Page 14 of Soulless Saint

Gillian made it clear who her target was, but to be fucking frank, I’d rather fuck a goat. And it wasn’t her dull brown eyes, small and spaced too far apart, or her nonexistent ass. Hell, it wasn’t even the fact that I was pretty sure she’d sound like Miss Piggy if I ever porked her. No.

Her relentless, at times almost stalkerish pursuit of me was what kept her firmly in do-not-fuck territory. I’d play nice, though, because for some incomprehensible fucking reason, Ma’d taken a liking to her.

Probably all part of her master plan. Get close enough to Ma, you could also have Dad’s ear, and I knew for a fact Dad would heartily condone the idea of me settling down with a steady lay.

The idea made my skin itch.

One pussy for life?

Might as well get me a prescription for limp dick meds at twenty-three because there was no way the same pussy could tempt me on the daily.

Monogamy was overrated.

Marriage, not even a word in my fucking vocabulary.

“Last time I was here there was exactly one slice of moldy bread and two empty mustard bottles in your fridge.”

“Not true,” I corrected her. “There was also beer.”

She fixed me a hard look, going to help Gillian fill our cupboards and fridge with so much goddamn food I wouldn’t be able to squeeze a beer in there if I tried.

“We picked up some more of those Turkish towels, too,” Gillian said, her nasally voice grating against my nerves and still-tender brain tissue. Her eyes fell to the still semi-swollen ridge of my cock clearly visible beneath the gym shorts and then to the towel by my feet. “Good thing since it looks like you already ruined one.”

Ma scowled at the towel and I picked it up, glad for any excuse to leave the room. “The coffee’ll come out,” I said on a sigh, making for the laundry room. “Since you’re here, make yourself useful and put on another pot, would you?”

“Kaleb St. Vince—”

Ma started but Gillian was quick to cut her off. “I’ll do it, Sloane.”

“Don’t pander to him. That boy needs to–”

I shut myself into the laundry room, chucking the towel into the wash basin before exiting out the door on the other end into my bedroom. I flopped onto my bed, smelling my own sweat, dried on the sheets now. Ignoring it.

The maid would be here in a few hours, hopefully after Ma left since she had no idea we hired one the instant she stopped coming around to bitch and moan and ultimately clean everything we didn’t want to.

Propping my head up, I brought up a new browser window, needing to distract myself from the onslaught of imagery from last night’s unconscious brain dump. In the search bar I typed in Rebecca Hart, and settled in to spend the next hour learning who exactly I would be ‘babysitting.’

“This is us.”

Kate sighed as she jiggled the key in the lock and shouldered the old wooden door open. It was the only apartment on the top floor of the converted gothic style mansion, which seemed to be a major plus since the common areas downstairs were filled with students lounging in nests of their own post-binge-drinking filth.

“It isn’t the Ritz, but it’s the nicest apartment in the building,” Kate went on to explain, ushering me into the space. It smelled like Kate’s magnolia perfume and Toby’s smooth musk cologne.

Both employees from Death Before Decaf shared the apartment set barely six blocks away. The location was probably the best thing about the place. I did my best not to cringe at the decor. To my left, it looked like a rainbow barfed over the low furniture in the living room. There were even pink utensils in a teal bucket on the kitchen counter off to the right.

Kate kicked off her shoes and slung her purse over the side of the couch. I bent to unzip mine as she crossed the creaky floorboards and gestured to two doors on either side of a hallway.

“That’s me.” She indicated the room on the right. “And that’s Toby.” The one on the left.

She continued down the hall and I rushed to catch up. “Sorry to say you get last pick, but it is the closest to the bathroom.”

“Anything’s better than where I’m staying right now.”

“Where did you say that was again?”

Kate fought with the handle, using it to lift the door slightly to be able to push it open. She gave a shrug and a smile that looked more like a grimace, holding it open for me.

“A few miles up the highway.”

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