Page 16 of Obsession
Logistics erupt through the room again, everyone talking over each other but my eyes are now on Saint, the man’s gaze firmly fixed on me. I hold my breath as he reaches over, his hand settling on the back of my neck.
I go completely still.
His palm is warm and heavy, fingers spreading beneath my curls, thumb resting just behind my ear. It isn’t a caress. It’s too firm for that, too claiming, too public. He doesn’t squeeze hard, but the touch turns my spine into a live wire, and the worst part is how quickly my body understands the instruction inside it.
Move.
Shame burns up my throat as Saint steers me toward the door with that hand at my nape, guiding rather than dragging, which somehow feels worse because I obey so easily.
Canon’s voice cuts through the conversation. “Where are you—”
“He’s with me now,” Saint says without turning around.
Canon’s voice lowers. “Careful, Masters.”
Saint’s hand tightens by a fraction, and I hate myself for the way my breath catches. Neither man speaks again, two clubs watching me walk out under Saint’s hand.
The hallway outside the meeting room is cooler, quieter. My heartbeat fills the space between my ears. His thumb shifts once against the sensitive place under my hairline, and I nearly trip over my own feet.
Saint catches me without looking down. “Easy.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound in the hallway where anyone could hear. I don’t understand myself. I don’t understand how I can be this angry, this frightened, this humiliated, and still feel my body softening under the exact hand that just dragged me into a new kind of hell.
Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it isn’t him. Maybe it’s just the shock of leaving the Rogues, the awful relief of being pulled away from Canon’s disappointment even if the thing doing the pulling is just another monster with better timing. Maybe Saint feels like escape only because I haven’t had enough distance to see the shape of the cage yet.
Or maybe I’m sick for wanting his touch when I should want nothing but distance.
Saint leads me through a side door into the lot behind the clubhouse. The night air is cold enough to sting, and I pull in a breath that tastes like rain, exhaust, and damp asphalt. Bikes line the far wall under security lights. Beyond them, several bikes are idling with Obsidian men posted near each one.
Saint guides me toward his bike and throws a leg over the seat. “Climb on.”
I stop just the edge of the front tire. “My things.”
“You’ll get them.”
“My apartment—”
“You’ll get what you need.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Saint snorts. “It’s the only one I’m giving you in a parking lot full of men who are waiting to see whether Canon’s son knows how to obey.”
Humiliation flares in my chest again. “I’m not a dog.”
“No,” he says, gesturing for me to climb on behind him. “Dogs get praised for loyalty.”
I do so silently as he waits until my arms around his waist. He smells like leather, smoke, and something uniquely, which is a problem because my memory recognizes that too. He grabs a helmet from the handlebars and hands it back to me, waiting another beat before starting the engine. Some part of me wants to ridicule him and every member for not wearing helmets, that it’s just me but I clamp my mouth shut. Then, the bike pulls outof the lot behind the first bike, headlights cutting through the damp dark.
For the first few minutes, it’s just silence. The city slides by in smeared gold and black as rainwater streaks my helmet in thin, trembling lines. I keep my hands folded tightly around his waist to hide the shaking, though I’m sure he can feel it. Saint rides with one hand, his posture relaxed, his other arm resting over mine like he hasn’t just detonated two clubs and walked away with the fallout sitting on his bike.
I stare off to the side as my mind keeps trying to assemble a plan, but every thought collapses under the weight of what just happened. I’m married, or close enough that the difference feels irrelevant.
And Saint is real.
That might be the strangest horror of all. The stranger from the club belonged to darkness, to anonymity, to a version of myself that could exist for one night and be buried afterward. Saint Solomon Masters belongs to daylight and contracts and empires built on expensive poison. I’d spent almost a week missing a man who didn’t exist outside memory, and now he’s driving me away from everything I know.
Saint’s voice breaks the silence the moment we skid into the parking lot of Obsidian. “Did Canon send you?” He waits for me to climb and then follows, helping me out of my helmet.
