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“Really? When you introduce me, I’ll have to offer it to him.”
Her mouth sours. “I’m not introducing you to anybody, and I haven’t spoken to him in years.”
“Why not?”
“He cheated on my mom. He betrayed us.” Her eyes are stormy, the wound still festering. “Mom and I agonized for years over why my father didn’t seem to care about us the way a man should care about his family. Why he was always aloof, why he’d bail on every family outing and movie night. In most of my childhood memories, Mom is the only parent present. Then, when I was seventeen, we finally figured out why. My father had been cheating on Mom with dozens of other women. She immediately filed for divorce, and I haven’t spoken a word to him since. My life has only improved without him in it.”
My heart aches for her. That she’s had to go through her entire life wondering why she wasn’t loveable. Why she wasn’t enough. I long to torment him for making her feel that way for even a second.
“I would never do that to you,” I assure her.
Briar’s head tilts, brows scrunching. “Do what?”
“Cheat on you. Abandon you. Make you question my love for you.”
She scoffs. “You don’t know me. You can’t possibly love me.”
“What have I told you, Briar? You’re my muse. Where you go, I follow. What you need, I give. What you crave, I provide. I am yours to use as you see fit. To fulfill all your desires. And you are my inspiration. You are the pen that writes my words. The body that owns my cock. The laugh that owns my heart. The mind that owns my soul.”
She stares at me, letting this sink in. She’s so standoffish, so wary of me, because the one man in her life who was supposed to love her unconditionally failed to do so. He hurt her, betrayed her. Showed her that love isn’t real, that men can’t be trusted. That to open your heart to someone is asking them to break it.
Her heart has already been stomped on, torn into pieces. Now she’s protecting it fiercely, dating and sleeping with menshe has zero interest in so it won’t hurt when they leave. So she won’t be broken when they don’t love her the way she deserves.
She’s my muse, but I’ll be her Saint. The one who convinces her love doesn’t have to hurt or break you. That love is what puts the pieces of your shattered heart back together.
Briar stands abruptly, shoving her book back into her bag.This Book Will Haunt You. “I’m heading home.” She points her finger in my face. “And you’re not following me.”
I grin, following her out the door. “Whatever you say, muse.”
She strides through the building and out the door to the parking lot as if those tiny, perfect legs can carry her faster than mine can keep up. She wraps her arms around her middle, teeth chattering. “Shit, it got fucking cold.”
“Good thing you’re in the presence of a gentleman.” I slip off my jacket and drape it across her shivering shoulders.
“Get this thing off me,” she snaps.
I chuckle. “So you can keep shaking like a leaf? I’m keeping you warm, muse. One way or another.”
Her nostrils flare at the innuendo. “Shaking like a leaf is a tired metaphor. No wonder you can’t write.”
A devilish grin twists my lips. “Will you be my muse tonight?”
She stops at her car and bites her lip but can’t help asking, “What exactly does that entail?”
“Give me a kiss, and I’ll write you a chapter. Wrap that pretty mouth around my cock, and I’ll write you a book.” She grimaces and opens her mouth to vehemently object, but I’m not done. I stroke my thumb down her cheek until it comes to rest on her delicately pointed chin. She doesn’t push me away. “Let me come inside that perfect pussy, and I’ll write you enough books to fill a library.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BRIAR
“How many damnbooks did you order?”
I wince against Mack’s crackling voice over the Bluetooth speaker in my shitty beater Honda and flip down the visor to shield my eyes from the sun. “I didn’t order any books.”
“Well, there are three boxes of them sitting outside your house. Like,heavyones.”
My eyes practically bug out of my head. Saint said he found my mile-long wishlist online. I guess it really wouldn’t be that hard to find. I have a link to it right in my social media bio. Still, the fact that he’s spent his evenings alone, hunting for information about me, should send a shiver down my spine.
Yet it’s not a shiver racing down my spine now—it’s a thrill.
