Page 6 of Moonlit Temptation

But the high was quickly chased away by something more charged and potent as he leaned down, the coarse hairs of his unshaven cheek brushing against mine, sending a jolt of kinetic pleasure through me as he whispered, “Happy birthday, Madelayne.”

“You remembered?” I pulled back, stunned. Even my own sister, Jessa, forgot as she dropped me off at the airport.

Saint made an indignant noise in the back of his throat. Insulted by my question.

“After all these years, the countless parties, do you really think so little of me, Madelayne?” His lips stretched into a smirk that could seduce trouble as we sat down.

I thought the world of him. Always had. And when he smirked at me like that, a whisper sounded in my head.

We’re alone in a foreign country where no one knows who we are…

Was I really that delusional into believing an ocean was enough to blur the lines between us? When Saint had never been anything other than sociable towards me?

Maybe. Okay, yes. Yes, I really was.

I lived in my daydreams, cursed to wish they were a reality instead.

When I didn’t answer, the smirk grew as he folded his hands on the table.

“What?” Suddenly self-conscious, I shifted in my seat, the supple leather sticking to my thighs. “Do I have something on my face?”

I reached to wipe whatever crumbs were there away when his deep, core-striking chuckle stopped me.

“No, your face is perfect. Not even an eyelash on your cheeks.” Saint shook his head, the smirk diminishing slightly on his lips. “I was just thinking I haven’t really seen you since your graduation party. And we didn’t really get a chance to talk then. How does it feel to officially be done? Is graduating everything you wanted it to be?”

“You mean aside from being free of my father’s constant complaints that I was his only child to ever get held back, thus bringing shame upon our family name?” I was in third grade and didn’t test well, but my father took it as an act of defiance he shamed me for. To Saint, I shrugged. “It’s nothing to write home about, I guess.”

Except, for me, it was.

I’d been counting down the days, months, and years to this moment, this day.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that my father shamed me for being an almost nineteen-year-old graduate, it was another year of Saint seeing me as a high schooler.

I lived in this delusional reality in my head where graduating high school meant one less obstacle for the man in front of me—if he decided to touch me.

And I wanted him to touch me.

I wanted to be the girl Saint took home.

I wanted so much he couldn’t give me.

He might’ve been Archer’s best friend, but he was my secret.

The kind of secret that fed my lost soul.

It was nothing salacious. Nothing remotely scandalous. They were simple, almost quiet moments of my life that I spent with Saint. Where I got to know him as someone other than my brother’s friend.

We’d play video games well past my bedtime when Archer was passed out drunk from whatever party they just came home from and I couldn’t sleep.

He’d bring me fantasy books with dragons and magic that he thought I’d enjoy because my father only ever bought me classics that bored me to tears.

He’d make me playlists with all the emo bands that blasted from his car and Archer’s room after I annoyed him about this song or that artist one too many times.

He was also the reason I fell in love with skateboarding.

Saint might’ve been in my life because of Archer, but there was always a sliver of him that felt irrevocably mine.

Saint cleared his throat and I squirmed in my seat from the fierce, stony expression on his face.

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