All Chapters of 100 WAYS TO SIN: Chapter 201 - Chapter 210

282 Chapters

GUILTY OF WANTING HIM 7

Tim. I followed Celine back to her apartment after the parking structure without discussion. Neither of us pretended the decision required further debate. She unlocked the door and stepped inside. I closed it behind me and engaged the deadbolt. The quiet of the space settled around us at once. She turned to face me in the entryway. The composure she wore in the interrogation rooms was still present, but it no longer functioned as a barrier. I could see the same want in her eyes that I felt in my own body. “Once we do this,” I said, “there is no version of the investigation that remains clean.” “The investigation stopped being clean the moment you kissed me in that room.” She set her keys on the small table by the door. “I am not asking you for clean, Tim. I am asking you to stop leaving”. I crossed the short distance between us and took her face in my hands. The second kiss carried none of the restraint I had forced on myself for days. She opened for me immediately. The taste

GUILTY OF WANTING HIM 8

Tim The breakthrough in the case arrived on a Tuesday morning without ceremony. A secondary forensic lab completed a deeper analysis of the partial prints recovered from the storage unit and returned a match to a man named Victor Hale, a former logistics contractor with documented ties to the victim’s less public business dealings. The financial trail that had previously only implicated the gallery’s shell company now extended cleanly to Hale’s accounts. Surveillance footage from a nearby intersection, previously too degraded for use, had been enhanced enough to show a vehicle registered to Hale leaving the area twenty minutes after Celine’s loaner had departed. I read the report twice at my desk before I allowed myself to accept the implications. Celine’s amended statement held. She had been present. She had found the body. She had fled. She had not committed the murder. The evidence now pointed with increasing clarity toward a different man entirely. I called her from my person

GUILTY OF WANTING HIM 9

Celine. I woke before sunrise with Tim’s arm still heavy across my waist and the quiet knowledge that the investigation that had bound us together was finally beginning to release its hold. The previous evening’s conversation in the park and the night that followed had shifted something fundamental. He had spoken the words without hesitation. He was choosing me. I had answered with the same certainty. Now the only remaining obstacle was the formal closure of the case itself. I slipped out of bed carefully and showered while he continued to sleep. By the time I returned to the bedroom with coffee he was awake and sitting against the headboard. The sheet rested low across his hips. The sight of him in the early light still sent a low pulse of heat through my body, but the urgency that had defined our earlier encounters had softened into something steadier. “You are up early,” he said. “I could not sleep any longer. The waiting feels different now.” He accepted the coffee I hand

GUILTY OF WANTING HIM 10

Tim. I spent the morning in a closed-door meeting with my lieutenant and a representative from Internal Affairs. The conversation was formal, precise, and exactly as uncomfortable as I had expected. I disclosed the relationship with Celine Sean in clear terms. I stated the timeline. I confirmed that the personal involvement began before the case reached its formal conclusion. I accepted full responsibility for the violation of departmental policy. The lieutenant listened without interruption. When I finished he informed me that an administrative review would be opened, that I would be reassigned from active field duties pending its outcome, and that the final recommendation could range from formal reprimand to requested resignation. I acknowledged each point without argument. There was nothing left to defend. The only remaining task was to walk out of the building and go to the woman I had chosen over the clean version of my career. Celine opened the door before I could knock. Sh

MY STRAIGHT ROOMMATE’S RULES 1

MAYA I shoved the key into the lock harder than I needed to and the door stuck for a second the way it always did when the humidity got bad. My eyes were already burning and my throat felt tight like someone had wrapped a hand around it. The dorm room smelled the same as it always did when I came back late, vanilla body spray and the faint leftover grease from whatever Sienna had ordered earlier, and the soft glow from her desk lamp was the only light on. She was on her bed with her laptop open, legs crossed, wearing that oversized black band shirt that always rode up her thighs. She looked up the second the door opened and her eyes moved over my face once. “You’re early,” she said. I dropped my bag by the desk and kicked my shoes off without answering. My hands were shaking a little. I could still hear his voice in the parking lot saying I was too much and not fun enough in bed and the way he looked at me like he was already bored. I sat down hard on the edge of my own bed and

MY STRAIGHT ROOMMATE’S RULES 2

MAYA I sat there with her hand still warm on my thigh and her breath still ghosting against the side of my neck and for a few long seconds neither of us moved. The words she had just spoken hung in the air between us. I’m going to take care of you tonight. And you’re going to let me. That’s the first rule. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat and my eyes were still wet and the ache from the parking lot was still sitting heavy in my chest but under all of it was this sharp new heat that made it hard to think straight. Then Sienna pulled back. She took her hand off my leg like it had never been there and stood up in one smooth motion. The loss of her warmth was immediate. I felt cold where her palm had been and colder still where her mouth had brushed my skin. She walked over to her desk without looking at me and opened her laptop again. The soft glow lit up her face and she started typing like nothing had happened. I stayed frozen on the edge of her bed. “Sie

MY STRAIGHT ROOMMATE’S RULES 3

MAYAThere it was again. That quiet controlling note in her voice. The same one that had shown up last night when she told me I was going to let her take care of me. I should have pushed back. I should have told her I didn’t need a bodyguard. Instead I just stood there watching her choose a black top and dark jeans while my pulse picked up for reasons that had nothing to do with the party.We spent the next couple of hours in a strange half-silence. I tried to do some reading for class and failed. Sienna put on music through her portable speaker, something low and bass-heavy, and scrolled through her phone. Every now and then I caught her looking at me. Each time she held my gaze a second longer than necessary before glancing away. The tension from last night hadn’t gone anywhere. It had just settled into the walls of the room and waited.Around eight we started getting ready. I changed into a black skirt and a top that showed a little more skin than I usually did. When I came out of

MY STRAIGHT ROOMMATE’S RULES 4

MAYA.I woke up to the soft sound of Sienna moving around the room. The light coming through the curtains was still pale and early and my body felt heavy from the late night and the way my mind had refused to shut off. I kept my eyes closed for a few extra seconds and listened to her footsteps crossing the floor and the quiet unzip of her bag.When I finally opened them she was already dressed in jeans and a dark hoodie with her hair pulled back and her laptop bag over one shoulder.She glanced over when she noticed I was awake.“Morning,” she said. Her voice was even. “I have an early lab. There’s coffee on the desk if you want it.”I pushed myself up against the pillows and rubbed at my face. The coffee cup was sitting exactly where she said it would be and steam was still rising from it. She had made it the way I usually drank it without me asking. The small detail sat strangely in my chest.“Thanks,” I said.Sienna nodded once and then she was gone. The door clicked shut behind he

MY STRAIGHT ROOMMATE’S RULES 5

MAYA.I read the entire list twice without moving. My hands felt cold. My pulse was loud in my ears. The paper stayed perfectly still on the wall like it had always been there. Fifteen rules. All of them written in the same clean font with the same absolute tone. No room for negotiation. No soft edges. Just Sienna deciding the shape of my days and nights and who was allowed near me.I stood up and walked to the other side of the room and then back again because sitting still felt impossible. The rules kept replaying in my head in fragments. No dates. Text me when you leave. No one else touches you. Sleep here every night. Ask permission. Phone unlocked. I decide.I had already said yes to Noah. Dinner at seven. The address was already in my messages. I pulled out my phone and stared at the text thread. My thumb hovered over the keyboard. I could cancel. I could tell him something came up. I could follow Rule 1 before Sienna even got back and found out I had broken it.I didn’t cancel.

MY STRAIGHT ROOMMATE’S RULES 6

MAYAI opened my mouth and the answer that came out surprised me with how true it felt.“It exists because you don’t want anyone else getting close enough to hurt me the way he did. And because you don’t want anyone else touching what you’ve already decided is yours to handle.”Sienna’s eyes stayed on my face while I spoke. She didn’t smile. She didn’t look away. When I finished she nodded once like I had given the correct answer on a test.“That’s part of it,” she said. “The other part is simpler. I don’t share. Not you. Not your time. Not the way you look when someone is paying attention to you. I watched you say yes to him today and it made something ugly sit in my chest the entire walk back here. So now you’re going to feel what that looks like from my side.”She reached past me and took the printed list off the wall in one clean motion. The tape made a soft ripping sound. She folded the paper once and set it on the desk without looking at it again. Then she stepped closer until h

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