Sin I Rise: Part One (Sins of the Fathers 1)

“Of course, didn’t you see them?”

I rolled my eyes. “Not for fun, or pass-arounds. I mean as members.”

“No, it’s against the rules.”

“So if you had an older sister, she couldn’t get involved with the club?”

He frowned. “Okay, both the club and the mob don’t allow women. But you seem like a girl who’s used to getting what she wants. It must be hard to be in second place, and not even that. Your word will never mean anything in the Famiglia. If you marry some pompous Italian mobster, he’ll rise in rank in the Famiglia and you can raise his kids and give him blowies if he returns home from a hard day at work.”

“Blowies?” I repeated with a disgusted twist of my lips while heat traveled up my throat in a very embarrassing way.

Maddox used his tongue to tent his cheek in a very obvious way.

“That’s disgusting.”

“A blowy or my interpretation of it?”

“Both,” I muttered.

“Don’t tell me you never gave that poor asshole a blowy in two years of relationship. No wonder he always looked so pinched. I would too if I didn’t have a nice long blowy in years.”

“Stop saying that word,” I muttered. I’d never wanted to give Giovanni oral, and he would have never dreamed of asking me. He’d never even allowed me near his fly in our relationship. “This discussion is over.”

“Do I make you feel uncomfortable?” Maddox asked, obviously enjoying himself.

He made me uncomfortable for various reasons, none of which I’d discuss with him, especially not while sharing a bed.

Flirt with him.

That had been the plan but following through was more difficult.

Maddox watched me and my palms became sweaty. My body had never reacted to someone’s presence like that. I made others nervous, not the other way around.

“Why would anyone pierce his genitals?” I blurted, wanting to break through the silence.

Maddox’s answering smile only made me feel hotter. “To receive more lust, and even more importantly, to give more lust.”

My mind went into overdrive. Maddox and I stared into each other’s eyes, then he shook his head with a chuckle and rolled over on his back. “Go to sleep before we both do something we might regret.”

“I doubt you’d regret me,” I said.

Maddox closed his eyes with a sardonic smile. “I wouldn’t.”

His confirmation stunned me. My eyes traced his chest, which wasn’t covered by the sheets.

“And you, would you regret me?” he asked eventually.

“Definitely,” I said. I didn’t even want to consider the social media shitstorm I’d be submitted to if word got out that I’d slept with a biker, even if it was to save me. In our circles, women were condemned in the blink of an eye. And my family? Dad would lose it.

Maddox nodded, his eyes still closed. “Yeah. You’d definitely regret me.”

Marcella had spent the last three nights in my bed, and every night had been more torturous than the last. I felt her presence everywhere. When I lay awake beside her at night, and I hardly slept anymore, I was driven almost insane by her scent and by the images of her body replaying before my closed eyes.

I’d half hoped, half dreaded Marcella would make a move at me, even if only to save herself, but so far she’d held back. Despite her killer body, she wasn’t used to making advances on men. I wasn’t sure if it was due to her conservative upbringing or because she was used to men throwing themselves at her feet.

I had half a mind to do the same.

Some women dressed in expensive dresses and put on tons of makeup to look presentable, but Marcella in my clothes and no makeup was an apparition that put them all to shame.

“What are you thinking?” she asked out of the blue.

“Isn’t that a question you ask your fiancé when he spends the night?”

She shrugged. “Giovanni never spent the night.”

Douchy name for a douchebag, then my brain registered her words.

“Why?”

“We hold on to our old values,” Snow White said matter-of-factly. “And I live with my parents.”

I couldn’t stop staring at her blue eyes, glowing against the dark coal of her hair.

“Let me guess, your fiancé pissed his pants because of your ol’ man.”

She smirked. “Most people do.”

“Not me.”

“No,” she agreed in a soft voice. “Not you, Maddox.”

Fuck. I wished she’d stop saying my name in that gentle lilt. Yet, I’d never ask her because the moment the last syllable died on her lips, I longed to hear it again. She was like a drug I couldn’t resist, and I hadn’t even tried it yet. She’d be like crack, without a doubt. One taste and you’d be addicted, and ultimately, she’d ruin you.

“What’s your favorite childhood memory of your father?”

I hadn’t expected that question. No one had ever asked me something like that. I racked my brain, trying to come up with an answer. Most of my memories weren’t happy. My old man hadn’t been the best father, but he had been a father.