Silent Night (Twisted Holidays)

9. Saint

NINE

SAINT

I’ve given up pretending. Pretending that she’s not crack for me. That she’s more addicting than the gooey Christmas cookies often baked in kitchens like the one down the hall. Eaten in sitting rooms like this one, around a tall, extravagant tree like this one.

Why should I deny myself with what I’ll soon be losing?

She’s not mine. Never will be. I know that, but I’ll be damned if that disgusting stepbrother of hers thinks she’ll be his.

I pull my fingers from her drenched pussy, taking my time in savouring each one before wrapping the same hand around my cock. It’s rock hard with desire and annoyance that I didn’t do this last night. I should have, could have experienced her multiple times already instead of only the one time I’m about to.

I drag my cock back and forth over her core. Her needy whimpers imprint onto my soul, her hips trying to chase my movements to push me inside her.

“I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to leave after this.” A statement made more for her than me. “You ready?”

She flips her hair over her shoulder to face me, nodding. Desire drips from her expression and I anticipate meeting her every need. Keeping her gaze locked to mine, I push inside her. With every inch gained, her eyes roll further into the back of her head until she’s no longer able to keep looking my way. Her breathing grows staggered and her head hangs low, fingers pressing into the hardwood floor by her head.

“Fuck, you take me so good, sweet girl. Your cunt knows exactly what it wants.”

She says nothing, but her low moan tells me she’s heard me.

I keep going until I’m fully seated inside her, hissing as her tight pussy clamps around my cock, making everything else fade away. She’s so tight, it won’t be long.

Her head lifts up, her arms shaking as rapture overcomes her. “Fuck—Saint. You’re—” She breaks off, her back tensing.

Gently, I move, stroking my hands down her spine in a calming manner. “You okay?”

“Yes,” she hisses. “You’re just—fucking thick . I knew that…obviously. But this is—different.”

I roll my hips into her, and she gasps. I grab her ass with one hand, holding her hip with the other as I move, relentless in chasing both our orgasms. Her back arches, seeking the perfect angle, so of course, I want to help. I fist her hair, wrapping the strands around my fist, and wrench her head back, arching her back and making her core tighten.

“You look so damn pretty on your knees for the common thief. You’ve no idea what you’ve done.”

You ruined me. How can I hate on people’s greediness when you’ve made me greedier than anyone?

“What have I…” Her question trails off as a moan takes her.

I slam my hips into her again, using her hair to pull her back onto my cock. In and out, my hips and grip working in tandem, playing her body for my own needs. For my greediness.

“You’ve given me a taste, sweet girl. How does one eat anything else after tasting something so divine? ”

And my god, she is divine. If I don’t break her by the end of this, I have to taste her one more time.

“They don’t,” she whispers, and I pretend not to have heard her. It’s a daring offer from a girl as good-natured and innocent as she is. Her last day in town is in two days, and once she wakes in her own bed on the twenty-eighth, she’ll understand that me leaving was my gift to her and why it was the best thing I could have ever done.

“God, you feel so fucking right.” I thrust into her, keeping my movements paced and dragging out the pleasure. I feel every inch of her as I move in and out. Every little nerve jumping in response. “I like you like this. On your knees, your face lit up by the tree’s lights. I get what people now mean when they talk about Christmas cheer.”

“Saint—harder.”

Harder? She wants harder . For fuck’s sake, she’s going to kill me.

How I can deny her such a request when I have nothing else I’m able to gift her? This is all I’ll ever be able to give her. As the villain in the night, sneaking through her house, fucking the house’s mistress on her hands and knees like a regular whore.

She’s not a regular whore though. She’s mine. All fucking mine .

At least for now.

Before my thoughts linger too long on that, with the grip I have in her hair and my other hand reaching out to flatten against her stomach, I straighten her onto her knees so her back is to my chest, her neck bared for the taking. I use her hair to keep her against me.

When I thrust again, it’s with my face in her neck, breathing in her delicious scent. She smells faintly like sweat and me, and I hope she never washes it off, even when it’s a fantastical thought that’ll never come to pass. Of course, she’ll shower, and once she wakes in her actual home, she’ll be thankful she’s gotten rid of every trace of me.

“You’re too good to be down there,” I growl into her skin. “I want you here, watching the tree with me like we’re some sort of happy ending. ”

She cries out, her pussy clamping. Her eyes slide shut but with a gentle tap to her cheek, I wake her up.

“Eyes open. I want you here with me.”

“As if there’d be anywhere else,” she whispers, locking her eyes onto the tree.

My thrusts speed up, the compelling urge to come so overwhelming. It won’t be long now, but damn, I want it to be. I want to drag this out for as long as I can. All night ideally. So long as I don’t have to let her go.

“Please tell me you’re on birth control.”

“Yes, and I’m safe.”

“Thank fuck.”

I thrust harder, and when I come, it’s with my hand on her hip and the other on her throat, my teeth in her neck, and my heart in her hand. I come with a growl, an imprint to her insides for every fucker she allows inside her in the future.

My next statement—my vow—I say into her neck, stamping it there so anyone she allows around her will feel it for themselves.

“If anyone , your stepbrother or otherwise, even considers harming you, I’ll hunt them the fuck down, Hayley. I don’t care if I have to travel from one end of the country to you, I’ll always protect you. Even though I can’t keep you, you’re mine now, and I protect what little I can call mine.”

Another woman would have run away from me right then and there, finally understanding the dangers in having a criminal in her life. Someone who doesn’t attend a fancy school, or have major career aspirations like she does. But not Hayley.

She twists in my arms and my cock slips out of her. She stares at me, her mouth parting to speak, but anything she’ll say will make it worse, so I kiss her instead. Closed mouth, and sweeter than I’m usually capable while my hands trail up her sides, over her breasts, and back down to her pussy, dripping with my cum.

Then I hold her. Hold her, enjoy her .

After a couple minutes, Hayley pulls out of my arms and settles beside me, her back to my chest. She’s staring past the tree and out the window, where snow is beginning to fall again. A picture-perfect holiday—and the best birthday celebration I’ve ever gotten. The only one, really.

“Why do you move around so much?” she asks suddenly. “Could you not stay in one place for a while?”

“Not with the stealing. I always worry it’ll get traced back to me.”

“Don’t steal,” she says like it’s so simple. She doesn’t understand how stealing things provides an instant payday greater than any job I’d manage to get.

I ignore that comment and return to her other one. “Habit, I think. I was kicked out of every foster home I’ve ever been in, and settling in one place became a strange concept. No town I stopped in ever felt right enough to make it permanent so I kept going. Keep going. I guess I’m looking for somewhere suitable enough to call home but haven’t found it yet.”

“If you do find it, would you stop moving around?” Her question has a strange edge to it.

“I’ll never find it, so it’s a pointless question.” My answer is also a lie because I’ve already found it.

Hayley turns slightly, settling against my chest, and I wrap my arm around her back, almost cradling her. She pets my chest, staring at her hand instead of me. “That’s really sad, Saint. I’m sorry for your childhood.”

I don’t respond. Can’t respond. Just stare mutely at the tree and pretend this little woman isn’t breaking me piece by piece.

After a moment, she follows my gaze and her eyes lock on the presents beneath the tree. When her head rolls back to look at me upside down, I suspect her question before she asks it. “What’d you do with the ones I gave you?”

“Pawned the jewellery for cash. Kept the phone. ”

“Oh? Why?”

“Not sure.” It’s not something I really want to dissect right now either. My gaze lands on the nearest present, with a tag marked From Dean. Presumably her stepfather.

She notices me watching but incorrectly guesses what’s in my head. “You can take it if you’d like. It’s a gift to my mom. Not like she needs more junk.”

If I was smart, I’d take her up on her offer. Hell, if I was really smart, I’d send her on her way to get cleaned up and clear everything out from beneath the tree. But I’d already gotten what I came for, and taking anything more right after fucking her feels…wrong. I don’t have many morals but cheapening sex with the only woman to make my heart skip a beat isn’t how I want this to end.

“It’s fine. Is Dean your stepdad?” She nods, and I add, “Do you like him?”

“He’s alright,” she replies with a shrug against my chest. “He’s nice, but I’m tired of my mom hopping between husbands.”

Her comment reminds me of our first meeting four years ago, when her parents followed her out of the house. I always wondered what caused the drama, but was also very grateful for the reason. Either way, back then, they were still together, which means Hayley’s had plenty of family turmoil in the past few years.

“What happened between your parents?”

“Mom cheated on him with the man who later became my first stepfather. The day I met you, the fight you saw, it was because a text on Mom’s phone revealed what she’d been doing behind my dad’s back. It led into a massive argument—rightly so…but all I wanted was for them to stop. To have a Christmas full of cheer and all that. They wouldn’t stop yelling so I took off.” She smirks up at me. “I didn’t have great emotional regulation back then. Anyway, by New Year’s, a divorce settlement was signed. By the following June, Mom remarried, and Dad took off to tour the world in a midlife crisis or something. That marriage lasted a year before Mom decided he wasn’t financially well-off enough, and then got with Dean.” She snorts, shaking her head. “And when I say stable, I mean uber rich.” She waves her hand to the room. “It’s a bit much, isn’t it? Mom is, and yes I’ll say this about my own mother, a gold-digger.”

So much about Hayley’s personality just came out within that speech. So much a part of me knew from night one, but didn’t totally understand it either. “That isn’t who you are.”

“My goal is to be stable enough in my career to afford life because unfortunately, money is how the world turns. Beyond that, I don’t really care. I don’t want to be like her.”

“Chasing money?”

She sighs. “That…and everything else. She cheated on Dad, and I never forgave her for ruining our family. I haven’t had a good Christmas since I was seventeen. Honestly, there’s so much, but I’d be here all night.”

I could easily listen to her recount everything of her childhood to me, all night long. Hell, I want it—to know everything there is about her. But I respect why she doesn’t want to go down that path.

I consider her words. How, for a long time, my wish was to have a family, but Hayley, in that single story, has proved having a home like the one we’re in, a family like what she has, isn’t always the happy ending we like to think it is. People have secrets and shit backgrounds.

“This has been the best Christmas in a long time,” she murmurs suddenly, and my chest warms.

“I’m glad, Hayley.” I rub a palm down her arm, revelling in being able to touch her so freely. “For me too.” It’s been my only good holiday. The only birthday I’ve been content to be alive for. “If you could wish for anything in the world, what would it be?”

She’s silent for a while, almost to the point I think she’s ignoring me. Finally, her answer comes in the quietest voice I’ve heard from her yet. “I don’t know. ”

A part of me is thrilled to hear her say that

Another part of me is fucking terrified.

I need to get out of here before I take one more item from this house.

Her.