Tainted Kiss (Tainted Knights 1)

As the night went on and Santana had a few beers, she became more comfortable with everyone. She laughed easily with them and wasn’t as shy about joining in their conversations. I loved that she was enjoying herself.

Fuck, she was so beautiful. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Or my hands that were still on her body. Without even realizing it, my fingers were constantly rubbing over her skin, making her shiver in a way that told me she enjoyed the way I touched her.

When I wasn’t torturing myself with how soft her skin was, I watched how she was with my friends. She was laughing and joking around like she had known them as long as I had. However, whenever her phone went off, she would lose some of the brightness in her eyes. After about the sixth time she glanced down at it, she rolled her eyes and turned the phone off.

“Problem?” I asked in her ear, not wanting to bring attention to her in case whatever it was embarrassed her.

She stuffed her phone in her clutch and zipped it closed. “Sage is mad at me.”

I tensed, somehow knowing it was because of her roommate’s boyfriend. “Was he there when I picked you up?”

She shrugged, but I could see the answer in her dark eyes. Thank fuck she couldn’t hide anything from me, even if she wanted to.

“Did he say something inappropriate to you?”

“We argued,” she said. I could already read her well enough to know she was downplaying it. “We can’t be in the same room for longer than two minutes without throwing abuse at each other.”

“What did he say?” I bit out through clenched teeth, trying to hold on to my anger.

I could tell by the way her shoulders had tensed up at the first text she had gotten that whatever had gone down hadn’t been pretty. The fact that she hadn’t really answered my question about the fucker saying something inappropriate hadn’t slipped past my attention, either, as I was sure she had hoped. I hadn’t even met the sonofabitch, and I already wanted to beat the shit out of him.

“Santana,” I gritted out when she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to answer me. “What did he say to you?”

She blew out a huff in exasperation. “He might have commented on my pussy.”

A red haze fell over my eyes. I almost didn’t hear the rest of it as she told me what had happened before I had arrived.

That piece of shit had said those things to my doll? Fuck no. I wasn’t going to just sit back and let that shit continue, especially since I was going to be gone for nine damn weeks. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the music if I was worried about her being in the same apartment where that cunt monkey could show up any time he wanted.

“He came at you? Would he have hit you?” I was about to explode. The thought of Santana in danger twisted something inside of me in a way that had a voice in my head screaming, Kill that motherfucker!

“It’s not the first time he’s tried to get in my face,” she admitted after a small hesitation. “It’s nothing, though. Wade doesn’t have the balls to actually touch me. He’s just a little pussy.”

She said it with confidence, but she couldn’t hide the small flash of doubt in her brown eyes. She wasn’t nearly as sure as her words proclaimed, and that shit had my fists clenching as I imagined my hands wrapping around his throat.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Kassa had squeezed herself onto the couch between me and Gray. Her back was pressed against his side and his arm was slung over her shoulder casually. She had been unapologetically listening to our conversation, but now she was jumping right into the middle of it. “This guy talked to you like that? Got in your face? No fucking way. You can’t let that prick treat you like that. And this is your roommate’s boyfriend?”

Pink filled Santana’s cheeks again. “Yes.”

“And she let him treat you like that?” Her blue eyes were wide as saucers. She lowered her voice. “Does he treat her like that, too?”

My doll grimaced. “All the time. When I step in, she gets mad because he leaves, and she thinks he will break up with her. I’ve been trying for two years to get her away from him, but she just won’t open her eyes.”

Kassa reached out and took Santana’s hand. “Babe, you shouldn’t be around that kind of guy. Like, seriously, he could hurt you. And her. If she can’t see that, that’s on her. You need to get away from them both. Maybe if you moved out, she would finally see what she’s losing by keeping him around.”

Santana seemed to chew that over for a few moments while she nibbled on her bottom lip. “I’ve been thinking of moving out for a few months now, but Sage needs me. She’s always battled depression, and I’m afraid that, if I move out, she will fall into a black hole or something worse. Wade wouldn’t even think about helping her, and there’s no telling what could happen.”

“Look, I barely know you,” Kassa said in a gentle tone, “but I like what I do know so far. You’re a good person. I can see that clear as day. But this guy is bad news, and you have to get away from him.”

“I …”

Kassa and I could both see she was going to argue, so Kas pulled the other chicks into the conversation. Within seconds of getting the major details, they were all trying to convince her to move out, with Jace and Harris backing them up.

“We have a spare room,” Angie spoke up, looking over at Kin who nodded her head in agreement. “You could move in with us.”

“That’s so nice of you,” Santana started, “but—”

“I have an extra room, too,” Jenna offered. “I own the damn place now that Harris has his own apartment. You could take the room rent free on a trial basis. And as good as Angie’s offe