There Are No Saints (Sinners Duet #1)(43)

I’d know the shape of that ass anywhere. That perfect fucking ass.

She’s signed the painting in sharpie and titled it:



The Best Night of My Life

I’m hit with an emotion I’ve never experienced before. It rolls over me, heavy, smothering, nauseating. It takes the heart out of me, it makes my guts churn. It gives me a deep ache in my chest.

The feeling is so abrupt and unfamiliar that for a moment I think I really am sick. Or having a coronary.

I sink down in my desk chair, still staring at the painting.

Slowly, with great difficulty, I examine this feeling that sits on my chest like a fucking gremlin, weighing me down.

I think . . . it’s regret.

The title of the painting is a taunt. But it stabs me, all the same.

It could have been the best night of her life.

It could have been me fucking Mara on that canvas. Me smearing paint all over her tits. Rolling around with her. Kissing her like I did at the show.

I wanted you . . . genuinely.

She would have taken me back to the studio, if I let her.

Instead, in that moment when she knelt before me, my impulse was cruelty. I wanted her—badly. And because I didn’t like that feeling of need, of weakness, I tried to humiliate her.

I wanted to force her to submit. But I should have known, she won’t fucking do it. She wouldn’t submit even while bleeding, bound, at the point of death.

I could have spent the night with her instead of watching it on a phone screen. Tasting her, smelling her, touching her. Making art with her.

I wish I had.

I’ve never regretted anything I’ve done.

It’s an ugly feeling. Depressing and unending, because you can never go back. You can never undo what’s been done.

I can’t shake it off. I can’t get rid of it.

My heart rate spikes and I’m sweating harder than ever.

I jump to my feet, looking wildly around my office.

I don’t want to feel regret. I don’t want to feel anything I don’t want to feel.

This is the singular factor separating me from everyone else in the world: I choose what I feel and what I don’t. They’re all slaves to their emotions. I’m master of mine.

I’m superior to everyone else because I choose not to feel anything that weakens me.

But in this moment, I’m weak. She’s making me weak.

With a howl of rage, I yank the driver out of my golf bag. I whirl around looking for a target, any target.

The solar system catches my eye: gleaming, glittering, the jewel-toned orbs rotating in space.

I swing the club through the air.

It crashes into the model, exploding the fine Venetian glass into a million pieces. The pieces pour down on me, cutting my skin in a dozen places, a rainstorm of shattered glass.

I keep hitting the model over and over and over again, beating it, rending it, destroying it.

When at last the club falls from my numb hands, the solar model is nothing but a twisted ruin. Beyond recognition. Utterly destroyed.

I loved that piece.

Sometimes you have to kill what you love.





20





Mara





When I was done fucking Logan, I told him to go home.

“Can I get your number first?” he said, his grin a white slash in his paint-covered face.

“I don’t think so,” I said, as kindly as I could. “That was just a one-time thing.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, it was a great time. At least for me.”

I smiled without answering.

I was already feeling guilty that I’d basically used him as a prop in an act of spite that was beginning to feel more insane by the second.

But not insane enough to stop.

After he left, I still carried that painting all the way to the top floor and hung it in Cole’s office.

He doesn’t even lock his door, the arrogant fuck.

I knew he’d see me on the security cameras, but I was also pretty sure he watched the whole damn event, so the painting would hardly remain a mystery either way.

Riding the last waves of malice, I took an Uber home. The driver didn’t want to let me in the car when he saw the amount of paint still remaining on my arms and legs and hair.

“It’s already dry,” I said crossly.

“Sit on this,” he ordered, throwing a garbage bag into the back seat.

“Fine,” I sighed, seating myself on the slippery plastic and leaning my head against the window in utter exhaustion.

By the time I got back to my house, the manic high I’d been riding had almost entirely dissipated. I was starting to realize the level of fuck you I’d thrown in Cole’s direction.

And look, he definitely deserved it. Trying to make me suck off that dealer was degrading and outrageous.

But I took it to the next level. I gave him both middle fingers, right to camera.

And I’m starting to think that was a huge mistake.

Cole Blackwell is not somebody you want to fuck with.

I should know that better than anyone.

He is neither reasonable nor forgiving.

And he’s gonna make me pay for this, I know it.





After a few fitful hours of sleep, I stumble downstairs.

My roommates are gathered around the table, looking at Erin’s phone. The mood in the kitchen is strangely somber. Heinrich and Frank are staring at the screen while Erin slowly scrolls. Joanna stands over by the sink, arms crossed over her chest, looking faintly nauseated.