions make you cry. Or rather,” she hurried to add, once she saw his reaction, “they make your eyes leak.”

  He ran his wrist over his eyes. “Christ, it’s so strong.”

  “We have to hurry up and cut it.” She gestured to the cutting board. “That’s your job.”

  Their task was simple: make a vegetarian stir-fry. She had made this once before, and it seemed approachable for Cobra’s first time in the kitchen. Sophie occasionally drifted through the living room, keeping to herself with a satisfied smile on her face.

  So Cobra hadn’t ghosted after all. Sophie was probably happy to be wrong.

  Cobra sniffed loudly, using his shoulder to rub away a tear that had trickled down his face. He cut the onion into long slices the way she’d shown him. She scooped the pieces up and added them to the hot oil.

  “What do you normally eat if you don’t cook?” She pushed the onion pieces around with a spatula. She wasn’t skilled enough to toss veggies in the air like the Internet videos showed. Yet.

  Cobra shrugged, running water over his hands. “Burger King, most days.”

  “Is it good? I’ve never been there.”

  A laugh huffed out of him. “No. Definitely not good. I eat there ’cuz it’s cheap.”

  “But we make pretty good money at Holt’s,” Gen said, grabbing for the package of precut broccoli. “Don’t we?”

  Cobra knocked his knuckles against the countertop, his gaze distant. “Yeah, I think so. I’ve been poor my whole life, so…”

  “I hope you like this. Did your mom ever cook for you?”

  He went stiff, as if a sheet of ice coated him. “No.”

  Something told her not to probe. She wanted this to be fun, after all. Fun and educational, for both of them. “You’ll probably never go to Burger King after this again.” She pinched his arm, flitting past him to grab the stir-fry sauce she’d selected on their way home. “Now we need to add the carrots and sprouts, then toss it all in this sauce.”

  “Sprouts.” He smirked, tearing open the plastic film. “This is rabbit food.”

  She blinked a few times, staring at it. “Yeah, I think we used to feed this to my rabbit.”

  “You had a rabbit?”

  “Her name was Bunny.” Gen grimaced, shaking her head as she tore open the packaging of carrot ribbons.

  “That’s original,” Cobra said.

  “She wasn’t a pet. My parents didn’t want us to name her.” Gen focused on mixing the carrot strips into the pan. “We ate Bunny for dinner one night.”

  Cobra laughed incredulously. “Wow. That’s hardcore.”

  “It was part of survival. You know, if the apocalypse came or whatever.”

  Gen hadn’t wanted to eat Bunny. Gen had never wanted to spend her weekends running through preparatory drills in case of a nuclear event. She had never wanted to hear the rumble of an airliner overhead and think that it might finally be Jesus returning to claim the faithful.

  Growing up, her mother and father had always stressed the sinful nature of the outside world. Why that meant they should remain isolated in their county. But they’d never let on to the fact that the differences stretched like a canyon. It wasn’t until the car crash that she could see that the differences weren’t just many, they were infinite.

  “Oh, shit. The apocalypse. Did you have a…what is it called? The things you live in underground?”

  She cleared her throat. “A bunker? Three.” Gen reached for the sauce, unsure how much information might be too much. How much might make him run away.

  His eyes glazed over, nodding as he stared at the stir fry. “All right then.”

  Sophie had been crystal clear at the beginning: part of deprogramming meant realizing the small ways in which everyone had grown up differently. Nobody else had bunkers. Nobody else thought it was wrong for women to go to college. Nobody else thought kissing someone before marriage was the same as signing your life away to become a prostitute.

  The more Gen integrated into life outside her community, the more she realized how tightly wound she’d been.

  Even so, there were some nights she missed the ritual of slipping out of bed late at night and following that tired route through the darkness to the primary bunker. There was a security there, an unshakable knowing that her sisters were waiting on the other side of the inky late-night wall.

  Here in LA, nobody waited for her on the other side. She couldn’t grope her way to a home under the earth anymore. And for however much she’d grown tired of life back home, she wasn’t sure she could make it in this strange, new world. Not for long, at least.

  “Do you think I’m weird?” The question came out softly.

  Cobra didn’t say anything at first, but then he shook his head. “Nah. Well maybe, yeah. But in a good way.”

  He nudged her with his elbow, his eyes sparkling more now that the bloodshot look had faded. Sometimes when he smiled at her, every inch of his face smiled. Like the skin itself had tiny smiles. It didn’t make sense how much she wanted to look at him. Absorb every facet of his features.

  Gen jerked her gaze away, focusing on adding the stir-fry sauce. “Were you going to actually call me if I hadn’t called you?”

  A different type of silence filled the kitchen. Cobra ran his forearm over his face. “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “Sophie thinks you weren’t gonna call.”

  Cobra worked his jaw back and forth. “I don’t call people that much.”

  She gnawed on the inside of her mouth, pushing vegetables around in the dark brown sauce. “So, she was right?”

  Cobra leaned against the countertop beside the stove, locking eyes with her in a way that made her gulp. Shadows flitted behind his eyes, promising things she’d never even thought of. The church had wanted her humble and meek. Now that she was out, she swore to be loud and inquisitive. To try it on for size.

  “No. I woulda called.” He reached out, snagged her hand between his thumb and forefinger. He ran the pad of his thumb over her palm lightly, causing that same dangerous spark in her core. “I wouldn’t have been able to stay away.”

  So many things didn’t make sense to her. Why would he want to stay away if those kisses were involved? Why did men ghost? Was sex even worth all this? She stopped stirring as he ran his thumb in a slow circle over the palm of her hand, his umber gaze holding her hostage.

  “Are you messing around with other girls too?”

  His gaze didn’t falter, but he didn’t say anything. He just jerked his head. A silent no.

  “We didn’t talk about that.” The words flew out of her mouth, assured and confident, even though her heart hammered against her ribs. This new side of her was refreshing but also foreign. “I don’t want to do this if you’re going to…be with anyone else.”

  “I already told you. You’re mine for three months.”

  All the confusion dissolved. She snapped off the stove, bolstering herself to ask the question that burned at the back of her throat.

  “So when are you gonna kiss me again?”

  His throaty chuckle rippled through her like a warning. His gaze darted out to th
e living room, where Sophie had just left. He reached out and caught the side of her waist without looking her way, as if he could snag her there in his sleep, from across the room, without even trying.

  He tugged, hard, which prompted a gasp from her lips. The next second, she was tight in his arms, spatula still in one hand, his mouth covering hers.

  The scent of him consumed her, and revisiting this intimate aspect of him made her knees buckle. He was laundry soap, the outdoors, and a hint of vetiver, something so masculine and inviting she could hardly focus. Alarm bells rang. This was too good. Too intoxicating. His rough palm found the side of her face as he dove in for another kiss. His tongue pressed at her lips; she stiffened.

  Cobra eased her back against the countertop, his other hand stroking her back suddenly underneath her shirt, making lazy swirls there. She opened her mouth, begging for the kiss. His tongue surged forward. Found hers. Electricity sparked, and a moan burst out of her. Unbidden.

  She jerked back, clamping a hand over her mouth. She searched over Cobra’s shoulder.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she hissed. “I shouldn’t have done that. Why did I do that?”

  Cobra cocked his head, a dimple flashing. “Because you like it. It’s okay.”

  “But Sophie’s here,” Gen said. She couldn’t find a trace of embarrassment on Cobra’s face. He probably liked it, even.

  “I’m sure she knows what happens when two people French kiss.”

  Gen drew a deep breath. The French kissing must continue—but later. In private.

  “We should eat first,” Gen said, turning away from him. Her skin protested the loss of his heat as she stepped back into her position in front of the stove. “And then we can go read books in my bedroom.”

  Cobra laughed softly, resuming his position at the cutting board. “Sure. Read books in the bedroom.”

  Chapter 16

  Gen hadn’t been kidding.

  She planned on reading.

  “Okay.” She bounced softly as she sat on the bed next to him. He caught another soft whiff of her perfume, something that reminded him of sunny days and flowers. That was Gen, after all. Pure light and goodness. Something that flowers grew toward. “I feel like the Ottoman Empire might be a little boring to start with. The Bible one might be my nighttime reading. Any suggestions on where to start?”