When Saint Goes Marching In (18 page)

Saint sighed. “I’ll leave. You don’t have to leave your home, Xenia. I’ll get some of my shit and go.”

“No. I don’t want to stay here. Almost everything in here reminds me of you. It would be like living in Hell. I don’t want to see your face, hear your voice or be reminded of you right now. I’ll be at my mama’s house. I’m not going to a hotel because I don’t want the boys to think anything is wrong just yet. I’ll just tell them that we are on a mini-vacation and we are going to spend some time with their Nana. Of course, I won’t keep you from your kids, you can see them whenever you want but as far as you and me, Saint…we’re done. I deserved better than this. You’re a fraud and after something like this, we can’t even be friends.”

Xenia
wiped more tears from her eyes as she stormed past him into her master closet to pack some of her belongings. Saint stood there in disbelief. He looked down at the ground in the darkness, his hands twitching at his sides. Again, his blood felt hot moving through his veins.

He chewed the inside of his mouth to stop himself from begging her to stay. He knew that nothing he said would change the course of things and actually probably make it worse. Instead, he swallowed the pain, refused to cry, withdrew within himself and ate his own hatred for the situation. He wanted to become numb, because his agony was too much for him to bear.

* * *

“She’s at her mama’s house,” Saint said solemnly as he put his head in his hands. He was sitting across from James in the man’s office, his elbows on the expensive Agarwood desk. The grand window behind James allowed large doses of warm sunshine to bathe the entire office.

“When I get to see her, she ignores me and instead just tells our boys their father is at the door and she walks away. I take them out to eat and do stuff together, take them to all the kid movies they want to see, but the whole time I’m thinking about her. Just the three of us all the time now…it doesn’t feel right. She’s so cold towards me, like she doesn’t love me anymore. I try to get myself together, ignore how she treats me when I leave with our children, I smile with them, but it’s all fake. I try to sit there and be cool about it, but every time I look at Hassani, I see the shape of Xenia’s face and her ears. Every time I look at Dakarai, I see Xenia’s nose and pouty bottom lip. I always saw myself in my sons, everyone says they look just like me but funny how when their mother doesn’t want me anymore, I can now see her too.” Saint rubbed his eyes and bit the side of his bottom lip.

“Hassani asked me why I can’t stay with them at Nana’s. I forgot what I even said; I just knew it was a lie. Now I’m lying to my kids, something I said I’d never do. I bring them back to Xenia’s mama’s house and Xenia takes them from me and closes the door in my face like I’m a stranger there trying to sell candy bars or some shit.” Saint grimaced, shut his eyes against the wave of pain that washed over him, and scratched his head. “She’s killing me, James. I feel like I’m dying. My other half is gone. I can’t live with just half of me, anymore. Once you get that completed feeling, you can’t live without it anymore.”

James listened to Saint pouring out his soul. His shrewd gaze showed Saint he felt his sincerity and hurt on his behalf.

“Saint, give her time. I believe you. I don’t think you’d lie to me about something like this. Here is one thing you’re going to have to understand, though.” James took out a cigar and lit it. “When your Queen
believes
you’ve messed around on her, and she sees something like what happened to you, there is
nothing
you can do but keep trying. You told her what happened, she doesn’t believe you,” James said plainly. “Your Queen and your seeds are gone, but not lost. You say she won’t see you. She won’t answer your calls. Now, three weeks later, you see your sons and they’re asking you questions. They are starting to catch on that something isn’t right with their parents. It will affect them if you two don’t settle this soon. Just keep trying, never give up on your family, Saint. Xenia is your soul mate. Always remember that, so give her time and continue to fight for her. If she really is your soul mate, and we know that she is, you two have no choice but to work this out.”

“Yeah, well, honestly I’m emotionally and physically exhausted from all of this. I keep waking up every hour or never going to sleep at all. I’m not alive. I’m just kind of…here. I don’t want to do the upcoming conference, James,” Saint said defiantly. “My heart isn’t in it. I don’t want to talk about protecting the Queens after what I let happen.”

“What do you mean what you let happen, Saint? You did nothing wrong. Your ex-girlfriend drugged you and sexually assaulted you. If you were a woman and she was a man, most would call it rape. You know better than that. You’ve counseled your share of rape victims over the years, you know that this wasn’t you’re doing, surely.”

“I should’ve never walked her to her car.” Saint looked absently out the window as he fidgeted in his chair. “Something in the back of my mind was suspicious, but she seemed so sincere so I second guessed it. If I saw her in person right now, I’m afraid of what I might do to her.” Saint gritted his teeth.

“You’re doing the conference, Saint. Use your pain to help others. Marriage is never a bed of roses every single day. You need to be realistic about this. Do you honestly think my marriage has been perfect? It hasn’t. I never cheated on my Queen, but believe me, I have been accused of such more than once and sometimes I probably flirted too much with other women back in my younger days. Quite frankly, you and Xenia have been on easy street for longer than most. This is your first real major issue that I’m aware of anyway. Look how long it took for something to happen and you can at least rest assured that it wasn’t your fault. You speak from your heart to these men. You need to let everyone know about what undying love is, even in the midst of troubled waters.”

“Troubled waters?” Saint smirked. “More like a monsoon.”

* * *

Saint couldn’t believe his eyes. He stood in the doorway, his thick, luxurious black robe wrapped snuggly around his tanned body. He smiled wearily as he looked down at Xenia’s diminutive frame. The morning sun was still low, glowing softly in the doorway, making her radiate like an angel. For a second, he thought he was dreaming.

Xenia
looked at him closely for the first time in weeks. She probably noticed he hadn’t shaved in at least three or four days. That was unlike him. He was always meticulous about his grooming. She hugged herself tightly, like she did when she was nervous. Her gaze spelled defiance, as though she hated herself for having any sort of reaction to him, after everything she believed he had done.

Saint looked behind her and noticed their sons were not with her. He opened the door wider, not saying anything as he allowed her inside. He closed the door, locked it and looked over at her, circling her like a shark does before the great devour.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he finally uttered as he stopped in front of her. He felt the coolness of the marble underneath his bare feet as he slipped his hands into his robe pockets. “Have my prayers been answered?” he asked.

“Probably not,” Xenia sighed. “Saint, I’m just here for one thing. I miss making love to you. I came here to fuck.”

Xenia
shrugged nonchalantly. She pulled her baseball cap down further and crossed her gray legging covered legs, her arms pressed tightly across her breasts. Her oversized Nike sweatshirt hid her curves, but not her femininity.

Saint crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring her stance, and looked down at her angrily. His eyebrows furrowed as he acted like he gave her proposal some thought. Then he relaxed and smiled, nodded and walked up the steps without saying a word. Xenia followed close behind.

Saint opened up the bedroom door, displaying an orderly room that smelled of bleach and Pine-Sol. He was particular about germs and spent a lot of his time cleaning repeatedly as a stress reliever.

But Xenia would never know how his slight OCD had caused him to wash himself almost raw after the incident with Payton. Saint had stood under the hot shower for almost three hours after Xenia had left with his children to her mother’s house. He scrubbed himself so hard, his skin turned angry red and burned like hell. He’d broken the skin on one area of his arm, and he’d bled to the point that he had to bandage it.

Yet, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t seem to wash the shame and guilt away. He felt filthy, and no water, special soap or cleaning agent was going to change that. For several nights, he could still smell Payton’s once revered perfume, though it was only in his mind. Nevertheless, it caused him to vomit continually throughout the night. Early the next morning he gathered the clothing he had worn the previous night, put it outside in the backyard, and set it on fire. He watched it go all up in flames.

Saint took his time to slide off his robe and fold it over neatly, placing it on the back of a chair in their sitting area of their master suite. He let her see him exposed for her, let her take in what she hadn’t seen or felt in weeks.

Xenia
bit her lip. There was no mistaking the desire in her eyes as she studied his body. He knew though – he knew that she refused to let Saint know that she had been going through withdrawal, actually shaking and sweating in her sleep and experiencing mind bending migraines. Her body craved him like crack, and she hadn’t been without him for that long, ever.

Even after he was shot, he would look at her lying beside him and finger-fuck her every single evening until she had heavenly orgasms that tided her over until he was able to stand again.

Even during her six week healing time frame after she gave birth to their two sons, he’d go down on her, gently fondle her, and massage her to make sure she didn’t feel sexually destitute.

He always left her satisfied, no matter what.

Xenia
quickly removed her hat, exposing flat ironed hair that was pulled back into a long ponytail. She pulled her sweatshirt over her head and flung it on the ground. Her gym shoes, socks and leggings soon followed.

“Where are our sons?” Saint asked as he joined her in the bed.

“My mother is watching them,” she answered as she pulled him beside her and immediately took him into her mouth. Saint’s eyes grew wide with shock.

Why would she want to please me? Shouldn’t this be about her needs?

He soon realized it was. Xenia looked up at him, her eyes narrowed as she sunk her teeth into his rod – dragging her sharp teeth up the shaft in a jagged pattern. Saint winced. He arched his back and clenched his teeth. He brought his knees up abruptly instinctively as her teeth glided across his hard cock once again, repeating the retribution. He grabbed a fistful of sheets, his knuckles tense and white, shut his eyes and braced himself, enduring the punishment she was giving. She looked up at him with an odd expression, as if dissatisfied that she hadn’t broken him. As if saying, “This mothafucka won’t scream. Fuck him.”

He refused to yell out in pain. He knew what she wanted. He braced himself again as he felt her cover his shaft with her mouth. Once more, she scraped his dick from the base of the shaft all the way to the tip, digging deeper and squeezing it with all of her might. Saint’s eyes flew open and he gasped. He rose onto his elbows and looked down at her.

“Xenia, as bad as I want to fuck you, I can’t let you do this to me anymore. Stop it! You came here to just use me, so do it. Don’t cause me physical pain at the same time. You’re trying to make me pay, fine, but I’m not going to holler or beg. Either stop this shit or go back to your mama’s. What’s going on here is bad enough.”

“Don’t cause
you
pain?” she said with a wicked smile. “Now that’s some audacity, Saint. I’ll do what I want to you, how I want to do it! You’re lucky you’re even going to see this pussy again.”