Born Sinner by Cora Kenborn

Chapter Eleven

Sam

I can’t takemy eyes off her dress. It’s fucking hypnotic. The way the silver material skims her breasts and hips makes it even more precious than gold to me.

It comes with a warning—a precursor to violence.

So far, there are two victims in this club who didn’t read the fine print… The man who pinched her ass as she stood at the bar? He’s on his way to the ER with two broken wrists. The man who dared to dance with her just now? He’ll soon be lying unconscious in a bathroom stall.

No hesitation.

No regrets.

After Santiago requested I stay close to Lola, we’ve been moving in ever-decreasing circles around one another.

Never speaking.

Always watching.

Switching venues from the college campus to this club with my Mexican dulzura shining brighter than the sun, as I keep in the shadows.

Tonight, she’s the one who’s picking up the pace. She’s meeting my eyes, returning my hunger, flirting with other men on purpose to tempt me into the spotlight…

All we’re doing here is building anticipation for the final scene.

Our crash is inevitable.

“Want another drink, buddy?”

“Bourbon,” I tell the bartender, tossing a twenty down on the counter. I’m in league with the devil these days. I may as well start drinking like him.

Taking a swig, I watch as Lola leaves the dance floor, her silver dress catching in the club’s discoballs—reflecting the kind of sin I want to drown in.

She’s moving toward the bathroom stalls, ditching her idiot friends on the dance floor, and murmuring a “stay, boy,” at her discreet bodyguard.

Finishing up my drink, I follow ten steps behind, smiling to myself as she ducks out of the line by the ladies’ room and heads toward the fire exit at the end of the hallway.

She disappears into the night.

I go to follow when my phone starts chiming. Yanking the device out of my back pocket, I check the ID, and accept the call immediately.

“Troublemaking again, Sanders?” comes a familiar clipped drawl.

I bark out a rough laugh. There are few men I’d take orders from, never mind ridicule, but I respect the hell out of Edier Grayson. I’d even go so far as to call him a friend.

He’s five years older than me, but he’s not the kind of man who judges age over the ability to fire a gun.

His father is Dante Santiago’s second. As such, we grew up together. Stole cars and smoked weed together. Dared to share our dreams of another life together.

I stopped running from destiny long before he did.

At eighteen, he was all set to study fine arts at Goldsmiths in London. Then he switched from a kid to a killer overnight. Trading pencils for bullets, he’s spent the last couple of years in South America slaughtering the last of Santiago’s enemies and shoring up the distribution channels from Cartagena until a recent move to the East Coast brought his talents to the US.

He’s cool as fuck...

With a sting like a scorpion.

Andif the tone of his voice is anything to go by? He’s pissed as hell.

“Where are you?”

“New Brunswick.”

He blows out a breath. “I want you back in NYC within the hour. I need a closure and then a clean-up. You good for that?”

It's another test. One that requires a gun, two fists, and an absence of morality.

Check, check, and double check. The more I integrate myself in the organization, the more sway I’ll have over Lola Carrera’s fate.

“I’ll be there in fifty,” I tell him as silver swims with crimson. “Message me the address.”

Hanging up, I slip into the alley. She’s standing a couple of feet away in the moonlight with her back turned. Braced. A perfect silhouette that’s mine for the taking.

As I watch, she tips her head back and exhales, her long dark hair tumbling to her waist as tendrils of smoke coil around her like a dirty halo. She’s smoking to justify why she’s out here, but the time for pretense is over.

We both know what she’s waiting for.

Me.

This.

When she hears the soft click of the door closing behind me, her shoulders stiffen. The lit cigarette drops from her fingers, flaring orange as it hits the asphalt by her heels.

I move fast. Before she has a chance to speak, my hand is clamped across her mouth, and I’m spinning her face-first into the wall.

“Have you come here to play, little mouse?” I murmur as the sweet scent from her apartment is amplified a thousand times.

It’s all around me.

Consuming me.

Eliciting the filthiest thoughts.

I think of my cum smearing her mirror and basin.

I think of my cum dripping from her lips.

She moans her response into my hand. She tries to fight me off, bucking her hips and twisting. Not that I’d expect anything less...

I press her body even harder into the wall, crushing my own knuckles in the process and drawing blood. Her flighty breaths are music to my ears. I need to return to New York, but first I’ll leave my Mexican dulzura with a dirty narrative to replay in my absence.

Keeping one hand on her mouth, I trail my fingers up the damp heat of her inner thighs. She shudders and stops fighting the minute I reach her panties.

Wet.

Soaking.

I couldn’t stay away from her if I tried.

“Is this for me, Lola?” I say huskily, resisting the urge to slide her panties to the side and sink my middle finger inside her. “Such a gift from my angel in black, and silver. Because that’s what you are…the fucking death of me.”

She moans again, squirming helplessly against my touch.

“I hate you, too,” I say with a low chuckle. “You know, I’d fuck you right here in this alley if I thought it would loosen these chains between us.” I lean in closer. Citrus… My heaven and my hell. “Turns out, they’re unbreakable, but I think you know that already.”

Glancing down, I bite out a groan when I see how flawlessly we fit together.

Her ass.

My dick.

Her pussy.

My fingers.

I won’t be satisfied until every part of her is submitting to me. Demanding me.

Maybe it’s time to leave a different kind of memory on her body—a reminder of just how brutal and beautiful our connection is.

Dropping my hand from her pussy, I reach for the gun tucked into the back waistband of my Levis and commence a new path up the inside of her thighs, swapping warm skin for cold steel.

Moans turn to muffled screams.

“You keep me in a prison cell for you, Lola,” I accuse, kicking her legs apart. “With rusty bars on the windows and a broken lock. As punishment, I’m going to blur the lines between fear and lust. The first time you come for me will be from the sweetest act of violence.”

Muffled screams turn to whimpers, as I drag the muzzle across her clit.

I do it again, and again, rubbing out a rhythm that has her whimpering, and me throbbing against the zipper of my jeans, leaking pre-cum.

My lips twitch as she slams her palms against the wall and widens her legs even more for me. It’s a full-blown smile when she starts grinding up and down the barrel of my gun, seeking relief from something that’s just as filthy as I am.

I press harder.

I rub faster.

My mind briefly wanders back a few hours ago in her bathroom, when I was just as unforgiving with myself.

I finger the trigger to flood the moment with even more danger. She shudders, but doesn’t stop. She can’t stop. We’re not just crossing lines anymore. We’re fucking obliterating them. Normal doesn’t exist for us. When you’re born into the threat of violence, it warps everything.

Dropping my hand from her mouth, I force my fingers between her teeth, needing to feel the strength of her orgasm as strands of black silk whip across my face—nearly coming myself as she bites down hard with another scream, piercing the skin.

Afterward, we collapse forward, both breathing hard.

“Soon,” I gasp, removing my gun from between her thighs. Despising it. Envying it. “Soon, every part of you will be mine, Lola.”

“Soon,” she whispers in concession, one cheek pressed tightly against the brickwork—as twisted up by this as I am.

Not that I’m giving her a choice, either way.

She stays motionless where she is as I slide back into the shadows, thinking how stunning she looks all destroyed like this.

She waits until she thinks I’ve gone, but I’ll never leave her alone while she's vulnerable. Instead, I watch unseen as she peels herself away from the wall. Her steps are unsteady as she heads toward the door.

Mission accomplished.

She won’t be thinking about anything else now until the next time we meet.

And there will always be a next time with her.