Sexy as Sin

“Of course,” she answers, reaching out for my hand and I let her take it. A million thoughts overwhelm me. Every single one about Cillian. Every single one, a regret.

Cillian

The rumble of the bike beneath me almost broke me earlier today, when the sun was setting across the horizon and the pale hues brushed against the barbed wire of the fence I left behind me.

The grip of the handle, the rev of the engine only inches below me and the wind against my face. Four years went by in a blur, yet the life I left behind feels as if I barely know it anymore.

“You sure?” Reed questions as he parks his truck, and the alcohol swirling in my blood makes my head sway.

The idea of being released early on probation was one thing, and the expectations I had for this night were low, but tonight is anything but the celebration the men claimed it to be as beer bottles clinked and they cheered.

Longing for what used to be sunk its claws into me. As I stare at Kat, the light from her kitchen against the dark night giving me every detail, I sink deeper into the worn leather seat of Reed’s truck; regret and something else I can’t articulate weigh me down.

Who is she now? This woman I used to love and now a woman I don’t recognize. Four years and her absence changed what was once between us. I barely remember what we talked about the last time we spoke, but I know she didn’t tell me she loved me. Her calls had stopped months before, but I kept calling her.

Until she didn’t say those words back. That was over a year ago and yet somehow I thought this would be the right thing to fucking do the night I get out of prison.

“Fuck,” I say and my hand runs down my face as I lean my head back, letting the reality sink in.

“You can stay with me,” Reed states as if it’s decided, turning the key over and the ignition protests just as much as I do. He keeps telling me that. He’s been saying it for weeks trying to get me to change my mind.

“I’m going in there,” I say and my voice bellows with more anger than I realized I had.

What’s between Kat and I may be different. I’m sure as hell different; colder, meaner even. Hell, I don’t know how anyone could love me after what I’ve done behind bars. A tremor runs through my hand and I form a fist to stop it.

“I dreaded a number of things,” I confess to my best friend, clearing my throat as I do and making sure to keep my voice even. “I dreaded seeing my father’s grave, I dreaded seeing my uncle Eamon, now the pres, who barely spoke to me while I was away. I dreaded seeing the fucking club—”

“Don’t say that—” He tries to interrupt me, his voice thick with sympathy I never fucking asked for.

The leather groans as I turn to look him in the eye. “It’s the truth. Some nights I blamed the fucking club. But I never dreaded seeing you or her.” Until now.

Gripping the handle in my right, and the strap to a duffle bag with essentials in my left, I swing the old truck door open and listen to it creak as I step out. Spending the night with Reed made me certain of one thing: we’re still the same.

“Now I need my hellcat back.” A nervousness prickles across my skin as the wind creeps up my leather jacket. “Even if she doesn’t want me,” I murmur beneath my breath as I hear the slam of Reed’s door and then his heavy footsteps quickening to catch up to me. “She fucking owes me.”

All I could think about every night was walking up these concrete porch steps. As Reed races to beat me to the door, using the iron knocker, I’m all too aware of how I pictured walking right in. Not stopping or hesitating in the least. She’d stand there, her eyes wide first with shock, then relief and adoration.

Sometimes that’s what I pictured as I fell asleep on that hard bed with images of her writhing under me in my head.

Other times, my eyes stayed open as I stared at the cracked ceiling of the cell, imagining how she’d back away, how she’d tell me she couldn’t be with a man like me. That she knew what I’d done and that I was all wrong for her. That everything we ever were was a mistake.

She told me then, in these fucking terrors that kept me wide awake just like it did last night, that she regretted ever being with me and it was over.

I prepare myself for whatever it is she has to say as a voice I know all too well calls out, “Coming!”