“I was thinking about your question from earlier,” he explains, pinching his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger and staring at me through narrowed eyes. “When you asked me if I was setting you up.”
“Oh?” I sit on the edge of my bed, crossing my legs at the ankle. I tap my fingertips against my bedspreads and examine his features. “And? Did you come to confess or something?”
Suddenly, he’s standing over me, his heat wrapping around me and reigniting the fire in my body I’d just put out in the shower.
“If I wanted to set you up again,” he says, his voice a low rumble, “I’ve had plenty of opportunities and would’ve done it long before now. If I wanted to hurt you, I could’ve done it countless times already. I could have fucked you over, sideways, and under, Mallory.”
I gulp, more intimidated by his words than I’d like to admit. He’s wrong, though. He has set me up and hurt me since the day I met him.
“What about Dylan,” I whisper.
“What about him?”
I shake my head incredulously. “You brought him here to hurt me. To humiliate me and tear me down.”
His jawline tenses. “I just wanted you to leave, and I was willing to do whatever was necessary to do it. I … I didn’t know he was more than a grieving brother. If I had known what he did to you, I’d have never let that prick step foot here.”
Something strange crosses over his face. It’s angry and dark, and I don’t exactly know what to make of it. I’d almost say it was regret, but Saint doesn’t regret his actions. That’s one of the most infuriating aspects of his character.
“Why?” I demand to know. “Why wouldn’t you have brought him here if you’d known what he once was to me?”
He doesn’t answer me, just peers down at me for a long moment before eventually moving his head from side to side, an edgy smile playing on his lips. He backs away from me, raking his hand through his hair and giving me a look that’s almost … imploring.
“You already know why, Ellis.”
Even though my stomach flutters, it’s not good enough. I close my eyes. “I want you to say it out loud.”
I want him to tell me how he feels. How he really feels. I want him to own it and admit that I’ve gotten under his skin just as much as he’s gotten under mine.
Of course, he doesn’t. Instead, he snatches my hands and yanks me up and against him into a rough kiss, his tongue pushing past my lips to tangle with mine. My knees go instantly weak and I slump into his arms.
By the time he pulls back, I’m panting.
“Go to sleep,” he murmurs, holding my gaze. “You look like hell.”
Before my brain can string together even two words for a response, he’s gone.
17
“So … what’s going on with Angelle?” Loni questions nearly a week later as we’re walking together down the hall between classes.
My head whips in her direction, my brow creasing into a deep-set frown. “What now?”
She hikes an eyebrow and casts a curious glance over one shoulder.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact Hot Draco is following you around like some angel of death bodyguard. Admit it, he’s looking for someone to off and is planning to make you his next horcrux, isn’t he?”
I almost choke on my gum at the Harry Potter reference. If Loni knew the half of it, I’m not entirely certain she’d be snorting at her own joke right now. “Oh, that?” I peep back at him as well. He’s close, almost hovering, but he doesn’t walk with us exactly.
Plus, he’s totally silent.
“Obsessed much?” I mouth, and he clutches at the spot where his heart is supposed to be in mock anguish.
When he drops his hands by his side, his lips twist derisively before he mouths back, “Don’t flatter yourself.”
Honestly? I think he’s full of it.
He’s been doing this for a few days now, and I’m not really sure what to make of his behavior. It’s not just the following me around that’s unusual, but he’s been eating breakfast with us every morning, too. It had shocked Loni and Henry the first time he’d parked his perfect ass down at our table—so much that Loni came right out and asked if he’d lost his way to Mount Olympus—but my friends haven’t tried to convince me to make him go away.
Despite being my near constant shadow, though, the one thing he hasn’t been doing is coming to my room at night. And even though I’m grateful for that—because my birth mother is a walking, talking episode of The First 48—I can’t quite wrap my head around his sudden … disinterest.
He’s being so protective of me during the day but at night he goes MIA.
The scary part? That I sort of miss it. Actually, I really miss it. I can’t even be angry at myself for that. Saint is able to make me feel things when he touches me—hell, when he looks at me—that I’d never have imagined possible.
I’m pent up and frustrated, and I don’t know what his game is. Is he intentionally withholding himself from me to make me desperate? Make me pliable and easier to manipulate?
Is he trying to make me want him more than I already do?
Sneaky, gorgeous bastard.
Loni hooks her arm through mine and tugs me close so she can whisper in my ear, “I think someone went and caught some feels, huh?”
A wave of heat spirals through my body, warming my cheeks. “I wouldn’t go that far. He just doesn’t like anyone messing with his toys—and really, that’s all I am to him.”
A pathetic toy that’s currently been shelved.
“Uh huh, sure. Listen, I’ve known Saint for years. He was a psychopath when I met him, and he’s only gotten worse since. Buttttt … I’ve never seen him get so crazy over a girl before.”
“Crazy being the operative word,” I mumble, breaking away from her for a moment when a group of overeager baseball players come barreling down the hall, chanting about how they’re going to slaughter Lakewood Prep at their game tonight.
From what I’ve heard, Angelview’s baseball team blows, but carpe diem and all that shit, I suppose.
Falling back in place beside me, Loni says, “He’s nuts. I don’t know how you’ve dealt with his bullshit all this time. He’s terrible at showing that he cares, but honestly, Mal? Everyone’s wondering what the hell you’ve done to the poor bastard.”
I clutch at the lapels of my blazer, my heart thumping wildly against my knuckles as I quickly attempt to squash the treacherous tendril of hope that starts to unfurl in my stomach.
“I don’t think Saint’s truly capable of caring for anyone,” I say softly, though I peek over my shoulder again to look at him. He’s still there, his face a mask so that I can’t discern what he might be thinking. He tips his head toward me, and I swallow hard, zeroing back in on the hall ahead of me because I’m sure my cheeks are cherry red at this point.
“You think he’ll ask you to prom?” Loni’s asking when I tune back in to her musings. “Or to spend spring break with him?”
Those two upcoming events are the only things people seem interested in talking about these days. Everywhere I go on campus, I’m either forced to listen to someone brag about their plans to traipse across Europe over break or the prom dress their millionaire parents dropped several thousand dollars on. I’ve absolutely no interest in prom—at least, that’s what I keep telling myself—and intend to just stay in my dorm that night. And as far as spring break goes, I can barely afford the Uber ride to meet Bitch Face McMurder for our bi-weekly mother-pawn chats.