Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Saints Don’t Kneel for Devils
The taps are moody tonight—pressure’s off again—and I’m mentally reminding myself not to kill the beer lines when he slides up to the bar.
Not him him. Just… a him.
Mid-thirties, maybe. Ball cap. Faded leather jacket. That look guys get when they think a smirk is a personality. He’s been nursing a Bud for the past hour, and now he’s giving me That Look. Like I’m on special. Like he’s got a shot.
“Hey,” he says, leaning in, breath heavy with confidence and something citrusy I’m guessing is gas station cologne. “You always smile like that when you pour beer, or am I just lucky?”
I glance at him, then back at the tap handle I’m working. “If I’m smiling, it’s because I haven’t throat-punched anyone today. Yet.”
He laughs like I’m joking. I’m not.
“Come on,” he says, pushing his empty glass toward me. “One more round. On me. And maybe I buy you one after your shift. You look like you could use a good time.”
I arch a brow. “Do I?”
He leans in further, voice dropping. “You look like the kind of woman who deserves one.”
I say nothing. Just fill his glass, set it down hard enough to make the foam jump, and walk away without a word.
He takes my silence as permission. Of course he does.
“I could make you smile,” the guy says, sipping his beer like he’s got a secret. “Bet I could get you to laugh if you gave me ten minutes and half a shot of tequila.”
I roll my eyes and start wiping down the counter. “Bold of you to assume I’m not armed.”
He laughs again. Loud. Too loud. It scrapes at my nerves.
Cain brushes past me on his way to the back. Just a touch—his hand at the small of my back, his body grazing mine for half a second too long. But it’s not casual.
It’s a claim.
He doesn’t even stop walking. Doesn’t look at the guy. Just grumbles, low and rough under his breath: “She’s spoken for.”
The man doesn’t hear it. But I do.
And I feel it all the way down.
I turn to grab a glass from the drying rack, trying to play it cool, but Cain’s heat lingers like a warning. Like a fuse lit.
“You know,” the guy continues, undeterred, “guys like him don’t usually stick around. You ever wanna know what a real man feels like—”
I slam the glass down a little too hard. It doesn’t break, but the sound makes the table jump.
I smile. Sweet. Serene. Murderous.
“I do know what a real man feels like,” I say softly. “He cooks. He cleans. He eats misogynists for breakfast.”
Cain’s voice cuts in from behind me. Closer now.
“Everything alright out here?”
I don’t even have to look. I can hear the smirk in it. See the devil behind the slow curl of his lip in my mind’s eye.
The guy suddenly seems real interested in his beer again.
“Everything is good, man. Great service.”
Cain chuckles. “Good. Mags, can I speak to you out back?”
He turns and walks out back, giving me time to get Hank to watch the bar.
The second I push through the kitchen door, Cain’s already there.
Waiting.
Leaning against the counter like sin made flesh, arms crossed, jaw ticking, that look in his eyes like he’s choosing between worship and war.
“You flirting now, little saint?” he growls, low and dark.
I blink. “He was flirting with me.”
He moves.
One step. Two. And I’m backed against the walk-in, my apron hitting cold steel, his hands bracketing either side of my head.
“Didn’t look like you minded.”
“Didn’t look like you cared,” I shoot back, but my voice wavers, because oh God, the way he’s looking at me? Like he’s about to ruin me and write scripture about it.
Cain leans in close, nose brushing my temple, his lips ghosting over the shell of my ear.
“I care enough to kill for you,” he murmurs, voice rough with heat. “And I don’t share.”
His hand slides down, slow, deliberate, fingers grazing my hip.
“Do I need to remind you who you belong to, little saint?”
I giggle—genuinely. It bubbles out of me without permission. I tip my chin up, all smug and dizzy.
“Is that a threat or a promise?”
He grins. That wicked, wolfish grin that does terrible things to my self-control.
“Oh, it’s a guarantee,” he purrs. “But not here.”
Cain pulls back, just enough to let me breathe—but his eyes are still fire.
“You’ve got a shift to finish,” he says, tapping my chin. “So be a good girl.”
“And wait until later…”
His mouth brushes the corner of mine, and I swear the air combusts between us.
“Wait until later,” he repeats, but this time it sounds like sin dripped in honey. “When I’ve got you naked in my bed with your legs shaking and your mouth too wrecked to sass me.”
My knees buckle a little. He catches me easily—like he knew they would.
“Cain…”
His name comes out like a prayer. Or a warning. Maybe both.
He hums against my cheek, his scruff scraping my skin, and my whole body lights up like it’s been wired to him.
“You like that?” he whispers, one hand sliding down to grip my thigh, hike it up. His palm squeezes, drags me closer. “Like thinking about me fucking that attitude out of you?”
I gasp. He doesn’t stop.
“Bet you’re soaked already,” he murmurs, dragging his mouth along my jaw, slow and filthy. “Just from a few words. Just from knowing I could.”
I whimper. Full-body shiver. Absolutely no shame.
He presses his hips into mine, slow and hard enough to make his point. His mouth brushes mine again—barely a kiss, more like possession.
“Later,” he rasps. “I’ll make you scream it. My name. My title. Whatever filthy little prayer you want to chant while I’m inside you.”
I grip his shirt like it’ll anchor me to the earth. “That’s a long time to wait.”
He grins against my throat, kisses the hollow there.
“Patience, little saint. I want them all to see you before I take you home. Want them watching while you wear my handprints like holy marks.”
“Cain…”
“Shh.” His teeth graze my earlobe. “Back to the bar. Be a good girl.”
Then he kisses me—deep, claiming, devout.
By the time he lets me go, I don’t remember what oxygen is, and my knees are traitors again.
I stumble back out toward the bar with his heat still on my skin and his promise dripping down my thighs.
I’m still flushed. Still slick between my thighs from Cain’s mouth and his words and his hands. Still dizzy from the way he whispered my name like it was sacred and unholy all at once.
But I’m working. Still moving. Pouring beers. Sliding glasses across the counter like muscle memory.
Then the bell chimes.
The front door swings open.
And everything in me ices over.
Warren Ellison walks in like he owns salvation. Like the Devil wears cufflinks and smells like expensive self-importance. Same greasy smirk. Same eyes that used to rake across me like I was a product he paid for.
He sits directly in front of me.
Not Hank’s spot. Not anyone’s usual spot. Mine.
I don’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
My fingers curl tight around the bar rag in my hand, knuckles white.
Every instinct I’ve clawed into shape since that courtroom—the locks, the boundaries, the spine I’ve rebuilt from ash—tries to flee.
Tries to vanish. To hide behind Cain, behind Hank, behind any wall thick enough to keep Warren Ellison from looking at me like he’s still owed something.
My chest constricts. My throat burns. My skin prickles, tight and cold and crawling.
I smell the courtroom again. Feel the way his words made me feel small. See the smirk he wore when they dismissed my fear like it was an overreaction. Fiction. See-through hysteria with lipstick and a pulse.
My legs want to buckle. My knees hum like electricity. My body—traitor that it is—remembers what it means to be cornered.
But my soul?
My soul remembers Cain.
And every moment I’ve fought to earn back since I left that nightmare bleeding behind me.
So I straighten. Just a fraction. Just enough.
My voice comes out steady. Detached. A blade sheathed in frost.
“What can I get you, sir?”
He blinks.
That slow, crawling blink of a man who expected fear. Who wanted it. Who thought he could drag me back down with just the weight of his presence.
I don’t flinch. I don’t blink. I don’t run.
He smiles like he’s still in control. But he isn’t. Not anymore.
Not ever again.
“Beer,” he says, like it’s a demand.
Not a please. Not even a fucking glance toward the taps—like I’m still his waitress. His girl. His anything.
I don’t say a word.
I turn, grab a pint glass, and start the pour. Slow. Controlled. My hands don’t shake. I won’t let them. The only thing trembling is the rage I bottle up tighter than the foam climbing the glass.
I don’t look at him when I set it down in front of him.
I slam it. Not enough to shatter—but enough to make a mess.
The glass hits hard. Frothy beer sloshes over the rim, spilling across the bar and splashing onto the cuff of his overpriced jacket.
He flinches. Just barely.
I smile.
“Oops,” I say, voice honeyed with sarcasm. “Slippery hands. Occupational hazard.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Cain still as stone behind the bar, rag in hand, wiping down the same spot like he’s one second from snapping. Hank’s watching too, slow-sipping his whiskey like it’s about to get good.
And it is.
“Magdalena,” Warren says.
My name. My old name. Sticky on his tongue like ownership.
I turn back to him, expression flat. Voice sweet and dry like ash.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Nobody here by that name.”
His mouth opens, closes. Like maybe he misheard. Like maybe if he says it again, I’ll crack.
But I don’t. I smile. And that smile is razor-wire. Pretty on the surface. Shredding underneath.
He leans forward, voice oily, spitting venom like he’s been rehearsing it every night in the mirror since I left.