Before Sinclair

Chapter Two: Oui

MY BODY JERKS at the sound of his voice, and I pause for a few seconds, confused at my reaction. He has a nice voice, yes—deep and clear, low and smooth—but I’ve heard plenty of people with pleasant voices and my body had never reacted like this.

I clear my throat. “My friend came with me. But she disappeared.”

He tilted his head to one side. Carla, who has already poured his drink, sets it down in front of him. She looks back and forth between the two of us for a bit and then gives Sinclair a disapproving look. She shakes her head before she heads off to the other side of the bar where she’s being summoned.

“She left you here by yourself wearing that.” His eyes slide down the skintight dress and back up again a few times before he continues, “That’s not very smart. She’s practically throwing you to the wolves.”

The small ‘ha’ I let out comes out sounding more breathless than I intended for it to. I can still feel his eyes where they slid down the dress like he had touched me. People often likened the Sinnerman of the Iron Order to the devil, and I couldn’t help but feel like that was true at the moment. How else can one explain feeling like they were being caressed by eyes?

As he takes a swig of his drink, I take that as my cue to study him more closely. This entire time, I’ve been trapped in his eyes and mesmerized by his face, but I haven’t studied the rest of him up close. I had noticed it the moment we walked in and Sofia had pointed him out from behind, but he had a nice physique. Up close, his body was even nicer. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and even in the feeble light, you could see the outlines of a six-pack and follow the bulge of his arms through the shirt.

I wondered, absently, how often he worked out to attain a body like that. I wondered what his diet was like and how much work must go into keeping his body so damn fit. And everywhere, from the curves of his neck and down the slopes of his forearms was covered in tattoos. They dipped beneath the neckline of his shirt like secrets asking to be exposed.

He turned and caught me gawking. Heat rose to my cheeks as a slow, almost teasing smile spread across his face.

“I didn’t introduce myself earlier,” he says, the teasing smile still in place. “I’m Sinclair. And you are?”

“Freyja.” My answer was automatic and awkward even to my own ears. I wasn’t used to being looked at by someone as attractive as Sinclair. And more than him looking, it was the way he was looking that threw me off. Even someone as unfamiliar with the rituals of flirting and s****l chemistry as I was understood what his looks meant.

“Freyja,” he murmurs to himself. “Like the Norse goddess?”

I laugh. If my mother could have heard that, she might be more flattered than horrified at Sinclair.

“My mom is a fan of mythology,” I explain. “Her favorite happens to be Norse. I’m Freyja and my brother’s name is Odin. Every pet we’ve had has been given the honor of being named after someone pertaining to Norse myths, too.”

I laugh some more and am surprised when he joins in. The smile that’s on his face as he laughs is different than the one he’s been giving me all night. This smile has no s****l undertones or intentions; his smile right now is pure. He looks like a Greek painting of a god in the prime of their beauty when he laughs. Even Mom might appreciate how he looked like this. Beautiful instead of sexy.

The lights in the bar flicker and suddenly aren’t as dim as they were before. I hear Carla say, “f*****g finally,” from the far end of the bar. The bar isn’t bright by any means, but the light is good enough for me to see Sinclair better, which only made my already lack of coherent thoughts that much worse.

His eyes are gray. When I see them for the first time in proper light, I immediately think of the sky before it rains. The calm before the ultimate storm. And I think, again, that it’s no wonder Sofia is chasing after him. It’s no wonder that there are stories all across North Carolina of the women who go in for a one night stand only to try to get him to stay later on. All to no avail because Sinclair Buchanan was a man who wouldn’t allow himself to be tied down to a woman.

Isn’t he perfect, then? I think to myself, caught in his gaze. Because there’s no chance in Hell Sinclair would ever fall in love with me. A man who is notorious for dodging relationships the same way I do would never fall in love with someone just as emotionally closed off as I was. And there was no risk of me catching feelings for him either.

“Do you mind if I sit with you, little goddess?”

My lips quirk up a bit at the nickname. No one’s ever called me that before, and even if I don’t want to, I find it kind of cute.

I shake my head and say that no, I don’t mind. Sinclair sits on the barstool next to me. I can’t help but notice how he pulls it closer than where it was originally sitting.

“You said your friend left you here,” he says suddenly like he’s just remembering. “Do you plan to leave with her?”

The thought of Sofia pulls me out of any thoughts I’m having about going home with him tonight. Even if Sofia is catty and annoying, I am still friendly with her and she clearly has feelings for Sinclair. The guilt would eat me alive if I slept with him. Even if I really wanted to…

I sigh and prop my elbow against the bar, watching him. It was really a shame I was such a loyal person.

“Probably not. She came here looking for you.”

He rose an eyebrow. “For me?”

I rose mine back. “Aren’t you used to women following you around by now? You two slept together a while back.”

He grins. “Slept together?”

A flush spreads across my face and I glare at him. “You know what I mean. She brought you to her apartment and you two…”

His head tilted to one side. “We?”

“You f****d, okay? Does teasing people get you off?”

Sinclair grins, leaning toward me. “If I were teasing you, little goddess, both of us would be getting off.” My eyes widen a little in surprise and I open my mouth, trying to say something but failing. “And you should say f**k more often. I like the way it sounds when you say it.”

I swallow and reach for my forgotten margarita, taking a sip as a distraction. Already, the previous heavy sips have started to have some effect. My body feels lighter than before. I’m not so drunk that I’ve lost all my inhibitions, but if I’m not careful, I will be soon.

“And about your friend…” he trails off, his eyes narrowed.

“Sofia.”

He glances at me with a look that says he doesn’t give a rat’s ass if her name was Khalessi of the Great Grass Sea.

“I don’t date,” he continues as if I had never spoken her name at all. “I don’t do love. I never have and I never will.”

He seems serious about that, confident in the notion that he will never fall in love with anyone. I like that. He really is the ideal man to spend my first and only night with. But Sofia’s face keeps popping into my mind, souring that idea.

Sinclair is suddenly leaning toward me, his eyes holding mine. “If we want to talk about who I would like to take home tonight, you’re at the top of the list.”

I suck in a breath. “Aren’t you usually surrounded by groupies? Can’t you pick one of them?” My tone comes out sounding sarcastic and perfectly snarky. I’m glad it comes out that way instead of the breathy mess I was afraid it would come out as.

“Who can focus on groupies after they’ve seen you?” He shifts on the barstool, turning his body toward mine. As he does, his hand accidentally trails along my thigh, and the spot where he touches burns like he’s set fire to it. It’s a nice fire, hot but pleasant.

I glance up at him, wondering if he’s noticed only to find him smirking up at me through his long eyelashes. The expression on his face is like a child who knows they’ve done something bad but knows they won’t be punished for it because their parents will be more entertained than angry. So, touching my leg wasn’t a mistake. Even though his fingers are not on my leg anymore, it still tingles.

“The way you wear that dress is f*****g incredible,” he whispers. He’s very close all of a sudden. Close enough that his lips are at my ear and his warm breath is leaving fire from the top of my ear to my collarbone. His lips trail across my jaw, and my body jerks forward. My breathing is so loud that it would be embarrassing if the bar were a little less noisy. Sinclair hooks his finger under my chin and forces me to meet his eyes. They’re darker than they were before; thick gray storm clouds right before the explosion of rain and lightning and wind.

His lips are breathtakingly close yet frustrating far as he whispers, “There is no woman in this bar who looks as good as you do, little goddess.” The pad of his thumb runs across my bottom lip and his darkened eyes follow the movement hungrily. “I want to ruin you, Freyja.”

My mind is in such a deep haze that I can’t be sure if I’m imagining it or not, but there is an accent in his voice I hadn’t heard before. My mind is so foggy, so caught up in the feeling of his hand cupping my chin and his eyes staring into mine that I can’t think to place it.

“Boss,” a voice calls out from beside us.

Sinclair turns to the source of the voice without uncapping my chin. Still caught in his grasp, I can only glance over at the person who has interrupted. It’s Sonny. The guy who knocked out the troublemaker earlier.

“Don’s awake. Bruiser just got here and he’s heard about what happened. He’s pissed.”

Sinclair closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, like he’s really focusing on calming himself. When he opens his eyes again, he turns his attention back to me. “Wait here,” he says, before disentangling himself and following Sonny, who looks back once to grin at me, giving me a thumbs up like a proud dad.

When Sinclair is gone, I turn forward, placing my elbows on the bar and my hands against my cheeks. My hands are cool enough to feel how incredibly overheated my cheeks are. I had assumed just looking at him or just having him stand close would make me combust, but his touch was really like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I place my hand against my chest, trying to steady my heartbeat.

“Freyja.”

Sofia is standing behind me when I turn. Her face is thoughtful as she takes the seat Sinclair was occupying. Seeing her brings me back to my senses. Even if he is perfect, there’s no way Sofia will be okay with me having s*x with him. It would be one thing if I was unaware of her feelings for him, but I knew very well she liked him. Even if I don’t believe in love, it doesn’t mean I’m willing to trample of the feelings of people who believe they’re in it. Love may not be real, but heartbreak most certainly is.

“When Sinclair comes back, I’ll say n—”

“You should let him take you home.”

I gape at her, my mouth opening and closing in shock. “Excuse me?”

She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t think you’d be able to pull off bagging Sinclair, but you did. I’m kind of impressed. Anyway, if you reject him, you’ll only make him more interested in you which is detrimental to my plan of making him interested in me, so f**k him.” She shrugs. “Sinclair likes to have a new woman in his bed every now and then. You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last. As hot as he is and as much as you were drooling all over him, it would be weirder if you said no. So just do it.”

As I stared at her in shock, she stood up. “Lucky you,” she says, sighing. “You get to lose your virginity to Sinclair Buchanan. Life really isn’t fair.” And then she flounces off toward the area where a group of men and women are playing an incredibly flirtatious game of pool.

  By the time Sinclair rejoins me a few moments later, my mind is still reeling from my conversation with Sofia and the internal war I’m waging with myself. I almost don’t notice him as he leans against the counter, taking the whiskey Carla had previously poured him and shooting down the remainder of it in one shot.

Looking at him induces a mini heart attack. I still haven’t decided if I’m going home with him or not. Sofia says it’s okay, but she’s the type to hold grudges, and even if I’m not the kind of person who necessarily fears conflict, I don’t like inviting it into my life either. My life is coming together well: I’m starting my freshman year at the college in Red Lake County that’s only a thirty-minute drive away from my soon to be apartment—and when considering how everything interesting is deep into Red Lake and at least a two hour’s drive away, the commute there wasn’t really that egregious. Not only that, but I was supposed to be moving into my new apartment that I had saved up for and put the deposit down on myself next week. My blog was taking off well enough that even Fara Earthly, the top critic for The New York Times who had let me intern for her while I was in high school was impressed by it. Just a little further, and I would be where I wanted.

Sofia is the kind of person who can make life completely miserable. Even though she mostly skips all of her classes, she’s attending the college in Red Lake, too, and if she thinks for even a second that Sinclair is more into me than he should be, she'll fuss around like a three-year-old who’s been told they can’t have another cookie. It’s not so much that her fussing would bother me, but the attention her fussing would bring will. I don’t like the eyes of strangers on me, and I don’t want anything distracting me from the amazing future that is within touching distance.

Even the man who I thought of as my own father so much that I had taken to calling him Dad was proud of me. He was looking forward to seeing how my life would turn out and how I would grow.

Even if Sofia had said she was cool with it, could I really trust that she wouldn’t make it hard for me later on?

When I glance over at Sinclair, I do a double-take because I notice that he’s already watching me. His gaze is steady, and I get the feeling he’s been watching me for a long time.

And even though I normally don’t like the gaze of strangers, my body doesn’t react to Sinclair’s gaze the way it does with the gaze of others. The moment my eyes land on his, they’re trapped, and I have no desire to avert them. There isn’t a feeling of discomfort and the familiar rise of anxiety. In his gaze, I feel oddly comfortable. Although there are other feelings, wild and unfamiliar things I haven’t ever experienced before him, I have no desire to look away.

“What?” I ask, feeling the slightest bit self-conscious.

“You look like you’re thinking hard about something.”

I raise an eyebrow. “And?”

“You should stop,” he says. “Don’t think. Just do what you want.”

I let out a breath that is half a groan and half a sigh. “That’s easy for you to say. You the king of I Do Whatever the hell I want.”

Sinclair’s gaze on me doesn’t falter at all as he leans forward. His hair is kind of long, I notice suddenly, and it curls attractively behind his ears and when he gives me a grin so devilish I think only he can manage it, dimples I hadn’t noticed before appeared. Even though I had been studying him, whenever we looked at each other, all I could see were his eyes. It was like my gaze couldn’t see the rest of his face, even as nice as it was. It was an interesting feeling; like slowly discovering him piece by piece.

“If you want help not thinking I can help you with that.” His gaze slips down my dress again, his eyes hungry. “Let’s go back to your place.”

My heart speeds up and for a split second, I almost say yes. Then I remember that I don’t live alone yet. If I took him back to my place, with its thin walls, Mom would undoubtedly hear what was going on inside my room and she would most definitely not be happy about it. Sinnerman or not, she would chase him up and down the streets of Willow Creek with the closest thing in arm’s reach. Even if he was the leader of a motorcycle gang, I didn’t doubt my mother’s ability to kick his ass if she were really pissed.

“My place is a no go,” I say. I’m a little stunned at how I haven’t said no to his offer. Even though I’ve done all that thinking and worrying, I’m still considering having s*x with him.

Sinclair raises an eyebrow. “Boyfriend?” he asks, tilting his head to one side. “You look a little too young to have a husband.”

“She would be as angry as a boyfriend would be if she caught me with you,” I reply with a smile. “My mom.”

Sinclair considers that for a brief moment and he leans back, his eyes skeptical. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.” And then something occurs to me. “Is that too young for you?”

I realize that I hope it isn’t. I’m waiting for his answer on bated breath.

But he shrugs his shoulders, his face impassive. “There’s only a two year age difference. Maybe even less than that depending on your birthday. When I was eighteen, I was doing a lot more than having sex.”

I let out a breath and am surprised at how much I seem to want this. I want it more unconsciously than I thought I did.

So when he steals closer to me and wraps his arms around me, my body bows toward him automatically. It’s like we’re both magnets that are being drawn to each other. I can smell his scent over the smell of cigarettes, alcohol, and sweat, and I realize that it’s nice. Like his eyes and that brazen grin, his scent shakes loose every sense of self-control I have. My entire body tingles with the overload of senses—eyes, touch, scent—and I can’t help but wonder what he must taste like.

My cheeks are warm at the route my thoughts have taken. I haven’t ever thought about the things I’m thinking now before. Of myself on my knees, of his face between my thighs, of him inside of me.

I don’t even have time to be shocked that I’m becoming a person I don’t recognize because Sinclair bends his head down and, with the lightest of pressures, slides his lips against mine teasingly. My mouth parts and I’m aching for him to kiss me. One of his hands is trailing its way up my thigh before it finds its home on the inner part of it.

I jerk in surprise as his thumb brushes against a very particular part of my body. I glance around but no one is paying us any mind. In this bar, everyone is much too preoccupied with their own flirtations and drinks to even notice us. And Sinclair’s body is large enough to completely eclipse mine.

So no one but me notices when the thumb moves quicker. Warm electricity riots through my body and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. The hard yet gentle press of his thumb against me, the quick and well-practiced motion of it, the press of his warm, solid body against mine. It’s all too much.

“You have to be quiet, little goddess,” he says.

I tilt my head back to look at him. He’s grinning that same s**t-eating grin from before but it’s different than it was when we were flirting. There is unbridled desire in his eyes, untamed burning in his smile. He looks like a man who desperately wants to burn me down and ruin me. And in that moment, I desire for him to do just that.

His thumb is more insistent. Quicker and quicker until I feel like I’m going to…

He pulls away suddenly and in my disoriented state, I lean forward with him, practically clinging myself to him.

He puts his thumb in his mouth as I watch and sucks it clean. He’s not smiling anymore. He has a look on his face that reminds me vaguely of the looks a lion gives a gazelle before it springs to attack.

“I normally don’t do this,” he says and then he curses under his breath in another language. French? “Do you want to come back to my place?”

Maybe it’s because my body is still aching from its lack of release and the absence of his thumb and his body weight, or maybe it’s because he’s incredibly sexy to me at that moment, wild-eyed and desire filled and the accent that had been so well hidden before is now on full display.

Or maybe the decision had already been made from the moment our eyes had locked across the room and I had been deluding myself into thinking I was ever going to make another choice but this one:

“Yes.”

Sinclair’s apartment is located in Utopia. I try not to gape too hard at the surroundings as he pulls up to a mammoth of an apartment complex, but I’m sure my surprise is written all over my face. Although I guess I really shouldn’t be. Utopia is the part of Willow’s Creek where the wealthy live, and it shows just by looking at it. Everything about this place is completely different from the rest of Willow’s Creek; from the way the roads are smooth, to the way the buildings are structured to resemble New York high rises and even the way the shops are clustered together.

Hell, even the people ducking in and out of those shops are too exceptionally well dressed to ever be considered normal by any means.

Sinclair wastes no time in taking my hand when we’ve stepped out of the car. It startles me a little, the way my body reacts to the touch of his hand. The warmth of his hand seems to spread through my own hand and shoot up my arm like a firework soaring into the sky, where it somehow finds its way to my stomach and explodes. Warmth vibrates in my belly, and my pulse immediately reacts to it.

I glance over at him and he grins down at me, his smile full of nothing but wicked intent.

The inside of the apartment lobby is as high class as the outside, but I don’t really get to take in much of it: high ceilings with artwork painted on them, pristine marble flooring, and an indoor waterfall.

At the front desk, the concierges—a man and a woman—both greet Sinclair who doesn’t give them a second glance as he leads me to the elevator. The woman seems a little let down to me, and I can’t blame her. I feel like there isn’t a person alive who wouldn’t want Sinclair’s attention. Not necessarily for romantic or s****l reasons, but just because Sinclair gave off this aura that made you want to have his eyes on you, that made you want to capture his attention.

The elevator is empty when we get on, and the moment the door closes, Sinclair wraps his arms around me.

I put my hand on his chest, trying to ignore how nice it feels under my hand, and look up at him. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, little goddess?”

I narrow my eyes. “Like you’re trying to feel me up in an elevator.”

He grins and leans down toward me. Even though I don’t like the idea of doing anything remotely s****l in what feels like such a public space, my head tilts up toward him of my own accord. I stiffen in surprise.

“Oui,” he whispers, his fingers trail across my bottom lip like they did in the bar. Flurries of anticipation and desire race through me again and, like I had in the bar, I completely forget where I am. “Would you like a reward?”

He closes the small space that was left between us and places his lips against mine softly.

Something between us explodes in that moment and before I can even truly comprehend the situation, my arms are around his neck and I’m kissing him back like some kind of desperate, soul-eating demon. His lips are soft, warm, and yet they are demanding and serious.

My head is fuddled as we kiss, and I don’t even notice I’ve been back up into the wall of the elevator until I feel the coolness of it against my bare back. All I can think of is how soft his hair feels in my hands, and how good he is at the whole kissing thing. I can’t even find it in me to be self-conscious that this is my first kiss.

The elevator dings and Sinclair pulls back and the look from the bar is back again. I can feel my entire body burning under his gaze—flesh, bone, and all—but I like the feeling. I never knew being scorched could be such a pleasant thing.

“Come on, little goddess. I have my rewards to give you.”

And even though, from the moment I decided to get into his car, there had never been any doubt about what I would do, I know for sure I won’t be turning back now. That—with the way I’m feeling—it’s physically impossible to turn back now.

I let Sinclair lead me to his apartment, my heart pounding in my ears the entire way.