Chapter 3
“You know smoking’s bad for you, right?” I watched as Saint put a cigarette between his lips and ignited it with the small lighter he pulled from his suit jacket.
His eyes closed in ecstasy as he took a drag, careful to blow the smoke away from me.
Casually pinching it between his fingers, Saint gave me a dry look. “You know, I don’t think anyone has ever mentioned that to me before. Thank you for your wisdom, Madelayne.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. The sarcasm was thick with this one.
We were outside a pub. After leaving the restaurant where sex was the main course, Saint and I stumbled onto the street in a daze. Our bodies tense and libidos charged.
No words were exchanged for several streets until we got here and Saint took out his well-loved pack of cigarettes, a bite to take the edge off.
Saint leaned against the wall, one of his legs bent at the knee so his expensive leather loafer was propped against the worn brick. He looked cool, badass with an air of no care as he stood there.
It reminded me of all the times I saw him smoking around town, same pose but simpler outfits.
But no matter if he was wearing a suit or his old uniform of band shirts and black jeans with a chain looped around his pocket and shit kicker boots, Saint still pulled off the gives-no-fucks vibes.
An intimidating mass of muscle that scowled at every passing person who walked a little too close to me.
“Can I have one?”
“No,” he said as he brought the cigarette back to his lips.
I jutted my lip out in a sullen pout.
“They’re bad for you, remember?” He inhaled the smoke with a smirk.
“You’re smoking one.”
“Yeah, well, I’m bad for you, too,” he mumbled as a group of loud drunks walked by, masking over his words.
“Wha—what?”
“I said, yeah, well, it’s not good for you to do.”
He took another drag, again conscious of where I was standing so he wasn’t exhaling smoke in my direction.
Always protecting me, even if it was from himself.
I watched as he smoked the cigarette.
The little stick was a taunt.
His words a dare.
It’s not good for you to do.
I had to try it.
If only for the fact that I had this ingrained need to do things that were bad for me.
Smoking.
Saint.
Two vices I shouldn’t want, two vices I couldn’t get out of my head, and my lips had touched neither.
What would happen if they did?
My first taste of being on a skateboard made me a goner. Would I be addicted like that?
Or would it be worse?
My feelings already consumed me like a storm. If I ever acted on them, the end result would rack up more damage than a natural disaster.
“I like your dress.” Saint’s eyes on me felt like a caress, though nothing screamed sexual in his stare. Didn’t stop the flutters from going off in my stomach nonetheless.
The dress, which was a bell sleeve number that stopped inches above my knees and had cutouts around my waist, was the only wearable article of clothing in my backpack. Everything else inside was bras and panties, just like I feared.
“Is this your way of trying to distract me from the place we just vacated? Pepper me with compliments?” I ran my hands over the dress and his eyes followed.
“Maybe.” His lips quirked.
“Well, by all means, then. Lay them on me.” I held out my arms, ready to catch them all.
His eyes danced with mischief. “Or maybe I said it because I like the color.”
I glanced down at the fabric. “It’s white. You hate white.”
“I don’t hate it.”
“Yes, you do.” Hearing his words perfectly in my head as I quoted, “‘It’s too boring. Plain and boring, basic…’”
I trailed off, watching as Saint’s brows pinched together.
“When did I say that?”
Remaining silent, I chose to turn attention to my nail beds. I was in need of a manicure.
“Madeylane.”
Slowly, I picked my head up. Not fully meeting Saint’s eyes until he tilted his head and I jolted with what rested in them.
An intensity that I had never seen before. A seriousness I couldn’t put a name to.
“Awhileago.”
“What was that?” He turned his ear toward me, cupping his hand over the cartilage.
“You said it a while ago.” I felt my alabaster skin deepen in shade. I had a memory where I couldn’t remember my multiplication by eights but could recall conversations with Saint from years ago.
“Tastes can change. It just so happens I have a deep appreciation for the color.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s clean. Pure. Innocent.” Saint’s laugh was low, deep in his chest, as his eyes never left mine–his words puncturing my chest.
Clean.
Pure.
Innocent.
Virginal.
Adjectives that didn’t belong to me.
While my siblings rebelled against our strict father’s rules in quiet, subtle ways, I was more reckless.
Sneaking out my window past curfew, lying through my teeth when I’d come home to find my father waiting up for me.
Sneaking bottles of alcohol out from behind the bar at parties.
The girl who rode her skateboard through traffic, cutting off cars and “daring them to hit me,” as my father liked to say.
I’d make up stories every time I got caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to.
Anthony Novak liked to keep his children in gilded cages, and I was the little bird that needed to get out.
My brother was the jock of the family.
My sister, the scholar.
I was the liar.
I lied to live. To breathe.
“So what you’re saying is that I shouldn’t wear white anymore?” I swished my skirt with a smile.
He groaned, head tilting back. “Don’t say shit like that to me, Madelayne.”
“Why?”
“Because now I’m going to have to kill the fuckhead that you slept with.”
I laughed, only for the sound to die off when I realized he wasn’t joking. “Why do you care?”
Saint watched me with a sharpened gaze, only I wasn’t sure if it was one of protection or destruction. “I?—”
He didn’t get a chance to answer. A passing drunk slammed into my shoulder, knocking me off balance. I went tumbling to the street and would’ve knocked my chin clean on the cobblestone if Saint didn’t literally swoop down to catch me.
“Fucker!” he shouted at the retreating group, who carried on laughing like nothing happened.
And to them, nothing had.
But for me, I was being hauled against Saint’s chest. Rendered useless as he brushed the hair away from my face. “You okay?” he asked around the cigarette pinned between his lips.
“Yeah.” But it was a lie.
We were still locked together in a mess of heaving chests and wrapped limbs.
He was holding me longer than he should’ve. He did his job, rescuing me from a fall. But still, he held me.
Held me like he had no intention of letting go.
“Saint,” I breathed, the word heavy in my chest.
Nerves gripped me in a vise, trapped in the dark depths of Saint’s eyes. His head leaned closer, my heart beat harder. I was ensnared, unwanting to escape and willing to run away all at the same time.
These feelings that I’d harbored for Saint scared me. Controlled me in a way nothing else ever had.
His name on my lips broke whatever trance came over him.
Saint blinked a few times and with each one, I felt his limbs get a little looser around me.
He was slipping away and I was desperate to hang onto him.
With quick thoughts and quicker hands, I reached up to pluck the cigarette from his lips.
Before Saint could react, I fit the stick between my lips and slipped through the pub door.
His curse met my ears as I disappeared inside.
I was inside for less than a minute before hands sunk into my waist and pushed me against the nearest wall.
Saint’s scent wrapped around me as his body pressed into mine.
Trapping me.
Knots in my stomach tightened and heat traveled down to my core as Saint stretched my hands above my head. My pulse went wild.
What was he doing?
Doesn’t matter, I don’t want him to stop.
With one hand clasped tightly around both my wrists, Saint leaned in close, using his free hand to take back what was his.
I jerked my head away, keeping the cigarette from his grasp.
The chuckle he gave was taunting.
“You want it that bad?” he whispered, the sound harsh against my skin.
I didn’t move, noticing how his eyes hardened to stone.
“Go on, then. Suck it.” He gave the command like a general, and I was his lowly soldier who couldn’t say no. Who didn’t want to say no.
The way my body responded to the order would seem like he was telling me to suck something else, somewhere below his belt.
My gaze locked on his as my cheeks hollowed, filling my lungs with smoke.
Mistake. Mistake.
My lungs seized, throat burning as I spit the cigarette out of my mouth, not caring where it landed as I broke out into an eye-watering cough.
Saint dropped my arms and I bent over in suffocating agony. People actually enjoyed that? It felt like I inhaled fire.
When my hacking was done, I looked up to find Saint standing in front of me with his arms crossed and a satisfied smirk on his beautifully smug face. Bastard.
“Remember that next time I tell you no, little dove.”
Little dove.
He’s never called me that before…
I shivered at the deep timbre of his voice, the way it rolled off his tongue with authority and warning.
It made me want him to tell me no just so I could disobey again. See how far I could push him into punishing me.
Visions and fantasies danced in my eyes as I stared at Saint, his eyes flaring in response before looking away from me.
Something was happening between us. Whether it was residual lust from the kinky restaurant or the potency of my pheromones, which were flaring up every other heartbeat, Saint was acting different.
Touching me more.
Teasing.
Sending me looks he shouldn’t.
Looks I wanted more of.
“Do a shot with me,” I blurted.
“I don’t do shots.”
I raised a brow. “Too old for them?”
“Alcohol is like a woman. It needs to be savored to be enjoyed.”
He had never been this open, this blatant with me.
“So are you saying a shot is a quick fuck?” I almost missed it, the reaction he had to me saying fuck. If I blinked, I would’ve missed his eyes honed in on my lips, narrowing with fervor. “Are those beneath you now?”
“I didn’t say that.” His lips twitched in amusement. “Quick fucks are fun and have a time and place, but there’s something about spending hours upon hours wrapped around a woman. Learning what makes her writhe, her scream. What makes that cute flush brush her cheeks, or what noises she makes and the cause behind them.”
We’d drawn closer as he talked, his words charging my skin as he painted images of him pleasuring a woman in my head.
Only in my head, the woman was me, and we were wrapped around the sheets in my hotel room.
Shots. I needed a shot right now.
I grabbed his wrist and pulled him to the bar. If we were going to talk about sex, I needed alcohol in my system.
But as I held up two fingers at the bartender, who was pouring a body shot onto a girl’s bare stomach, I wondered if this was the smartest idea.
I’d never been around Saint drunk, not that I planned on being that tonight since I actually wanted to remember my time with him, but one shot wouldn’t hurt.
Saint didn’t say a word at the bar, just hovered close behind me with a protective hand on my back.
The place was crowded, and Saint was being the protective lion he was, not letting any of the drunks bump into me.
I was very aware of his touch there. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as he leaned over my shoulder and told the bartender what vodka to pluck off the shelf.
It was from the highest one.
“Saint, I’m fine with cheap.”
He reached around and pressed a cold hand to my forehead. I batted him away with a puzzled look.
“I was checking to see if you had a fever. You don’t sound like the Novaks I know.”
“You know I’m the oddball of my family.”
“I know, that’s why you’re my favorite.”
“You’re only saying that because Archer isn’t here,” I said, while I was doing backflips on the inside under the praise. I didn’t even care if it was just because Archer wasn’t here.
Saint Delacore said I was his favorite.
“It’s true, Madelayne. Archer here or not. You’ve always marched to a different rhythm, not caring what others thought.”
Oh, I cared. I just hid it well.
If you built an armor thick enough, words and judgment couldn’t hit their target.
“Celebrating tonight?” the bartender asked as he uncapped the bottle.
“It’s my birthday!” I grinned, realizing that was the first time I said it aloud. Usually, I made this big spectacle of the day. But today felt bigger than just my day. It felt like it was one for my mom.
“Birthday, huh?” His accent was thick and smile cute as he looked up from where he was pouring the vodka into glasses. “Why doesn’t your boyfriend give you the gift of a body shot? Pretty girl like you should be celebrating.”
“Oh, he’s not my boy?—”
Saint’s hand found my waist and squeezed it hard. Shutting me up. He dug his elbow into the bar top as he leveled our bartender a cold, cruel look. “Because he doesn’t want fuckfaces like you seeing more of her body than you already do.”
My jaw became unhinged.
The bartender retreated a step from the malice of Saint’s tone.
Saint reached for the shots, handing one to me.
“I’m assuming these will be on the house since it’s this pretty girl’s birthday.” He stared at the bartender, daring him—begging him to say no.
The bartender gave a single nod, the color draining from his face.
Saint knocked his knuckles on the bar, satisfied, before turning me away.
“Jealous?” I couldn’t help but ask when we got back to our little corner from earlier.
“Of that guy?” He chuckled, and the sound hit right behind my belly button. “Not even in his dreams.”
This was a side of Saint I’d never seen. Riled up and fuming with his little green monster. It made me want to mess with him some more.
“So you wouldn’t mind if I went back over there and got his number?”
“You even so much as take one step in that direction…” Saint’s eyes flashed with warning.
“See, that feels more like a dare than a deterrent.”
“Don’t tell me you were into that guy?” he growled, and it was an even more intoxicating sound than his laugh.
I almost said yes, just to see him unravel further, but my answer had a mind of its own. It came before I even had a chance to think.
“No.” Not when you’re around .
“Good.”
“Good?” I parroted. Why?
“Yeah.”
We lapsed into tense silence, tucked away in a forgotten corner of the pub, staring into each other’s eyes.
I licked my lips and Saint followed the movement.
Clearing his throat, he remembered we were holding shot glasses.
“Happy birthday, Madelayne.” He raised his shot between us, creating distance. “Make a wish.”
I quirked a brow. “A wish on a quick fuck of a shot?”
“Sometimes the best memories can come from a quick fuck.” He clinked our glasses before I could argue further.
As I downed the shot, I wished for this night to never end.
“Now what?” I asked Saint.
“That depends. What do you want to do?”
The answer came easy.
“Show me your city, Saint.”