Bane (Sinners of Saint #4)(23)

When I walked out, I found Jesse sitting on the step, right where I’d left her. She looked up from a book, and I immediately realized two things:

She was supposedly reading a red hardcopy of something. Something classic, by its cover.

She had another book tucked inside. And my eyes landed on a paragraph I was pretty sure I had no business seeing.





He slid his big palms down her thighs and spread them wide, pressing his hot tongue to her mound. “I hope you like it rough, my darling, because you’re about to get pounded like the pavement.”





EVEN THOUGH THE OLD JESSE had died the night of The Incident, the leftovers of her were still in my system. Mainly, her carnal need to feel. That was one of the reasons I wasn’t suicidal, I guess. I was never numb or anything. I was angry, and sad, and desperate, but I felt. Most of all, I was needy.

I’d always been needy for affection—wasn’t that the entire point of hanging out with Emery’s stupid crew, even though I’d known they hadn’t cared about me? I just made sure I kept it to myself.

My needs were mine. No one was supposed to know about them. Least of all him.

“She was about to get pounded like the pavement? Like. The. Pavement?” Bane light-jogged behind me, the chuckle in his voice vibrating inside my chest for some reason. My ears were on fire. What was I thinking, reading smut in public? I was thinking no one was going to notice, since the book I was reading was tucked inside a perfectly respectable classic. I wasn’t counting on Bane to reappear five minutes after he’d entered the shop. Hadn’t he said ten? How good was he at extortion?

Pretty freaking amazing. You’re here, aren’t you?

“Shut up!” I covered my face with my palms. “God, this is so humiliating. Just let me go home, please.”

He sprinted ahead, swiveled to face me, and walked backward with his arms open, his smile so cocky, I wanted it to tear it off his brutally handsome face.

“What about the smoothie I promised you?”

“That was before you made fun of my literary preferences.”

“Stop talking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like an eighty-year-old. What do you like in your smoothie?”

My knee-jerk reaction was to tell him I liked solitude in my smoothie, turn around and walk away. Immature, I know, but I was so rusty when it came to socializing. Especially with boys. Especially with boys who looked like Bane— inked savages with quick wit and foreign beauty.

“Strawberries.”

“What else?”

“Cantaloupe.”

“And?”

“Banana?”

“Hmm. Banana.” But it wasn’t suggestive or disgusting, the way Nolan or Henry would say it.

“So subtle. Humor at its finest.” I rolled my eyes, throwing my wallet at him. It was the only thing I had handy. He caught the wallet, unplastering it from his chest and opening it nonchalantly as he continued marching backward.

“You don’t carry a lot of cash on you.”

“Why should I?”

“You never know who you need to bribe not to tell about your literary preferences.” His grin widened, making his face gleam with delight.

“I think you forget my reputation can’t get any worse unless I start murdering puppies. The Untouchable whom everyone has already touched,” I muttered, shoulders slumped. It was the naked truth, and the cold chill of it was already slithering down my spine when I thought about the looks I’d get if I walked into the coffee shop with him. We stopped in front of Café Diem. He tossed my wallet back to me, and I caught it mid-air.

“Hmm. Pity party. Thanks for the invite, Jesse, but I’m busy tonight.”

“You’re an asshole.” I sighed.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Sean Connery wore a toupee in all his James Bond movies,” I said.

Bane laughed. “The fuck?”

“You told me to tell you something you don’t know. I bet you didn’t know that.”

He shook his head, his shoulders shaking with laughter now, his whole body radiating happiness like the sun. He motioned for me with his hand. “Come on. I’ll buy you that smoothie.”

“You own the place.” That was my second eye roll in a minute. I was starting to sound like old Jesse again, sassing like there was no tomorrow.

Bane threw the glass door to Café Diem open and stepped in without even checking if I followed. His jerk tactic worked, because after a brief pause, I did. I didn’t know what it was about Bane that made talking to him so easy. I knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to throw me back into the cruel arms of the world. A world I resented, but at the same time, so terribly missed. And, for some reason, despite the paralyzing fear of it, I was letting him.

Everybody was watching.

It wasn’t a figure of speech. Literally, every single person stared.

It’s like the residents of Todos Santos had waited for me to step out of hiding so they could see if I really was a monster. If I’d gained fifty pounds, or become anorexic. If I was on suicide watch, or just plain old crazy. If I’d shaved my head, torn off my skin, and lost my striking all-American girl features.

The rumors were endless, and they wanted at least some of them to be true.