Lucas snorts.
“They won’t be expecting you. Alec gave me the passcode to your phone for fifty bucks and a girl’s number I know. It was a steal.” He holds it up, wiggling it. “You just texted your mom to not worry about you. You’re hanging out with a friend.” He tucks it in his pocket and tips a sly look at me. “She said have fun. She seems sweet.”
My stomach sinks.
“Were you also the one who let the air out of my tires?”
He lifts a brow, but doesn’t answer.
I fall back against the seat, unclasping my legs and stretching out the stiffness from holding my entire body ready for attack at a moment’s notice. A small sound gets caught in the back of my throat as I stretch. Lucas watches me, shifting into a more relaxed position with one hand on the wheel. He rubs his fingers over his mouth as his gaze flicks over me, then back on the road.
“Fuck, you really do look good like that. It’s getting me hard.”
“You’re sick and insane.”
He snorts and drops his hand on my thigh, squeezing it. I try to kick him off and scoot closer to the window. The searing rage rises again.
“I can’t believe you! You don’t even think, you just keep doing whatever you want like there are no consequences to face! I could file assault charges against you for this!”
Lucas reaches for my thigh again, easily capturing it when I only have so far to go. He traces a circle on the inside of my knee. My effort to throw him off is fruitless.
Lucas lets out a sinister, pleased laugh and spreads his hand over my bare skin, always taking and taking and taking.
“It won’t stick. My dad’s a lawyer and this town loves me.”
“Loves you? How could they! You’re fucking crazy—you go around kidnapping and tying up girls for your own messed up amusement!” A ragged sound leaves me and tears fall from my lashes. “I need to file a damn restraining order against you so you stay the hell away from me once and for all.”
He mulls that over for a few minutes, his jaw working. I sniffle and bring my restricted hands up to awkwardly wipe my face. I make sure he’s paying attention when I smear the snot on his center console. His lip curls.
After a few minutes of caustic silence, the debilitating fear that gripped me ebbs away. Lucas still might hurt me and make me miserable, but he’s not going to rape me and chop my body up in tiny pieces to scatter through the mountain range.
Well.
I hope.
He’s an asshole, but my instincts are relaxing. The only thing left is anger rather than true terror. That has to count for something.
“Why don’t you switch schools? There’s two others in the district.”
My teeth gnash as I sort out how to answer that.
“Why should I have to? Maybe you should quit your little mind games. I’m clearly not giving in.”
“Yeah, clearly.” Lucas grumbles something and squints at me. “Why can’t you just give in?”
“That’s not me.” I lift my chin in defiance. “You don’t get my surrender.”
He hums and goes back to tracing patterns on the inside of my thigh. This time I don’t bother trying to divert him. I catch glimpses of the last colors of the sunset as the car climbs higher in elevation. I don’t know where Lucas plans to take me.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. Just sit there and look pretty.”
My gaze narrows and my brows pinch together. “Fuck you.”
Lucas purses his lips, then licks them. “I wouldn’t say no.”
“Ugh!”
Fed up with him, I wriggle around until my body is turned away. I glare in silence out the window, ignoring him.
Lucas lets out a raspy chuckle and drums his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of a song I like on the radio.
Gritting my teeth, I focus on the lights flickering on in the valley below.
* * *
It’s fully dark when I jolt awake.
My neck is slightly cramped from sleeping propped against the cold window. I wince and blink, trying to get my bearings. The car has finally stopped.
I can’t believe I fell asleep listening to Lucas sing along to the radio as he coasted around winding mountain roads.
“Where are we?”
My voice is groggy. My hands are no longer bound. I rub my wrists, my thumb tracing the slight indentation from the plastic.
Lucas reaches over and strokes my head. I’m too tired to push his hand away. I have no idea what time it is.
“This is my secret lair.” He gives my hair a light tug. “It’s where I’m going to trap you forever as my prisoner.”
I shoot him a poisonous look. I wait a beat, then swipe for him. He snorts as he lurches back to his side of the car.
Lucas hops out of the Jeep and grabs something from the back. I find the door unlocked and slide down.
It’s my house. He took me home.
He knows where I live?
I wave off the thought, worrying my lip with my teeth as I hug myself. Not only did he bring me home, the CR-V is in the driveway. The tires look good as new.
I swallow as Lucas comes around to my side of the car. I gesture at my CR-V. “How?”
Lucas hitches a shoulder. He hands his bundle to me—my bag. My phone sticks out from the side pocket.
“Alec and Devlin took care of it after I executed my prank.”
I grant Lucas a suspicious look and take out my phone to inspect it for damage after that fall in the parking lot. He didn’t have time to go through it in the midst of kidnapping me and he didn’t text and drive. I make a mental note to change my passcode and make it something Alec won’t guess. There’s some gravel wedged in the lip of my case and a smudge of dirt on the screen, but it seems okay.
At least, until I unlock it and it opens to a text conversation with a new contact—Lucas. My teeth clench so hard that I go lightheaded for a second.
Gemma: Gemma Turner is Lucas Saint’s property. [Kissing face emoji] [Peach emoji]
Lucas: And don’t you forget it baby. [Black heart emoji] [Eggplant emoji]
Fucking bastard. There’s also a photo sent from my phone. I tap on it to see it full size. My stomach bottoms out.
It shows me sitting in the Jeep, blindfolded by a Silver Lake High Coyotes t-shirt wrapped around my head and my wrists restrained by the zip tie. The flash gives the picture an illicit quality, casting me in harsh contrasting light, the shadows made darker, where sinister thoughts lurk.
In my school uniform and leather jacket I look like something naughty and forbidden with the skirt riding up like that, exposing more of my bare thighs.
Heat floods my face, prickling across my skin and throbbing in my ears.
I rip my gaze away from the incriminating photo to find Lucas watching me with an intense expression. He wants a reaction.
If he spreads this photo around the school, I’ll kill him.
God, if my parents see this photo, I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do.
The front door opens before I formulate a scathing response to the final prong of Lucas’ elaborate prank. We turn and my mom comes out, bundled in a puffy jacket and teal scrubs.
“Hi kids,” she greets with a cheerful smile.
I press my phone to my chest to hide it from her. My heart thumps. Lucas guides me up the driveway with his hand at the small of my back.
“Hey, Mom.” I curse at the quaver in my voice. Maybe she won’t notice. “Um, sorry I’m home so late. I, uh—”
“Did you enjoy your dinner date?” Mom asks. “Alec said not to expect you for dinner.”
I falter, tripping when my boot catches on my ankle. Lucas said he texted her from my phone that I was hanging out with a friend. Lucas wraps his arm around my waist, steadying me.
“Careful, sweetheart.”
The smarmy amusement in his voice rakes across my irritation threshold.
Lucas shakes my mom’s hand when she offers it
to him.
“We had a great time, Mrs. Turner. Thanks for letting me take her out on a school night.”
Lucas turns on the charm that has everyone calling him the golden Saint. I glance between them with my brows raised high. He rubs my arm, like he’s trying to caress me and keep me warm from the biting chill in the air. Then he drops a chaste kiss on my temple—right in front of my mom—and pinches me when I turn into an ice sculpture, stiff and brittle.
Lucas murmurs against the side of my face, “Didn’t we enjoy ourselves, Gemma?”
He terrorized me all night, kept me at his mercy, and, with the help of my brother as his accomplice, had my parents believing he took me on a date?
That. Fucking. Asshole.
Fuming, I leave Lucas in the dust and go inside without saying anything when his deep voice calls after me.
Lucas Saint fights dirty. I’m going to have to sink to his level to fight back.
Eleven
Lucas
Lancelot circles my legs as I head upstairs after dinner.
He gets underfoot and I almost trip. I hoist the chubby pug into my arms, snorting at his bug-eyed fruitless wriggling.
“Easy, buddy boy,” I soothe, giving his belly scritches. He warbles happily, stretching in my arms. “Right there? Hah, yeah, you’re a good boy.”
I let him down outside my room.
There are no responses to the teasing texts I sent Gemma. I pull up the photo of her tied up again. The swirling obsession is shifting, growing as I fixate on the photo, taking in her thighs and bound hands.
The success of kidnapping her burns fresh and hot in my gut, signaling a shadow that lives inside me. The thrill of besting her as I wrangled her into my Jeep is addictive. I want to do it again.
In a way, it’s better Gemma didn’t roll over and take it when I demanded she fall in line, like other girls might. The challenge of going after her will make her submissions that much sweeter when I break her.
For now, I push Gemma out of my head.
A stack of new sketchbooks sits on my desk beside a strategy playbook. I grab the top one and flop onto my bed. Lancelot jumps up with a grunt and settles at the foot of the bed.
Sticking headphones in and starting up a chilled out playlist, I lose myself to sketching. I start with a few drills to warm up, then make up building designs.
Drawing after school relaxes me. It’s my favorite way to unwind at the end of the day, just me and a sketchpad and my dog.
If it were up to me, I’d quit football in a heartbeat to have more time to practice. I only got into it recently, so my lines aren’t up to snuff yet. A YouTube artist I follow calls it mileage. The videos I watch online feature artists that are years ahead of me, people that knew what they wanted back when I still enjoyed football because it was a fun way to hang out with my friends.
The shelves in my room are packed with trophies from every year since I was in little league, barely able to throw the ball.
I’m stuck in the sport. At this point, it feels like everyone expects me to dream about going pro.
Over the summer, I hinted that I was thinking about quitting the team. I had no desire to play varsity, didn’t care about being the quarterback, and was the wrong choice for team captain. My parents didn’t pick up on my hints.
Whenever I bring up quitting, they tell me I should stick it out because I’ve played for ten years.
It’s important to see commitments through.
Mom had ruffled my hair and handed me my freshly cleaned jersey. Dad was proud of me for my achievements. When I asked what happened if I had other aspirations, Dad missed my point entirely. He’d said as the team captain, my friends relied on me.
I didn’t ask to play football forever. My parents tossed me in every sport they could when I was a kid. Football stuck because it was where my friends were.
So what if I’m good at it?
I have other plans for my life. Ones I don’t want to shove aside because I have a talent for throwing a ball. It’s bullshit.
When Mom knocks on the open door with my jersey, I salute her with my pencil and put the finishing touches on the sick contemporary house I imagined.
“You look so handsome in this jersey,” Mom says as she hangs it on the door, smoothing her hands over the material. “I’ll miss seeing your number 14 after this year.”
Number 14. I always say I’m lucky twice because of my number.
I hum and shrug as inspiration strikes. I zone out as I add a cool walkway.
“Dad put some brochures on the table for you downstairs.” Mom perches on the bottom of the bed and pets Lancelot. He rolls onto his back and paws at her to keep going. “He said he could take a Friday off so the two of you could go visit campuses.”
I sigh and tug an earbud free. “Let me guess. Colorado State, Utah, and Washington?”
Mom smiles and nods.
Of course. All schools with nationally ranked football programs. One of them Dad’s alma mater.
I don’t tell her about the bookmark on my laptop for Oak Ridge College. Or the brochure in my glove box. Or the filled-in application hidden in the bottom drawer of my desk.
My grip tightens on the sketchpad in my hands. Mom hasn’t ever asked to see what I’m drawing, even though it’s all I do in my free time around the house anymore. I’ve practically lived on the back deck and the dock filling up sketchbooks with my newfound hunger to learn.
It’s like a drug, discovering I’m skilled at more than football.
It’ll open the doors to my dreams.
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll talk to Dad about it.”
Mom gives me a kiss on the head, ruffling my hair like I’m still a kid.
“I can’t believe next year you’ll be in college.”
I shrug, helpless for how to react when she gets like this. Mom leaves and I stick my earbud back in, turning the music up. I flip to a clean page and start a new drawing.
They won’t let me quit the team. If it makes them happy, I’ll finish the year. But I’m doing college on my terms.
It’s been a hard lesson that I can’t have everything I want. But I’ll snatch anything I can take without a second thought. It’s the only way I exert some sense of control in my life.
Twelve
Gemma
After Lucas’ little kidnapping prank, he leaves me alone other than texting me.
It seems most of the student body has grown bored with me, too. The relentless tide of their ire follows the whims of Lucas’ mysterious ceasefire.
It has me on edge. A couple of weeks pass and nothing happens. I wait for Lucas and the goons that follow him around every corner, tensing when our paths cross.
Last weekend I was in town taking photos. I ran into him unintentionally. He sat outside a coffee shop with a small sketchbook open on the table. He had sunglasses on and his head was bent over his drawing. When I first spotted him I thought I could slip away unnoticed, but the next time my gaze skirted in his direction he was gone.
Then he snatched me around the waist, capturing me once more. My usual reaction was quelled when he growled in my ear not to make a scene or he’d make my brother’s life hell next. That shut me up quickly.
To onlookers, Lucas seemed like he was being sweet on me. In reality, he whispered such filthy things in my ear as he trailed his hands over me that my face turned beet red. I was powerless against the heat of unwanted desire coiling around me like a rope. Lucas kissed me on the cheek and grazed the waistband of my jeans. Then he was gone and I was alone.
He can come after me all he wants, but I’ll be damned if he ruins anyone else’s life because he wants to get to me.
Lucas is an inescapable force of control and power. The people in this town light up when he’s around. Am I getting pulled into the orbit fooling them all?
* * *
I trudge back to class from my bathroom break in a funk.
My head has been such a mess since last weekend that I can’t pay a
ttention to Mrs. Ellis drone on about math. She doesn’t pause as I enter the room and return to my seat behind Elena, the girl who latched onto me at Lucas’ birthday party at the beginning of school.
My eyelids grow heavy and I hunch over my notes. Hushed whispers and a stray titter catches the edge of my attention, but I ignore it. A nap sounds fabulous right now. If I just rest my eyes for a few minutes, all will be right in the world.
“Work on the equations on the board for the rest of the period and pass your homework forward,” Mrs. Ellis announces as she finishes up the lesson.
Chatter breaks out amongst my classmates as the rows collect worksheets.
Elena twists in her seat and gives me a knowing look as I surreptitiously wipe the back of my hand over my mouth to check for drool.
“There’s a party after the game this Friday. Think you’ll go?” Elena prompts, holding her hand out for my worksheet.
“No. I don’t even plan to go to the game.”
I bend over to get my homework out, keeping my attention on her. My hand grasps at air and I frown, leaning further. Maybe I kicked my bag in my sleep and scooted it beneath the seat.
A wrinkle appears on Elena’s forehead. “You won’t even go to support Alec and cheer him on?”
“He doesn’t need me to do that kind of stuff. He’s happy enough just to have fun playing.”
I grunt and sit upright before I topple out of my chair and make an ass of myself. When I peer down, my bag isn’t there.
“What the…” I check the other side of my desk. My heart skips a beat. “Um, this might sound weird, but have you seen my bag?”
“Huh?” Elena looks up from her phone. “You had it when you came to class, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, it’s a messenger bag. It’s not here.”
An unpleasant tingle skitters across my nerves as Elena asks a few of the people around us. None of them are as helpful or kind as her.
“Is it a big bag? You girls like those big ass bags,” one guy comments.
Wicked Saint: Sinners and Saints Book 1 Page 7