Scandalous (Sinners of Saint, #3)

by L.J. Shen

Sonya was wrong. I wasn’t a seahorse. I was the ocean.

I wanted to show her that the world was a beautiful, frightening place worth experiencing. That peasants could be crowned kings if they worked hard enough, and how her daddy was living proof of that.

“Sonder is the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Whatever we were, we were toxic. A lullaby on a thoroughly scratched record that keeps hiccupping again and again on the line that you hate.

At the end of the day, life was not a game of chess. Life was fucking Jenga.

Because sometimes, our favorite things are the ones that make us cry.”

and I’m about to fucking ruin you for any other man. So when the time comes and no one else can compare to me, just remember—you asked for it.”

Edie was the fucking end of me.

I looked up to her, and she looked like she wanted to cry. How beautiful would that be? Her tears running down her perfect porcelain face. A broken doll. My broken doll.

never underestimate a broken person. We’re unpredictable, because once you’re broken—what’s one more crack?”

I gravitated toward him like he was the sun. A beautiful pleasure conceived by nature that could very well kill you if you got too close. He looked at me like I was the moon. Pale and lonely and so far away.

“No. You’re my Delilah, Edie, and I’m your Samson. You want to ruin me, destroy me, strip me of my power, and betray me. I should stay away from you, but I want you too fucking much. And when it’s all over, when all that’s left of us is sweaty flesh and shattered minds and torn hearts, you will remember me as the man who made you cry, and I’ll remember you as the girl I had to break to stay afloat.”

That night, I watched Edie for far too long. That night, I’d changed. That night, I didn’t take anything from Edie Van Der Zee. For the first time in years—I gave something of myself. Worst part? I’d never be able to retrieve it. It was hers. Forever.

All eyes were on me. I looked away to the pool, squinting. “She’s in my fucking blood,” I admitted.

“How could I when you’re my ocean.”

Trent Rexroth, you’re my ocean. You make me wet.”

He grinned, pulling me into a tight hug. “I would have come for you, Van Der Zee, even if you had given him the flash drive. Even if you threw me in the lion’s den. And I promise to never stop making you wet, my Little Tide. Promise to always keep you drenched.”

I’m his tide, and he’s my anchor. Or maybe the sand itself.

“Edie Van Der Zee, I want to dip my toes in the waves you make every single day for the rest of my miserable life. I want to fuck you—just you, only you, no one else—and a lot. Every. Single. Day. I want to live with you. I want to parade that fucked-up thing we have that keeps people raising eyebrows and thinking I’m a cradle-snatching douchebag, because fuck ’em, they’ll never have what we have. Will you marry me? I don’t ask for a lot. Not for kids, not for dinner, not for anything to be done in the house. I don’t ask you for anything other than what you’re willing to give me.”

Luna peeks from the door, smiling. I turn my body to her, smiling. I expect her to sign me something. Something like “aw, gross,” or “Daddy is being silly again”. But she doesn’t. Instead, she arches one eyebrow, opens her lips, and lets the words fall out, awa...

The ocean is her drug. She is mine.