Manwhore +1

  “Now we’re talking. Bases loaded,” he says, clapping, then lifting his brows at me as he gestures toward the three bases forming a perfect arrow in front of us.

  My lips ripple as I try to tame a smile. I’d forgotten how he loves anything competitive. It gives me a secret little tingle when I see his passion right out there, flashing in his eyes.

  I suddenly ache to play with him. “I bet you were an expert at the bases, juvenile as that sounds.” I raise an eyebrow. I wonder when it all began, and I’m fishing for it. That little sliver of knowledge of how he became the most wanted man in Chicago. I wouldn’t be surprised if it started during elementary school. He did get a headline when he was born—and the headlines have never stopped following him.

  “Were?” he jokes. “Am.” He lowers his head to mine and runs the tip of his nose against my temple. “I still got game.” He places a small kiss where his nose used to be.

  “I would know. You’re such a big-time player, the umpire should be up here calling the plays.”

  He doesn’t laugh like I thought he would. His eyes look darker, as if he doesn’t like me calling him a player, and I can tell his energy changed just now.

  I peer at him, and he’s studying my hand as he draws his thumb up from the base to my fingertips. Tingles race through my skin, bubbles through my veins. He has a look of concentration, like he’s just discovered something he’s never seen before. Like he’s definitely playing with a toy he never expected to play with. He lifts his lashes to look at me. The momentary glimpse of the fiery heat in his gaze makes me drop my eyes back down to stare at our hands, my stomach gripping nervously.

  He lifts our hands and slowly kisses my knuckles. When he lowers them, I’m panting little breaths. He smiles at me and I smile at him as he lets go, his touch lingering on my skin.

  “You turn me on like nothing else,” he whispers.

  He kisses me softly but briefly. Then he snaps out of it and turns back to watch the player on home base. The ball is hurtling through the air, and with a smack, I realize the batter made contact and the ball is heading somewhere out in midfield.

  Malcolm is ecstatic. The whole stadium is screaming. If the Cubs get two men in, they’ll win the game . . .

  One hit.

  The crowds stand.

  Malcolm stands.

  I stand.

  A roar outside, and suddenly I’m crushed in his arms and flung in the air so hard my breath leaves me.

  “Malcolm!” I cry. He catches me, kisses me, squeezes me and twirls me around, grinning down at me. And when he sets me down, his eyes go from fiery celebration to something stormy and uncontrollable.

  He slides his arms around me and pulls me into his chest, and this hug is different. “I just want to make you smile,” he says, gazing back at me and I guess I’m still smiling.

  “I like your smile too,” I admit.

  We hug again, and stay there, watching the stadium. We’re starting to feel like a couple, like Wynn and her boyfriend are, like Saint was made to hold me just like this. His huge hands just cradle me to him as the stadium empties and we wait to leave.

  He’s rubbing his hands against my back slowly, moving his head until his lips are rubbing against my neck. It feels amazing. Beautiful. Warm. Soft. And I can feel my breaths coming faster, but a tightness is here. He’s holding me, and just when I think I can’t possibly like it more, he keeps embracing me and doesn’t let go as we finally walk out. He leads me out of the stadium.

  It feels cold outside in the parking lot, I can see the trees folding, swaying, bending with the force of the cold Chicago wind. The Windy City—the name came about because of the hot airs some city politicians and braggarts put on in earlier centuries, though many people think it’s because of the wind. And this is exactly why.

  As we wait for Claude to bring the car, some people are approaching to greet him. A man with two girls, one on each arm, who smiles and exclaims, “Saint!”

  “Hillz,” he says tonelessly, taking my hand before they can reach us and leading me to his car.

  “Why don’t you want me to meet them?” I ask once we get in the backseat.

  “You’re too good for some of my crowd,” he says in my ear.

  My stomach starts churning. God, these butterflies just don’t cease. It’s like someone’s tickling your stomach and you feel like you might burst out giggling at no particular time for no particular reason, except I know I’m about to get kissed to death. The black leather seats feel cool on the bottoms of my legs. The partition is closed between us and Claude, and as the car drives away, Saint takes my face in both of his hands and gives me a light, soft kiss. “Thanks for coming with me.”

  “Thanks for inviting—” Before I can finish speaking, he starts kissing me. And I let him deepen the kiss.

  Instantly it’s like we’re molded into one, our movements are in sync. I can feel his hands on my body but my head is somewhere out in space, dancing next to Jupiter and counting Saturn’s rings. It’s like a high. A hot, burning, needy high. I lose it a little bit and straddle him and run my fingers through his soft hair. His mouth is on my neck, hot and wet, sucking and kissing.

  I feel like a teenager, making out with him in the back of his car. I can’t breathe. I just let him do whatever he’s doing because it feels like heaven. His fingers play with the waist of my shorts, tracing circles and gently rubbing my skin. I kiss him again and start to rub against him. He groans and grabs me by the ass, using one hand to grind me closer, harder.

  His other hand reaches between my legs and unbuttons my shorts. My heart beats so loud it seems to be the only thing I can hear. I feel him smile against my lips.

  “Want me to stop?”

  His lips latch on to my skin and his tongue traces slow, lazy circles on my neck.

  “Never. Kiss me,” I plead.

  He kisses a perfectly delicious path back up to my mouth.

  “I’ve been thinking about this all day.” He licks my lips and keeps kissing me, hungrier than before. His hands are dangerously close to touching my panties, but he keeps running circles along my navel, his mouth moving deliciously against mine.

  He tears his mouth from mine and drags his lips back down the column of my neck, sucking, nipping, tasting, nibbling.

  “God, I’ve been wanting to do this since I saw you at your apartment.”

  I’m panting crazy hard by now, tearing myself free so I can breathe. I’m at the point where the merest touch in any sensitive part could set me off. I’m glad his phone starts ringing.

  “Work?” I ask.

  Well, not work, I find out when he hangs up.

  “The boys are blowing up my phone. They want to come over, celebrate. T wants to see if your friend Gina wants to come.” He lifts his brows at me, waiting.

  I reach down to pat my swollen lips. I swear Saint just helped me invent the female equivalent of blue balls. “He’d better keep his hands off Gina. But I’ll text her.” I pull out my phone and shoot her a message.

  Saint is breathing hard too. His hair is rumpled by me. He looks sexxxy with triple Xs.

  “You don’t like T and Carmichael?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Your friends hate me too.”

  “They don’t. They’ve misjudged you. They never knew what to make of you.”

  He thinks about that, then leans back and spreads his arms out as he thinks about it some more. “All right. Let’s talk about how this affects us.”

  I blink.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve already talked to my friends, Rachel.”

  “What do you mean, talked to them?”

  “I told the two bozos that I like this girl, I like this girl very much, and I expect them to respect my choices.”

  “I didn’t know there was a choice.”

  “I chose to get serious with you—and I wanted it to be clear I won’t be taking any shit from them. They fuck with you, they fuck with me.”
br />   This conversation is . . . I cannot. I look at him. “Saint, you’re a player the likes of which this city has never seen.”

  “That’s what the world sees. Is that what you see?” He looks at me curiously, starting to frown. “Tahoe threw a thousand and one parties for me. I had fun. That’s what people saw. I got drunk. I was surrounded by girls.”

  I’m frowning now too. “Tahoe just cares about getting laid and he thinks that’s all you care about.”

  “But it’s not. Is it?” He looks at me intently. “There were a hundred women for the taking, every weekend. I could have. It was all there, no strings and available. I wanted to take them. Over and over.”

  I inhale sharply, and suddenly, I want to puke at the thought of his hands on anyone.

  “But I kissed one right here,” he touches the corner of my mouth with a pained look, “and I starved even more.”

  My throat hurts as if I swallowed arsenic. I have no right to feel this jealous. But the jealousy is here, like a knot of bitters in my gut. “I bet they know all kinds of sexy moves, your groupies.”

  His answer is feather soft. “They do.” He strokes his pad across the corner of my lips again, and then leans back in his seat, and looks at me quietly and almost reverently. “But not one of them talks to me the way you do. They want money or fame but not one of them has asked me to save the world. Not one wanted my comfort. They look at me with lust but never like I’m the spot where their sun rises and sets. I see a girl who didn’t know what she was getting into with me. I see a girl I can’t forget. What do you see when you look at me?”

  “I see you. I have no words for you.”

  “My friends see a guy who got fucked up over a girl.” He leans forward and tips my head back with his knuckles, angling it so his gaze can grab on to mine. “They play when I want to play, but they know me far beyond the shit we do. We’ve known each other since we were ten. They know me . . . like I thought you did.”

  His eyes grow shadowed.

  “But you didn’t know me at all, Rachel. You thought I deserved for you to play me? You saw me like everyone did and all that time I was standing there being real with you.”

  I drop my gaze as the regret sits heavily on me again. “I was scared of believing it to be true. If you get tired of me and want something new . . . or a foursome again . . . there will be no power on earth that will be able to draw your eyes back to me.”

  He laughs softly. “I don’t want to look away.” His expression mellows as he looks at me between his lashes. “I’m hooked on you,” he says. “My friends know I’m serious.”

  “So do mine,” I whisper, then look at him. “Saint, I don’t hate your friends. I like your friends. I just don’t want your friends messing with my friends.”

  “If you mean Tahoe and Gina—”

  “That’s exactly who I mean,” I say as I start to get off him, waving my hands in the air, but he catches them, locks them by my sides as he pulls me down flush with his lap.

  “It doesn’t concern you and me.”

  “Tahoe is a player. Jetting across the world with champagne and naked flight attendants. He’s used to getting it all, whenever he wants.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, that’s so. He’s used to several women catering to him at once, giving him all kinds of sexy treats like blow jobs together. How can Gina compete?”

  “How can she? Against several at once?” He clucks, but he looks amused.

  “See. It’s impossible. And she’s . . . a good girl. She doesn’t stand a chance with a guy like him.”

  “But it’s guys like us who maybe don’t stand a chance with a smart, good girl who actually wants us for more than a quick . . . fuck . . .” He lifts his brows devilishly.

  “You stand every chance. You sweep us off our feet with just one sexy corner kiss.”

  He leans in. And grazes his lips across the fringes of mine. Every corner of my body feels this most perfect kiss. Squeezing my eyes shut against the onslaught of emotion, I breathe, “I’ll kick his ass if he hurts Gina.”

  When I open my eyes, Saint’s eyes are fixed on me, his voice low with conviction: “I’ll kick his ass for you, Rachel.”

  CELEBRATING

  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.