Sin (The Waite Family) (11 page)

Dinner was a disaster
and she was glad to be going home
.
There was no other way to describe it.
He’d been telling her of her future attached to his for over an hour and all she wanted to do was to tell him to fuck off.
But she thought about the dates before him, the ones where she wished she’d worn a Chastity Belt and carried a stun gun.
She’d gone home from those with her virginity bar
ely intact
—
if she
had been
a virgin.

The
other
two times they’d gone out
,
they’d gone to a gallery opening
the first time
,
which wasn’t too bad.
She enjoyed meeting the artist and his wife seemed like a nice person. It wasn’t until she was
looking at one of his pieces alone that Byron came up behind her and spoke.

“I know you.
Well, I used to know you.
You’re Cain’s little sister
,
the one who was in the news recently.”
She didn’t turn around.
“They said you were a hero.”

“Yeah, that’s me.
Some hero I turned out to be.”
She turned then and looked at him.
“Is my
pedigree
not good enough to be in your gallery
,
Mr. Grant?
Or can I stay because Alyssa is my sister-in-law?”
As soon as the words left her mouth she’d been sorry.
She’d
had no right to take her bad mood out on him.
But
before she could tell him she was sorry he threw back his head and laughed.

“Yeah, Taylor said that Ricky was a pain in your ass.
No, Miss Waite, don’t go.
Shall we start over?”
He walked closer to her and held out his hand.
“Hello, I’m Bryon Grant
.
I’m the potter.
I believe we knew each other a long time ago.”

This time she laughed.
“Sin Waite at your service.
Ricky?
I’m sure his mommy would not appreciate that slang term.”

They had met twice
more since then
, Byron and his really nice wife Taylor
,
for lunch and once for dinner.
In fact
,
Taylor had helped her pick out this dress.

The second time had been to a function. She wasn’t sure what the function had been, but it involved her hanging on his arm and biting her tongue a great deal.
The only redeeming thing was that Byron, Taylor
,
and his brother Jamie and his wife Dane had been there.

They pulled up in front the house and she started to open the door. He hated when she did that. He wanted to walk all the way around the car, open her door for her
,
and hand her out.
Hand her out like she was some royalty or something.
Fucking retard.
If he tried to kiss her tonight she was going to give him a quick jab to the nuts and then step over his body and into the house. Her head hurt and she was tired.
And he kissed like she
thought
a frog might kiss.

Having enough
,
she waited until he was in front of the car
then
opened the door herself and got out. He huffed at her.
And she wasn’t sure
,
but she thought he might have stomped his foot.

“Valeria, I have asked you
repeatedly
to wait for me to come around. A gentleman opens the door for his date.”

“Sorry.
But I have to pee.
You drive carefully home.”
She might have made it too if she hadn’t forgot
ten
to get her key out. She
hadn’t locked a door in so long she always forgot the key.

“Valeria, aren’t you going to invite me in?
It’s been such a lovely evening that I thought maybe you and I could s
i
t in front of the fireplace and talk.”

Inspiration
hit.
“You’ll have to split wood for that. Oh, I love that. You can find the axe in the back on the wood pile.
I think there are some small enough pieces in
here
that I can get one started.
But
no big stuff.
You do that, I’ll pee and then work on the
fire.”

“You mean for me to cut wood? Like…like a commoner?
Oh no, why don’t you go in and ask that man, the one with the beefy arms
,
to do it
?
I can start the kindle
,
he can tote the wood in
side for us then leave.
That’s a much better plan
.”

She
looked at him
with
wide eye
s
.
This
guy wasn’t for real
;
there was no way he could be.
“You want me to go and wake up
Co…Mr. Cooper and have him cut us some wood for you to sit on the couch with me and talk?
You’re certifiable.
I’m going in now
. Y
ou go home before I have to hurt you.”

She didn’t even wait for him to answer, but shoved the key into the lock and opened it.
With
a quick
,
“
night
,”
she shut the door in his face.

“Fuck-tard. He didn’t even ask me what happened to my eye.
” She was nearly to the kitchen when she realized she was too tired to mess with a glass of tea and turned to go to the basement.
She was settled into her cot seconds after checking the room for unfriendl
ie
s.
It was a habit she’d gotten into and she had yet to break it.
Closing her eyes, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

~Chapter 7~

She was in the kitchen when he got up.
Coop watched her from the doorway for a minute as she bent over to look into the
refrigerator
twice before she turned and looked at him.
Today she was dressed in a royal blue running shirt and bright yellow bike shorts.
What he wouldn’t give to be her seat.
Sitting down quickly he hoped she hadn’t noticed that he was stiff as a board
,
and
he didn’t mean
his leg.

“Where you off to at
…
”
H
e glanced at his watch.
“Fuck
.
Four
in the morning?”
He had never been up this early in his life unless it was before he had gotten to bed.
“You can’t possibly be going running again. I though
t
your brother told you to stay off that knee for a few days.”

“And I told you to stay out of my way.
I’m a grown woman
and
,
believe it or not, I don’t have to listen to my brother anymore.
Hell, I never listened to him when I—
”

“I’m going with you.”
He might have laughed at the expression on her face if he wasn’t so sure she’d hurt him.
“I need to start exercising my leg again. Cain told me I should start trying to move it more.
”

Cain had actually told him to start out slow and move up to running, but for reasons he didn’t want to think about
,
letting Sydney go out again on her own bothered him.
He stood up and told her to wait
. H
e wanted to go and get his shoes.
With as much power as he could he left the kitchen without limping…too much.

When he got back she was just pulling on her sweatshirt. “I must be stupid.
Her
e I am waiting like an idiot for some halfwit to go with me on a run when he can barely walk.
Stay here
,
Mr. Cooper. I want to get going and I’m not waiting on you.”

“I’m ready.”
W
hen she stood there staring at him he was sure she was going to refuse, but she simply went out the door and to the backyard
to the brightly lit equipment
.

Watching a woman stretch in the morning was another of Coop’s favorite things.
Especially naked stretching
after
spen
ding
the entire night making love and she g
ot
up to go to the bathroom.
Women ha
d
the most amazing bodies.
They
had
muscles that move
d
all sorts
of delightful parts.
Breasts bounce
d
, nipples peak
ed
and harden
ed
.
Coop loved women.
But watching Sydney stretch on the equipment before her run nearly killed him.

He stood watching her for several minutes.
He knew she was aware of him
;
she’d be hard pressed not to be.
Whenever she turned around to glare at him, he made sure there was no dro
o
l on his chin when she looked back to what she was doing.
He was just glad that he’d opted for loose gym pants.
But he was reasonably sure if she kept this up these would be much too small as well.
He decided to get going and try to ignore her.
Yeah right!

Leaning on the bar
,
he started doing some
slow stretches.
His leg already ached and he wasn’t sure how far she usually ran
,
but if they went further than the end of the drive he was going to die.