Bane (Sinners of Saint #4)(46)

Sometimes he didn’t notice me.

Sometimes he smiled back.

When he took me back home, the thought that he might be going to one of his clients slammed into me, hard, and suddenly, prolonging our time together as much as I could, in some half-baked plan to make him cancel on whoever this woman might be, took the front wheel.

“Edie is nice.” I opened his glove compartment to find a mountain of cinnamon gum and a small plastic bag with weed. I took two pieces of gum and closed it.

Bane shrugged, but didn’t answer.

“And she’s a surfer, so she’s obviously your type.” I searched his face.

His mouth curved into a comma-like smirk, his eyes still hard on the road. “Obviously.”

“Come on, Bane. You wanna tell me you’ve never considered dating her?”

“I have. And I did. For a year. Ish,” he said, so casually, though I guessed for him, it was. My mouth went dry. Up until then, I’d suspected I was jealous of Bane’s clients. But I wasn’t. Because this was jealousy. The thought that Edie—whom I’d enjoyed hanging out with and actually shared a joke or two with—was the devil and public enemy number one. My head swam, and I curled my fists beside my body.

Bane took a left turn, tipping his chin down.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. It was in high school.” I hate high school.

“Who ended it?” I tried to sound chipper, but it came off a little manic.

He pushed his lower lip out, giving it some thought. “I don’t know. It was never serious. We mainly fucked, and I took her to prom. Guess we stopped dating when we started fucking other people, too. Then she met her husband, Trent, and we just stopped completely.”

I love Trent.

Seriously. It was getting pathetic, how relieved I was to hear Edie was married.

Bane used the neighborhood’s remote nonchalantly—like it wasn’t illegal for him to have one—and eased his truck in front of my house, cutting the engine. I stayed put in my seat, half-wishing he’d forget that I was there and decide to take a spontaneous nap.

Yeah. That’s very likely.

“Umm…” He looked at me incredulously, silently questioning why the hell I was still there.

“Will you be at Café Diem tomorrow?” I asked. He turned fully toward me, resting his elbow on the steering wheel. His hair was messily thrown into a bun and he looked so youthful and so gorgeous I wanted to cry.

“Maybe.”

I swallowed, changing the subject. “You know, I have a tattoo, too.”

I was blabbing. But I didn’t want him to go. I didn’t want him to roll someone else between his sheets. Didn’t want his hard inked thigh pressing against someone else’s sex. I could have died just thinking of his full lips skimming the jawline of a paying customer.

He smirked. “Show me.”

I turned around, gathering my long hair up into a ponytail. I felt his eyes on my neck. My eyelashes fluttered, my eyes hard on the row of palm trees facing the Morgansen estate through the passenger window. I waited for Bane to react. I felt his fingers brushing my ink. Trailing down, to my spine, further south, to my waist. He clutched my hipbone, and not gently. His mouth pressed against my tattoo, and it was warm and perfect against the roughness of his beard on my skin, just like I’d imagined earlier in the bathroom. A breathy grunt escaped me the moment his lips touched my flesh.

“Saw it before,” he whispered.

“You did?”

He nodded into the curve between my shoulder and neck. “At the beach. A few years ago. Red bikini. Cherry-patterned.”

I remembered that day. What surprised me was that he remembered me. I licked my lips, waiting for him to continue.

“I was going through some shit that got me thinking. On the brink of stopping the whole escort bullshit for a hot second. I thought that quote was aimed at me. I’ve always been a Pushkin fan—well, actually, my mom and wannnabe-stepdad—they were never actually married—liked him. They’re, like, mega-Russian. Anyway, it seemed like a sign. Like the universe was screaming something at me, and I didn’t speak the language. I was gonna hit on you, but then you crawled into this pasty fuck’s arms, and I realized it wasn’t a sign. It was a big fuck-you from God for thinking I could be something else. Or, you know, someone else’s.”

I twisted back to face him, inwardly inviting, praying, begging for him to break his rules and ruin this. Ruin us. Because once his lips were on mine, it was on. We were no longer friends. Or enemies. Or two lonely skies—one empty and starless like me, one full of lights. One hidden by walls, and the other by ink and a beard. We’d just be free to be.

We were looking at each other now. He was inching closer into surrender, and I wanted his defeat.

“You’re poisoned. Sheltered. Yet, you’re no Snow White. Wanna know why?”

“Why?”

“Snow White waited for the prince. You’ll be the one saving yourself in this story.”

I blinked at him, thinking about what my dad used to say, his accent thick, almost as strong as his words.

“You don’t need a prince, princess. You need a sword.”

Bane had my back. He believed in me, and that made me believe in myself. My body was saturated with hope. “You can be my sword,” I said quietly. God. That was pathetic. What if he couldn’t? What if he didn’t want to be?