Page 43

FORTY-THREE

SAINT

“Saint… Don’t. You. Dare,” Lennon says as she skates backward one measured glide at a time, putting distance between us. “I mean it!”

My smirk widens. “Mmm. Do you though?”

Of course she doesn’t.

Dropping my hockey stick, I take off toward her, chuckling when she screeches and skates away as fast as she can… which isn’t fast enough since I’m a foot taller and my legs are almost as long as her entire body.

So catching my Golden Girl isn’t much of a chase at all.

But motherfucker, I’d chase her across the goddamn world if I had to.

“I swear to God, Saint, if you tou—” Her threat is cut short when I grab her waist from behind, replaced by a squeal and a sweet little giggle that makes my dick hard. I pick her up and spin her around, unable to stop my own laugh when she tries her hardest to wiggle out of my hold.

Get real, baby.

I dip my head to her ear, my voice dropping low. “Didn’t I tell you what happens when you taunt me? Or… did you want me to catch you?”

She turns her head to look up at me, drawing her plump lip between her teeth. “Maybe.”

My threat was to spank her ass, and clearly… not a threat at all.

“Oh shit,” she says, eyes going widen as she looks past me. “There’s someone over there.”

I loosen my hold long enough to turn to look, and in that single second, her bratty little ass elbows me in the stomach, obviously not hard enough to make a difference, but it does catch me by surprise.

My arms drop, and she’s gone, her laughter echoing around the rink as she skates away, tossing me her pink-painted middle finger.

Yeah, she’s definitely getting her ass spanked, and I can’t fucking wait.

It’s been like this between us ever since the night I showed up at her house that night… The night that she gave me her virginity.

Something I don’t feel worthy of, but for her, I’ll try to be.

It just feels natural, easy with Lennon. Effortless. There’s no pressure or expectation.

We fuck, and we fight, and I chase her around the rink until she’s breathless.

At night, she’s got me watching stupid movies that bore me to tears, but it doesn’t matter anyway because it’s her I’m watching the entire time, drinking in the fact that she chooses to spend her time with a fuckup like me when she doesn’t have to.

And if I thought we couldn’t keep our hands off each other before that night, now it’s a whole new arena. That night unlocked something, something that neither of us has bothered to deny.

An unexpected connection that’s more than just physical.

I don’t understand it, and I don’t know what it means. I just know that I like who Lennon is, and not just when she’s dragging me into her apartment before I can even say hello.

I like all of her.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve realized that my Golden Girl is insatiable.

It takes me all of twenty seconds to catch her for the second time, and she groans, breathless as she turns to face me, slipping her arms around my neck, her plump, pink lips in a pout. “Can’t you just let me win?”

“Do you know me at all? Not a chance in hell, baby. You think I’m going to give up the chance to turn your pretty little ass pink?

Fuck no.” My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I know that it’s my alarm telling us that ice time is officially over.

Guess we’ll have to pick up our cat-and-mouse game later.

She sighs when she realizes that it’s my alarm. “That went fast. Uh… what’s your plan for later?”

I smirk. “Gonna go home and check on my mom, make sure she’s good, then not sure. Maybe sleep. I’m exhausted, you know, from all of the work I’ve been putting in.”

Warmth creeps up her cheeks, and I exhale a laugh when she pushes my chest with an eye roll.

“Come over?” she breathes.

“You mean like I have every night since last week?”

Her lip tilts in a cheeky grin. “Obviously.”

That’s how, two hours later, I’m sprawled out in her pink, frilly bed with my feet hanging off the end, with her draped across me.

Still… mostly clothed.

It’s a lot like cuddling, and that makes me shiver a little. It’s something I’ve never done with anyone before. Pretty sure I never even cuddled with my own mom as a child.

Affection outside of fucking isn’t my normal.

But having her on top of me, comfortable, relaxed, chin resting on the top of her hand as she looks at me… I don’t know, it feels right.

Maybe it’s my new normal.

And maybe I really fucking like it.

The tip of her finger trails softly across the ink on my chest, tracing the outline of the roses.

Her long, auburn hair is twisted up in a clip at her nape, her face free of makeup aside from whatever shiny gloss she put on her lips, her long eyelashes kissing her cheeks as she looks down at the tattoos beneath her.

She’s staring at the art, and I’m staring at her.

She has no fucking clue that she’s art in the purest form, and I’d ink her onto my skin in a heartbeat.

“Did they hurt?”

“Nah, not really,” I say, shaking my head, “It’s not too bad.

I’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance.” Her eyes flick to the fading bruises around my eye, still a reminder of that night.

At least there’s something good to take from that shitty situation.

This—me and her. “There are a few spots that hurt, like my ribs, my elbow, the top of my hand, but it wasn’t unbearable.

You honestly start to get addicted to the feeling. Probably why I have so many.”

She traces the scripted words down my side, her gaze trailing over the letters. “I love them.”

I smirk. “Yeah?”

She nods. “So cliché bad boy of you.” Her teasing tone earns her a little smack on her ass, and she giggles before her expression turns serious. “I think they fit you, and I love that they mean something. They’re stories that you’ll always carry with you.”

I’ve told her about most of them, and she’s listened intently, like she genuinely cares about why I got them.

When the pads of her fingers move over my chest again, my gaze slides to the ring on her finger. Pink and gold, heart-shaped, dainty… and feels very her.

I know it’s her purity ring or whatever only from what Bennett said, but she’s never mentioned anything about it.

“What’s this ring? I never see you take it off. Does it mean something?” I ask.

She’s quiet for a moment before she nods, “Yeah, um… it’s my promise ring. It’s actually kind of embarrassing to talk about, but it used to be a purity ring given to me by my parents.”

Her cheeks are tinted pink, and she rolls her lips together, “I know that’s really old school and archaic, but it was basically drilled into my head growing up that I was to save myself for marriage.

And after some things happened in my life…

I decided to repurpose it. It’s now a promise to myself to make my own choices with my body, my life.

To never let anyone decide those things for me.

Not that it really applies any longer, but to give myself to whoever I wanted without guilt or consequence. ”

Carefully she slips it off her finger and tilts it, “I got this phrase inscribed on the inside the day I made the promise to myself to take my life back.”

Inside reads De meo arbitrio.

“It means, By thy own will. ” She adds before slipping back into place on her finger. “So, yeah.”

That wasn’t at all what I was expecting her to say, but I’m glad she’s giving her father a figurative fuck you.

My fingers trace along the slope of her shoulder, a small sliver of bare, creamy skin that peeks out from the old hockey T-shirt of mine that she stole a few days ago.

I almost ripped it off her when I saw her in it for the first time.

She walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing but that shirt, and it made something primal and possessive swell in my chest.

Mine was all I could think.

The truth is I don’t even know if Lennon is mine, but what I do know is she’s not going to be anyone else’s.

Fuck no.

“What do you want to do once you graduate?” I ask.

The question feels random, but fuck, now all I’m thinking about is what’s going to happen next, where do we go from here? About what the future is going to hold with us.

What’s going to happen if she ever finds out about the shit with our dads?

Would she hate him for the shit he’s done, or would she hate me for blaming her father?

I’m carrying this shit inside my chest. This… guilt. It’s an unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling to experience.

I just don’t want to hurt her. “Honestly? I don’t know.

” She winces, like the thought of being unsure of her future is as uncomfortable as the guilt I’m harboring.

“I’ve spent my entire life doing every single thing that I’ve been told without ever questioning or giving any kind of resistance.

I’ve always done everything that’s been expected of me.

The dutiful daughter.” I watch her throat rock with a hard swallow.

I reach out and grab her hand, threading our fingers together and doing a slow, steady sweep of my thumb along the soft skin of her hand.

I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, but it feels like she needs the assurance of my touch. I know this shit with her dad hurts her, even when she tries to throw up armor as thick as mine.

I’ve realized that Lennon is soft, in all the places that it matters, but especially her heart.

My thumb moves as she speaks. “Until this year, I never had the freedom of planning for a future outside of the one my parents have set for me. I think about it a lot. The fact that my family comes from money… the nicest cars, a seven-bedroom house when it’s only ever just been the three of us, designer gowns.

I’ve lived a life of luxury, and I’m privileged to say that.

Trust me, I know that.” She pauses, blowing out a breath.

“But surrounded by all of that… the one luxury I never had was freedom.”

The irony isn’t lost on me. My Golden Girl… in her golden cage.

“Anyway, until recently, I haven’t really had the chance to think about what I really want to do.

But I think I’d like to work with children?

But also incorporate skating into it somehow.

Maybe work with underprivileged kids. Open a rink and make it possible for everyone to have the ability to chase their dreams.” She smiles then, her eyes lighting up as she mentions it.

I can’t imagine anything she’d be better at. She’s kind, patient, down-to-earth.

The exact opposite of the girl I thought she was when she walked into the rink that day.

“I think you’d be amazing,” I finally say, offering her a small smile. “Do whatever makes you happy, and fuck what anyone thinks about it. That should be your motto from here on out. Be wild, be rebellious. Total fucking anarchy, Lennon. Fuck it.”

Her eyes glint with pride. “Hmm. I like it. Maybe I’ll start by getting a tattoo of my own.”

“Oh yeah?” I drop her hand to haul her up my body until she’s fully on top of me, my mouth hovering beneath hers.

“What are you going with? A butterfly?” Using the tips of my fingers, I draw one onto the back of her thigh just below where my T-shirt ends, noting the way she melts into me, a shiver racing down her spine.

“Hmm. Nah, too basic. What about… a flower?” I make the lines of the flower, trailing up beneath the shirt as I draw the stem.

My lips ghost along hers, featherlight, chaste even, yet hunger flicks within the depths of her pretty pale green eyes.

“A heart?” Inch by inch, my fingers move higher, all while I watch her, never letting my gaze leave hers. “No, none of those. I’ve got it.”

“What?” Her words tumble out breathlessly, a whisper against my lips.

“A golden phoenix. From the ashes, you rise.”