“None of which would be you.”
I sigh. “You’re dangling an apple before me. It’s hard not to take a bite.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
“With what? You don’t need a bite; you can chow down anything with one swallow. You can take anything you want.”
“No. I work for what I most want. I win it, or I don’t feel like it’s mine at all.”
“You didn’t feel like your money was yours until you earned it on your own?”
“That’s right.”
“You like the chase.”
“Relish it.”
“You like a challenge.”
“I live for them.” He looks at me with more emotion than I’ve ever seen in a guy’s eyes. I’m melting, warm.
“You’re enjoying me saying no then? That is your challenge with me now? You get me to say yes, and you win.”
“No, Rachel, we need to get you some glasses. Because you’re not reading me right.” He looks at me, smiles to himself, drags a hand over his head. “I can never seem to win with you.”
“Well . . . I lose,” I whisper.
“What did you lose?”
I lost my mind and my heart, my muse, and, I think, my soul to you.
It’s the combination of the wine and him. This man who weakens me like this. “I lose. I’m falling asleep now.”
I wasn’t supposed to yet. But I’m warm and relaxed, over-sensitized to him; his warm breath across my forehead, his hard, thick thigh close to mine . . . the square of his shoulder nearly touching mine.
“I used to play this with Gina . . . first one to fall asleep loses. I bet you never lose . . .” I mumble.
There’s a thoughtful silence. Then, in my ear, sending shivers down my spine, is his voice: “I don’t like to.”
I smile a little and am dozing when he takes my arm and helps me up slowly. “Come here. There’s a bed here with your name on it.”
“Oh. You can afford a bed.”
“Yeah. Do you want me to teach you how to use it?” he mocks me.
“I use a bed for sleep . . . but I don’t know what you use it for.”
“You know. A little fun here and there.”
He walks me to the bed and then eases me down there. I sleepily watch him go to the bathroom and search for a toothbrush.
He’s still in his shirt, washing his face with big hands, scrubbing his square jaw, then ramming the toothbrush into his mouth and washing fast and hard. He flicks the lights off and comes out, and I close my eyes and exhale before I open them again.
He spreads out on top of the bed, over the comforter while I’m under it. Slowly, he sets his phone aside and curls an arm behind his head as he studies me with an unreadable expression. I smile shyly.
He looks so handsome lounging in that shirt and his slacks on that big, white bed; I want to tease him. I want to see him smile again and again and again. “Sure the entire wine cellar is enough to feed your M4 minions?” I frown.
I feel a couple butterflies when his lips curve, and he shakes his head, then he drags one hand over his dark hair.
“I’ve heard the M4 annuals are such an event. Do you already know who you’re going to go with?”
“Just a friend.”
“Oh. A bed friend?” I lift my brows tauntingly, and tease: “Someone you can teach how to use a bed?”
He looks at me.
And slowly arches his brows. “Do you really want to talk about this?”
His expression has gone from relaxed and flirtatious back to serious again.
Taken aback, I turn to my back and exhale. “I . . . no.”
Fuck.
Why did I ask that?
Saint says nothing for a long time.
Then: “Do you miss me?”
He rolls to his side and the fabric of his shirt is about to tear open under the flex of his muscles as he searches my face. He leans close to my ear, and says, “Do you think of me sometimes when you don’t want to . . . do you need me . . . do you still feel me?”
“I feel you everywhere.”
He curls his hand around my throat, leaves it there, hot and enormous, pinning me down on the bed with gentle firmness.
For minutes and minutes he stays there, with his forehead on my temple, his lips on my ear and his hand on my throat, owning me.
“I can’t breathe when you’re near, but I can’t live without you,” I pant, quietly, and he squeezes his eyes shut, drops his head on mine, and we say nothing else.
We lie here with his body leaning over mine, strong and hard, and me, panting in bed, weak and warm. We lie here as if we broke and there’s no more glue to put us together no matter how much I wish for it to . . . but we also can’t pull apart, as if something else entirely different from glue keeps us together.
It takes forever to fall asleep.
I should go home, but I don’t want to. I’m in hell but I don’t want to leave if he’s in hell with me. My awareness is so heightened that every sound awakens me, every shift beside me on the bed. Even the loss of warmth at the merest shift of a leg stirs me awake and urges me closer to the warm, hard wall beside me . . . but when I sleep, I lose all restraint.
I’m unzipping his pants and devouring him with kisses, dragging my mouth down his square abs, trailing my fingers across his chest muscles with a thirst that is unquenched. When I finally curl my hands around his hard length, I do so reverently. I stroke up and down his shaft as I lower my mouth and kiss him there, right where he’s most man. I make love to him with my mouth because I need to claim him. Feel him. Love him so that he loves me.
He lifts my chin. “Look at me.” The words have a bite, harsh with need.
My eyes lock with his and his are stormy green. He sees something he wants in my gaze because I sense he doesn’t want me to close my eyes. I blink and look back at him as I drag my tongue along his long, hard length. The crown of his cock is thick, swollen, pink, and as beautiful as the rest of his length. His sex is full for me, gushing for me. Between my legs, I’m gushing for him.
I murmur his name around his flesh.
“Malcolm.”
He tugs my face up close and slides his lips over mine in a tender kiss.
“Is this what you want, little one?” he asks, pulling me up so I feel him between my legs.
In a world where he can buy anything he wants, I’m his littlest thing. And he’s my biggest, grandest thing.
Full, lush lips feather over my cheek before pressing against mine. Soon he’s parted and tasted me, his tongue thrusting powerfully inside, seducing me.