The Sinner (Notorious 1)

“I know that kind of quiet,” he said, his voice low, and it was as if some lock deep inside me got jimmied open and things I didn’t like to feel came bubbling up—empathy, kinship, a certain understanding.

It was dangerous to feel this way in the moonlight, with this man. That kiss in the hallway the other night had been a mistake. Obviously. And one I shouldn’t repeat. Really. I shouldn’t.

But tonight felt like the kind of night in which mistakes were made.

“What happened?” I asked. Like a dummy.

“My mom got cancer when I was eight, she left that kind of quiet when she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry your brother left you.” His fingers stroked the keys, making phantom sounds that pinged through me. “How long has he been gone?”

“Ten years.” For ten years quiet had crept over this house until it felt like a tomb. And I was buried alive in it.

“Have you seen him?”

“Yes, but it’s been a while. We went to Vegas once when Katie was little, but he hasn’t come home since he left.”

“Do you have other family?”

“My oldest brother is in Baton Rouge. He’s in city politics there and is trying to keep this part of his life quiet.”

“This part?” Matt hit a deep note that settled between my legs. I shifted in my seat, desire humming through my body.

“The colorful family part.”

“Ah, colorful family. I know what that’s like.”

“Your mother?”

He shook his head. “She was…” He paused. Sighed. “Blissfully, perfectly normal. A kindergarten teacher.” He played a slow rendition of “The Wheels On the Bus.” “She made dinner every night and sewed the holes in my clothes and washed my mouth out with soap when I swore. My father was the colorful one.”

“They must have had an interesting relationship,” I was happy to listen to him talk, to watch him in the shadows and moonlight. My knight at rest. At ease.

The hum spread from between my legs, under my skin, to my chest.

“I think it was an interesting one-night stand.” He grinned. “They weren’t together when I was growing up. But to his credit, he took care of me when Mom died. He got me to school and taught me the piano—” He played something bright, a few notes of jazz.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No,” he said, the jazz coming to a slow stop. “Where is your mother?”

The coziness surrounding us was split and I suddenly felt the evening cool in the room, the very late hour.

“Savannah?”

I’d let the silence unfold until he got uncomfortable and stood and left. It’s what I did whenever anyone asked about my mother—not that many people did anymore.

But I didn’t want to be alone. Not anymore. Not right now.

So, the words just fell out of me for the first time in years.

“My mom left us. Here. When my two brothers and I were just kids.”

“That’s—”

“A terrible story, I know. I lived it. I haven’t seen her or heard from her in twenty years.”

“Not a word?”

“No cards, no letters, no phone calls. Nothing.”

Matt watched me, his eyes bright, focused. “You know she’s alive?”

“As far as I know.” The old bitterness welled up in me, coloring everything in bleak shades of gray and black.

“You have no idea where she is?” he asked and I shook my head.

As if he could read me, as if he knew me, he began the first part of “Für Elise,” the music a balm, the notes winding around us, rebuilding our cocoon against the world. Thicker. Denser.

The music went on until it was just us, just this moment.

I shifted, my robe sliding open across my legs, which gleamed white in the dim room. His fingers fumbled, hit a discordant note and the music jangled to an end.

Afire with something hot and wicked, I left the robe open and I could feel him watching me, like sun on my skin, and I was thrilled and slightly unnerved by his attraction.

“Where’s your father?” I asked, filling the silence with the first thing I thought of.

He said nothing, so I leaned around the edge of the chair to better see him, only to find him staring at me. Staring at me so hard it was as if he were trying to absorb me.

His eyes glittered in the darkness, touched with something wild. Something feral that called out to the buried wildness in me.

I couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to if it would shatter this moment.

The longer he watched me, the hotter the fire building in the room became until I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t look away when he stood and walked to me chair as though he owned the room. The world. Never in my life had I seen someone so masculine he practically prowled. It made me feel small and feminine.

Womanly and damp.

He crossed the room, stepping through bars of shadow and moonlight, and I couldn’t move. Couldn’t say anything. Transfixed by the hard hot look in his eyes, my mind shut off.