Chapter 8 Saint
EIGHT
SAINT
PATRICK
Iwake up on Christmas Eve alone and not entirely unhappy about that.
I couldn’t spring everything on Noelle, then expect that she’d be thrilled to hop right into bed with me. As delusional as I can be, I’m not that delusional. If I pushed her that far so fast, I would lose. Since I’m playing for forever? That was a gamble I couldn’t risk.
Besides, I’ve never been a gambling man.
I leave that to the Sinners Syndicate and their casino, the Devil’s Playground.
The Libellula Family’s former rivals, current allies, the Sinners run the gambling racket in Springfield.
They do the three g’s: gambling, guns, and girls.
Us Dragonflies? We deal in drugs and counterfeiting mainly, though ever since Damien settled down with Savannah, we’ve entered the protection racket.
When I think of my Starling, I almost want to return to the life.
There isn’t anything I won’t do to protect her, from tracking her car and putting cameras up in her apartment after I bribed—then blackmailed—her super into letting me into the place.
I had to kill the sick bastard a few weeks after, not because he was threatening to tell Noelle that I paid to get let into her private space, but because he didn’t know about the cameras and I caught him whacking off inside her panties while she was at work.
I won’t tell her that, though. When Reggie disappeared, she barely noticed, as wrapped up in her own troubles as she was.
Marvin, another retired Dragonfly that I go way back with, took the job after I told him there would be an opening, and I know damn well that, once I told him the busty redhead in 4C was mine, she’d been as safe as if I was sleeping onsite instead of just obsessively watching her on the cameras from my place.
I can’t tell her. She took the news that I was responsible for the deaths of the five names on her wish list well enough. Of course, that’s because she wanted them to die. Sure, she said she didn’t want them hurt, but I know my Starling. She wanted them dead, and I was happy to oblige.
Now that she knows, though, I’m willing to move on to the next stage of my plan. Like I said, I know Noelle. If I tell her she owes me for their lives, she won’t be able to function with that over her head. Proud and defiant, she’ll find a way to repay me.
Luckily for her, I already gave her all the information she needs to do so.
It began with a kiss. It was a test, a way for me to gauge how she was doing mentally after my big reveal, and part of me was braced for her to lose her shit entirely.
Most people do when they come face to face with Saint, and while I doubt she knows my reputation, it was enough that she saw the dragonfly tattoo on my forearm and recognized it.
The leaves, too. Both the ivy and the poinsettia, she knew exactly what each of those leaves represent.
Shame she didn’t let me show her my last tattoo, but after how easy it was to claim that kiss last night, I have no doubt that she’ll be willing to let me before long. In fact, there’s plenty that I plan on seducing her into… and that begins with this morning.
Last night, I didn’t have to force her to open her mouth so that I could take her lips. Shit, I didn’t have to force her into anything. She stepped into that kiss all on her own, fingers clutching my sweater like it was an anchor instead of a warning.
That tells me everything I need to know. She’s not repulsed by me. There’s some attraction there, and I plan on nurturing it, shaping it, and using it until I have Starling all to myself.
Forever.
The way I see it, Christmas Eve is the hinge. By tomorrow, she’ll be completely mine. That’s what I’ve spent the last year working toward, and I’m even more determined after I finally discovered what Noelle’s lips tasted like.
As if I wasn’t already addicted, I’m fiending for another hit like she’s my own personal brand of Eclipse. I have to have more, and I will.
I swing my legs out of bed and dress quickly into whatever clothes I find in my luggage.
It doesn’t matter since I have every intention of changing again momentarily.
Letting myself out of my room, I pause outside of Noelle’s.
The soft snuffles that slip under the door tell me that, even if she spent part of the night wide-eyed and terrified, she’s sleeping now.
Good.
Once outside, I see that the latest storm has paused, though there’s a bite to the early morning silence that tells me it won’t last. Snow is coming again.
On this mountain, it always does.
Unlocking my car door, I retrieve the dry cleaning bag hanging up in the back seat before easing the door shut.
I grab two bags from the trunk and return to the chalet.
Inside again, I lay the bag out on the couch.
I unzip it, pulling out one of my favorite suits, and without even going back to my room, I change without hurry.
When the jacket settles on my shoulders, something in me aligns. My back straightens. My shoulders are set. The fake Officer North I had to pretend to be is gone. The real Patrick… ‘Saint’ Patrick North… is here, and I can’t wait to introduce the real me to my Starling.
One version of Patrick is charming. He’s polite. He might let her believe this is still a conversation, that she has a chance of talking me out of pursuing what I want.
Saint, though? He knows how to get it.
So, content in the knowledge that she’s asleep and I’m not letting her out of my sight, I button the jacket, straighten the cuffs, and let that part of me settle closer to the surface.
Not fully. Not yet. But enough.
One of the bags gets tucked in the closet; I’ll need it later, after I add something that I noticed in the upstairs bathroom.
I open the smaller one, pulling out four immaculately wrapped presents that I had Genevieve Libellula wrap for me at a holiday fundraiser for the dance school where she’s a principal ballerina.
I’ve known Gen for years. Damien’s beloved younger sister, she’s about the same age as Noelle.
Only while I look at my Starling and don’t notice the slight age gap between us, feisty Gen always seemed so much younger than her years.
Until, like Noelle, she went through something so traumatic that it aged her. And, like Noelle, she had a devoted partner to avenge her: Cross Da Silva, the Sinners’ tattooist, and Gen’s husband.
Da Silva wears the devil brand on his skin instead of a dragonfly, but he’s a good guy.
Hell, he’s the one I went to when I got my Noelle-inspired tats, and though he doesn’t say much—except to his pretty blonde wife—when he had that needle near my junk, I could tell he was wishing me good luck in taming my broken beauty.
Fuck me, I’m going to need it.
Despite being the heir to the Libellula Family, Gen was right on the frontlines, wrapping up gifts to raise money that she refused to accept from her brother without putting in the effort herself.
I dropped a thousand-dollar donation myself just to have her wrap four specific gifts up for me in a stunning silver foil.
It’s Christmas. What kind of a guy would I be if I didn’t bring my Starling gifts to put under the tree?
I do so now, sliding all four of them underneath the lowest branches of the fake tree. Only then do I head to the kitchen to start breakfast.
I brew coffee first: strong and black, with the milk waiting in the fridge and the sugar in a bowl on the counter.
Eggs go in the pan, bread warming up in the toaster, fresh fruit sliced neatly because I know how much Noelle likes to have bananas in the morning.
I cook like I do everything else: with intention.
Routine isn’t kindness; it’s conditioning.
It tells people what comes next. It tells them what’s expected.
It gives her a sense of something to hold onto when everything else I’ll do will have her world spinning off its axis.
I set one place at the table, eating quickly so that I’m not distracted later. I leave the other empty. After all, Noelle will come down when she’s ready. When curiosity wins, or maybe hunger does. Either way, she’ll come down here when she chooses to, and I sip my coffee and listen.
Footsteps will come soon. I’m abso-fucking-lutely sure of it. And when they do? I’ll be waiting.
Told you so.
I’m not even finished with my first cup of coffee before I hear delicate feet tip-toeing down the stairs. Good thing I set it down just before she appears in my sight, otherwise I would’ve spat that last mouthful out all over my fresh suit.
Noelle is stunning. Of course she is. Her looks were the first thing that caught my attention.
Her flawless skin, her pretty eyes, her curves with enough for me to grab and fondle and caress…
she looks like I wrote a letter to Santa as a horny teenage boy, asking for my dream woman, and she popped into existence twenty years later, fully formed, just for me.
I warned her. Last night… I made it clear what I expected from her. You’d think that she would retaliate by either refusing to come out, or trying to do whatever she could to turn me off when she did.
Not my Starling.
Her short, wild hair is almost tamed. The dark circles under her eyes are a clue that she might’ve had a bit of a rough night—understandably—but she did her best to cover it up with some makeup.
Instead of coming down in sleep clothes or the same outfit she had on yesterday, she changed like I did—and she looks even better.
She had on a Christmas-themed t-shirt with a cat on it that said ‘Meowy Christmas’ yesterday because, despite the world trying to shatter her completely, Noelle won’t ever lose her spark as long as I’m alive.
This morning? She traded her light blue denim jeans for tight black leggings, her shirt for a silky red blouse that matches her hair and makes her tits look miraculous.
Jesus fucking Christ, it’s almost like Saint’s finally found his match.
It takes me a second to wrangle my poor cock under control.
Damn thing jumped to attention the second I got a peek at Noelle’s delicious cleavage, and all I can say is that it’s a good thing that we’re snowed-in at a secluded chalet because I’d pluck the eyes out of any fucker who got to see such a vision while I’m still waiting to make sure she understands that she belongs to me.
Is she teasing? Is she trying to fight back by showing me what I can’t have?
Knowing her—from my stalking, from her journals—I don’t think she’s trying to come onto me, but it doesn’t matter.
If the teeny tiny part of the conscience I hadn’t stamped out by now through my line of work could’ve convinced me to let her go, that seals the deal.
She’s mine, whether she knows or not.
Whether she agrees or not…
I will be proud of one thing: I’m not the only one who does a double-take. As she drifts hesitantly into the kitchen, I pick up on the exact moment when she sees me sitting at the table. Her cheeks pinken instantly, her eyes going wide as she takes me in.
Only that’s not fear in her expression. Nope. That’s lust, and my Starling is looking at me like that because she wasn’t expecting the suit.
She wasn’t expecting it—but no denying that she likes it.
I gesture toward the nearest counter, laid out with the food I cooked for her. “Breakfast is ready. Would you rather serve yourself or do you want me to make your plate?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Wrong answer, sweetheart.
“Grab a plate.”
“I don’t—”
“Grab a plate.”
She grabs a plate. She’s not happy about it, but she does.
Good.
“Listen to me. You’re stuck with me, Noelle.
You might as well get used to the few perks there are when it comes to being with Patrick North.
” Leaning into my seat, watching like a hawk as she slowly starts to place eggs—scrambled, also her favorite—onto her plate, I add, “I can shoot dots off of dominoes. I can kill a guy with my bare hands if I have to. I know twenty different ways to poison someone”—she gasps, the fork slipping out of her hand, hitting the plate on the counter beneath it with a clink—“and when I’m not poisoning a target, I’m a fucking excellent cook. ”
She stares down at her plate. “How do I know you didn’t poison this?”
She doesn’t, and I don’t even take offense that she would ask. Especially after I used poison to off Dutton, I could very easily have poisoned any of the meals I’ve prepared for her.
I wouldn’t. I know that. She doesn’t. And until she can trust what comes out of my mouth, I’ll have to prove it with actions.
Shoving my seat away from the kitchen table, I march over to her. I pick the fork up, scoop some of the eggs from her plate, and shovel them into my mouth. After I swallow, I lay the fork on top of her plate, then take my seat again.
She gapes at me, and I give her a solemn look as I promise, “I won’t hurt you, Noelle.
I didn’t go through the trouble of tracking down five assholes, giving them their just desserts, and following you all the way here to hurt you.
The sooner you understand this, the better this Christmas will be for you. ”
Her tongue darts out, licking her lower lip nervously. “Why are you telling me this?”
Because I have no intention of letting her go. This Christmas, she’s the one thing on my list.
Because, if I tell her the truth… if I tell her that I’m not just obsessed with her, but that a ruthless assassin is hopelessly in love with her… she’d chuck that plate at my head and brave the snow and the mountain regardless.
“Eat your breakfast, Noelle,” is all I say. “And when you’re done, we’ll resume our conversation from last night.”