Gushing with gratitude over the bottle of wine, my mother heads over to set it in ice.
He touches my cheek for only a second, that one second enough to fluster me even more.
Damn him.
“You’re the first man Rachel ever brought home,” my mother tells him.
“This is the first time I’ve actually gone.”
He winks at me and my mother and I both kind of smile. We both mooned over him just seconds ago as he opened the wine in a way only a man who’s uncorked dozens of wine bottles can.
Now we’re all enjoying dinner, wine, and conversation.
“I always thought she’d have had more friends if she hadn’t had an imaginary friend. Monica,” my mother says.
“Matilda,” I correct my mother.
My poor mom, she’s so excited and so flustered she can’t even keep her facts straight.
“Matilda. Right. She’d blame everything on Matilda. Rachel doesn’t like screwing up in any way, you see,” she says. “She’s a bit of a perfectionist and it makes her mad at herself, so she used to blame Matilda when things didn’t go the way she wanted.”
I groan and roll my eyes. “This would be so so much easier to bear if Matilda were sitting here now.”
Saint leans over. “I wouldn’t have come here for Matilda. Only for you.”
His lips quirk when I redden.
“Rachel tells me you paint?” he asks my mother.
“I do. I like color on everything,” she says and proudly signals to her strawberry spinach salad. “Rachel used to paint too—that one’s hers.” She points at a small frame with my handprint on it.
“I did not paint that. I just set my hand there. Saint has one of those, Mother. A big one.”
“Oh, he does?” Her eyes widen in awe. “Those are sold, but in this case, it was a gift from End the Violence for her support.”
As we head into the main course, my mother tells Saint all about my involvement with End the Violence—nothing Saint doesn’t really know except perhaps that I’ve been doing it for a decade—while Saint listens attentively as he cleans his plate.
He listens to her tell him about the stories I used to tell as a kid . . .
Me and how End the Violence really made an impact on helping my mother and me cope . . .
Me and my dreams of having a career where I could both love what I do and earn a living at it . . .
Me and how I’ve wished to make her dream come true of working at what she loves . . .
“Her life has been full of other people’s stories,” she adds.
“Even mine,” he whispers with a sharp gleam in his eye aimed in my direction. He is not mad, just calm as he finishes his wine. Calm, and something else. He seems . . . illuminated. As if my mother’s stories have shed light on something that had been eluding him for a while.
I kind of think he looks even more comfortable than he did seconds ago, his attention unwavering as he crosses his utensils over his empty plate, leans back in his chair and cups his hands behind his head, laughing at my mother’s stories about young Rachel’s antics.
He looks . . . at home, here with my mother and me.
It does something to me. I suddenly feel very vulnerable.
I wonder about his mother as he talks with mine. As he talks with mine and occasionally ends her anecdotes with, “Did she really?” in amusement.
And my mom won’t shut up about me!
I feel extremely, intimately bared to Malcolm right now.
Malcolm already knows so much about me. What I like and fear and want. That I hope to do good things, but I sometimes do bad. He knows how I taste.
And now, having the man of my dreams know me through my mother’s stories, I feel completely exposed. As if I have no more secrets from him, while he, somehow, is a box of them that I might never fully open.
Gina’s right: maybe I do have a few walls up to protect myself. But I feel them all about to topple.
“Now, Rachel had very few friends when she was younger,” she says as she brings over my favorite dessert from the kitchen, a chocolate peppermint pie. “She was reserved and of course it was a concern of mine, as you can imagine. The only people Rachel allowed to know that she didn’t have a father were those we met through End the Violence. People like her, who’ve known loss. She just didn’t feel comfortable sharing that loss with anyone else, whom she thought wouldn’t understand.”
I try to laugh it off, but my laugh wavers. It’s only after Saint reaches for my hand under the table and squeezes it that I exhale.
Because he’s not judging me.
I’m into you, I remember him saying. I steal a look at his profile. He senses it and turns, and when our gazes meet, I feel like he kisses me with his eyes.
This evening in my home feels so monumental all of a sudden. Like he too is giving me something he’s given no one else.
Now my mother is saying I read during the weekends throughout my teens.
“She wasn’t a party girl?”
He asked my mother this, but he’s teasing me. I can tell by the look—and smile—he sends my way.
A smile that no woman on earth could withstand with dry panties.
“Oh, no, though she enjoys having fun,” Mother assures. “Rachel was back from prom at twelve. Her date couldn’t interest her long enough to make her stay, a nice young man one of her friends suggested. She wasn’t really interested in anyone. I used to think she’d need a man so compelling, her stories couldn’t live up to him; he’d make her reality so much more compelling than anything else.”
I feel privately caressed when his gaze intensifies.
“So there was no one,” he says, sounding perfectly greedy.
I hold my breath.
“No one,” mother confirms.
But you, I tell him with my eyes when he smiles at me.
It’s better than sex, the way he’s staring at me now, the clenching of his jaw as if some unnamable emotion has touched him.
“Sin, we really need to find someone able to tell me embarrassing stories about you, so I can get even,” I tease him with a husky, shy voice.
Under the table, he gives my hand another squeeze, his voice dropping an octave just for me. “Give it a Goog. We’ll be more than even.”
“She’d come up with stories about families,” Mom tells him. “Usually very sweet ones. I worried she was a bit too hopeful for the real world, but I’m sure it was the way she coped after we lost Michael.”
After a nod of understanding directed at my mother, Saint’s eyes seek me out again. Caress me again. But the caress doesn’t feel sexual. It feels like so much more. Male eyes, as deep as eternity, seem to simply say, I understand.
“I’m sorry to hear that, for both of you,” he finally murmurs to my mother, and I notice that it takes him an effort to pull his gaze away from me.
The cold flecks that are so common in Malcolm Saint’s eyes . . .
There’s not a single cold fleck in them now.
He’s living, breathing and human and sitting like a calm storm at our dinner table, still so strong and alive and normal despite him being abnormally beautiful, abnormally powerful.
I see my mother blush a little when his full attention is on her. “I know you’ve lost your mother as well. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” he says quietly.
“This is your home too, Malcolm. Anytime.”
When my mother walks us to the door shortly thereafter and Malcolm asks me if I’m coming back with him, I blush and nod. I’m not even going to pretend I don’t want to be with him right now.
He says goodbye to my mother, and then he speaks again, without hesitation or apology. “I’m not good at making promises. But I would like you to know I’ve never been serious about a girl until I met your daughter, and now that I know I’m the first man she’s brought home, I’m aiming to be the last.”
I’m red to the roots of my hair.
Oh. My.
&nb
sp; Did Saint just say this to my mother?
“No promise needed. Just be good to her,” she whispers, heartfelt to him. Then— “Please. Take dessert with you. I won’t eat it and you two can share it later. It’s Rachel’s favorite,” she adds, bringing over the pie, tightly covered in aluminum foil.
After I hug and thank her and she gives me this huge, huge smile that screams at me how much she likes him, how appeased she is about us having—possibly—a relationship, my heart feels content.
Saint walks me over to his car, opens the door, and when I settle in, he leans over to latch my seat belt. As his fingers graze me, my sexy parts start aching. How can Saint make something as simple as a homey dinner feel like foreplay?
I think he knows I’m burning.
Because the next second, he grabs the back of my head and kisses me.
The kiss is slow and so yummy that my thighs clench. I hazily wonder if I’ll ever grow used to his kisses. Strong and sure, he tongue-fucks my mouth. When he adds gentle sucking motions on my tongue, I tighten my hold on his shoulders.
“What was that for?”
“For me.” He smiles as his thumb strokes the corner of my lips.
He shuts the door, goes around the car with a hot and satisfied look on his face, and then settles behind the wheel. As we head out of the neighborhood, I notice he drives slower than he usually does —probably because of the pie riding at my feet—and I mull out loud, “I wonder what my father would have thought of you. Would he have hated or admired that you’re so powerful?”
He lifts one brow. “Let’s put it this way. My own father can’t stand me. I don’t expect anyone else’s to.”
“Weak men don’t like strong men, they remind them of what they failed to be.”
Now both brows go up, and he shoots me such an admiring look, I almost swell inside. He cups my face and touches his thumb to the corner of my mouth. “My father’s not weak, but he’s stubborn and selfish.” He shifts gears, his thumb ring glinting as he does.
“My dad definitely would have warned me off you, for sure . . . but I don’t know, Sin.” Turning my head dreamily in the seat so I can get a good eyeful of the candy that Saint driving his car is, I sigh. “I think he’d admire you very much.”
“My mother would’ve loved you, baby.” With a tender curving of his lips, he reaches out and tips my chin up. “Who could not love you?”
“You,” I say, then my hands fly up and I cover my mouth. “Ohmigod, don’t say anything.”
His eyes are alight with amusement as he opens his mouth.
“DON’T SAY ANYTHING! IT DOESN’T COUNT!”
Saint just laughs huskily. “Rach—”
“DON’T! DON’T DENY IT, DON’T ACCEPT IT, JUST DON’T. I’m so sorry; I don’t know why I said that. I went fishing for it and it’s not fair to you.”
I start laughing and he pulls over and stops the car, grabs me with both hands and kisses me. Not a peck. A kiss I can feel in my knees and that makes my lungs spread open as I try to breathe.
“Don’t,” I plead when he’s done.
“I’m not saying anything,” he says innocently.
“Okay. Please don’t.”
I’m shaking from wanting him to say it now. Say something. Maybe he doesn’t feel it. Maybe I should’ve let him speak. Maybe I couldn’t take what he’d have said. Urgh. I can’t even look at him right now. I stare out the window as he pulls us back into traffic and feel my stomach flip when he takes my hand and gives it a squeeze, and I love him even more for that alone. Whatever his reply might have been, he’s still holding my hand. He’s still here with me.
But when I remain silent, he slows down the car a little bit and leans over and kisses my mouth softly, one hand on the wheel, the other on the back of my head.
“What was that for?” I lick my lips, look at his mouth.
And he says, “That was me doing whatever I want.” He kisses me softly again. “Get used to it.”
I wait until he hits a stoplight, then grab him. “Get used to this.”
We kiss a little wilder, then smile. Then the acceleration is back on.
We ride the elevator to the penthouse where he sleeps, eats, lives.
Where he’s made love to me like mad.
My heart is pounding so hard, I can’t even hear the “ding” of the elevator, just suddenly, the doors open. Saint didn’t even ask me if I was coming over—it was a given. We said we’d spend the weekend together as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. And it’s starting to feel like it is.
I step out of the elevator, the sight of his beautiful apartment hitting me with painful longing, and my lungs start struggling a little bit. I’m spending the night here again and somehow it feels as though we’re slowly evolving into something deeper, stronger, further.
I set the pie down on his shiny kitchen counter as he comes up behind me and takes my hips in one hand.
The butterflies awaken in my stomach.
He uses his hand on my hips to turn me around, and my breath catches on a moan as his lips come down on mine. Our mouths fuse effortlessly, and will I ever get used to the electric jolt of his kisses? I feel the natural high he gives me rise in my body. My pulse skipping. My mind reeling. My world narrowing to the mouth currently making slow, hot love to mine.
When his phone buzzes, interrupting us, I’m not sure what I see in his eyes but the butterflies keep moving. His gaze is as deep as a night forest.
He pecks my lips before he takes the call and steps aside. “Santori,” he says, his voice low but clear. “Yeah, I was busy. Update? Hmm . . .” He starts pacing toward the living room, frowning as he runs his hand through his hair.
I wonder who this Santori is as I remove the aluminum foil from the pie, search for a spoon, then lean over the kitchen counter, up on my toes as I take a little spoonful.
Mmmm. God. Mint and chocolate are so good together.
I’m licking the spoon when I realize Saint is staring at me. Grinning, I dip my spoon and savor it so that he realizes he’s missing out on really good homemade pie.
I keep watching him as he watches me back, the intensity in his stare starting to knot up my body in places only he manages to reach. I set down the spoon and . . . why is my hand trembling? Self-conscious of his very male, very powerful stare, I lick the corners of my lips, and his voice drops a decibel.
“Yeah, I can’t . . . do this now. Give me the night to think over our next move.”
He powers off his phone and tosses it aside.
My knees turn to Jell-O as he comes over. He rubs a silver thumb ring over my lips, his eyes gleaming with lights. “I thought I could get some business done, but I’d rather do you.”
Holy crap. He looks so decisive. So determined.
One sentence from this man and I’m as hot and ready as if we’ve spent hours on foreplay.
“Do you . . .” I lick my lips and stare at his mouth, trying to level my breathing. “Do you want pie?”
He tilts my head back so we make eye contact. And he shakes his head . . . very, very slowly.
Malcolm is big on eye contact.
He’s a predator, and I’m his most willing prey.
He cradles the back of my skull while his free hand curls around my neck, and still holding my gaze until it’s impossible for him to both hold it and kiss me at the same time, he lowers his head. “I want . . . these lips of yours. They’re all I want . . .”
First he trails his tongue, hot and wet, across my lips. I moan. His smell enthralls me and the hint of his taste, along with the chocolate and peppermint, lingers on my lips. If that isn’t the most delicious form of torture, I don’t know what is.
He slides his tongue again, and I shudder and part my lips. He thrusts inside. Fierce desire pools between my thighs. He keeps me there, where he wants me, and nips my lower lip, pulling it away from the top.
I mew softly and he brings me closer so that his hard body is aligned with mine. God help me, h
e owns me. “Sin . . .”
“And I want . . . these.” My breasts feel sensitive and aching when his hands cover them over my top.
My heart skips a beat.
God, those lips are wearing the most devilish smile he’s ever sent my way.
With one hand, he expertly tugs my top over my head, then lowers the lace of my bra until only one nipple pops free. He takes a moment to look at it with complete appreciation. He frees my other nipple and leaves them there, exposed, with the fabric of my bra bunched up beneath them.
“I definitely want these beauties.” When he bends his head, he sucks super hard, making the tip of my nipple swell and my sex ache, needing to be filled. He turns to my other nipple, rolling it under his tongue, then sucking again.
Arching instinctively, I clutch at his back, raking my nails over the cashmere of his sweater. “I really need this . . . oh, Malcolm, don’t stop.”
“I’m not stopping.” He drags his teeth over my nipple and then licks. “I want your hands on me,” he quietly tells me as he forces my hand to curl around the front of his jeans, where he is thick, pulsing, and strong as steel. My mouth dries up and I lick my lips as I stroke him over the fabric, and a low growl rips up his throat. “Look at you Rachel,” he husks out, looking at my nipples. And then he dips his fingers into the pie and rubs chocolate mingled with whipped cream on each of my puckered nipples.
“Saint!” I gasp, shocked and jerking with arousal.
He ducks his head to tongue-fuck my ear, and as he does that, he asks, “Do you want me to eat you?”
Electricity crackles between us as his eyes trap and hold mine. I nod.
“What part of you?”
Ohgod.
Every part.
Every part on the outside, every part on the inside. I want to be devoured by him and I want to devour him right back.
Nervous and so ravenous my throat hurts, I reach out and add chocolate to my lips. “Here,” I whisper shyly.
He grins. “Here?” He leans over and teases the chocolate into his mouth, lapping it gently up from the corner of my mouth.
White-hot lightning streaks through me and I think I make a sound; a needy whimper. He pulls me close and then, then, he kisses and tastes the pie from my lips, every part of my body feeling his kiss.