Chapter 6
A groan hit my ears as I woke to a dark room, the bed rustling with it.
As slowly and quietly as I could, I turned over to find Saint on his stomach, cradling his pillow.
Was it bad to be envious of the pillow? Because I was. I wanted to be that pillow so bad. Having his arms wrapped that tightly and protectively around me.
I curled my fingers into the sheets to resist touching him, to stop myself from brushing the fallen tendrils of hair off his lined forehead.
He stayed.
I didn’t think he would.
I didn’t think we’d do all that we did, either.
My body I knew, without even looking, was covered with swirling bruises of his fingers, his passion.
With skin as pale as mine, bruises came easily. I hated it, but I didn’t think I’d mind these.
He’d be with me long after he left.
Not that I needed the bruises as a reminder. I could still feel him on me, around me, in me, regardless. I was sore but happy. Elated.
Saint made another noise as he shifted on the bed.
He stayed.
I was surprised Saint slept at all. I knew from all the times he slept over at my house how little of it he actually got.
Four hours, if he was lucky, he once told me. But here he slept like the cold dead. Peaceful oblivion.
In the quiet of the room, I allowed myself to process what we did.
Saint and I had sex.
I had sex with Saint.
We had sex. Together.
Hours ago, on this bed where he now slept naked next to me.
I pinched my hip and bit back a curse at the sharp sting it caused. Nope, not dreaming.
This was real.
As I stared at him, tracing the planes of his face with my eyes, I waited for the guilt to set in, for a lick of remorse to tickle my insides.
This was my brother’s best friend.
A man eight years older than me.
We hadn’t just blurred the lines we’d always stood behind, we obliterated them.
For a few brief hours, nothing existed outside of us. Not the titles we were supposed to be to each other. Not my family. Not our lives. No responsibilities or consequences.
My brother and father always said I existed to stir up trouble.
They were wrong. I existed for this. To be naked on a bed next to a sleeping Saint.
It wasn’t just everything I wanted since the time I knew what sex was, but it was reckless and freeing. It stretched my lungs with the strongest breath.
Saint made me feel more alive than even the strongest adrenaline rush.
Even with all that, a dark cloud stirred in the back of my mind.
My family couldn’t find out.
World War Novak would spawn if they did.
My father loved Saint but had said on multiple occasions if he caught either of his daughters with him, he had enough information to destroy not only Saint himself, but his business. His baby.
My brother, who used to scare boys off when he caught wind they were going to ask me out, would go ballistic.
He, too, had warned me off Saint. Telling me he was a heartbreaker, a slut, had herpes. Anything he thought that would deter me from developing feelings for his best friend.
A best friend, Archer said, he would castrate if he got his dick wet in either of his sisters.
While we might not put each other first the way well adjusted siblings might’ve, we still looked out for each other. Wanted the best for one another.
And Saint Delacore wasn’t the best when it came to standing next to a Novak woman.
Saint knew this. Knew that touching me, sleeping with me, could cost him the only family that had ever been there for him. Supported him. Loved him.
I stared at Saint, how even in his sleep the sharp lines of his face didn’t soften.
Almost as if the worry and guilt over what we did followed him in his dreams.
I waited to feel the guilt, and maybe somewhere deep inside I did, but London felt like this fantasy that my family couldn’t penetrate.
We weren’t in another country, but on another planet.
Except we weren’t and they could never know.
Even in the happiest moments of my life, my family hung above me like a dark cloud.
That was what had woken me up. The warring emotions inside me that came and went with the pull of the tide.
Exhilaration in the act.
Awakened with new sexual cravings.
Anxious if my family found out.
Shocked and awed at the man beside me.
He always made me feel safe and cherished, never foolish in my ideas, but tonight he showed me a new side of those feelings. Especially when I looked over at the nightstand to check the time, it was just past four in the morning, and noticed a small dish with two white pills and a glass of water beside it.
Pain pills to help ease the ache between my legs. Saint must’ve put them there after I fell asleep.
My stomach fluttered under the small gesture.
With careful movements, I downed the pills, chasing them with the now tepid water.
As I set the glass down, I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question that’d been dancing around in my head.
When the sun crested through the curtains, how was I supposed to act? This wasn’t a stranger I brought home from the bar for a night of sexual release. This was Saint.
Saint who gave me my first skateboard.
Saint who’d lay on the grass with me at night while I rattled on about the constellations in the sky.
Saint who held me to his side as I cried at my mother’s funeral.
Saint who now knew what I sounded like when I came.
Everything would be different. We couldn’t go back to being just tied together through my brother. We’d seen each other naked!
As I closed my tired eyes, I was comforted in the knowledge that no matter what happened when the sun rose, it was going to be okay, thanks to one little thing.
Saint stayed.
Sleeping with Saint might’ve been the most reckless thing I’d ever done, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
Especially when the next morning started not with an awkward shuffle out the door, but with my arms restrained with his belt above my head and his head buried between my legs, his tongue teasing my entrance with gentle, worshiping strokes.
He was a god with his tongue.
A saint with his attention.
And a wicked fallen angel with his depravity.
I was still sore, but thanks to the medicine I took, it was only a dull presence, which was quickly overtaken by the building pleasure.
A guttural moan rumbled from my sleep-scratched throat. “What’re you doing to me?”
“Who, me?” He picked his head up and gave me a saucy grin. “I’m not doing anything but eating breakfast.”
“Doesn’t sound like a very nutritious meal.”
“Hmm?” He raised a brow. “I’ll have you know I could eat only your pussy for the rest of my life and it would be a very long, fulfilled existence.”
His eyes twinkled in the early morning rays, and I found my heart stuttering at the sight. Different. Bright. But as he studied my face, the brightness dimmed. “Want me to stop? Untie you?”
When I woke up this morning, he first asked if I took the medicine he left out for me. Once confirming I had, he asked if he could try something with me.
I had never been so glad to say yes.
Shaking my head, I was rewarded with a hungry smile.
“Thank fuck.” He stretched up to claim my mouth quick and hard before peppering open-mouthed kisses down my body. “You taste so good, little dove.”
“Oh, yeah? What do I taste like?”
“Like my new favorite candy. The sweetest, most intoxicating candy.” He grinned, before taking the longest, slowest lick that drove me absolutely wild.
I struggled in my hold. Never did I think I would like being restrained. But I did.
I really, really did.
I felt him grin against me.
“You like this, Madelayne? Like being at my mercy?” He watched my face as he slipped two fingers inside.
Unf. Yes.
When I nodded, that grin grew. “Who knew you were such a dirty fucking girl?”
The heat between my legs throbbed under his words, walls clenching around his fingers. We both moaned.
“Wonder what else I could do to you?”
I didn’t think he meant to say this out loud because when I answered with a breathy everything , his expression turned shocked, then pleased—intensely interested in finding out if I was bluffing.
I was interested in that too.
Yesterday wasn’t the first time I ever had sex, but before Saint, the experiences weren’t anything to write home about.
Sex with Saint opened my eyes to what it could be like. What it should be like. I wanted to explore it more with him.
Last night, he was rough. Today, he was gentle and yet still in control.
Saint worked me over with his mouth until I was panting and squirming underneath him. Begging him to let me come. He only laughed around my clit, the vibration making the ache even worse.
“Saint, pleasepleaseplease.” I was wound so tight my words bled together, no time to catch my breath.
“Only good girls get to come.” He watched me with hungry eyes. “Have you been a good girl?”
Had I? No. Not when it was my brother’s best friend buried between my thighs. But that didn’t stop me from saying, “Y—yes.”
I was rewarded with a nip at my thigh that sent my hips bucking off the mattress.
“Liar.” Saint wore the grin of a deviant.
“Saaaint,” I whined, squirming beneath him for any friction.
He chuckled, gripping my hips so he could bring them closer to his mouth. “I love hearing you say my name like that.”
He licked down my seam, so I said it again. And again. Getting rewarded each time I did until I arched off the bed, convulsing around his tongue.
When I opened my eyes, I found Saint working his hard-on with his hand.
“Bring it here,” I told him, feeling bold. Unable to look away, I licked my lips, wanting it between them.
I had a little sample last night, now I was ready for the meal.
He didn’t question me. Instead, he straddled me on the bed and brought his hard dick to my lips.
“You wanna taste me, dirty girl?”
I leaned forward and kissed the tip of his erection.
“Open wider, Madelayne.”
I did, and he slid inside, moving in shallow thrusts as I got used to him. He gripped my hands from where they were still trapped against the headboard.
He was practically over the edge already, so it took little time before he was giving a shout of surprise and coming in my mouth.
I held my breath as I felt thick strands of his pleasure explode at the back of my throat, but I felt like a champ when I finished swallowing.
Saint quickly undid my binding and looked slightly frightened when he slid down my body.
He grabbed my face. “Are you okay? I was going to pull out.”
“I’m fine,” I told him, and he pressed a kiss to my lips.
He tasted like me and I tasted like him, and I reached my hands up to thread through his hair, wanting more.
I hadn’t known what to expect when I woke up, but this had been far better than I could’ve imagined.
Saint was still here.
“Morning.” He placed a kiss where my pulse jackhammered against my throat.
It wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t tense. If anything, I felt the lightest I had in years.
“That was some good morning.” I ran my hands down his back, feeling the incisions my nails made last night.
A weird look crossed his face, but before I could ask what was wrong, my stomach rumbled.
“Let’s get some food in you.” Still on top of me, he stretched for the phone on the bedside table to dial room service.
He didn’t ask for my order, already knowing my breakfast go-to. Waffles and a bowl of fruit. The only time there was an exception was if chicken and waffles was on the menu. Which it wasn’t. I checked yesterday.
Once our order was placed, Saint rolled off me to get in the shower.
I was half tempted to join him. The inviting look he cast over his shoulder as he walked in there conveyed he wouldn’t have minded, but as I was about to roll out of bed, I heard my phone ping with a notification.
Panic seized me, wanting to ignore it.
If I checked my phone, I was letting in the outside world, which could pop the bubble Saint and I created around this hotel room.
I wasn’t ready for it to pop.
I was greedy when it came to time. When it came to Saint.
But my phone pinged again and again, like the person trying to reach me sensed my hesitation and wasn’t going to let me get away with it.
Picking up my phone, I wished I hadn’t.
The person who was blowing up my notifications was none other than the king of worst timing.
My brother.
Fuck.