We’re on Sin’s terrace, celebrating the win, talking, the drinks flowing. Gina and Wynn and I are lounging in the outside sitting area by a pristine blue pool while Saint and his guys stand by the bar, discussing the plays. Soon, Tahoe is bitching about his dumb hedge fund manager, and how they’ve sliced his net worth by over half.
“Seriously,” Gina calls from where we sit, “I invite you to come and work at my posh department store one day, and I’ll be the oil tycooness shopping there for a day, even at half your wealth.” She adds snarkily, “You’re still worthless anyway. You act like you’re still in kindergarten.”
“I’m a Princeton grad,” he counters.
“Then you shouldn’t have trouble finding a good job if your oil wells dry up.”
“Ha. You’ll be a dried-up old lady by the time that happens,” Tahoe assures.
“Seriously, men.” Gina scowls when she turns back to us. “We’re royalty when they want to fuck. Thrilled to have as much sex as their anatomy allows, and then we’re nothing.” She shakes her head. “Women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place.”
“Between your legs,” Wynn mumbles.
I burst out laughing, but Gina keeps scowling, and tells the two of us, “I swear, boobs are probably the only thing a guy like Tahoe can multitask on. Two may be one too many for him.”
“Well, why don’t you find out?” Wynn nudges her cheekily.
I find Malcolm watching me while his friends keep talking to him, and a fierce ache in my chest starts to grow. Saint is momentum. Movement. He’s a man who’s always moving forward, pushing for more. Where is he taking us? Where does he see us going?
“You fucking sly dog!” Tahoe calls over on their side. “Stop eyeing your juicy little steak over there like you haven’t been slobbering over her all day!”
Saint lifts his glass to me in toast. “To my classy friends.” A curl hikes the corner of his lips while that same smile touches his eyes.
Tahoe shoots me a look that’s like a mix between admiration and annoyance. “I swear you’re like his favorite damn poison, woman.”
“We swear,” Gina points at Wynn, “He’s her favorite crack!”
While our friends laugh, I feel myself go hot, and Malcolm only looks at me, neither smiling nor laughing, simply those green eyes of his looking straight at me from his chiseled face.
Callan clears his throat when he notices our silent communication. “Well, fuck, Saint, you liking your new leash?”
Tahoe chuckles.
“Shut the fuck up,” Malcolm growls.
That voice probably sends groups of elite businessmen out of boardrooms having just peed their pants. But having been friends since childhood, Tahoe and Callan just laugh harder.
“What’s so funny?” Gina asks, as if she didn’t hear.
Tahoe wanders over and answers her in his slight Southern accent, his deep voice a lazy drawl that I have to admit is pretty damn sexy. “We’re mourning over having lost our dear brother to the most powerful thing on this earth.”
“What’s that?” Gina counters, sounding curious, leaning over to him flirtatiously.
Tahoe murmurs something in her ear.
I hear a sharp sound of skin hitting skin, which I don’t have to see to know Gina just playfully whacked Tahoe on the arm.
The boys laugh, all except Malcolm, who’s not laughing but whose perfect lips are forming his perfectly lopsided smirk.
“Sorry, ladies,” Tahoe apologizes. “To be fair, you did ask.”
“Of course we know it’s just about sex, with men,” Gina says. Her trademark realism, what others call sarcasm, is heavy in her words.
“Why do you say that?” Tahoe asks, sounding somewhat serious now.
“Men don’t love like women do. It’s different for them.”
“Well, I object,” Tahoe says. “I love my mother,” he finishes proudly.
Gina chuckles a little. “That’s different. We love our mommas too. In fact, Rachel’s momma is anxious to meet Saint.”
Saint looks at me.
Then Callan says something about going on the yacht tomorrow, and Gina and Wynn start debating about bathing suits and weather predictions. Slowly, Saint wades his way through the terrace and drops down beside me. He stretches his arm behind me and looks down at me soberly.
“Your mother wants to meet me?” he asks.
I chew the inside of my cheek. “Everybody wants to meet you,” I hedge. And when he just stares at me, I admit, “She’d love to. She’s been asking.”
“Then I’ll meet her,” he whispers.
“Serious stuff, that,” Tahoe whistles, sitting down nearby. “Just don’t take her to your dad, Saint. Unless you want her to quit you.”
I look at Malcolm, and he’s as calm as usual, though I’m all tense now at the mention of Noel Saint.
“Why?” Gina asks.
“His dad’s a real piece of work!” Tahoe declares.
“He couldn’t even stand us stopping by the house,” Callan growls angrily.
I smile wanly at Malcolm and although he returns my smile, he promptly steers Tahoe back to the topic of his portfolio and ends the subject. Easy as that.
“So T,” he begins, and everyone follows his direction into that.
I know Saint’s dad is an ass. He’s called an ass by most everyone who knows him. Blunt, rude, presumptuous. I read it and saw it online, countless times, how he tries to pretend he’s so much bigger and grander than his son. Though Saint seems to reject even the thought of the bastard, he’s made it clear he doesn’t want me within the same zip code as his father. Still, the thought of Noel Saint setting a foot on Edge, a place I have come to love and sacrifice so much for, haunts me a little.
It doesn’t last long.
Five minutes later, Otis comes up to the penthouse. Saint greets him for a minute by the elevator, then comes back to head to the guys. On his way there, he says, “Livingston?”
I perk up from my chat with the girls and turn to see him ball a piece of fabric into his hand.
“Got you something,” he says.
He tosses it into the air, and it lands softly on my lap.
“What is it?” Curious, I spread the cotton fabric open and make out the Cubs T-shirt, size small. Signed by every fucking player who played tonight.
“You didn’t!” I look up at him, balling it up and tossing it back at him as if it burned.
Holy shit!
Holy, holy shit!
He catches the shirt easily, then frowns and looks down at it. “Yeah, I did.” Frowning harder even as his eyes start glimmering with pure amusement, he brings it over and presses it into my hands. “It’s yours,” he chastises me.
When he bends to kiss my cheek, I burst out with glee, “I’ll frame it!”
My friends manhandle my present so much, I hide it in Saint’s closet next to his perfect designer clothes, occupying a hanger of honor right in the middle. When I return to the living room, the girls inform me they’re leaving. Sin’s friends are still going strong and seem cranked up for more, as if it’s not 2 a.m. already.
I waver on what to do.
This staying-over, not-staying-over thing is new territory for me.
For . . . us.
“Saint?” I draw him out of the group for a moment. “I think I should maybe go with Gina,” I tell him.
He glances at the girls for a second, then peers down at me with a little smile. “I think you should stay.”
“I . . .” God, I’m blushing? “I don’t have fresh clothes. And don’t even mention my T-shirt ’cause that’s getting framed.”
“All right. Then Claude or Otis can drive your friends home, and if your roommate will pack some things for you, he’ll bring a bag back.” He waits for a reply, and I can tell by the vibe he’s putting out that he very much wants to be with me tonight.
“It’s okay,” Gina says, shrugging. “I’ll happily be driven home in Saint’s car.” She smirks.
Sin watches me, his green eyes reeling me in, pulling me under. He looks expectant and . . . adorable and . . . irresistible. Ohgod. Is this going too fast for us having just started back up?
No way.
Or . . . yes.
Maybe.
“Rachel.” He steps closer, and I can see he understands my hesitation—we’re supposed to be taking it slow—and his voice low as his lips brush my ear. “You don’t want to leave any more than I want you to leave.”
“You’re asking me to sleep over again?” I put an inch between us to search his face. “Your friends are still here—”
“You want my bed more than yours right now, and I want you in there.”
God, I’m in so deep. So very deep I’m almost frightened but he makes me reckless enough to want to go even deeper.
“Okay,” I say, smiling at him a little.
“Okay?” His eyes lighten at that, and he tips my chin up and firmly kisses my mouth.
It’s so warm, so absolutely perfect, his mouth, that I smile against it and tell him, only so he hears, “I’ll be in your bed.”
And him, only to me, lips grazing my earlobe: “You won’t be alone there for long.”
I head to his room, first check on my present, then drop down on the side of the bed that I always end up on, taking a minute to think about today.
When he smiled?
I think the jerk tapped a vein and injected me with pure happiness.
I think of me and him, and sports, and how his passion flared, and how we as people go crazy over the stuff we love.
Which reminds me . . .
I need to start a new article. As I try to stay awake and wait for him, I pull out my cell phone and write down notes and ideas in an email to myself.
I write about the stuff we get crazy over. Obsessed. Like our favorite sports teams. The Cubs can lose a thousand times and we still love them. They can fuck up, and we still believe in them.
I take down a lot of ideas while absently listening to the men laugh in the living room, somehow specially attuned to Malcolm’s laugh. I like his laugh more than any other. It’s deep and it resonates in his chest, but it’s never too loud or obnoxious. Another obsession.
Smiling while I reread the email with ideas, I send it to myself and text my mom, who usually paints until very late during the weekends.
Are you up? I try.
Just finished cleaning up the studio, she replies. Off to bed! Everything all right??
More than all right. Mom! You’re going to get to meet him!! I don’t need to tell her who “him” is; she knows exactly who’s got her daughter hooked.
Almost instantaneously she writes back, WHEN? Are you bringing him over for dinner?
Don’t worry about that, I can order something for us and bring it over.
My phone rings. I pick up to hear her immediately chiding me. “Rachel, absolutely not. You’re not gonna bring anything. It’s gonna be homemade and delicious! He’s your first boyfriend!”
“Well, he’s not . . . kinda, I hope so.” I exhale and shake my head. “Don’t call him my boyfriend yet, I don’t want to jinx it. We’re still working things out. Make your yummy peppermint chocolate pie for me.”
“What does he like? Fancy things?”
I laugh just as the men outside release a round of simultaneous laughter. “No, Mom, he enjoys normal things. He likes . . . me.” And I’m so vanilla to a physical man like Sin. “Don’t worry, whatever you make is fine.”
“When are you coming?”
“You tell us when,” I counter.
“Fine, give me a week or two to prepare.”
“Okay. Love you, Momma.”
“Rachel.” She stops me from hanging up. After a deep, excited breath, “I look forward to meeting this man I’ve heard about.”
God, the things my mother must have heard. Probably that he’s a manwhore.
“He’s not a saint, Momma,” I quietly tell her. “But I like him very much.”
After a couple minutes of hearing the men banter, I start to get sleepy, but the anticipation of knowing Saint is coming to bed soon keeps me from fully relaxing. I study his big bed underneath me. I consider pulling back the comforter and stripping to my undies. Would that be too slutty? Yeah. Yeah it would be.
And maybe he’d like it?
I start to take off my shoes and quietly strip to my bra and panties when I realize the guys are protesting.
“Ah man, we’re having a good time.”
“Fuck, Saint. Seriously?”
Ohmigod, he’s kicking them out.
I’m so excited and suddenly panicked, I’m scrambling to get naked as I hear the guys shuffle out.
I’m standing in the middle of his room wondering if I’m going to be a slut, shouldn’t I go all the way and just get naked? All naked?
I hear silence next and the sound of familiar footsteps make their way to me. Feeling a kick of adrenaline, I yank my bra off over my head and nearly stumble as I pull off my panties and toss them aside and scramble into bed.
I pull the sheets up to my chest when I hear him answer some sort of message, speaking in another language. I comb a hand through my hair then spread it out behind me on the pillow, hearing his voice growl some business instruction.
He seems mad about something.
I try tying the sheet around my body and letting it drop a little so he can get a peek of a shoulder. Then I decide to let him look at both shoulders. Then I lie back and fan out my hair a little again, kind of annoyed at my body for being so . . . well, so ready so soon. But my skin feels the delicious touch of his super-soft high-count sheets, and I can’t suppress the chaos in my body as I wait for him.
I hear silence again. Footsteps. And the door opens. A sliver of light from outside appears and his silhouette at the door. The air starts crackling. I can hear my heart. Thump. Thump. Strong. Resonating though my ears as I look at his shape—his awe-inspiring shape in the door. His hair a little standing up as if he pulled it in frustration, maybe. Our eyes lock. My Saint hormones go crazy.
I sit up and pull the sheets to my chest, pushing my hair out of my face. “Hey,” I say.
He reaches behind him to shut the door. “Fuck me, I like you so much in my bed I need to figure out how to permanently keep you in it.”
“Just put yourself in it. I’ll stay.”
He cracks out a slow smile, looking genuinely pleased as he looks at me. “I’m here.”
Um, yes he is. The energy in the room shifts with him here with all the power he projects, attracting anything weaker than him.
“Like I wouldn’t notice.”
He walks into the room and picks up my panties and bra, and I flush like crazy. “Nice,” he murmurs, his eyes sparking appreciatively. He keeps his eyes on me as he reaches behind him, fists his polo in one hand, and pulls it over his head.
He’s mouthwatering.
So beautiful I can’t wait.
I go up to my knees and knee-walk to the end of the bed, the sheet to my chest with one hand as I reach out and stroke my fingers up his chest. I don’t know how many times it’ll take to see him naked and not feel absolutely buttery, but his every hard plane is perfection and my every soft part tingles. Before I know it I’m setting my lips over one small brown nipple, lightly sucking. God, his taste is addictive.
He fists my hair, pulls me back, and takes my lips, deep and hungry. I’m tingling with happiness as our mouths search, find, and fuse together. I keep trailing my fingers up his chest and when he eases back to look at me, his breathing is ragged, his fist still in my hair.
“Where to even start with you,” he says as if to himself.
He tightens his hold on my hair and pulls me up for another mind-numbing kiss.
“That’s a good start,” I admit into his mouth. “I wanted to stay and thank you properly for my shirt and for today.”
“I wasn’t letting you get away.” His voice is husky and sure. He tugs the sheet down to look at me. My throat closes as he drags a hand over my upper body, to cup the globe of one breast in one strong hand. “That’s not exactly true. You could’ve left,” he tells me, tugging my ear playfully with his free hand, “but I’d have chased you.”
“Maybe I’d have let you catch me.”
He smiles as he gently fondles my breast, as if I’m deluded, thinking I could escape him. Resist him. He knows what he does to me. He found me naked like one of his groupies in his bed. “What do you say we turn a light on in here?”
“Why?” I pant as he eases off me.
He sends me a thousand-volt greedy look. “I want to look at you.”
“But . . . there’s light coming from outside,” I protest.
He walks around. “I want to see you.”
I clutch the sheet back up as he stands to flick on the lamp by the bed.
It bathes him in light as he comes back to me. He grips the sheet in one hand and starts tugging and I feel my resolve melt and melt as his gaze starts sliding down my neck, soft as a caress. I force my fingers to release it.
“Saint . . .” I protest.
“God, come on. Don’t be shy with me, Rachel. Not with me.”
I stop tugging at that, and he looks at me with such a look of tenderness, I melt.
He lowers it to my waist and my pulse quickens as his eyes take in my breasts in the lamplight, my abdomen, the lower half of my body hidden still by the sheet that dropped there. As he lowers it down my hips and it slides down my legs, my body starts to ache horribly for his touch. My senses coming to life before he even touches me.
He tosses the sheet at my feet now.
“What do you want from me?” I croak.
His hand coasts down my rib cage, his thumb slowly stroking my hipbone as he leans over and nibbles my ear. “Everything.” I sigh. His lips slide across my jaw and back to latch on mine. He doesn’t seem to want to talk now.
I can’t speak now either. I’m too busy tasting him back. Fingers wandering into his thick hair. Breasts pressing to his flat chest. And his warm tongue and strong lips leaving mine to wander . . . wander . . . down my throat. He moves the little R necklace aside and sets a kiss on the nook below as his hand caresses down my flat abdomen.
I start closing my thighs—this always makes me vulnerable. Thinking he’ll kiss me there. He stops my thighs from fully closing and urges one open to the side.
His breath coasts over my nipple before his mouth crosses the peak. On the inside of my leg, his thumb travels up my thigh.
“Saint,” I whimper anxiously.
He tastes my mouth again, harder. He rolls me to my back and comes over me in his jeans, his bare chest hot against mine. And that sexy smiling mouth of his kisses me, and I’m dragging my hands up the grooves of his back, undulating as I try to get him to give me what I need—him, all of him—right now.
He’s running his hands up and down my sides as he samples the skin of my neck, the tips of my breasts, my navel, like he truly doesn’t know where to start. He’s savoring, but at the same time, hungry. His lips nip and bite and his tongue swipes out to taste, his hands kneading as they go, his muscles taut with tension, his energy intense, I wonder if I’m enough to appease him.
He licks his tongue into my belly button and parts my legs with one wandering hand. I stare up at the ceiling and groan as I try to calm my body down, rolling my head to the side as pleasure rocks me.
He teases his thumb over my folds first, and then brings his two longest fingers to stroke over the outside. I fist his hair and pull him away from my breast, pulling him up hungrily to my mouth. He gives me the kiss I want, but then tears free and edges back. His eyes miss no detail of me splayed on his bed. My wet folds slick under his two fingers. My breasts rising and falling. My face, which feels soft and weak with desire.
One nipple disappears into his mouth again. His hair gleams in the lamplight, shadows cast across his muscles. He’s still in jeans. And I’m so very naked, so very caressed, so very turned on and vulnerable as he inches his head down. I sense him look at me down there as he uses his two hands to spread my legs open.
“Oh, Malcolm.” I’m red all over.
He leans down and sucks my clit. I arch up and groan.
He rubs me under his tongue and as I rock my hips instinctively, taken over, his fingers are there, ready to penetrate me. He watches me arch. I should’ve known he’d want everything. Take everything. He warned me he would. My instinct of self-preservation wars against the pleasure arrowing through me and the need to be taken by him.
I sigh his name and let my legs skew open. He whispers my name reverently and sucks and kisses me a little more.
“Saint, I’m going to—”
He doesn’t stop until I come. I’m still shuddering when he stands to undress; I’m too weak to cover myself. To pretend I have control over this kind of want. It’s like he knows my walls are up and he’s determined to crumble them.
I didn’t know desire like this existed. I see him stand there, rolling on a condom, ready to take me and I lie here, spread open and aching for him to. I relax in anticipatory relief when his naked body covers mine, and he opens me up to receive him.
I groan as he wraps my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips, my head falling back . . . ready, eager, wanting. He kisses my breasts, grabbing my ass and tilting my hips upward as he drives inside. Our bodies tighten in pleasure as we connect.
I feel him stretch me . . . take me.
Then we begin to move. Quiet. Only our breathing audible.
My every sense is sensitized to a million.
I stare, in hazy ecstasy, up into his face, lit by the lamplight and golden and perfect, and ohmigod, his eyes look so hot for me. So violent and fiercely tender for me as he stares down at me. I knot up inside.
My chest flutters as I wonder if he can see it right in my eyes in every wild beat of my heart, I love you I love you Iloveyou . . .
I stay staring as we move, my hands caressing his chest, his body hoisted up by one arm while his free hand makes love to my skin. And then we start kissing, and we don’t stop, the connection of our bodies too delicious, our mouths tasting, savoring, hot, wet, mine eager and soft, his more demanding and thirsty, our bodies moving together.
We lie there after he goes clean up, silent and sweaty and I’ve lost all modesty at the moment. I feel raw and open and unable to pull myself together right now.
I let him kiss my mouth for a while; my lips are red and I like it. I like his bed, I like our bodies tangled, I like that he broke me down and I get to stay and sleep here as I pull myself together again. I realize his breathing is deeper and shift a little, and he’s asleep. I reach up and touch his lips and quietly set a kiss on them.
I know Saint usually has trouble sleeping and I wonder how many nights he’s lain here, in this bed, without shutting his eyes. Enough that he’s fast asleep now, as if he too feels at peace having me back in his arms. I take his arm and curl it around me. And kiss the corner of his lips.
“Good night, Sin,” I whisper.
I never thought I could love a guy this freaking hard.
