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“I once did, but now”—I witness Saint dropping to his knees in front of me and lifting my downturned chin with a finger—“the only thing I need…is you.”
“Wh-what?” I stumble over a simple word because this is too much.
The chartreuse swirls flash to life, robbing me of breath. When he glides his thumb along my jaw, I can’t stop the tears because this is the first time he’s touched me so tenderly. And I never thought I’d experience it again.
“You still love m-me?” My tremble reveals my inner turmoil.
Saint fixes his penetrating stare onto me, setting me on fire. “Always, ?????. And I’ll never stop. I will love you with my last intake of breath, and when my heart stops beating, know that it only beat for you.”
I allow him to touch me and refamiliarize himself with me. He traces over my lips, and they part as a gasp escapes me. He works the tip of his finger into my mouth, hissing when he feels the wetness along my inner bottom lip.
He slowly removes his finger, and before I have a chance to miss his touch, he slips it into his mouth, his eyes flickering when sampling my taste. The sight leaves me a quivering mess.
“I don’t understand. Why did you push me away?”
Once Saint is done, he removes his finger. I am frightened he will get up and leave, but he doesn’t. He does something which he’s never done before—he surrenders…to me.
On his knees before me, he peels back those layers and allows me to see something beautiful—him. “I am…humiliated,” he reveals, painfully slow. “And I failed you. My grand plan to save you has just fucked everything up.”
But that can wait. I want to discuss something else first.
I arch a brow. “Humiliated?”
He nods, his hair shrouding his face. “How can you…love me after everything you saw?”
“Oh, Saint,” I whimper. “It’s because of everything I saw that I love you.”
But he won’t accept my reply. “What I did with Ingrid….”
“Shh.”
But he doesn’t want me to coo him. He needs to accept culpability to move on. “Since the moment I met you, I’ve done nothing but hurt you. I don’t deserve your love. I never have. And if I were a stronger man, I would have done the right thing and never given in to this…hunger, this possession I feel for you.
“But I’m not. I’m weak, which is why—” The cause of his sudden pause has waves of anger crashing into me. “Which is why…O…Oscar did what he did…to me.”
“What, what did he do?”
For the shadows to be gone, he needs to exorcise his demons. I know it’s hard, but if he doesn’t, he will never heal, and Oscar will have won. He strokes over his bandaged hand, which is no longer dislocated thanks to the sisters, appearing to be lost in the past.
“What didn’t he do.” He doesn’t need to spell it out. Oscar all but told me he raped Saint and did so without regret.
I understand why he’s ashamed, but this isn’t his fault. Just as it wasn’t mine when Kenny forced himself onto me. “For you to be free, you take back your life. He may have broken your body, but your heart, your soul, that is mine. And I promise you, that bastard will pay for what he did.”
Saint licks his bottom lip, averting his gaze. “You aren’t…disgusted by me?”
“Of course not. None of this is your fault. The feelings of shame, disgust, embarrassment, I understand. I carried them with me for so many years. But that all ended the day you saved me and killed my demons. You did what I couldn’t, and you never judged me for it, so why would I judge you?”
I hope he understands that none of this is on him. He was abused, and if my situation can show parallels and help him see that we both fell prey, then losing a piece of my innocence wasn’t in vain. “Were you disgusted by me? When I told you what happened with Kenny?”
His chin snaps up as he shakes his head violently. “No, absolutely not.”
“Then we are one and the same,” I declare as both of our situations were out of our hands.
Something shifts, it’s small, but I see it—the darkness ebbs away, giving way to light. By confessing his sins, he will absolve and forgive himself. “I can still”—he swallows deeply as though he’s tasted something rotten—“feel his touch. Taste his lips. Smell coconuts.”
With the slowest of movements, I place my hand to his cheek. “Replace his touch, his smell, his body with mine.”
He leans into my palm, tears welling as he confesses something which shatters him. “I don’t deserve it. He made it…he made it feel…good.”
