I should be relieved that I made it this far, but I’m not. I know tomorrow will be hell, when I’m forced to face my father for fucking everything up. I’ll deal with the consequences of Martin running. As for Saint, no one will know about her.
A few minutes later, I park the truck in front of the cabin, and kill the engine. Silence surrounds me and I take a moment to sink into it. Trying to settle after this shit show of a night.
Once I’m out of the truck, I grab Saint from the passenger seat. It’s pitch black when I shoulder the door to the cabin open. Cold air presses in, carrying the smell of dust and old ash.
I take her straight to the bed and lay her down on the flannel covered mattress.
It groans under her weight, the quilt slipping away to reveal her face. There’s a million different things I could be doing right then but I just stand there, staring down at her in the dark.
I fish my phone from my pocket, and flip the harsh beam of the flashlight across the room. The light is ugly, too sharp, catching on the rough beams and the stone hearth, throwing her features into stark relief. She looks breakable like this, pale against the bedding, lips parted on a breath I shouldn’t still hear.
I sweep the beam across the nightstand until it catches on a box of matches and a squat glass lantern. I strike one, kill the phone light, and let the lantern’s glow take over. The flame steadies, shadows stretching long across the walls.Warmer. Quieter.Too intimate for what this is supposed to be. The soft light spills across her, painting her skin in soft gold.
End this.That’s what the family code demands. Yet my hands move differently. They smooth the quilt higher, tucking it around her like I have the right. There’s a tightness in my throat,wrenching tighter with each second, choking me with my own betrayal.
This quilt isn’t going to keep her warm enough. I ease it open and spot the blood on her clothes from our altercation in the house.
“Fuck,” I curse under my breath, then step away to dig through the trunk at the foot of the bed until I find a clean shirt—one of mine, soft cotton and worn.
Stalking into the bathroom, I pump the water pump, say a prayer for it not being frozen over in the well, and soak a rag in the basin.
I wring it out, return to her side, and kneel near her face. There’s blood smeared across her mouth, and her cheek, where I pressed too hard to silence her. It looks wrong on her. Like I’ve taken an angel and dipped her in sin.
I drag the cloth gently across her skin, wiping it away until her soft creamy face is clean. She doesn’t stir, thankfully. Gently as I’m able with my calloused and scarred hands, I peel off her clothes, quickly, and efficiently, but damn do I feel every brush of her soft skin against my rough palms. She feels too good for the likes of me, but it doesn’t make me stop.
If anything, it makes me want to touch her more. To explore places I know no other man has touched or seen before. Before I act on my fantasies, I cover all that smooth skin in an old long-sleeved cotton shirt. The hem swallows her thighs, sleeves hanging loose over her delicate wrists. My scent clings to her now. She looks small in my clothes, claimed by cotton, even if she doesn’t know it yet. I push her honey-blond hair away from her face and shake my head.
How we got here?
It’s funny, up until a year ago, Saint was just another girl in Black Hollow Creek to me. I should’ve realized the kind of trouble she would become when I saved her after her fall, butI didn’t. Our circles rarely crossed. My father did business with her father at the church, and I collected payment once a month. Saint had just graduated from high school, she was young, innocent, sweet. Even the year between the time I helped her to the hospital and her birthday I’d managed to brush her out of my mind. She was nothing I was interested in. A child.
Then the night of her eighteenth birthday happened. For the first time I noticed her—not as the preacher’s daughter, not as some kid I’d seen around town—but as a woman.
I knew giving her a ride home was a bad idea but I couldn’t just leave her at The Rusty Nail. When she climbed into my lap, and pressed her soft mouth against mine, she overtook me. Her touch melted the ice inside me, it unlocked something in my chest that I wasn’t even aware had frozen over. If I think about it long enough, I can still catch a hint of her sweet vanilla scent, can still feel the weight of her body when she moved against me—innocent and desperate, grinding herself down like she didn’t even understand what she was asking for.
Hell, I don’t even think she realized she’d done it. She definitely didn’t know how much that tiny offering undid me. More than any woman at the bar who’d tried to flirt with me.
I drag my thumb across the bare skin of her thigh, remembering how her core felt pressed to my cock, her breath hot against my cheek, and her eyes…Christ.
Wide and bright, shining with trust I hadn’t earned, with temptation she didn’t even know she carried. I clamped down on her hips hard enough to leave marks, holding her still when every part of me wanted to drag her closer. I wanted to see my finger prints indented in her creamy flesh, watch her face as she experienced pleasure for the first time, and feel the tight clench of her pussy as it choked my cock.
I even wanted to leave love bites on her throat so every fucker in this town knew she was mine. I wanted to ruin her softness,wanted to tear the innocence out of her and take it for myself. The hunger was violent, brutal, a need that scared me almost as much as it consumed me.
For a split second, I let her believe it. Hell I almost believed it myself. It was a damn miracle I stopped myself from taking her right then and there. It took every shred of restraint I had to push her away before I lost control.
I know I shattered her heart, cutting her with cruel words, hoping,thinkingthat would bury the moment. I wanted to forget her and wanted her to forget me. It didn’t happen. I couldn’t forget her. That kiss, that sound, the look in her eyes—it marked me.
A year later, I still burn for what I didn’t take.
I drag a hand down over my jaw, chest tight with anger and need now.
She made me betray my family.
She made me want, when wanting is weakness.
The memory of that night, of her soft creamy skin, reignites desires I’ve spent months trying to extinguish. A familiar ache presses against my zipper, its presence hard and demanding. Anger and lust swirl in my gut fighting for control. If only I could hate her.
Instead I’m weak for her, so fucking weak. I reach for her before I can stop myself, my thumb dragging over the soft line of her cheek. If she were awake right now, she wouldn’t let me touch her like this. That thought unravels something ugly in me but doesn’t stop the desire from building. An entire year of pretending I didn’t care.
