Page 89 of Broken Saint
“That good, huh?” I ask, rubbing my jaw, the butterflies in my stomach rioting.
“Better,” she promises, her smile widening.
“Jesus.”
Opening the door wider, she allows me to step past her.
“Where is she then?”
“Out on the deck. She doesn’t know you’re here yet. Come on,” she says, wrapping her fingers around my forearm, dragging me along as if I don’t know their house almost as well as they do.
“This really isn’t necess—” My words cut off the second we round the corner and I’m able to see my girl past their open slider. “Fuck me.”
“Told you,” Letty says smugly.
Her blonde hair is mostly pinned up in a messy kind of style. There are a few locks left blowing in the breeze that call to me before my eyes drop down her body.
She’s wearing a Saints-blue dress that hugs her new curves to perfection.
My mouth waters and my cock swells.
It’s got a low back, showcasing her flawless, pale skin. It blows my mind that she’s just lived through a Texan summer yet there is no hint of a tan on her. Has she really kept herself locked away from the world that much?
The hem is short—short enough that I know she’s going to be feeling self-conscious about her scars. She has no reason to. They’re as beautiful as the rest of her. They’re just evidence of what I’ve always known. Ella Myers is strong and fierce, and everything every other woman on the planet should want to be.
I follow her bare legs all the way down to the shoes. And it’s those that make my chin drop.
“Gonna look good wrapped around your waist later, right?” Letty says, slapping my back like she’s one of the guys and heading for the kitchen. “El, your prince is here,” she calls, making Ella still.
Time seems to stop, although tension crackles between us even before she turns around.
Her shoulders lift as she sucks in a huge breath, and slowly, so fucking slowly, she finally turns around.
I almost choke on my own spit at the sight of the front of her. It’s unbelievable and only goes to prove that my imagination over the past few years has been shit.
When I’ve thought of her, I’ve always pictured the Ella I knew, the sassy little thing who used to bounce around campus with more energy than one person should be able to possess. But while that energy might be hiding, the woman staring back at me is so much more than that girl used to be.
And I want her even more fiercely than I did back then. I want to peel back the layers of armor she’s wrapped herself in and help her rediscover that fiery bombshell I fell for all those years ago.
I don’t notice that she’s got her eyes downcast until I make it back up to her head.
“El,” I growl, hating that she’s hiding from me.
She sucks in another breath, one that I assume is full of strength, because when she lifts her head, her eyes are sparkling with excitement.
My breath catches at the way they glitter under the last of the day’s sun, and my heart lurches in my chest.
“Ella,” I muse, my legs carrying me forward before my brain has registered I’m moving. “Fuck. You look…You look unbelievable.”
The second I’m in touching distance, I reach out, cup her cheeks in my hands, and slam my lips down on her red-stained ones.
And the moment hers part to let me in, everything seems to slot right into place. The chaos in my head settles and my fears ebb away.
This is what my life has been missing.
My girl.
My Ella.