Page 29 of Soulless Saint

He nodded. “Part-time. Also taking a couple open electives at CalArts.”

Part-time?

Interest piqued, I couldn’t stop the next question falling out. “So, you don’t have a major, then? What’s your plan? I mean, how will you get a job.”

I heard my father’s voice in every word out of my mouth and cringed inwardly. Those were his worries. His hang-ups. Not mine.

Aodhán shrugged, that ever present smirk still in place on his lips. “Not planning to ever have one,” he replied with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Not unless you count carrying on the family business, but I don’t. It’s more of a lifestyle than a job.”

My lips pursed before I opened them to ask him what he meant, but he beat me to it. “What about you, love?”

“I—”

“No, wait, don’t tell me. Artist, is it? You don’t look much like the other girls hanging ’round Kilborn.”

I bristled at his assumption, maybe because he was insinuating I was somehow different from other girls, or maybe just because he was right.

“You can just let me out around the block,” I said instead of telling him so, considering myself in a new light. The clean lines of my black bra showing through the sheer fabric of the oversized men’s button up I was wearing. The wing tipped liner on my eyes. I yanked down the hem of my skirt, remembering the tears in my tights hidden beneath the pleated plaid fabric.

I undid my seatbelt before Aodhán pulled up to the sidewalk just a block down from Death Before Decaf and only a few blocks from the apartment that I thought I could remember how to get to on my own.

“Thanks for the ride.”

I stepped out of the car, faster than I needed to, careful to shut the door gently as I stepped up onto the sidewalk.

He leaned down in his seat, peering up at me through his lashes, that silver charm he’d been working with his teeth now laid over the top of his black shirt. A four leaf clover with a diamond at its heart. “Anytime, love,” he winked. “Now, get home safe. The streets at this hour are no place for a pretty face.”

I got less than a block down the street, huddling against the sudden chill in the air when it hit me.

“Fuck!” I shouted, loud enough to wake anyone sleeping in the buildings around me, but I didn’t care. I slammed my palm against my forehead, gritting my teeth.

I’d forgotten my goddamned purse.

Hardin glared at the sun baked blacktop on the way to campus like it personally offended him. When I turned on the radio, rolling down the window, preferring the fresh air to the icy air conditioning, he jammed the power button and rolled the windows back up, stewing in his usual silence.

“What the fuck crawled up your ass last night?”

He didn’t reply, just pulled his phone from his pocket and flicked his thumb over the screen.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” I taunted. “Did Felicia—or whatever that blonde babe’s name is—stick a finger in your ass? Oh shit. Did you like it?”

I put a fist to my mouth to cover the grin there and he twisted in his seat to glare at me instead of his phone. “Just fucking drive, Kaleb.”

I dropped my fist, cocking my head at him. “Seriously, man, what’s your deal? You didn’t come out of your room at all last night. I figured when you were done with Felicia you’d at least show your face for five fucking minutes—”

“Fee didn’t show.”

I felt my brows lift. “She stood you up?”

My brother had been banging the blonde first year off and on for a few months now. There were very few women who could handle him in the bedroom, if the countless girls I’d seen fleeing from his room with their clothes balled against their naked tits was any indication. But the blonde one with the doll-like features and baby blue eyes, the picture of virginal innocence, was apparently the wildest sexual deviant he’d ever encountered.

She got bonus points for not wanting anything more from him than his dick in every one of her holes. She didn’t even seem to mind that he never spoke a word to her.

“Man, that’s shitty. Guess it’s time to find a new playmate.”

He shrugged, but I could tell it was bothering him more than he let on. He adjusted his position in the seat uncomfortably and I realized he was counting on Felicia to relieve some of the pent up pressure.

With all this bullshit going on with the Sons of O’Sullivan and my little stunt a couple nights ago, he was wound tighter than a top. And now he probably had a case of massive blue balls to top it all off.

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