Page 17 of No Saint
Never walk alone.
Put your keys between your fingers, Jade.
Carry pepper spray.
Remember, eyes, throat, crotch, Jade.
But nothing could have prepared me for the helplessness of simply being female. I wasn’t strong enough to move him or to stop him from forcing his way into my home if he wanted to.
Instead of telling him to fuck off, my mind ran through all the ways I could de-escalate the situation and persuade him not to overpower me. “I’m sorry, Rogue. But you need to leave.” I tried to sound stern, despite feeling anything but.
“Open the fucking door. Now!”
There wasn’t a chance in hell I would voluntarily open that door for him. Of course, I didn’t need to. He wedged his knee through the crack and shoved the wood hard enough that the shitty excuse for a security chain broke. The door flew open, sending me stumbling backward so hard I nearly landed on my ass.
As if that wasn’t enough to have me freaking out, when he stepped inside the apartment, I noticed the blood splatter on his white shirt. Fear paralyzed me for a second before I managed to scramble away from him. I stumbled through the tiny apartment, searching for something I could defend myself with. My gaze landed on the knife block beside the toaster. “I’ll call the police!” I shouted as I rushed to the kitchenette.
“And tell them what?” He laughed. “That the big, bad drug dealer you stole from broke into your apartment?”
There went any hope that he really was just that mad over Cassie not calling him back.
Shouting for Cassie over the music, I reached the knife block. “Get out!” Butcher knife in hand, I turned. My heart dropped when Wolf stepped into the small living room. For one painfully naïve second, I thought he might be there to save me. But as I registered the blank expression on his face, that hope quickly died.
He moved around Rogue and stalked forward like a force of nature, a tsunami I couldn’t escape. I should have been just as terrified of him as I was of Rogue—more so, really, since Wolf was twice his size, but my brain couldn’t quite seem to muster the same fear where Wolf was concerned.
“Careful, Wolf. Voorhees might stab you.” Rogue laughed as my ex rounded the kitchen counter.
I held out the knife. “I will hurt you, Wolf.”
Amusement flickered in his blue eyes, his attention drifting from my face to the blade in my hand. “I don’t believe that.” He kept moving forward, not stopping until the tip of the blade pressed against his stomach, pitting the fabric of his shirt. “Not for one fucking second, Jade.”
My hand shook. I couldn’t believe I was holding a knife to his gut. That he, of all people, was doing this to me, pushing me to this. But he was right. I didn’t think I could physically bring myself to stab him. Not even if he was going to hurt me.
“I wish I could say the same,” I whispered.
My grip on the knife tightened as my gaze met his, searching for a hint of recognition, a trace of the boy I once loved. But all I found in his hardened expression was hate. I understood it. It stung, but I understood because I’d tried hard to hate him, too.
Smirking, he wrapped his calloused fingers around mine. I didn’t fight when he forced my hand away from him and carefully plucked the weapon from my grip. It was almost as if he was making sure I didn’t hurt myself.
He stabbed the blade into the drywall, and defeat washed over me. “Never expected you to turn into a knife-wielding, drug thief and dealer,” he said, so close, his breath stirred the strands of my hair.
“And I never expected you to enjoy scaring women.” I struggled to keep my voice steady. “Yet here we are.”
He leaned in even more, bracing one hand on the cabinet beside my head and caging me in. “Come on, Jade…” His nose swept along my jaw.
The sensation of his warm breath on my skin sent an involuntary shiver through me.
“You’re not scared,” he whispered. “Your cheeks are the same fuck-me pink as when you come.”
My face flamed with humiliation. “Screw you…” I gripped the edge of the counter like a lifeline, like it could save me from my body’s traitorous reaction to him.
The music blaring through the apartment cut off before heavy footsteps thudded down the hall. “What the hell?” Cassie shouted, breaking whatever spell Wolf had put me under.
He turned to look at her. When he shifted away from me, I dragged a Wolf-free breath into my lungs.
“What the hell are you two doing here? Jade, why the hell did you let them in?—”
“You know,” Rogue said, his focus on Cassie. “I knew you were stupid, but stealing my drugs and selling them to that fucking asshole?”
