Sin (The Waite Family) (35 page)

Sin woke suddenly. She didn’t move and kept her breathing low and normal. She wasn’t sure what woke her
,
but something had. It took her several minutes of being on alert before she let her mind and body relax.
Nothing.

The man next to her stirred slightly
then
he continued his soft snores into deeper sleep.
He had his arm wrapped around her waist as he spooned against her back side.
She started to close her eyes again when she felt him nip at her shoulder then roll over.

Payton had taken her and she’d loved it. It wasn’t as if she was now having second thoughts about what they’d done.
She’d loved every second of it. What frightened her was that she’d needed it.
No, that wasn’t it either, she needed him.

Sydney Waite didn’t need anyone. Or she thought she didn’t want to need anyone.
He’d become too important, too…
Fuck, she loved him.

Lifting his arm from her
,
she slipped out of the bed and onto the floor. She sat there and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now. She didn’t want to need him and she certainly didn’t want him to need her. Not because of the sex. No, she couldn’t give him what he needed.
Children.

Standing, she nearly crum
p
led back to the floor. She was sore
. N
ot only sore
,
but
incredibly
sore. Looking down at her bare body she could see
bruises
and scrapes. Not just
from
the
rough
sex
,
but
from
the
incident from the mall lot as well. Gathering up her tattered clothes she
went
to the bathroom. She closed and locked the door before turning on the light.

Turning on the shower first
,
she looked at herself in the mirror. There was a bruise on her jaw and a couple of scratches on her cheek and forehead.
She knew all these injuries were from the gravel parking lot. The bruises on her torso were not.

The ones at her
breasts
were dark and
looked
like fingerprints.
S
he
felt
her nipples tighten when she thought of Payton taking her the way he had again.
Her nipple clamps were gone and she wondered when he’d removed them. The one at her clit she knew he’d taken off before he’d tasted her.

There were bruises at her hips, more fingerprints
,
and a cut along her thigh.
Shaking her head
,
she stepped into the shower and scrubbed her body hard.

She was trying to figure out what to do about her panties when her phone slipped out of her jean pocket and fell on her discarded towel.

“Fuck,” she whispered. She had turned it to vibrate when she’d gone out
of
the mall and had forgotten it just
this
morning.
And now it was late afternoon.

Leaving the bathroom
,
she had a moment of regret. She wanted to…she wanted to explain to him
,
but she knew that he’d convince her he didn’t
care
,
that it would work out
,
and she couldn’t do it.
She leaned down to his neck
,
took a deep breath of him in and
,
with tears in her eyes
,
left him. I
t
was better for them both
,
she thought
,
and wondered which part of her was less convinced
,
her heart or her mind.

She was pulling out her cell phone to listen to the messages when it vibrated in her hand. She smiled when she answered
,
but it wasn’t because she was happy.

“Can’t a
girl
have a few hours of R&R without you bugging the shit out of her?
I mean—
”

“I’m shot.
Come…you have to come to me.
I’m…he’s getting away.”

Sin rushed to the street.
“Where
?
” she asked him as she flagged down a cab.

“Connelly building, seventh floor. Armed…he’s armed. Dangerous.
Careful.”
Shipley coughed hard an
d
she waited before answering him.

“I’m coming. Don’t be dead when I get there or
,
so help me
,
I’ll kick your ass back down to a private. Hear me?”
His laugh brought on another coughing spell then the line went dead.

Sin whistled down the next cab that drove near her and was making it across town two minutes later.
She was sitting in the back of the dirty cab when it occurred to her that her discussion with herself about Payton was taken out of her hands.
This way…and she refused to think of it as the coward’s way out, it was a clean break
.
Too bad her heart didn’t agree.

~~~

Payton woke up and knew immediately something was wrong. He was alone in the bed for one thing
,
and the room had been neatened up.
He reached for his folded pants on the chair and took out his cell phone.
Three missed calls and on
e
text.
None of them from Sydney.
Pulling on his pants
,
he went to the bathroom.

He tried dialing her twice while he pulled on his shoes and both times it went to voicemail.
He was ready to toss the thing across the room when it vibrated.
He had to answer his mom.

“I suppose I should be happy you were there when they carted my body away in the ambulance,” his mom said in way of greeting.
“I guess it’s an everyday thing for you when your own mother gets kidnapped at gun point, beaten up
,
and used as a human shield.”

He had to laugh despite the pain where his heart used to be. “I’m coming now.
I had…I had something I needed to do before I could come in.
Have you seen Shaller?”

“No. That nice young doctor
friend
of yours, Doctor Waite
,
was in.
He said she would be in surgery for a bit longer to set her arm.”
There
was just enough
of a
pause in her conversation to make him want to tell her to be quiet.
“
I don’t suppose that young woman is related to him
,
is she?
And will she be coming with you?”

Payton got into the car. How could he tell her he didn’t know?
He didn’t know if he’d hurt her, broken her heart
,
or she had an errand to run. He was getting tired of her taking off, but this time he knew it was completely his fault.
So he didn’t answer about Sydney.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.
And yes.
Sydney is his sister.
I love you,
M
om.”

Payton tried her cell again before he pulled out into traffic.
This time it rang before ending up at her voicemail.
And like before
,
he didn’t leave a message.

H
e
wasn’t sure what to say to her
,
first of all. He was pissed at her
,
but more
so at himself. He wasn’t sure about a few things as well.

Had he hurt her physically and that’s why she left?
Probably not. He was reasonably sure if she hadn’t
wanted what had happened between them
,
she would have stopped him. He grinned
.
She
would have hurt him too. So that theory was out.

Could she have just stepped out to get a paper and donuts?
H
e
dismissed that almost as fast as he thought it. She had showered and
everything
was gone except for her rings.

He had removed them soon after
they’d
gotten the bed
straightened
up
. He’d closed his eyes for about a minute or two when he’d pulled her close to him and she whimpered.
He’d never meant to leave them on that long and felt bad about it.

Then there was the fact that she wasn’t answering his calls.
Okay, he thought
,
there could be any number of reasons why she wasn’t answering.
Dead battery
,
for one thing
. S
he could have forgotten to turn it back on
. H
ell
,
she might have broken it when she’d saved his mom.
But that just didn’t feel
right.

He was at the front desk at the hospital searching for his mom’s room when Alyssa walked up and handed him Connor.

“Your mom is really nice. She said you and Sin saved her life.”

Payton kissed Connor before saying anything. “Sydney did all the work. I was just window dressing.”

When she snorted he looked at her.
“Sin doesn’t strike me as a woman who would have need for window dressing
to get a job done.
Come on, I’ll take you to your mom’s room.”

Alyssa was stepping into the elevator when she said something that made him pause.
“Roger Shipley, do you know him?”
Payton nodded.
“He called Cain earlier. He was looking for Sin.”

“Did Cain tell him where she was?”
Payton’s heart was pounding hard.
He’d never thought about her going to find the shooter with Shipley.

“He didn’t know, well
,
not for sure. We thought she was with you.” She looked at him before she continued. “Anyway, he gave him her cell and told him the house number just in case.
Funny thing,” she said just
as they got off the ride
to his mom’s floor.