Ruined Sinner by Becker Gray

Chapter Eight

Aurora

To be completely honest, I thought I’d gotten away with it.

I thought I had escaped from capture, that no one would find me out, despite Phin’s aura being stamped all over me. I could still feel him between my thighs. The slight stubble, his sure tongue. The imprint of his dark hungry gaze on me. For the last few days, I’d ducked him…like a reasonable adult. Nevertheless, I swore I could feel him watching me. His gaze following everywhere I went.

What I also remembered was the sting of how he’d managed for two years without me. Managed. That arsehole.

On Monday when I returned from history class, I found a man in my bed. Well, a man-like male. Because honestly, I was never going to think of Lennox as a man.

My twin lifted his head when he saw me. “Ah, there you are.”

I blinked at him. “What are you doing? This is creepy.”

He laughed. “Not being creepy. My girlfriend taught me how to pick a lock.”

I rolled my eyes and tossed my bag onto my desk chair. “I’ll have to remember to thank Sloane for that. So, what gives? What do you want?”

He sat up and leaned forward, planting elbows on his knees. His gaze searched mine. “Are we going to talk about it?”

I knew what he wanted. The truth. He could sense it. If he couldn’t, our twin bond was seriously damaged. And considering I could feel whenever he so much as had a fight with Sloane, I suspected he knew. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on, Aurora, don’t bullshit me. I’m your bloody twin. There was something going on with you and Phin at Sera’s party. You strolled in with him, looking all happy and coupled up. Which is strange since—as I recall—you told me if he ever came near you again that you were going to cut off his balls, boil them, and feed them to him. Remember that time you tried to poison him?”

I threw my hands up and plopped into the love seat I’d shoved in the corner. “You know, everyone talks about that like it was an actual poisoning. It was just a little ipecac. Come on.”

He shook his head. “That’s it exactly. The girl who does that to the guy who wronged her is not the same girl who then holds his hand and sits in his lap and plays kissy face with him all night. And don’t think I didn’t notice you two didn’t actually make out.”

I swallowed hard. We hadn’t at the party. But Phin had definitely made out with a certain part of my body right after.

God. Just thinking about Phin with his head between my legs, the long laps of his tongue, the drawing out of the orgasms making me wild and crazy as I panted his name….

“You may not understand our relationship, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valid or real. I want this, Lennox.”

“Something isn’t right here, Aurora. I can feel it. Fuck, something hasn’t been right since New Year’s. Now it’s April, and you’re acting like everything’s okay?”

“I am okay. It’s over now. I’m safe and sound and I’m thinking of me and what I want.”

He lifted his gaze, grave concern etched on his furrowed brow. “You have to talk to me. Or talk to someone. Anyone. Even Sera said you’re not talking, to her or to Sloane. I understand that you didn’t want to tell Oma and Mum the whole story, but dammit, Aurora. You can’t just bury what happened or throw yourself into the next best thing.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” I asked. “Throwing myself into something with Phin?”

“Is that not what you’re doing? Look, I love the guy, he’s one of my best mates, but you always fall into this trap with him. He’s great, and then you find him with his tongue in someone’s mouth, and then he’s not great. I just… You need to be careful, especially after what happened.”

I curled my hands so that my fingernails bit into my palms. I didn’t want to fight with Lennox, but he had no idea what the fuck he was talking about. He had no idea what it was like living with the memories I had in my mind.

“And do tell me, baby brother,” I said in a dangerous voice, “what exactly is it that happened?”

“I’m your twin, not your baby brother.”

“I’m older by a minute.”

He scowled. “You’re deflecting, Aurora. You have to talk about what’s going on with you.”

“If I have to talk, Lennox, shouldn’t I do that on my own terms, not yours? And, not that it’s your business, but I’ve been in therapy since it happened.”

He shifted uncomfortably. No one hated being wrong more than Lennox Lincoln-Ward hated being wrong. “Oh,” he said weakly.

“Yeah. Oh. So all this patronizing ‘you should do this’, ‘you need to do this’ talk? It’s more than unneeded, it’s frankly pissing me off.”

He opened his mouth to speak. And then sighed. “Look, I’m here because I’m concerned. Phineas? He’s fun, sure. But you need someone who’s going to be…” He squared his shoulders and sat up straighter. “Kind to your heart and your body.”

I knew what he was doing, looking for some kind of politically correct way to say the thing. The thing we’d been dancing around, the thing I was still afraid to think about. That swell of malevolence hovering in the shadows of my mind, even with months of therapy work.

He searched my face. “I don’t want to patronize you,” he said quietly. “And I want to respect your autonomy, but you’re voluntarily dating Phineas. You can’t blame me for thinking something’s wrong.”

“I thought he was one of your best mates?”

“He is. But you need someone who’s going to be sensitive and caring and take things slow with you, not someone like Phineas. He’s a party boy. And you’re probably a little fragile after… everything.”

I shuffled to my feet. “I would watch what you say to me, baby brother.”

He blinked rapidly. His pale blond hair looked shimmery in the light. It was so different from mine now, but the same golden eyes stared back at me. “Something happened to you, something really traumatic. And now you want us all to believe that you’re in a relationship with Phineas Yates, someone you hate. Which makes me wonder about your decision-making capabilities right now.”

“So you walk in here and you intend to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do with my body? Who I should care about, who I want?”

He shook his head, exasperation all over his face. “No, Aurora, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“That is what you’re saying. I’m not broken, Lennox.”

He ran his hands through his white-blond hair. “Fuck, look I’m just… I’m trying to take care of you, okay? I don’t think Phineas is the guy for you. Especially not when you need extra support.”

I thought of Phin’s bargain with me, of the blunt honesty he always had with me. He never treated me like I was fragile, and he always listened to what I said, even if he fought me on it after. “What’s really sad is that maybe you don’t know Phineas as well as you think you do. Because so far, he’s given me more respect than you have.”

My brother chewed his lip, uncharacteristic vulnerability shining in his eyes. “I guess I just wish I’d been here for you more. I wish I had been there for you that night.”

I wished he had been too. Maybe then someone could help me fill the holes in my memory. Maybe then someone could tell me all the things that happened that night.

Hell, maybe that was a way out of the mess with the Nichols. Tell my potential suitor and husband-to-be about how I’d been so hung up on Phineas that I got blitzed while partying with two other people I had no business partying with. Sometime during the night, one of them had left the party, leaving me alone with the other. Then things had turned, and there were large slots of time I didn’t remember.

The next thing I knew I was walking around New York in shredded clothes with no phone, no ID, and no money.

One good thing was that I had gone to a hospital to get checked out the next day. I’d read the results after the follow-up appointment while curled in the back of an SUV driven by a member of my security detail, trying to cry as silently as possible. No evidence of vaginal penetration.

It had been assault, but not rape.

Funny how it didn’t make the horror of that night any easier to live with, because the things I did remember were awful. Things that mocked me from the shadows in my dreams. Things I didn’t want to look too closely at even when I had my therapist’s help.

Things Lennox didn’t need to hear about. Things that would only depress Sloane and Sera. Things that would scare Phin off, never mind my mother and grandmother.

Despite what my therapist had gently told me, it was hard not to be afraid that everyone was going to mark me as damaged goods.

So yeah, I wasn’t racing to tell everyone in my life that I had fucked up like that. If everyone was giving me pitying looks now, what would it be like when they really knew how much the memories messed with my head? When they really understood the depths of how haunted I was?

Lennox and Phineas would be the worst. Lennox because as my twin, he would feel my misery as acutely as if it was his own, and he would feel responsible for it. And then Phineas, I knew how that would go. A lot of, oh, fuck, what did I do, how did I make you feel. And no one else knew that guilt.

One person living with the guilt was enough. I didn’t need it to be three of us.

“Are you all done here, baby brother?”

He looked at me. “Aurora, with everything the family has gone through with Dad and stuff, it’s you and me, okay? I’m here for you. You just have to talk to me.”

“Well, I’m done talking, Lennox. About this for sure. About Phineas too. He’s your best mate. If you want to make sure he doesn’t dick me over, you talk to him.”

“Oh, I intend to.”

“And not with your fucking fists, Lennox. Besides, Phineas is a better fighter than you and we both know it.”

He scowled at me. “Fuck you, Aurora.”

I laughed at that. “Wow, just being honest. Also, I don’t want my twin and my boyfriend duking it out like wankers. So tread carefully.”

He shook his head. “What has gotten into you?”

“Nothing. I’m perfectly fine.”

He nodded and brushed past me toward the door. With his hand on the brass handle, he called out, “If you’re perfectly fine, why is your hair still black?”

Fuck. The dyed hair was my little outward manifestation of my rage and my pain from Phin. I just… I knew how much Phineas liked my hair, so I’d changed it on purpose.

I didn’t let Lennox have that parting shot though. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a rebuttal. There was no point. He knew he was right, and so did I.

But right or not, I wasn’t ready to talk about Phin or Brantley or New Year’s Eve with Lennox.

Some things were best left unsaid.