The Affair (The Evolution of Sin 1)

We didn’t speak as he drove us but he looked over at me sometimes with that slight Sinclair smile. I studied him, pleased with his preoccupation. He stood easily behind the raised control panel, his legs braced and his hand loosely on the throttle. The wind whipped his chestnut hair back from his face, revealing features that were uncharacteristically soft and open. It thrilled me to know that he was relaxed in my company, enough so to shed the hardened exterior that he wore for everyone else. Was he like this with the girlfriend? I shoved the thought aside with a frown and focused on the passing coastline instead.

“Can I take your picture?” I yelled over the noise.

Sinclair frowned slightly but relented when he looked over at my eager expression. I snapped a dozen pictures of him, too many really, moving carefully across the hull to get a full frontal picture of my captain. I knew they would be beautiful photos and I was happy to have a permanent piece of him to pull out after our holiday ended.

When he turned off the engine, I looked up from my viewfinder to take in the beauty of the small cove we bobbed in. Large reddish rocks bracketed a secluded white sand beach and the water was so clear a turquoise that I could see the multitudes of fish passing by our boat as if through a magnifying glass. I looked up at Sinclair with an overexcited smile.

He placed a hand against my cheek and leaned down to press a kiss to my smiling lips. “It’s good to make my siren smile.”

I fought the urge to swoon, and won.

I shrugged. “It’s okay I guess.”

He blinked and barked with laughter. Tugging me to my feet, he swatted my rear. “Ungrateful brat.”

We continued to banter with each other as he outfitted us both with flippers, goggles and a breath piece. I shook my head at the offer of a life jacket and he took my hand as we stood at the stern of the boat, ready to jump in. He was so playful and open that it was hard to contain my enjoyment even though I knew better. Logically, I knew he was mercurial and the situation was temporary but I felt myself falling, tumbling almost brutally, certainly clumsily, in love with him.

The surf was calm and silky as we moved through the cove. Sometimes we swam together amidst a school of yellow and silver fish, their touch like cool kisses against my skin, but after a while we abandoned the serious snorkeling and began to horse around. Sinclair was an excellent swimmer and when I asked him about it he divulged that he had been a swimmer since high school and all through college, which explained the delicious cut of his lean body. We swam for over an hour before I dragged myself to the beach, collapsing in exhaustion on the caramel sand.

Sinclair laughed as he emerged from the waves, pushing his wet hair back from his forehead as he stood over me. “My siren can’t be tired already.”

I wanted to close my eyes but it was difficult to take them off of him. “A certain someone tired me out last night. I didn’t get much sleep.”

His lips curved softly as he bent down, running two fingers down my chest to collect the drops of water lingering there. “You won’t get much rest tonight, either.”

No, I wouldn’t. The promise in his shaded eyes drew heat of a different kind across my bare skin.

“You could be a model,” I murmured, sitting up to run my fingers over the rippling mass of muscles in his abdomen.

His fingers froze at the line of my bikini bottoms and a cold anger settled into his previous contented features. I watched his mouth twist before he sighed and dropped to the sand beside me.

His shoulders were rounded as he stared out at the ocean and he let me take one of his slack hands in my own. “I was a model actually.”

My eyes widened comically. I was thankful his gaze remained riveted on the sea.

“My foster mother discovered me, she was my agent before she became my mother.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care but I could feel his sadness seep into my skin where we touched. “I only did it for a handful of years. They found… other talents of mine to be more beneficial.”

I shifted on the sand until I sat behind him, my legs spread wide by the sheer width of his body between my thighs. He tensed as my arms slipped around him in a gentle embrace but when I pressed a kiss to his salty skin, he sighed raggedly and relaxed.

“Parents shouldn’t make their children sad,” I said, because I could remember the despair that Seamus Moore always left in his wake.

“You are very sweet and very correct but that does not stop it from happening.”

“What did they do to you?” I whispered, almost afraid to press him when he was being so inexplicably open.

He was quiet for a long time and utterly still but for two fingers that slid back and forth gently over my forearm.

“Nothing so bad. They used me mostly, to position themselves in society. Sometimes it was as easy as making friends with the right sons of important men, or modeling to make enough money to support my father’s campaign.” His knuckles swept up my wrist and over the back of my hand so that he could link our fingers. “Sometimes it was about seducing the right person. Like I said, it wasn’t so bad.”

“That’s not funny, Sin.”

“No.” He pressed a kiss to our combined hands. “Mais comme des gens disent, c’est la vie.”

“Not anymore,” I said with more ferocity than I intended.

“Not anymore,” he agreed. “Perhaps it is easier to understand my need for control now.”

It was. My heart ached with the influx of love and sympathy. If there had previously been any hope of emerging unscathed from this affair, it was gone.