There Are No Saints (Sinners Duet #1)(23)

Tormenting Mara without even touching her is so stimulating that I can hardly imagine what it would be like to put my hands directly on her flesh . . . to circle them round her throat . . .

Mara shifts her weight back and forth, trying to decide what to do.

She’s wondering if she felt what she thinks she felt.

She doesn’t trust herself.

Finally, she snatches up her purse and exits the room.

I’m already heading down the stairs. She’s not dressed for work—I want to see where she’s going.

A date, I suspect.

At the thought, my pupils contract, my throat tightens, my heart slows. I’m cold and focused.

Who does she date? Who does she fuck?

I want to know.

I exit the townhouse, not bothering to lock the door behind me. I cut across Frederick Street, catching sight of Mara walking ahead in her tight black dress and ankle boots. She doesn’t wear heels often. I like how it hobbles her, slowing her pace.

It’s easy for me to track her, walking along the opposite side of the street like a disconnected shadow. I follow her to a trendy little restaurant a few blocks away, where she meets some scruffy-faced hipster in a too-tight t-shirt.

Unlike Mara and her date, I don’t have a reservation. A hundred-dollar bill pressed into the hostess’s palm solves that problem. I probably could have convinced her just by holding her gaze and letting my fingers trail across her wrist. The hostess giggles and blushes as she leads me to the table I requested, tucked away in a corner with several hanging plants shielding me from Mara’s view if she were to glance this way.

I have no problem attracting women. In fact, it’s too easy. The wealth, the fame, and the looks suck them in before I say a word. There’s no challenge.

I wonder if Mara will fall at my feet as easily as that hostess.

She doesn’t seem particularly enthralled with her date. In fact, she twitches irritably as he rests his arm across the back of her chair.

Her date yammers on about something, oblivious to her expression of boredom. He doesn’t seem to notice how she angles her body away from him, only rarely meeting his eye. When he tries to tidy her hair, she jolts away from him.

I feel a strange sense of satisfaction in her rejection of this buffoon. It would have lessened her in my eyes if she were besotted with someone so . . . pedestrian.

My pleasure evaporates as he reaches under the table to fondle her pussy.

In its place: a sharp spike of fury.

I want to rip that hand off his arm, leaving a ragged stump with a bare glint of bone.

Even in my most extreme moments, when I’ve slit the throat of someone I hated and watched their blood run down my arm, my heart rate barely rises.

The feeling of that lump of muscle pounding in my chest is something new to me—something that makes me sit back in my chair, breathing hard, hands clenched into fists on my lap.

What the fuck is happening.

I almost feel . . . jealous.

I’ve never been jealous before. Why would I? No one on this planet has anything I envy.

Yet I’ve already decided, with absolute certainty, that no one should be touching that sweet little cunt except me.

I’ve smelled her scent on my fingers.

I want it fresh from the source.

As if obeying my command, Mara jumps up from the table, shoving back her chair. I hear her hasty apologies as she throws cash by her plate. Then she leaves, abandoning her disgruntled date before they’ve even ordered their entrées.

Lucky for him—I was already planning how I’d cut off his balls with a box cutter.

He’s saved by the expedient of following Mara instead. I leave my own folded bills tucked under my unused fork.

The sky is fully dark now, thick with clouds. The wind is colder than before.

I walk back to Frederick Street, feeling a curious elation at the prospect of watching Mara alone in her room.

I like her best in her private space. It’s a look inside her mind—her comforts and preferences.

Settling myself behind the telescope once more, I see her pacing her room. Mara is a skittish horse. When she’s calm, she moves with grace. But when she’s frustrated or uncomfortable—and she was certainly both in the company of her incompetent date—she becomes stiff and withdrawn, hypersensitive to irritants.

She hauls her mattress out on the small deck attached to her room.

This is all the better for me. I can see her as clearly as a figure in a diorama.

She lays down on the futon, a pair of headphones over her ears. It takes a long time for her breathing to slow, for her to settle deeply into the mattress. Her lips move in time with the lyrics of the song.

Though she’s not actually singing, I can make out a few scattered words:

Don’t know if I’m feeling happy . . .

I’m kinda confused, I’m not in the mood to try and fix me . . .





I google the lyrics, pulling up the song on my phone, one I haven’t heard before. I play it aloud in the dark library, listening to what Mara is hearing over on the balcony.

Yes & No — XYL?

Spotify → geni.us/no-saints-spotify

Apple Music → geni.us/no-saints-apple





She’s so still now that I wonder if she fell asleep. Her chest rises and falls with metronome regularity.

The breeze whispers through the hedges in the garden between us. It slides across Mara’s skin, making her shiver. Her nipples are hard, visible even through the black dress.