4. Flames

FOUR

FLAMES

CROSS

W hen I look at Genevieve, I see flames.

That should scare the shit out of me. My only experience with fire is a fucking tragedy. I wasn’t even home the night that my childhood home burned down to the ground and my entire family died, but I saw the ashes after. I smelled it on the late autumn air, the char and the death and the burn, even hours after the Springfield Fire Department got the blaze under control. It’s clung to me since, following me doggedly through the years?—

As the report swiftly revealed that my mother, my younger sister, and my younger brother all died of smoke inhalation before the fire consumed them. That it was arson—and that my sick bastard of a stepfather was the one who spilled the gasoline and lit the match.

As I went through the motions of foster care because I didn’t have anyone else, eventually aging out before I found a new family with the gang of brawlers, gamblers, and gun runners that would eventually become the Sinners Syndicate.

As I rose up through the ranks, joining the inner circle under the Devil of Springfield himself as the official tattoo artist for the syndicate… the smoke and the dust and phantoms of my past followed me every goddamn step I’ve taken for nearly twenty years, but never fire. Never a spark.

Never any heat.

Until Genevieve Libellula danced her way into my life.

I’m fucking obsessed with this one. Addicted. She’s all I think about, her pretty blue eyes, her impish smile, her forwardness, her sass… I love it all. She’s life personified, and when I’m in her orbit, I don’t feel as I’m simply existing. I come alive, too, when before only my art only made me feel that way.

Now it’s all Genevieve. My muse and my secret weakness in one, I knew from that first dance that it would be far too easy to fall in love with her. I never expected that it would happen so fast. I told myself it was innocent, swapping numbers with her, that I wouldn’t have to call her.

She could be my Madonna. The woman on a pedestal that inspired me to create, but virginal in a way that meant I couldn’t sully her with my dirty hands. Then, during one of our first conversations—that she initiated, and I was helpless to continue—Genevieve coyly admitted that isn’t just virginal. She’s an honest-to-God virgin .

And I knew from that moment on that I couldn’t have her. Maybe if she was broken like me, we could heal the cracks in each other. But she’s nothing like the Sinner I am. She’s kind. Smart. Thoughtful. Ambitious, too; she doesn’t just dance because she likes it, but because it’s her calling.

Genevieve doesn’t know what it’s like to struggle. To have had to rely on free lunch during her school days, secretly pissed when a more well-off classmate would swipe part of the only meal he’d get that day right from the tray. I had three foster families before one stuck, but they kicked my ass out the door on my eighteenth birthday.

She lives in a fucking mansion with her older brother on the East End.

She doesn’t rub it in, though. Because her brother got his money the same way I do—through the syndicates that run Springfield—she thinks we’re on the same level. A secret criminal fling, made all the more exciting because, up until last summer, the Sinners and the Dragonflies were kill-on-sight rivals.

Genevieve thinks that I’m hesitant to start any kind of relationship with her because her brother runs the Libellula Family and I owe my loyalty to Devil. While I’ll do what the Devil of Springfield says because he’s my boss, that’s not enough to stop me from pursuing my butterfly the way I want to.

Knowing that I’ll only destroy her if I do? That has me lying through my teeth as I tell her that I just want to be friends.

Friends? I’ve never wanted to tuck a friend of mine under me, fucking them until they scream my name, feasting on their virgin pussy with the masculine sense of satisfaction that I got there first. I don’t jerk off to the thoughts of my friends in the shower, or stay up all night drawing their faces over and over again until I make fire work for me this time, burning my paper obsession as if I could cut her out of my heart.

Six weeks. It’s been six weeks and Genevieve Libellula has manages to worm her way under my hard exterior, burrowing so deep, I don’t think I can ever get her out again.

I need to put an end to this. Eventually, we’ll get caught. I don’t know Damien personally, just by reputation. Rolls, on the other hand, has to deal with the Dragonflies a lot, especially after shit went down between that enforcer dickhead and Rolls’s wife, Nicolette. He’d be the first to tell me that Damien is just as dangerous as Devil. Don’t let the expensive suits and debonair act fool you. Devil looks like what he is: a brawler who got his name when he hacked a guy’s head right off the stump for threatening Ava.

Damien looks like a CEO, but prefers the intimacy of a close kill courtesy of a blade he wears at all times. And that’s if he doesn’t send one of his league of trained killers, his enforcers, after any of his enemies.

How much do you want to bet that he’d consider the worthless Sinner panting like a dog after his younger sister an enemy worthy of disappearing?

Genevieve doesn’t see that. She thinks sneaking around is another aspect that makes our ‘friendship’ thrilling. Smart enough to know that it would be a bad idea to tell Damien we’re hanging out—especially after he nearly got assassinated by a new rival moving in on Springfield territory a couple of weeks back—she just thinks her brother would try to forbid her for leaving her bedroom again.

Me? I’m expecting a bullet between my eyes, or a stiletto through my ribs.

Does that stop me, though? Does that stop me from riding my bike across town so that I can watch my dainty dancer shimmy down a tree, dancing out of the sight of her brother’s cameras, all before she throws her arms around me before hopping on the back of my motorcycle?

Does that stop me from looking at Genevieve now, sitting in my studio like she owns the place—like she belongs here—and fantasize about taking her hand, leading her upstairs to my private apartment, and admitting that I’d give anything to kiss her.

To fuck her? I’d welcome Damien’s fury, knowing I got to have her at least once...

I can’t. I know I can’t. Genevieve is twenty-five, but she’s a young twenty-five. I’m an old thirty, even if everyone thinks I look younger. Those five years seem like an eternity between us, just like the miles between the West Side of Springfield and the East End are too big a chasm for my bike to cross.

I’m damaged goods. I always have been. Quiet and sensitive when I was much younger, I was easy pickings for my stepfather. I was nine the first time he snuck into my bedroom, telling me that my mother had a late night shift, and as the next oldest in the house, it was my responsibility to give him what he wanted.

We lived in a three bedroom apartment in the poorer part of Springfield. Chad was right. I was the oldest. When I was nine, Rafe was seven. Ana Lucia was only six. They shared a room the same way Chad and my mother did. I had the smallest one, but before Chad came around, I was the man of the house. When he moved in, I still got to keep a room for myself. I thought I was so grown, but at nine… I didn’t know what sex was. When my tiny prick got hard, I was curious about it, but I didn’t understand.

Thanks to that fucking bastard shooting his much bigger cock into my hand that first night, I learned pretty damn quickly what he meant.

If I told my mother what her husband was doing while she was at work, he’d kill me. If I refused to let him use me however he wanted, he’d sneak into my siblings’ room and wake one of them up instead. He wasn’t particular. He fucked my mom when she was home. He forced me to suck his cock when she wasn’t. He was a predator who’d target anyone —and even then, I knew I had to protect Ana Lucia and Rafe.

For three years, I did. But I got older. I got bigger. He started eyeing Ana Lucia a little closer… and I punched him the next time he tried to get me to touch him.

Not because I was jealous. Fuck no. It was because I’d finally had enough.

Chad beat me so bad, I had to kick him in the nuts to escape him otherwise he would’ve killed me.

Instead? While I slept in an alley, blocks away from my home, the sick fuck tried to burn the whole place down.

That was almost twenty years ago. Eighteen to be exact, and I’ve dealt with the remorse and the survives guilt every single day of my life. I didn’t want a heart, didn’t want to love, didn’t want to have strong feelings for another person because it only ends up in flames.

And when I look at Genevieve, that’s all I see.

I should tell her to go. I should block her number, let my butterfly free before I inevitably break her.

I don’t.

As Genevieve conversationally mentions that she forgot to eat lunch before she came over, I don’t shut her down. I don’t offer her one of the granola bars I keep in the studio for a quick sugar boost during a long ink sessions, and despite my initial reaction to take the opportunity to invite her upstairs after all, I warn my wayward cock to get itself under control.

She wants to eat, and I know what that means: she wants to go out.

I doubt Genevieve has any clue I’m aware what she’s doing. When I was just as straightforward as she was, telling her I don’t do relationships after she boldly offered herself up to me for one, she decided to be a little sneakier.

Dates. She tries to get me to go on dates. Riding around town on my bike, Genevieve wearing the helmet I bought even before I picked her up the first time. Because, yup, part of me already knew I had it bad, and the helmet proved it, but she kissed me on the cheek when she saw it so, fuck it, I don’t regret the impulsive purchase at all.

Dinners. Late night snacks. Breakfasts when she could sneak away… she has this idea that, if we sit down for a meal together, we are together. It’s funny, too, because Genevieve rarely eats more than a few bites of her food. She thinks I don’t noticed that , either, but I notice everything about this woman.

If Genevieve wants food, I’m getting her some food.

“What about you?” she asks. “You hungry?”

Whenever I’m near this woman, I’m starved—but it’s not for food.

It’s for her laugh. It’s for her fire. It’s for her sunshine and brightness.

Fucking hell, it’s for her taste .

But I can’t tell her that, so I shrug instead. “I could eat.”

She checks her phone. “I’ve got another hour or two before our cook serves dinner. If I don’t come down, Dame will just think I’m really focusing on my new choreography.”

“New choreography?” I ask. I love watching Genevieve dance, and hearing her talk about her career reminds me why I’m throwing up the admittedly weak walls I already have. She has something more important than her crush on me: her professional career. “What’s that about?”

Her features light up. She’s always so pleased when I show an interest in her job, just like I can’t help but crumble under her praise whenever I show her another finished sketch.

“I’m practicing a new piece,” she gushes. “The Performing Arts Center in Union City is hosting open auditions in the middle of June. It’s been a while since I had a show to do, and this one is my favorite. Black Swan .”

Maybe that’s for the best. Between the audition next month, and rehearsal, she won’t have as much time for me.

And, no, I’m not bitter about that at all.

Keeping my features impassive, I say, “I hope I’m not distracting you.”

“You’re not,” she says quickly. “But,” and I see a flirty twist to her lips as she climbs up off of the stool, inching her way closer to my desk, “what about me? Am I a distraction, Cross?”

Yes .

I pretend not to understand. “I’m not quite finished with my sketch yet,” I tell her, grabbing the folded cover of my iPad, flipping it so it hides the drawing of Genevieve sitting in my studio, looking at my book of designs. “But that’s cool. Let’s eat.”

“We don’t have to go out. If you’re expecting a client in or something, we can order in.” Her pretty blue eyes sparkle. “We can take the food upstairs.”

Bringing Genevieve up to my private apartment, in the same space where I keep my bed? That’s a temptation that I don’t think even I can resist.

“Nah. I’m feeling tacos. What about you?”

“Tacos are good,” she agrees. “But if you don’t want to go out with me…”

I never want to come between Genevieve and her family.

I never want to derail her career.

I never want to singe her with the fire I’ve never been able to escape.

“You know where I keep your helmet, butterfly. I’ll go get my keys.”

We’re being followed.

I noticed the nondescript black car tailing my bike about four streetlights back. They were on my ass, and I just thought it was another asshole driver who didn’t want to share the road.

So I took a turn that would add five minutes to our trip, but I wanted to see if they would take the bait. Two right turns and a left later, and I had my answer. They were definitely following us.

Shit.

This is my fault. So desperate to prove to Genevieve that I was different than her brother… from the moment we met at the Playground, she’s told me that one of the things that she likes most about me is how I’m sensitive. I’m not brutal and ruthless like the other gangsters she knows, and that’s including both her older brother and cousin. She’s convinced herself that I’m an acceptable Sinner because my speciality is in ink and because I have a soft touch when it comes to my art.

And I let her. I let her believe that since I knew I’d lose her if she knew the truth. That, despite my quiet nature and my sad eyes, I’m as much of a morally gray villain as any of the criminals walking around Springfield with a devil or a dragonfly on their skin.

I could protect her. In a way I couldn’t protect my family when I was a boy, if anyone came after Genevieve, I could protect her now. That didn’t mean I was reckless; with her safety, I would never be. I just refused to keep her locked up when she’s with me the same way her brother does. If Genevieve wanted to explore Springfield on the backseat of my bike, I was confident in my abilities to keep her safe.

Besides, the taco place was only fifteen minutes away. Less if I speed, which I wouldn’t normally do with such precious cargo clinging to my waist. But as soon as I caught on to our tail, I floored it.

They matched our pace, even after I started weaving around other cars.

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have drawn a version of the pale pink butterfly onto the white helmet I bought for Genevieve. She was so pleased when she saw I personalized it, as though part of her had suspected that I treat every girl I’ve ever been with the same way I do her.

Not even close. I didn’t even know how to pick out a women’s hamlet since this is the first one I’ve ever bought, and I was lucky that Nic let me use her head as a guide to see if it would fit before I offered it to Genevieve.

Luckily, their heads are about the same shape and it worked. It fit Genevieve perfectly, both concealing her face when she didn’t want anyone to know she was sneaking out of the East End and adding protection to her in case something happened to my back.

I’ve never crashed before. I’m a good driver because, despite the shit I’ve gone through, it’s not like I want to die. I just wish my family hadn’t . With Genevieve clinging to me tightly… I’m doubly as careful.

But the helmet that’ll cradle her head in case something does happen has a downside: anyone who knows she’s the gorgeous face beneath the butterfly will be able to track us through Springfield.

My bike’s not so unique. It’s a basic Kawasaki cruiser, and my helmet is a dinged-up black, standard issue motorcycle helmet. There are more than anything bikers in the Sinners Syndicate that I could blend in with the traffic.

I could.

Genevieve can’t.

It would be pointless to try to tell her to lose the helmet. Whoever is following us is already on our ass, and turning the afternoon drive into something more dangerous than it might be is a stupid fucking idea.

I can’t grab my piece, either. To grab my concealed carry pistol from my ankle holster, I’d have to risk tipping over my bike or slowing down enough for them to catch up. I didn’t want Genevieve to know that I carry around her, either, but if the choice is between letting something happen to her or blowing up my ‘nice guy’ persona in front of her, I know what I’ll have to do.

I never get the chance.

So concerned with the black car following us, I never see the white van come barreling toward us from my left side. Ignoring the red light, it plows right through it the second I push my bike through the next intersection.

A split second before it makes contact, I have a moment of sudden clarity.

The black car wasn’t following us, I realize. It was herding us.

Without meaning to, I went exactly where they want me to go: the run-down section of the West Side where it only comes to life at night. During the day, it’s a ghost town, and no one is there to witness it as the van sideswipes my books, I lose control, and my bike skids out from beneath me.

Genevieve screams. That’s all I hear before the motorcycle lands on its side, bouncing on the asphalt. I’m still clutching the handlebars. Genevieve is still clutching me. My leather jacket tears as we hit the ground. If my thick bomber is toast, the sweatshirt Genevieve pulled on over her sundress doesn’t have a chance.

And that’s if she survives the crash.

Considering the side of my helmet slams into the road, my head rattling around inside of it before my vision goes black, I don’t even know if I will.