Page 33 of Moonlit Temptation

Even with all that, a dark cloud stirred in the back of my mind.

My family couldn’t find out.

World War Novak would spawn if they did.

My father loved Saint but had said on multiple occasions if he caught either of his daughters with him, he had enough information to destroy not only Saint himself, but his business. His baby.

My brother, who used to scare boys off when he caught wind they were going to ask me out, would go ballistic.

He, too, had warned me off Saint. Telling me he was a heartbreaker, a slut, had herpes. Anything he thought that would deter me from developing feelings for his best friend.

A best friend, Archer said, he would castrate if he got his dick wet in either of his sisters.

While we might not put each other first the way well adjusted siblings might’ve, we still looked out for each other. Wanted the best for one another.

And Saint Delacore wasn’t the best when it came to standing next to a Novak woman.

Saint knew this. Knew that touching me, sleeping with me, could cost him the only family that had ever been there for him. Supported him. Loved him.

I stared at Saint, how even in his sleep the sharp lines of his face didn’t soften.

Almost as if the worry and guilt over what we did followed him in his dreams.

I waited to feel the guilt, and maybe somewhere deep inside I did, but London felt like this fantasy that my family couldn’t penetrate.

We weren’t in another country, but on another planet.

Except we weren’t and they could never know.

Even in the happiest moments of my life, my family hung above me like a dark cloud.

That was what had woken me up. The warring emotions inside me that came and went with the pull of the tide.

Exhilaration in the act.

Awakened with new sexual cravings.

Anxious if my family found out.

Shocked and awed at the man beside me.

He always made me feel safe and cherished, never foolish in my ideas, but tonight he showed me a new side of those feelings. Especially when I looked over at the nightstand to check the time, it was just past four in the morning, and noticed a small dish with two white pills and a glass of water beside it.

Pain pills to help ease the ache between my legs. Saint must’ve put them there after I fell asleep.

My stomach fluttered under the small gesture.

With careful movements, I downed the pills, chasing them with the now tepid water.

As I set the glass down, I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question that’d been dancing around in my head.

When the sun crested through the curtains, how was I supposed to act? This wasn’t a stranger I brought home from the bar for a night of sexual release. This was Saint.

Saint who gave me my first skateboard.

Saint who’d lay on the grass with me at night while I rattled on about the constellations in the sky.

Saint who held me to his side as I cried at my mother’s funeral.

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