Page 51 of The Dirty Saint

“Oh, fuck you,” she barks. “There is nothing cowardly about fingering yourself in front of a man who would shove his dick inside of you without consent, given the chance. Gosh, you think that you are so high and mighty, so above all of this. When, really, from where I’m sitting, you are nothing but an egotistical dickhead with a shitty fucking god-complex.”

I stand up, running a finger along the side of Ezra’s jaw. She shivers at my touch, and she tries to shy away, but I pull her back, forcing her to look at me.

“He watched you touch yourself, Ezra.”

“Yes,” she whispers. “He did.”

“Why would you let him do that?”

She shakes her head.

I sigh. “Ezra, please.”

“No.”

“Damnit, Ezra, just answer the que—”

“I didn’t want him to touch me instead, okay! I didn’t want to feel his hands on my skin or his breath on my neck. I wanted him to leave me alone. You have no idea what it has been like these past few days having men watch your every fucking move, just waiting for you to screw up so they have an excuse to beat you. I spend my every waking moment stuck in this piss-smelling hellhole, and I didn’t even do jackshit to get here, but it sure doesn’t look like anyone’s letting me out anytime soon. So you don’t get to tell me how I am to survive the place that you put me in.”

“Ezra—”

“I need you to go,” she whispers.

I twirl a strand of her hair around my finger.

“Joey, stop,” she says, pushing me away from her.

“Ezra.”

“Just stop!” she screams. “Please. You need to let me breathe. You cannot be here right now. I can’t do this. Whatever this is. You are messing with my head, Joey. And you aren’t even in the right frame of mind. You don’t know what you’re saying or doing. You just expect me to engage in your fantasies so that your feelings can feel justified.”

Ezra inhales deeply.

“You are not my savior, and attempting to get to know me isn’t going to erase the guilt you feel.”

I press my lips to her forehead softly. “You do things to me,” I grumble. “Things that I cannot even begin to explain.”

“Joey, you aren’t going to remember this conversation tomorrow. So whatever you think you feel for me— it, it isn’t real…You should go,” she says, a sharp pain ripping through her voice. “Before someone else comes and finds you here.”

“Let them.”

She shakes her head. “You’re talking crazy. How much did you drink tonight?”

“More than I should’ve.”

She sneers.

“Ezra, from the first day that I met you, you fascinated me to the point where, now, I can’t think about anyone or anything because you occupy every piece of my mind. I dream of you, day and night. I lose control of myself when I am not with you.”

“Joey, stop—”

“So you can tell me to stop or go away, but leaving you makes every bone in my body ache. Look, Ezra, I am not a good man. And I will die on that hill. And if I wasn’t soenamouredwith you, I would kill myself for the pain I put you through. It haunts me. I hear your screams in my head. Your cries keepme up at night. And you’re probably right when you say that I don’t deserve any bit of your presence. But, my god, you are fucking beautiful. I hate that Tono got to see such a sacred part of you before I did.”

It drives me crazy knowing that so many other men have seen more of Ezra than I have. Other men have fucked her, felt her, and here I am, pining.

“You can’t have me,” she says. “Drunk or not, I cannot be yours. I am not a prize to be won.”

“I know you aren’t.”

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