Once we’re in the car and the partition between us and Otis is fully up, Malcolm presses me up against his side and his lips come down on mine. He parts my lips and his taste fills me, going like a shot of crack to my heart. A soft noise leaves me as I kiss him back with all I’ve got.
My fingers flutter over his shoulders and then I curl my hands around the back of his neck as we slow down and start kissing more leisurely, savoringly, getting reacquainted again.
“Are you okay with this?” he asks as he sets my mouth free. His eyes are so dark, I can hardly see the green in his pupils.
Nodding and breathless, I slide my fingers into his hair and pull his delicious mouth back to me. He fits his lips to mine, to the way he knows just how to.
He plays with my tongue a little, sucks gently on my lower lip.
The fingers of one hand trail under the fall of my hair and then he slides them upward to cradle the back of my head in his palm, and with that motion alone, he’s got me pinned in place. I’m helplessly subjected to his hungry mouth, and the way he’s kissing and sucking on me is so downright hot I’ve never been so turned on.
I end up lying down on the bench seat with his body above mine, my hands anxiously gripping fistfuls of his collar.
His tongue sweeps and sweeps into my mouth and when he retreats to give me a smoldering look, I notice the way his green, green eyes have darkened like a night forest.
“I miss you,” he rasps, looking at me so fiercely it’s as though he’s commanding me to understand what this means.
“I miss you too,” I croak feelingly.
“I miss the taste of you, the feel of you, the sounds you make.” Clenching his jaw as if he’s remembering what it was like to miss me, he strokes his curled index finger down the line of my jaw, watching what he does. I watch the emotions play across his features as he opens his hand and caresses my face and neck. Determination. Hunger. Control.
I’m panting, aching, wanting, waiting. Holding me by the back of the neck, he pulls me up to a sitting position and in for another wet kiss. Leisurely, his mouth slants from one side to the other as he tastes me from all angles. I feel delicious, juicy, luscious. Wanting to taste him just as thoroughly too, I draw his tongue into my mouth and suck, surprised by how the sucking motion causes every centimeter of my body to squeeze and Saint to reflexively tighten his hold on me.
He groans and draws me onto his lap and shifts me so that I straddle him, then he lowers the top of my dress with a little tug at the elastic of my strapless.
“Malcolm, what are you doing?” I gasp, covering my chest with my arms as my breasts pop free.
“I’m looking at you.” Completely shameless and in control, he takes both my arms and lowers them to my sides.
I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them, embarrassed to realize he’s probably noticed I used nipple stickers to keep from having to use a bra tonight. I didn’t want my nipples to be poking out, and now my perky breasts are staring up at him with two small, round tan stickers on them.
He runs his thumbs over each. My sex squeezes when I notice his gaze is loving, appraising, possessive. And dark. So very, very dark.
“I meant to take them off before you saw,” I whisper.
He kisses the corner of my mouth. “I’ll do it.” Then he leans close and kisses one tip of my breast over the sticker. Then the other, his lips warm and gentle. He then raises his head as he seizes each sticker between his thumbs and fingers and looks into my eyes as he gently pulls off one, then the other.
A frisson of need runs through me.
The act is strangely intimate. Looking into each other’s eyes as he does this to me.
He lifts his thumb to his mouth and my sex tightens when he licks it. He does the same with his other thumb. Then he uses both to rub my nipples clean, and I almost moan out loud.
He speaks to me in a thick voice—my toes curling. I can feel how hard he is between my legs. “They’re all mine now,” he says.
He centers me on his lap again and drags the skirt of my dress up to my hips, and once it’s bunched up where he wants it, he ducks his head to take one nipple into his mouth, and when he covers the hardened little point with heat and wet, I rock my hips against his hardness. “Saint,” I beg.
He releases my breast and looks at me. He looks as if he wants to devour me whole as he leans in to continue kissing my lips.
He just won’t stop kissing me, his hands cupping my ass as he draws me up tighter against his erection.
I quiver in need. “Oh god.”
Gasping, I rake my nails against his scalp as I drag my mouth across any part of him that I can: the crown of his head that smells of shampoo, his shadowed, raspy jaw. Then I bite his earlobe. My body’s acting of its own will, pressing closer, a moan leaving me when he rubs my nipples with his thumbs in the most delicious, heart-stoppingly slow way.
I want to make out forever, and I want to let go when he can let go with me. But he’s hard between my legs, his mouth is killing me, and I feel the tension in my body tighten and tighten for orgasm.
“We need to stop,” I groan apologetically, fisting a handful of his hair. “I’m at the edge already, and I don’t want to be there alone.”
“I’ll be right there with you.”
He grabs the back of my neck and only kisses me the rest of the way to his place, and when the car turns into the building’s driveway, he stops with one last grazing kiss on the corner of my mouth as he tugs the skirt of my dress down and then pulls the rest of my strapless back up.
I try to pull myself together and fix my hair, a little mortified. “I can’t imagine how I look.”
He runs his eyes quickly over me. “You look ravishing.”
“Ravished by you,” I say, shoving his shoulder a little bit with a laugh.
He grins. “Yes.”
He smoothes a hand down my back as he leads me into the lobby of his apartment building.
“Mr. Saint,” he’s greeted by the staff.
He just lifts his hand in greeting.
Once in an elevator, I get a glimpse of us in the mirror and he looks divine, his lips a little pink, his hair a little messed up, and I look kind of sultry, my hair slightly mussed, eyes heavy. As we ride the elevator to the penthouse, a couple rides with us, and I try to behave and keep my hands at my sides. The couple is whispering and I realize they know who he is. And maybe they even know who I am.
“Good night!” they say effusively as they step out.
“Good night,” Saint murmurs as I smile and nod at them.
The elevator doors shut and he tugs me back to him, his head sweeping down. We kiss, softly, until the ting, and then he pulls away, his eyes as heavy as mine feel.
I’m shaking in anticipation when he takes my hand and draws me into his apartment.
He leaves me to press a wall switch to turn on a few dim lights, tosses his jacket aside, drops his cell phone, and kicks off his shoes.
The city blazes with night lights behind him as he comes back. And the sight of him in those slacks, white shirt, hair rumpled by my fingers, bulldozes through any fear I could have, any tentativeness about doing this. I don’t just want to do this. I never want to stop.
He walks toward me, eyes warm and liquid. He lifts his hand when he reaches me, his gorgeously strong and smooth hand, his fingers slowly caressing my neck.
Pheromones: the delicious scent of him. I swear water is the substance my thighs are made of now, and the rest of me is fire—and Malcolm Saint is the gasoline that’s lighting me up.
My world feels right again as his fingers drag down the front of my body, over my clothes, down my hips, then up my ass, the small of my back, until they come back up to curl around half of my face.
Green eyes capture mine, and I can see the silent question there. And then, I can hear him asking it, his voice pure dry bark. “Slow and deep? Or fast and hard?”
“Both,” I breathe.
He inhales sharply, his jaw clenching at my answer, then he coaxes me closer and, as an affirmative, sets a soft but firm kiss on my lips. “Yeah,” he says.
I hear him unzip my dress and a sigh of gratitude leaves me as he gently pulls it down my body.
“Take me,” I breathe.
“I’m taking you.”
“Use me. Do anything you want to me.”
“No,” he says chidingly. “You use something you discard. And I’ll never be done with you.”
My dress falls in a pool of blue at my feet. I stand motionless as a statue, trembling as the air surrounds me, wearing nothing but my panties and my strappy high-heeled sandals and my heart in my eyes.
Saint kisses my eyelids. As if he sees.
He sees.
Then, he presses his lips to mine as he eases his fingers into my panties, finding my wet folds and playing gently with me. My knees buckle when he touches me; he catches me with one arm and then draws back to stare down at me—the breaths leaving my lips, my face dewy with lust.
His face is harsh with need as he moves his fingers into my wetness, his eyes the most beautiful shade of all, a kaleidoscope of green. When I gasp as he enters me with a finger, a flash of wild lust appears in his eyes. Then there’s the dark black of his pupils growing and growing. And the glimmer of greed—greed for me.
No sooner does another gasp leave me than he kisses me harder, deeper, one instant apart, the next he’s the owner of my mouth, then he’s lifting me up and taking our wet kisses all the way to the bedroom.
“Here you are, Rachel,” he says as if he can’t believe it, and lowers me down on the bed.
“Don’t . . . leave me, just stay,” I curl my legs around his hips and my arms around his shoulders.
He reaches between my thighs and parts my legs a few inches, locates the wet little groove in my panties and rubs a little. His thumb slides, up and down, finds the swelling bud of my clit and rubs in a maddening circle.
“Does that feel good?” he asks, his voice raspy on his throat.
Rasping on my skin.
My answer is one word, “perfect,” my own voice textured with my emotions.
He rubs a little harder.
He’s stroking me with his fingers over my panties as he leans over and nibbles on my lips—an innocent kiss on my lips, but I’m so raw with need, I’m slowly unraveling beneath him.
He reaches between us and tugs my panties down my legs. I’m still wearing my heels and I think they look sexy but Saint tugs one loose, then the other, dropping them to the floor.
“Saint . . .”
God, this man is going to kill me before he gets to actually fuck me.
He shifts above me, caresses one breast, bending to kiss it, wet and fast. His lips stay there, his hand curving around my hips to the curve of my ass, holding me as he sucks hard.
Pleasure slams me so hard I buck.
He murmurs tenderly, “Easy.” Then he sucks my other nipple gently into his mouth, rolls his tongue over it, then draws it into his mouth again.
I fist the sheets in my hands as the orgasm builds fast and hard, a tension knotting from the core of my body. “Saint, I can’t do foreplay right now.” I tremble beneath him.
“God, I missed you,” he rasps with a happy light in his eye, sliding his fingers up to cup my face, the look on his face so reverent I feel perfect. “You’re like a spark, Rachel, all I need is to breathe on you and you catch fire.”
I’m so undone, I’m a heartbeat away from coming. “Malcolm, please don’t let me do this alone.”
“You’re not going anywhere without me,” he says, not in the least bit worried as he pulls away to look at me with eyes that have never looked this heavy-lidded. I can’t breathe. I’m gasping, my hands trembling at my sides as he starts to undress.
He strips off his shirt and then his slacks, I feel like I’m dreaming. He’s shedding his clothes until it’s all bare, all for me.
Tan, cut muscles, over six feet of pure testosterone-primed man. His skin feels so smooth and hot and hard when he lowers himself over me.
“Say you want me . . .” he murmurs, and then he dives and sweeps my mouth with his tongue. He twirls and pushes my own tongue with his, showing it where to move, what to taste, where to go . . . with his.
“I want you,” I groan.
Reaching over his muscular shoulders as he settles between my thighs, I curl my legs around his hips and lock my ankles together. He takes my hands and draws them over my head, then he laces his fingers through mine, and drives inside.
Body-slammed. Perfection in every way. We groan once he’s inside, and our bodies stop moving and stay like this.
“Like that?” He cups my face and looks down at me.
We’re both motionless from the pleasure. We stare at each other. We’re each taking in the other’s face as if we can’t believe we’re here.
He pulses thickly inside me and it feels like every inch of my body is holding on to him. And I swear at this moment that I never ever want to let go of him, and as long as I can help it, I never will.
“Yes,” I finally breathe, squeezing his hands holding mine above my head.
His green eyes flare bright with an emotion so raw, all my muscles tighten with the urge to orgasm to that look alone.
I don’t think Saint has ever looked at me so possessively.
He moves out of me and then back in, and I moan as our flesh touches with his motions. Going up on his arms, he withdraws and pumps in again, establishing a rhythm that is deep and savoring and intense, almost as if he can’t control it anymore.
He surges inside me and starts kissing my neck, as if he needs to taste me. I’m holding tight to him, clutching his bigger body to mine with my arms and legs, my mouth latching to any hard part it can. The rightness of being consumed like this and taken like this by the only man who’s ever owned me is beyond believable. It’s Sin inside me, Saint inside me, Malcolm inside me. Tension builds in me fast. He’s in me; so in me, it’s like we were never apart. We’re moving as if we never stopped.
He takes my face in his hand, and his voice textures until it’s barely discernible as he deepens his tempo. “Look into my eyes. Don’t look away until you come apart for me.”
I do.
I bite his neck, and then I do as he says and look into his eyes.
Watching the way his face clenches every time he’s fully embedded inside me. With all that gentle strength of his perfectly under control, he pulls my arms up over my head, pins them beneath his as his body weight pins me down too, and feeling physically so helpless—as helpless as I’ve been, emotionally, all this time—I feel a ball of fire burst from inside me. I gasp and convulse beneath him, his name raw on my lips, his green eyes mercilessly watching me unravel. “Malcolm.”
He keeps me in place as I come, driving slower and more deliberately inside me to prolong my orgasm, watching me with burning green eyes and then kissing my mouth the rest of the way through as he pumps faster, deeper, as exquisitely as ever. And then, what most gets me is the way his powerful arms clench all around me and I know he’s letting go, coming with me.
We’re motionless for a long time after. Saint is breathing deeply, and I’m breathing fast.
I smile against his face, where he set it down against mine as we recover. He smiles too, and slides a hand down my side to squeeze my ass affectionately. He laughs softly. All hot and male against me. I swear I just want to lie here and be super fucked and be super happy.
“Vixen,” he murmurs as he rolls to his back and settles me against his bare chest, brushing my hair back. “You feel even better than I remember,” he says quietly, looking into my eyes as he curls his hand around the back of my neck and gives it a squeeze, stroking the back of my ear with his thumb. “And I remember every time with you very well, Rachel.”
God. These feelings.
“I remember you too,” I finally manage.
We smile a little. And I’m so affected by his smile, being with him in bed like this, I feel a flush creep up to my cheeks.
I tug the sheet up to cover myself, and he raises a brow, but says nothing.
He disappears into the bathroom and when he comes back, I sit up uncertainly, gauging him. He drops on the bed and rests his back on a pillow, not even bothering with the sheets, his tan skin contrasting with the whiteness around him.
I remain sitting, hesitant, wondering if I should leave.
Using his palm, he turns my head, locks the angle of my face so he can start to kiss me, holding me firmly but gently against his body. “You’ll remember tonight too,” he says.
Body melt.
“Is that a promise?” I ask him.
“I break my promises, remember?” He studies my face, then he speaks, his eyes pure devil, “It’s a warning.”
We’re sweaty and relaxed in his bed, the covers tangled around our feet when his hand starts wandering dangerously up my rib cage.
“Saint . . . you’re killing me. You’re just . . . wicked. I can’t keep up with you.”
“Come here,” he coaxes.
His arm wraps around the back of my neck and pulls me to his side only to embrace me. His voice murmuring close to my ear brings out the goose bumps on my bare arms. “I’m only going to hold you, Rachel.”
But just as he finishes speaking, he leans and kisses the corner of my mouth.
I feel the kiss between my legs. In my nipples. In my heart. Breathless, I steal a touch and cup his square jaw. “You said you were only going to hold me. And you just kissed the corner of my mouth. Do you classify that as only holding? Sin?”
“I do.” Although he smiles, the look on his face is intense. “Would you like to pretend I didn’t do that?” He rubs the spot and looks down at me with hot eyes. I’ll never forget the lust on his face as he looks at me. “Would you?” he presses, his voice gruff.
“No.”
He kisses the corner of my mouth again, holding my face in one big hand.
I’m melting.
I’m scared.
I want him so much.
“If you hire me, you can’t get away with that,” I whisper.
He looks at my lips with the hunger of a panther. “Oh, I can get away with it.”
“You’ve never touched any one of your employees.”
“I make the rules.” He raises a brow in challenge, and then starts lowering his head again.
I sit here, shivering, as his warm breath fans my face on the other side of my mouth. I swallow back a whimper, sliding my fingers into his hair. He exhales and goes to my ear, kissing the back of it, relaxing a little as I let him draw me back into his arms.
We stay there for a little while. I think I’m going to die tomorrow remembering.
I wrap my arms around his neck.
I want to speak but I don’t want to break this. He seems to need to hold me and for me to let him, and I need this connection.
“Malcolm Kyle Preston Logan Saint,” I say.
I feel him smile against my hair.
“Why so many names? Hmm?” I peer into his face.
“Because my father’s stubborn. He was determined to name the first boy like his father. And my mother wanted to have four children, so she gave my father the right to choose first if she got to use the three she wanted next.” He inhales and peers down at me. “I wasn’t an easy birth. When they told her she might not be able to have any more children . . .”
“She gave all the names to you? Kyle, Logan, Preston . . .” I smile, then breathe, touching my fingers to his chest, “Saint.”
“God, Rachel, you don’t know what you do to me.”
“Tell me.”
“One day I’ll tell you.”
“Good things.”
“Yeah. Good things.”
His mouth starts trailing and my lungs start overworking as he puts them on my ear. My forehead. My cheek.
“What did you do all this time?” I ask him.
“I worked.” His shoulder lifts carelessly. “Bought a new car. Tested a few planes. Got the top four. Three for the M4 directors and one for me.”
“I’ve been watching baseball,” I offer, setting my face on his chest with a smirk.
“Since when do you watch baseball?”
I shrug. “You know. I branch out now and then.”
“Do you?” He’s amused.
God, I love him amused.
“This is the year the Cubbies break the curse. Did you know that?”
“Really now.”
“Hmm. Yes. With our star pitcher? And that ERA? It’s definitely the year.”
“Really now?” He purrs, shifting, interested, amused.
“Are you watching? Baseball?” I ask, and peer up into his face.
He peers back down at me with a cocky little grin. “I’m busy watching you talk baseball right now.”
I shove him. “Come on. Have you?”
“Yeah.”
I sigh and settle in closer, and he hugs me a little tighter. “You’re right, it is the year the Cubs break the curse.” He grins at me, and I grin back, melting so hard.
Melting so hard and wanting him again equally hard.
We haven’t slept, aren’t aware of time or space or place, only of each other. Holy god. I’m so aware of him it’s as if I’m memorizing him all over again. The scent of his soap, his sheets, his shampoo, his warm, toasty skin, all the ways his green eyes change as he makes love to me, and how good it feels, right now, as he holds me.
He eases his forehead down on mine, then his hand turns my face aside so he can kiss me—I reach one arm behind me and caress his hair as I kiss him back, him inside me. “You’re insatiable,” I tease him. “Are you ready to go already?”
He tugs my ear. “As you know, Rachel, greedy men are insatiable by nature.”
I laugh and drop back, pulling the sheet to cover my sweaty body just because I’m suddenly shy. Is this really me?
Am I back in Malcolm’s bed?
Fucked to my bones?
My chest feels so full I am grateful, humbled, fearful, joyful. My job situation is a mess and I still worry about my mother and yet if I can slowly fix things with him, I feel like I can do anything.
Malcolm . . .
God, please let him be greedy. Please let him want all of me, not just this.
I watch him get up to get a foil packet and I plump the pillow, rearrange my hair, and pray to god I don’t look a mess by the time he comes back. I hear him run the sink water.
I said I loved him before, but shit happened and I haven’t had the courage to say it again. What happened after I said “I love you” the first time must have devalued my words so much that I’m not sure he even wants to hear them again. But I think he knows that I still love him.
I think the only reason he forgave me was because he seems to have an intuitive knowledge of me and I think he feels the love I feel for him as much as I feel the hurricane of his energy drawn toward me.
God. This falling in love—it’s the subject of so many movies, songs, books, and artworks. It’s as common to us as being born and dying and somehow just as mysterious.
There’s never a warning.
You think it’s lust first.
That the powerful feelings are something else.
Admiration and respect.
Then the feeling becomes stronger, deeper, and when you would do anything for them, when their happiness is your own, when even their flaws are fascinating, and when you want to be better, worthy of them, you know it’s love.
What now?
He walks back to bed, flops on his back, and pulls me over him. Seeking closer, I twine my legs around his hips and wrap my arms around his shoulders as we start kissing, and after I mount him, and ride him, letting him take me to places only he’s ever taken me to, I end up more exhausted than ever.
When we’re done and I fall onto my back, we’re both panting. I tentatively reach out and place my hand on top of his, staring at the ceiling in the way he is—kind of waiting to see what his reaction is.
I didn’t know that I was holding my breath until he turns his hand and grabs mine in his grip, and holds it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
After our Saturday sex Olympics, we sleep almost all day Sunday.
We wake up slowly, lazily fucking. Then he tosses me one of his shirts as we head to his kitchen. Later he’s in his living room as he works a little bit and I finish my coffee.
“I really should get home,” I keep saying.
“It’s raining out. Just stay here,” he keeps saying back.
And by the time he seems to realize I am going to go change to leave, he stops working, scoops me up, and takes me to his bed, and then the only things raining are hot, smoldering Malcolm Saint kisses all over me.
