Page 6 of The Saint

I put all my cosmetics in the drawers of his large bathroom. I had plenty of counter space for all my things, the mirrors going all the way to the ceiling and outlined in gold accents. I felt like a princess in a palace, rescued by a handsome prince who still seemed too good to be true.

Bastien spent that time at his desk, working on his laptop and firing off texts on his phone. He rarely made phone calls. I’d only seen him make a handful of calls since I’d known him. He had the ability to run his empire in utter silence.

It’d been five days since I died. It took that long to start to feel normal again. The fatigue had finally passed, and I wondered if I’d been so tired because my brain hadn’t recovered from the lack of oxygen…for however long I’d been dead. It might have only been a minute or two, but that was long enough to do enough damage to affect me like this.

I didn’t suffer from nightmares, but I suspected that was because Bastien was there beside me, my dream catcher, a beast that guarded my unconscious mind from unwanted visitors.

I felt so safe with him that if he hadn’t asked me to live with him, I might have asked him instead. “Babe?”

He looked up from his laptop right away, his eyes locked on mine with the attention of a soldier when addressed by his commander. The nickname didn’t make him grin like I’d thought it would. He’d stopped being distant with me, but he was still emotionally mauled by what had happened. I was theone who had died, but I pitied him for having to see it. To pull my body out of the cold water then do his best to bring me back.

“You don’t have to stay with me.” He hadn’t left my side in almost a week. He didn’t have a schedule like the rest of the world, but I knew there had been days when we didn’t see each other because he was so busy with work. He’d never been absent from his obligations for this long. “I know you have work to do.”

He studied me as he searched for the confirmation in my face.

“I’ll be okay.” I felt safe in his palace next to the Seine. Whenever the anxiety would come for me, I would look to the Eiffel Tower for direction like it was the North Star and I was a sailor lost at sea. “Life goes on.”

He left the desk and came toward me, wearing only his sweatpants and nothing else, hard and chiseled and tatted, a fine piece of man that I got to see every single day. He cupped my face and dug his hand deep into my hair as he tilted my chin up to look at him. “Life goes on for everyone else, but not for me, not when my life is bound to yours.”

The hardest and most dangerous man I’d ever met could be the gentlest and most romantic. “It’s okay, Bastien.” I held on to his forearms as his heat transferred into me like flames from the hearth.

“Luca has been covering for me.”

“But Luca isn’t you.” I wanted him there with me always, but I would never weaponize my pain to manipulate him into staying. “Really, it’s okay. You’ve given me enough of your time.”

“I’ve been here because I wanted to be—not out of obligation.” He tilted his head slightly as he looked at me. “Because I’veneeded this time as much as you have.” He brushed my cheek with his thumb. “I’ve seen some bad things. Done worse things. But that was the single most horrifying moment of my life.”

I tightened my fingers on his forearms. “I know.”

He stared at my lips before he dipped his head and kissed me, slow and soft, giving me his full lips before a bit of tongue, kissing me with heat for the first time since Oscar had taken me. But then he pulled away, his blue eyes looking hard into mine. “I’ll go back tomorrow—if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“You’re safe here. No one can get into this house without a wrecking ball.”

“I’m not scared. Not anymore.” I wasn’t scared someone would take me or hurt me. I wasn’t scared that Bastien would sneak around behind my back and break my heart. I wasn’t scared of anything—not when he was mine.

A slight smile moved on to his lips, but it was faint, so faint it was almost lifeless. “Attagirl.” He kissed me again, cradling my face to his as he pulled me in, kissing me nice and slow, giving me his lips and his breaths and a bit of his tongue.

The frost in my fingertips melted at his touch, and my heart started to beat again, pounding with the vitality that he breathed into me when he brought me back to life. My hands felt my favorite feature, his big and hard chest, feeling the surge of heat that burned from the muscles underneath his flesh.

His arm circled my waist and squeezed me to him tight, his neck bent down to meet my kiss. Our mouths moved together in adance we’d practiced many times, but it still felt brand-new, the touches between us electric.

His hand moved to my ass underneath the baggy shirt I wore, and he squeezed both cheeks in a single hand as he gave a quiet moan into my mouth, like he desired me with a bottomless depth.

There wasn’t a single time we were together when we hadn’t ended up in bed together for sex except these last five days. I’d been in too much shock to desire him, and he’d seemed to feel the same way. But once he knew I was okay, doing better, at least, he came alive like he’d been suppressing his desire this entire time.

He lifted me and carried me into the bedroom, laying me on the bed that Gerard had made while we were at my apartment. Bastien pulled off my underwear and didn’t care that I hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, my mind distracted by the past that haunted me in the present. He dropped his bottoms then moved on top of me, helping me get the shirt over my head so my warm tits could feel the cold air.

He helped himself between my thighs, his arms anchored behind my knees as he towered over me.

His chest was above me like the sky, his hard stomach tight and clenched as he worked his core. I grabbed on to his big-ass bicep with one of my hands while I planted the other against his rock-hard chest, a chest so strong a bullet would bounce off it. “Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking hot.”

His smirk was barely visible because he was so much taller than me, but I saw it when I tilted my head back, moaning when his big dick entered me with the hardness of a steel bar. Heentered smoothly through my slickness, able to squeeze into my tightness because I was ready for him at a moment’s notice, watching him walk around the house in just his gray sweatpants low on his hips, seeing the flush of his muscles after he worked out, the tendons that were like spider webs across his skin. He was the single hottest motherfucker I’d ever seen.

He rocked into me nice and slow, his mouth just inches from mine, his warm breaths like a tropical breeze over my skin.

We had been in the midst of a serious conversation just minutes ago, but now I was so red-hot that I was about to hit a threshold I hadn’t known was on the horizon until I was already at the edge of the cliff. “Bastien…” I felt the tendons in his neck, felt the heartbeat in his chest, felt the warmth from his internal furnace. I could come just by looking at the man.

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