Page 8 of Protected By Saint

Jade is sniffling into my shoulder when I pull up outside my house. She climbs off my bike, and I half expect her to sprint down the road screaming, but she stays quiet as I push my bike into the garage and secure it. She’s seated on the front steps when I walk back out, her face buried in my jacket.

“I’m not crying,” she whispers when she senses my presence, lifting her pretty tear-stained eyes to meet mine.

“What you went through tonight was horrible. I’m not going to judge you if you do.”

“Well, I’m not crying. There’s nothing to judge or…not judge.” She sniffs.

“In the event you choose to cry, I want you to know that it’s okay. You’re safe with me.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs, breaking eye contact.

I sigh and let the conversation drop, walking to the door to open it. Jade climbs to her feet and quietly steps beside me. I open the door to my home and walk in, expecting her to follow, and she does just that, closing the door behind. Having Jade in my home stirs something deep inside me. I don’t bring women here. On the rare occasions I want a physical release, I get it at the clubhouse or follow a woman home from a bar. My home is my sanctuary. So why did I bring Jade here instead of taking her to the clubhouse?

“Would you like something to drink?” I ask, pushing my thoughts away.

“Water, please,” she says, following me into the kitchen. “I haven’t had anything in hours. They offered me drinks, but I was scared to accept in case they were laced with something.”

I hold the glass firmly, nearly breaking it with my grip but force myself to rein in my anger. I don’t want to scare her by losing control. I fill up her glass and slide it to her. She picks it up, smiling and thanking me. I watch her take a hurried gulp, which causes the water to spill down her front.

“Oh, shit!” she curses as the water hits the bare skin of her chest before disappearing beneath the fabric of her dress. I know I should be grabbing her a towel, but I’m frozen with my feet glued to the floor as I watch water droplets trail across her perfect skin to the space between her breasts.

I’m mesmerized, but at the same time I know I need to look away. Staring at her like this after what she’s been through makes me feel like the biggest asshole in the world.

Jade is breathtaking. Every inch of her from those beautiful locks down to that tight body, she’s easily the most gorgeous girl I have ever seen. It’s wrong to look at her the way I am, with lust and need so strong, it’s a battle between what I want and what is right.

Passing her dish towel instead of ogling her chest would be the right thing to do, but I can’t get my body to move.

Fuck!

My cock is hard in my jeans and has been most of the night since the moment I first saw her. Her innocence turned me on just as much as it did those fuckers at the club. She was a sight to behold when she walked up on that stage; there was little I could stop to control my body’s reaction. It was pure torment pretending I didn’t want to fuck her in that small room back at the club, but I also didn’t want her to think of me as a monster—at least not one who was no different from the other men who bid on her. So, I pushed down my need for her and focused on getting us out of the club safely. But then…she wrapped herself around me on my bike, pressing those perfect tits against my back, and my control threatened to snap!

She didn’t even realize what she was doing then, and she doesn’t now.

Slowly but easily crumbling my resolve to dust. Jesus Christ, I need to remind myself why the fuck I can’t have this girl. Why I can’t even fucking look at her!

“Were you kidnapped?” I blurt out, which seems to finally unfreeze my body and I’m able to pass her a towel, which she uses to dab at her chest and neck.

When she’s as dry as she can be, Jade takes another sip and looks at me over the rim of her glass. “No,” she answers, lowering the glass to the counter. “I walked in there myself.” She laughs, but the sound is as can. be. “Can you believe it? I just walked right into their trap.”

“What happened?”

She shakes her head, turning away from me, but I spot the tears before she can hide them. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Would you like to make a call? To family, or a friend and—”

“No!” That takes me by surprise. For someone who was terrified by the thought of leaving with me, she doesn’t seem in a hurry to escape my presence now that we’re away from the club. “My family is in Petersburg, and they would be sick with worry if they found out what happened. My dad… He has a weak heart. I don’t want to risk it.”

“I have a spare room you can stay in for now,” I offer. “You’ll be safe. No one in the entire city would think to come here.” That’s because they would be signing their own death warrants by doing so, but I don’t tell her that last bit.

Jade stares at me for a moment, and I can sense that her guard is still up. “You’re not going to do anything to me?”

“I’m not going hurt you.” Or let anyone else do so.

“Then why did you spend one million dollars on me if you’re not going to do anything?”

“That was the safest way I could get alone with you and get you out of there. Besides, those assholes aren’t actually going to get a cent of my money.”

“Why?”

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