Saint tutted irritably as he stepped forward to say goodbye to her last, but he didn’t try and hug or kiss her. Instead, he trailed his fingers through her long hair, positioning it carefully and straightening her dress with a critical eye. She pouted through it but he didn’t seem to care, he even tugged the tie holding her dress together open before knotting it again carefully so that it hung perfectly.
When he was finished, he stepped back, his eyes lighting hungrily as he took her in.
“Beautiful,” he announced and though I agreed with him, I didn’t like the tone of his voice. Like he was claiming some responsibility for her looking that way.
“Look after our girl tonight, Nash,” Blake warned as he swept towards the door.
“We’re trusting you,” Saint added, making it sound like a threat.
“Nothing will happen to her while she’s with me,” I said darkly. If there was one thing we could all agree on, it was that. Tatum Rivers was worth killing for. She was definitely worth protecting. I just intended on protecting her from them too.
The Night Keepers left and I moved to lock the door behind them for good measure. It was already dark out so I’d drawn the blinds before they arrived and I was suddenly very alone with Tatum in a very quiet house.
“This is weird,” she admitted, breaking the silence.
“You’ve got that right,” I muttered, running a hand over the back of my neck. The tattoo Kyan had given me was still sore, but I’d looked at it in the mirror and most of the redness had gone down. I didn’t even hate it. I had to admit he knew how to create art even though he was generally more suited to destroying things.
I moved towards Tatum slowly and reached out to grab a can of beer from the counter beside her. The moment I lifted the ring pull, the whole thing exploded and I cursed as I was drenched, tossing it into the sink as Tatum laughed, scrambling away from me to avoid the worst of it.
Fucking Saint!
I yanked my saturated shirt off and used the back of it to wipe the drink from my face as the beer continued to bubble out of the can and down the drain in the sink.
“Well, at least it’s not awkward now,” Tatum joked. “I’m in my teacher’s house and he’s just started stripping for me.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I cursed, turning to look at her with a snort of laughter. “This whole thing is so fucked up.”
“At least we have an excuse to hang out alone regularly and talk cunning plans,” she said.
“We already had that with kickboxing,” I pointed out.
“Well, this way I can focus more on my training then and save our diabolical schemes for our sleepovers.”
“Great, now I’m a thirteen year old girl.” I rolled my eyes at the situation and glanced towards the bathroom. “I need to have a shower and wash this beer off of me. You can just make yourself comfortable. You can have the bed tonight anyway so if you just wanna sleep you can. I’ll take the couch.”
“Do you wanna pick out my sleeping stuff so I can get changed?” she asked, fiddling with the knot on her dress.
“I don’t give a fuck, just pick whatever.”
“Great.” She grinned at me like she really appreciated being left to make her own clothing choices and I fought the urge to start ranting about Saint Memphis and his crazy control issues. “But…Saint will ask about it and it’s technically a rule break on my part if you haven’t picked it. You should probably at least look at the options so you can tell him what you thought of them.”
“Fine.” I gave in, deciding to just give the stuff a cursory glance as I strode over to the coffee table and opened her bag, tugging out a fistful of silk and lace.
I swallowed thickly. They were all skimpy, clearly very expensive bits of lingerie. I guessed technically they were night dresses, but they were seriously lacking substance. Half of them were transparent. Scratch that, all of them were transparent, particularly over the breasts.
“I…you can’t wear one of these,” I forced out. My dick could not cope with her in that. I’d fucking combust. Nope. No. No fucking way.
Tatum laughed like she’d read my mind and I really hoped she hadn’t. “Kyan prefers me to sleep in his shirts,” she suggested.
“Yes,” I agreed instantly. “That. I’ll get one.”
I dropped the lacy shit and tried not to think about Saint sleeping in a bed with her dressed that way as I headed into my bedroom, finding a plaid button down that I never wore. It was big on me so it would swamp her. Not attractive at all. Perfect.
I tossed her the shirt and she smiled as she caught it.
I headed to the bathroom and quickly showered, washing the beer off of my skin and out of my hair before dressing in grey sweatpants and a white wifebeater.
When I returned to the front room, I found her waiting for me, dressed in my shirt with her long hair tied in a messy knot on top of her head while she sat on the couch before the fire. Her bronzed legs were bare and her pedicured toes balanced on the edge of the table, I stared at the exposed flesh for too long, wondering if grabbing her a pair of sweatpants would be too obvious. But it probably was, so I couldn’t say anything about it.
Her attention was on her school diary in her lap, but she glanced up with a slight smile as I entered before looking back down at it.
I grabbed a couple of cans of coke from the fridge and tossed a pizza into the oven while
