I’ve been morosely sitting in my bed pondering my life situation for the better part of an hour when Gina knocks on my door. “Rache? Someone’s here to see you.”
She peers inside to see if I’m decent, and then she steps back and widens the door.
Saint stands on the threshold, his hands at his side, his jaw set thoughtfully . . . and my heart turns over in my chest.
“Hey!”
I rise to my feet in shock, battling to conceal the excitement spreading over me at the sight of him in my apartment.
He shuts the door slowly behind him as he looks at me, in his shirt. I feel weak in the knees. “Nice shirt,” he says.
“It’s yours.”
I swear my room feels smaller and so much more feminine whenever he’s in here.
He starts forward, his gaze shining appraisingly on me. “I like you in it.”
I nervously bite the inside of my cheek. “I didn’t think you’d want me to wear it while you were hating me.”
“I wasn’t hating you.” He keeps walking forward and for some reason I find myself backing away. Maybe because I feel vulnerable that he sees me so at home in his shirt. Maybe because I just poured my heart out to him in an email he might never read.
“I don’t respect a lot of people, Rachel, it’s hard for me.” His gaze searches mine. “I respect you.” He reaches out to stop me from walking and cups my face in one hand to force me in place. “I get you, Rachel. I may not say it, words are your turf, not mine, but I get you. You’re the only woman I’ve ever gone this far with. Ever even wanted to. Promise me now that if you don’t find anything by the time my father takes over, you’ll come with me—and I’ll believe you.”
His eyes are so green right now, heavy like anchors holding me down. We stare at each other as if we’re both trying to understand what the other needs. Him, calmly, and me with so much longing inside me, I feel soft like a noodle.
I know that he’s never done this before, being with someone like he is with me, and I haven’t either. I close my eyes when his thumb starts to caress the skin on my neck where he holds me. “I do. I promise.”
He smiles then—a slow, male, grateful smile—then he pulls me close to his chest. “Was that hard now?” he chides.
“No. But you are.” I smile against his neck.
He laughs softly as he reaches between us and chucks my chin. “It happens when you’re around.”
“Does it? I hadn’t noticed.” I smile.
His smile flashes back at me. “It’s pretty much permanent.”
Ohgod, he’s making me so wet. I shove him away and back away a little with a mock-frown. “Rumor has it it’s like that all the time when any lady’s around.”
He starts after me. “I’m a hungry man. I won’t apologize for my appetite.”
“And you used to like a buffet?” I hop on my bed and avoid him when he reaches out to grab me.
His eyes twinkle, his teeth white against his tan. “Why not? If I’m hungry.”
“Do you still crave it?” I hop back down and keep backing around my room, while Saint, Saint continues calmly coming after me.
“That hunger of yours is so big maybe nothing will ever satisfy it,” I continue taunting.
“Maybe.” He catches me in a swift move, pulls me close, and he leans to my ear, voice dropping, “I still think you wear my shirt better than I do,” he says huskily.
I moan and press closer. “Saint.” Fuck me right now. On the bed, the floor, and against the wall.
He playfully, and oh-so-wickedly, pops open one button and runs the knuckles of his fist inside to caress the skin between my collarbones.
“I want you,” I whisper, giddy and gooey inside. “See, I’m ambitious too.”
His voice is pure husky. “Good, aim high. Always. I like my girls greedy.”
“Plural! You’re such a piece of work.” I shove at his hard chest playfully and back away again with a mock frown.
“And you like me anyway.” He keeps coming forward, and I swear the smile he’s wearing right now is about as hormone-wrecking as his hard-on is.
“I’m aiming . . . high . . . it’s just that I’m trying to put a name to us and it frustrates me not to have one.”
What am I, exactly, to you? I want to ask, but Saint pops open another button, and whispers, “Only you would want a word. But there’s no word for this.”
He grabs a little bit of loose hair from my nape as he tilts my head up so he can kiss me. And . . . kiss me.
Our lips collide, his firming over mine, making me soften as his tongue dips into my mouth and a spiral of heat swirls in my stomach. I start pulling him by the shoulders as we kiss, backing us eagerly to the bed.
The backs of my knees hit the mattress and I end up sitting there, then lying there, and he leans over me, his mouth still slowly, powerfully moving over mine. The heat of his slow and thorough kiss burns me to ash.
I trap back a moan and look up at him dazedly as he sits down next to me and holds me to his chest with one arm. I start kissing his neck and jaw and sit here in a pile of lust, feeling his hand run down my side to stroke up the side of my bare leg.
“So we’re clear then,” he murmurs against my mouth, delivering one of his most demanding looks.
I lick my lips and nod.
He shoves his tongue into my mouth again. Leaning over me, he’s all raw manpower. Dominant and possessive, unapologetic, he circles my tongue with his. Pressing, circling, stroking, stoking my fire, the space between our upper bodies nonexistent. He caresses my side with his hand, moving it up to the little triangle of skin he revealed under my throat.
I grab his jaw to speed up the kiss. But he won’t have it.
“Easy. Let me savor you,” he quietly coaxes as he slows down, prolonging it for us as he sips from me like a wineglass.
The fabric of his shirt I’ve been wearing is so flimsy compared to the hard substance of Saint’s chest against mine.
I hear the air-conditioning, the noises of the city. Feel my soft bed beneath me as his mouth roams over my neck. The weight of his upper body on mine makes me sigh. The smooth skin of our chests rubbing. The wet warmth of his mouth on my skin. My fingertips digging into the back of his head. The hard wall of his chest to my breasts. Smell the scent of his neck. Hear our breathing. I’m breathless and still, he caresses me with his fingers between my collarbones.
We lie there quietly, looking at each other before he sweeps in for another kiss.
He turns his head then and gives me another pile of long lazy kisses. “Are you going to keep your promise to me, Rachel?” Kiss.
“Hmm . . .” Lazy kissing from me to him. “Yes, Sin.”
“Good girl . . .” More lazy kissing, then he rolls around and gets up from the bed.
“Where are you going?” I sit up in confusion, pushing my hair out of my face.
“I have to go. I have something important pending at my place.” He heads to the door.
“You mean you’re not spending the night?”
He stops to turn, then lifts one dark eyebrow. Then the other.
And then, I see the twinkle appear in his eyes.
He comes back to me.
Leaning down, he buttons up the button he unbuttoned, his handsome face sober now.
He cups my breast over his shirt as he opens up his mouth and dips his head for one last taste of me. He sucks my bottom lip gently, then does the same with the top lip, then he dives into my mouth, which gets a delicious little tongue fuck before he sets one soft kiss at the corner of my mouth. He touches my body like it’s his and I’m starting to worry. God, I’m addicted.
But then he whispers, “Not here, little one.”
“Why?”
“Your friend’s here. And I want you to make noise.” He looks at me meaningfully.
“I’ll see you soon?” he husks out, easing back and once again heading for the door.
He’s leaving.
I watch him grab my doorknob.
“I planned to hit the Cubs game next weekend. I have a mind to take you there.”
“Cubs game?” I nearly leap off the bed. “Yes! ”
His eyes glimmer. Those naughty lips of his tug upward.
I blush when I wonder if it’s because he knows how I feel about him. “I’m excited because I’ve never been to a live game.”
His eyes glint. “Of course.”
I know he knows I’m excited to go with him.
I want to say I love you but before I get the courage, he’s gone. And I lie in bed, wondering about us.
The next morning, I tell Gina a little bit about the fight and how he said some bone-melting things to me and I ask her if she thinks Saint loves me.
She gives me a you’re-shitting-me look.
I reply with a no-I’m-not-shitting-you look.
“You’re kidding?”
“I never kid about Saint, Gina.”
She shoves her spoon back into her plate. “I wouldn’t know, Rache. What I do know is that he makes you vulnerable and you’re putting up walls.”
“No I’m not.”
“You don’t want to expect anything. You’re still scared.”
“Okay, maybe I am scared.”
“Scared of what?”
My shoulder hikes up. “Everything,” I laugh pitifully. “I’m always scared.”
“About it not being reciprocated?”
I nod.
“Of his fame and his groupies? How ready they are for him to tire of you to welcome him with open legs and arms?”
“Gina!” I scowl. “He’s not like that.”
But in a way, I am scared of his groupies. I’m scared of being in love. With . . . him.
“They’re all like that, Tahoe and Callan too.” She pauses. “Dude. I’d be scared too. But . . . Look at his actions, Rachel. Those should be worth more than sweet-talking words. Paul used to tell me . . . I don’t even want to remember. But he didn’t mean it, his actions said otherwise. God, I could’ve killed him for being such a cheating liar if I hadn’t been so . . . devastated.”
She eyes me somberly.
“What Saint has done for you, Rachel. Offering the job. Canning Victoria’s article but not yours. That safety thing he did with End the Violence. Coming here last night to talk it out . . . I know you’re a words girl, but he’s more of a doer than a teller. He’s doing things to be close to you. Maybe you should start ’fessing up and telling.”
I open my hands in a helpless gesture. “I told him I loved him, on the phone. Once.”
A stab pricks my chest when I again wonder how he took it?
“Before the shit happened. Maybe he wants you to take the leap again. In that article, you wrote that you’d leap if you thought he’d catch you. Don’t you think he will?”
A warm glow fills me as I imagine leaping knowing that he would catch me, and my lips curve a little. “Since when are you so perceptive?” I ball a paper napkin and toss it over the table at her.
She tosses it back. “Since, hell, I don’t know.” She shrugs and shoots me a wistful glance. “Maybe I just want my faith in men restored.”
She laughs and shrugs as if this admission is no big deal. But it’s a huge deal.
It’s been so long since Paul, and Gina’s been so determined never to go through that again.
“Our first time falling in love . . .” I trail off as I bring a box of Lucky Charms and a cereal bowl for myself. “It hasn’t been a walk in the park for either of us,” I tell her.
She grabs the pink marshmallows in my bowl before I can add the milk. “More like a roller coaster.” She pops some into her mouth. “But like Tahoe says . . . ’cause he and I are like buddies now. Are you impressed?” Then she chuckles a little. “Anyway . . . walks in the park can get boring.”
