Page 26 of Dirty Little Saint

A soft breeze brushes past me, sending my pulse into a frenzy. Oh, shit.

I try to swallow down my fear, but my throat feels like sandpaper. My heart beats loud and fast in my ears. It’s too quiet in this crypt. So quiet that the tiniest pin-prick of a noise rattles me. Oh, fuck, there could be rodents down here.

The air thickens as I move toward the center of the crypt. I have to squeeze in between the rows of coffins to get any farther. I look around, trying to guess which coffin he made me cum in. Maybe he’s resting in that one. That night was such a blur. We were drunk on wine and lust for each other.

A loud screech makes me jump. Another subtle breeze tickles my skin, sending all the hairs on my neck straight up. Fuck this. I spin around to go back the way I came when I walk into a wall of solid muscle. I gaze up at him, my lip quivering. Fuck. He’s so fucking pissed.

Val wraps a hand around my throat and backs me up against one of the coffins. “You never fucking do what you’re told, do you?”

The corner of the lid presses into my back, sending sharp pains down my spine. “Haven’t you learned that by now?” I taunt.

A golden light swirls in his dark-brown eyes. He clenches his jaw. “I should bend you over my knee and spank you for being such a fucking brat.”

My belly flips as I glare back at him. “Don’t tempt me with a good time.”

He curls his fingers, applying more pressure to my throat. “You might be in over your head right now, Firecracker. I’m not in the fucking mood for one of your games.”

I wrap my hand around his wrist and yank him closer. “My games? I came down here so that you didn’t have to be alone. Because I know what you’re feeling right now. But you lashed out at me instead of the person you really want to. Your father.”

He shoves into me, pressing his muscular chest against mine. His eyes blaze with a fury that could make your bones jump out of your skin. “You don’t fucking get it. The second he gets here, I cannot look at you. I can’t speak to you. Because he will fucking know.”

What the actual fuck?

Something shifts in his eyes. Something sad and lost flickers behind his long black lashes. I don’t even care that he’s squeezing all the air out of my lungs.

“He’ll know what, Val?” I manage to squeak out, my heart hammering.

He lowers his face, his lips hovering over mine. “That I will want to skin him alive if he tries to pull the same shit with you that Holden did last night. And then he’ll laugh in my face because he’s stronger than me. It will make him want to hurt you more. I can’t let him see.”

“Fuck,” I breathe as he loosens his grip on my neck. There’s no doubt in my mind that Valentin wants me. The chemistry between us is an explosion every time we’re near each other. The craving to touch and kiss and fuck consumes us at all times. It creates a palpable tension that we fill with hate and anger so that we don’t spontaneously combust every time one of us walks into the room.

I remember the night I stormed into his bedroom after they left me stranded on the side of the road. I stole his car that night. But, to be fair, they tampered with my car first. Val and I went from screaming at each other to fucking each other’s brains out all night. There’s this obsessive and toxic desire between us.

But the way he’s looking at me now… It feels different.

He lets me go, and I almost whine from the lack of contact. I reach out and snatch his wrist back and clutch it to my chest. “When you don’t look at me, I physically ache… So, look at me now. Give me all of you right now. Before we have to go back upstairs and pretend we don’t care about each other.”

He drags the tip of his tongue across his lip. “I really fucking hated you at first. I was worried you were going to ruin what Riot, Valentin, and I had built. And I didn’t fucking trust you. You were just an obstacle I had to move in order to get Riot’s attention back to Nocturnus.”

From the moment I bumped into him on my first day at Tenebrose, I sensed he hated me. Even when he defiled me in the mud, his lust and anger worked in unison to fulfill and humiliate me at the same time. But this magnet… it pulls us in deeper and deeper every time we touch.

“And then you stopped hating me. What changed?”

He takes a step toward me again, this time not backing me into a sharp-edged coffin but embracing me. He snakes an arm around my waist. “The day you were arguing with your mother outside my uncle’s classroom. When I saw her hit you… I knew. An unexplainable need to protect you came over me. You were broken just like me, sad and lonely and starving for affection. The same way I was. So I decided in that moment that if I was going to ruin you… I had to let you ruin me too.”

My eyes water. All those warm fuzzy emotions I usually loathe, the ones I push down, are washing over me in waves before I can even brace myself for impact. Knowing that the two of us have been hurt the most by the ones who are supposed to love us is a bond no man, woman, or raven can break.

I plant a soft kiss on his cheek. “You’re always safe with me too, Val.”

We look at each other. Like, really fucking look at each other. He brushes a strand of hair off my shoulder. “I’m never going to be tender with you, Maur. That’s not who I am. The Erebus sickness has nestled in my bones. It’s diluted the blood in my veins with a brutality not fit for polite society. I will not apologize for who I am. But I’ll never truly hurt you.”

I slide my fingers around his throat, loving the way his pulse ticks up at my touch. “And I’m never going to be some docile obedient doll that you can just toss aside whenever your mood shifts. I am yours. But you’re also mine. And I like the way you ruin me.”

He crushes my lips with his own, snarling as he plunges his tongue inside my mouth. We moan in unison, our pulses quickening. The heat in our bodies rises as we cling to each other like feral wildlings.

I grab at his T-shirt, fisting it in my palms, clawing at it because it’s in my way of his skin. I push it up and over his head. I pause for a moment to gaze at his chiseled body, letting myself take in every sigil and scar. He’s beautiful. And he’s all mine.

But I haven’t forgotten the way he pushed me over, making the air whoosh out of my lungs. “Get on your knees, Val,” I command.

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