My mother’s probably asleep. She hasn’t answered. I still feel like shit. Hell, I am shit. Groaning, I pull my T-shirt over my knees and wrap my arms around my legs; then I bury my face there. I’ve been here for a while when I hear the downstairs buzzer. I’m not answering. I really am not.
The third time it buzzes, I give up and go answer from the kitchen. “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
Malcolm.
I glance frantically around the place I share with Gina. It’s in a Chicago factory-turned-apartment building. The doors to our bedrooms are both in a short hall, one on the right side, one to the left. Painted wooden bookcases and framed metal columns stand between the kitchen and living room. We have a hole in the wall between the dining room and the pantry, and the cheapest alternative we could think of at the time was to hang a huge whiteboard over it on the dining room side, where we write things when we get drunk or just feel like it. It used to be my idea board, but the girls hijacked it.
It’s . . . home. My home. What will he think of it?
This apartment is my pride, my little spot of peace, and now HE will be in it, and it will be intense. It’s been a while since my friends and I have had this conversation, but no man has crossed the sacred barrier of my apartment threshold. Ever. He’s the first. The very first.
I’m nervous about him seeing my place, my safe zone, my pride and joy, through eyes that have seen far too much of the world. Far more than me. What is pretty to me may be simple and uninteresting to him.
“C’mon up,” I murmur and buzz him in, then hurry back to my bedroom, slipping on some leggings and exchanging my T-shirt for a long blouse, checking my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Sighing in despair over my swollen eyelids, I scrub my face with soap and head to the door. He’s waiting outside when I open it, leaning against the wall, one hand in his pocket, staring down at his shoes, his eyebrows furrowed.
He looks up at me. My legs feel paralyzed, as if they’re not getting enough blood. He doesn’t know how monumental it is for me to step back and wave him inside. God, he looks so good—as good as he did minutes or hours ago—that I almost trip on the rug.
“Do you want coffee?”
He glances around my place with a nod.
His tie is unfastened and hanging around his neck, the top buttons of his shirt undone. His hair curls at the collar of his shirt, and when he rumples it and keeps surveying my place, it sticks out all over his head, dark and lovely. I have to fight the urge to reach out and touch it. Instead, I bring us two cups to the coffee table. I take the couch and watch him lower himself into my favorite oversize reading chair, the one I do my best thinking in. I’m a little afraid now that I won’t ever use it again without remembering he was parked right there.
“I’m sorry I bailed,” I whisper, sliding a cup across the table and retrieving my hand before he can reach for it.
“I heard you weren’t feeling well.” He leans forward, ignoring the coffee. Ignoring my apartment and everything except me.
His dissecting look makes me lower my face and exhale. “Yeah, I guess,” I agree.
“Somebody hurt you, Rachel?”
“Maybe . . .” I raise my head at the protectiveness in his tone and cross my arms over my chest. A male figure has never been concerned over me, protective. I like it so much I smile a little in happy amusement. “Will you punch her for me?”
“Her?”
“Me,” I specify, shaking my head. “I’m referring to me, she’s the one who hurt me.” I tighten my arms because seeing him in my place makes my mind keep going elsewhere, to another time, at the top of the Interface building. I can’t believe I’ve kissed those lips. I can’t believe he kissed me for so long.
He laughs softly, runs a hand through his hair. “Then no, I won’t punch her.” A pause, a laden look.
Then kiss her again, I think recklessly.
Groaning inwardly at the thought, I put my face in my hand for a moment.
Saint seems to be beyond puzzled by me right now.
“Is this a girl thing?” His voice brings my head up, his tone a mix of confusion and amusement that, coming from such a hard and closed man, is unexpectedly sweet.
“It’s a me thing,” I admit. “I saw someone tonight—she works where I work. She’s always so spot-on. Everything she writes is absolute gold. Her topics, her metaphors, her similes!”
His chuckle fills the room—a rich, beautiful sound—and then he reclines farther back in the chair, the embodiment of a businessman relaxing.
“I’m personally a fan of your work, Rachel.”
My . . . what!?
“You always lay out your topics with refreshing honesty.”
“You’ve been reading me?” I’m sure my voice and round eyes betray my surprise.
That small smile again, combined with a scowl this time. “You think I give interviews to just anyone?”
“Honest?” I ask.
When he nods, I dip my head low. “I thought you saw my boobs pushing out of that top on my profile picture and told Dean you’d see me.”
His eyes crinkle with humor, but then we stare for long, heavy minutes, and our smiles fade.
“I read your column before that interview was granted.”
“I must’ve been such a disappointment in person. That first interview? It’s the most embarrassing interview I’ve ever had,” I admit.
We stare again.
I want him to say something, so I wait.
“I thought you were lovely.”
I’m blushing red.
He’s not known to be big on compliments, or a big flatterer. He’s known to be blunt, his honesty close to making people uncomfortable.
I’m uncomfortable now because I feel him looking at me with new intensity, and when he speaks again, the girl inside me feels euphoric.
“It gave me great pleasure to watch you walk out with my shirt. It seems every single one of my employees who saw you knew that I wanted you. Everyone knew this except maybe me.”
My breath catches.
“Oh,” I say, when I manage to expel it.
“I didn’t know then,” he specifies, his stare unflinching.
The desire I feel is so absolute, so powerful, I cannot think of anything else but him and the fact that I cannot have him.
I’m acutely aware of the distance between us—of exactly how many feet lie between him and me in my living room. I turn on a lamp, and the room becomes more alive; all the light seems to make love to him, to the angles of his face.
“Why are you here, Saint? If it was because of what happened at Interface, I made a mistake.”
“Then let’s make another one. A bigger one.”
I laugh nervously. “What is this? Am I a challenge to you now?”
His lips quirk. “A challenge is something you stop wanting once you acquire it. I can’t know if you’re a challenge yet until I make you mine.”
I can’t believe how sexy that short little word, mine, is when the man I want utters it. I want to hear him say it so many more times, in my ear, closer to me. Oh god. Livingston, get under control.
But how can I? The tension is so thick in the air. I inhale the scent of him with every breath; every breath reminds me my body is tight and throbbing, every breath hurts because of him.
He’s watching me as if he wants to figure me out. “So, your friend . . .”
“Victoria. She’s my age, but she’s had short stories published already, she’s writing a children’s book for sex education, she makes success look so effortless. I can never do as much, think of the concepts she comes up with.”
“Use it, use it to become better. You do your best when someone else is right there trying to beat you. I was . . .” he begins, then laughs softly as if amused at himself. “Okay, let’s try this.” He edges forward in his seat. “I was a disappointment to my father.” He speaks casually, but he watches me as if he wants to be sure his words have an effect. “I’m not sure if it’s been since I was born, or later . . . when I got sick. Dad never forgave me that weakness. He asked for DNA testing, sure my mother had had an affair, wanting to prove I wasn’t his son. I got bigger, faster, stronger, just because the one man I wanted to prove myself to underestimated me.”
“Was he a tough dad?”
“Tough as nails. Nothing anyone did was good enough to suit him.”
“Is that why nothing you get is good enough, why you’re always chasing after more?”
“Not because of him. It’s because it never feels like enough. I never stop unless I want someone else to catch up.”
“You’re tough as nails too.”
He laughs and shakes his head, his hand restlessly running over his head. “You okay now?”
I nod. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“For what?”
“You being here right now is holding me back from a pretty nasty hell.”
He stands, and my heart stops beating as he comes and drops next to me. I’m pudding when he tugs me into the nook in his strong arm. “Come here.” He holds me for a while, his arm encircling me. He’s not soft at all—his chest is hard, his shoulders square—but I feel his warmth and heartbeat, and suddenly I realize I’m pressing my mouth to his throat.
He circles my waist with his arm and traps me against his chest. He caresses my neck from my collarbone to the edge of my jaw.
I slide my hand up his chest.
He meets my eyes with blazing force, and I start chasing my breath in fast pants as he ducks his head.
He kisses the edge of my mouth. My lids sweep closed from the pleasure, and I don’t dare move a muscle.
He frames my face with the palms of his hands and slowly brushes his lips against mine. He eases back an inch, looking at me again, making sure I’m okay before bending again and opening his lips against mine.
He holds me loosely as I kiss his mouth, as if giving me space, letting me get accustomed to him. Everything about him is hard. His jaw. His chest. His arms. His hands. But oh my god, his lips. His tongue. His lips are warm and soft, kissing me hungrily. His tongue lightly slipping through my lips, making me melt into him.
We sink into the couch and I let him kiss me because it’s the most exquisite thing I have ever felt. I open my mouth wider, savoring every minute, every second, that his lips are on mine. He kisses me for a long time, over and over again, until I’m breathless. I never want to stop. I could do this for hours. It feels perfect. Amazing.
He draws back and rubs his thumb across my bottom lip.
My brain is thinking so many things at once it isn’t thinking anything at all. I’m breathing hard, looking at him with his hair tousled, eyes hooded, and lips slightly swollen, and he looks back at me like a tiger does its prey. We shift, and I sit on his lap straddling him. He kisses my jaw. I hold on to his biceps, big and strong. He kisses the side of my mouth again, reassuring me that I’m okay, while parting my blouse with his hands. Then he leans down and places a kiss right below my throat.
I look down to his jet-black hair, feeling his warm mouth kiss across my collarbone. He places another kiss right between my breasts, then all the way up to my jaw. He kisses my throat again. Sucking a little here, licking a little there, kissing a little more. I’m looking up at the ceiling, trying to memorize the feel of his lips on me. I feel like I’m separate from my body. If someone were to talk to me, I probably wouldn’t hear them. All I want in life right now is for him to never stop.
He makes his way back to my lips, giving me another soft kiss. I open my mouth immediately and wind my arms around his neck to hold him to me. His hands are big and warm on my thighs—without them I would probably float off somewhere near Cloud Nine. Or in this case, Cloud Ninety-nine.
I melt when I hear his hot voice against my skin. “I keep thinking of that day. And you couldn’t have possibly tasted this sweet. . . .”
I open my mouth, and suddenly I’m kissing him with my whole heart. He is exquisite. Kissing me tenderly, and then kissing me hungrily. The smell of his cologne surrounds me, the heat from his body warms me, and his lips slowly drive me crazy. This little make-out session of ours is going to end up with me in a psych ward.
“Don’t stop,” I breathe, rocking my hips with the sudden ache to get closer to him, to feel his skin on mine.
My body’s trembling. He raises his head and kisses the edge of my mouth, starts nibbling. He groans, and I can tell he’s really getting into it. “Don’t stop,” I beg.
“I’m not stopping until morning.” He draws back and cups my face in both hands. I’m looking into his glowing green eyes, which stare at me with a light in them I can’t describe. He’s looking at me like I’m a goddess. Like he could never have imagined me. He’s looking at me with so much need and tenderness I can feel my throat tighten again. I’m not ready for this. I’m scared. I’m nervous.
“What in the—”
The overhead lights snap on and I sit up in confusion, covering my hot face with my hands.
Gina blinks.
Saint closes his eyes tight, then opens them, and he looks so perfectly hot, so manly, so angry and so debauched by me, I reach out and quickly start to button his shirt, too jealous to let Gina see his chest, his abs, what I’d just been touching so madly.
“I hope what’s happening here isn’t really happening.” Gina scowls with her hands planted on her hips.
“It isn’t,” I blurt; then I look at him as he looks down at me in complete puzzlement, eyebrows slanted low. His hair is standing up adorably, but his expression is beyond annoyed.
“Your roommate,” he curses under his breath as if he should’ve remembered I had one.
Mortified, I pull him to his feet—with much effort—and then to the door. “That . . . was beyond a mistake. I don’t know what got into me.”
His stare is dark as night and his voice is gruff with desire. “I know what got into you—the same thing that got into me.”
“No.” I go into the hall, call up the elevator, and then push him in with all my effort. “’Bye, Saint.”
“I’ll call you, Rachel,” he murmurs as he grabs my face and kisses my mouth, rubbing his tongue a little over mine and making me moan before I tear free and the elevator leaves.
Oh. My. God. What have I unleashed?
“What was that?”
“He was saying goodbye.”
“I’m Gina, remember. Your best friend. I can tell when you’re lying. Were you guys . . . sleeping together on the couch like some item?”
“I had a few drinks. So did he. We had that . . . thing. I’m beyond . . . not thinking well.”
“Okay. ’Cause we know deep down he’s Lucifer, right? The Arch Douche himself? We don’t sleep with the bastard, we do not drop our walls!”
I nod and go to my room. I scrub my mouth with the back of my hand and brush my teeth and then look at my face in the mirror.
What am I doing? I poured my heart out to him. Why didn’t I just tell him I was writing an exposé?
This wasn’t part of my plan. I’m supposed to write an exposé about him, not let him expose me.
But I can’t sleep. I remember the frustration on Saint’s face when Gina came in. A little later, I turn on my lamp and get my cell phone.
I’m sorry about the way I said goodbye, I text, but before sending the text, I dial the number and wonder if he’ll answer. I don’t wonder for long: I hear the sound of him picking up, his voice saying hey.
“I’m sorry about the way I said goodbye.”
There’s a smile in his voice when he answers, relieving me. “If that’s what it takes to get you to call.”
I laugh, then go sober and cuddle up in bed with the phone to my ear, shyly whispering, “You’re different with me than anyone.”
“Because of the ‘fragile, handle with care’ sign you wear.”
“I’m not fragile.”
“You’re so fragile you’ve boxed yourself up so you don’t break.”
“I like my safe zone.”
“Nothing happens in the safe zone.”
“That’s the point—you control everything and it’s predictable and . . . safe.”
There’s a long silence.
Then Saint says, “When you come outside of your box, I’ll be waiting.”
