Page 42 of No Saint

A crib had been set up for the child next to the bed because I doubted she’d ever allow him to sleep separately from her just yet, even if I had prepared a room for him, but eventually she would, I hoped.

Her lips part on a sigh and my fingers itch to reach forward, to press my thumb to that plump bottom lip and feel her breath on my fingertips.

She was a growing obsession, a vice that was easily clamping around my being. I wasawareof her.

Women, they’ve come and gone, not one holding my attention like she has and she hated me.

I didn’t blame her.

The life I lead is not without its cruelties and with them, I’ve become the man I am. I take without asking, steal, murder, destroy where I must but with her I didn’t want to.

I wanted her to come willingly.

Her disrespect irks me and turns me on all in the same breath, her fight and fire an aphrodisiac that ignites something so primal inside of me it feels as if an animal is about to be unleashed from a cage. Unable to help myself, I lean forward, trailing the very tip of my finger light up her face, a barely there kiss of skin that burns where it meets. I move it around the line of her face, towards her hair that feels like silk and then tuck an errant strand behind her ear, letting my finger follow the curve of her earlobe.

I don’t know how long I stay, staring down at the woman but I eventually leave, my muscles tense and spine straight, every step away feeling wrong and abhorrent.

I needed Amelia to be mine.

In every single way imaginable.

18

Ifelt eyes on me or maybe it was just a dream. I wasn’t sure.

But I sensed them, hazel eyes, lit with a hell fire that both burned and tempted. I knew who they belonged to even without seeing the rest of him. There was only one man on this earth who was as intriguing as he was deadly.

Gabriel Saint was a walking nightmare, and I was stuck with him.

I wake to the sound of the ocean, muffled by the windowpanes but present nonetheless. My room is bathed in a dim silver glow from tonight’s full moon. Stars twinkle in the velvet black sky, the lights of the city far enough away to allow them to shine.

I sigh and bring Lincoln’s sleeping form closer. Why had I woken?

I’d fallen asleep quickly for the first time since being here and it was peaceful until it wasn’t.

I was restless now and my brain was awake, there was no going back to sleep at this current hour even if the city, that seemed so many miles away, slept.

My mind wanders back to the box containing all those supplies.

No one had ever done that for me before. I’d never been given a gift that was just mine. Something carefully picked out because they knew what I liked. Sure, during school I received little trinkets and cards, but this one, with the sketchbook I’d never be able to afford, and all the supplies selected from the top shelf, it was something picked solely for me.

The thought makes my eyes sting. Gabriel didn’t know me and yet he knew me better than anyone else. It was sad really.

Guilt sits heavy in my gut at my reaction to his gift. But knowing he’d found it, that he’d solved a single part of my puzzle and wanted to do more, it scared me. I didn’t want to think any different of him than I do now.

Him being a monster was the easiest route, the safest one. What he had done was unforgivable. What he had taken from me, there was no redemption to that.

And yes, my life before wasn’t glamourous, I didn’t have anything and I knew, if I wanted it now, I would get it but taking from him felt like making a deal with the devil.

But it was just a gift, right? Just a little one.

I didn’t have to take the classes he was offering, I didn’t have to accept the chance at making a future for myself on his money but I could accept a gift. After all, with everything he had taken from me, my freedom, my life, myname, it was the least he could do.

Slowly, I rise from the bed, keeping Lincoln tight and as still as possible against my chest to avoid waking him. My feet pad against the plush carpet as I cross the room and lower him down into the crib. I couldn’t leave him in the bed alone in case he hurt himself.

As I gently ease him down, he stirs for a minute but settles down into a restful sleep, suckling on the end of his thumb. Once I'm sure he won’t wake, I creep from the room, glancing back at him briefly before meeting a guard on the other side of the door.

“Mrs Saint? Are you okay?” He asks. He had a familiar face, a man I’d seen in the house before. He was mean looking, beefy, built like a brick wall with arms the size of my thigh and a bald head but he had smiled and been kind in the passing moments.

---