Manwhore +1

  I give myself over. Sin. Saint.

  Malcolm inside me, Malcolm watching me with his green eyes, Malcolm clenching his jaw as he makes love to me, Malcolm who has my heart.

  We spend Saturday on The Toy. He orders food from a delicious French restaurant before we sail and then the crew cleans up as we head upstairs.

  We’re in the top-level sitting area now as the yacht moves through the water, sated from swimming, making out in the water, doing it in the cabin shower, and then in the bed. Relaxed from all the sex, Malcolm works for a while on a couch and I lounge nearby, with my feet on his lap and one of his hands stroking them absently as I surf my phone a little bit.

  I’m steering away from anything that could be a downer. So no Saint social-media-digging shit for me. No Saint social media about his father. I hear him take a call and am happy to overhear that M4’s stock had a huge rally after the news broke that Edge went to Noel Saint’s corporation. And now I can’t stop dreaming of my new career. My new office space. My new life.

  I’m thinking of all the things I want to do as the wind drags by and Malcolm finishes up, and when he shuts his laptop and I hear the unmistakable silence of powered-off electronics, I close my thoughts too as he pulls me up by the waist, then scoops me up in both arms and takes me to bed.

  “I have legs,” I whisper sleepily.

  He gives me one of his toe-curling smirks. “Long, lovely ones too.”

  His king bed is waiting for us, sprawled in the center of the room, kind of big like him.

  He sets me down in bed, but I crawl away and slip into one of his shirts as he strips, while exhaustion weighs me down after the day.

  We settle into the bed a little bit; I crawl in and I plump the pillow and slide under the covers, and he joins me, flipping onto his back, pulling an arm above his head, relaxing as his free hand curls around my shoulders and presses me to his chest. I’m warm and soft inside, settling against him. The safe, warm nook in his arms. Gathered against his large, warm male body. Contentment and peace flow through me even as his body buzzes like it always does. With that never-ending thirst of his that I try to quench with me.

  And we kiss a little. And as the kiss starts to heat up, we end up fucking slow and easy, not talking, only the noises of kissing and skin touching, our breathing and the yacht engines. I almost choke when I orgasm—the pleasure is so intense I hold my breath for forever, then exhale and lie limp, surrounded by all of Sin.

  He kisses me passionately when we’re done. Like he’s grateful for my affection and my companionship and my desire of him.

  Then we cuddle and I set my cheek against his chest and fall asleep fast and easily, like only the warm and safe do.

  HIM +1

  I wake up in Malcolm’s arms Monday morning, and though I see there’s a bit of light stealing through the drapes, I can tell there’s still maybe ten or twenty minutes to dress for work . . . maybe I’ll just stay right here forever.

  He’s still in bed, his eyes closed, his dark hair in a delish rumpled mess. I shift my hip, lightly trailing my fingers up his chest, noticing the claw marks of my nails on his pecs.

  My eyes widen. What . . . holy shit, did I do that?

  Welcome to the land of the crazy in love, Rachel. This may have been why you were so reluctant to move here?

  Grinning, I rub my fingers over the marks, and his hand slides up my back. I lift my head in surprise. His lips are curled as he watches me.

  “I actually clawed you last night?”

  His voice is husky with sleep. “No, the girls who came in while you were sleeping did.”

  I smack his shoulder and he catches my hand, his voice deepening. “Come here.”

  “Saint . . .” I breathe as he rolls over me.

  He reaches between us, sliding his hand down to cup me between my legs. “Hmm?”

  Shivers run through me. “You had me a thousand times last night.”

  Gruff whispers as he kisses and nibbles my ear. “Did I? It doesn’t seem like enough.”

  “Malcolm”—I push at his shoulder a little and edge up to sit—“in five minutes I need to get dressed for work.”

  “You own your work.”

  “Not yet. I haven’t signed anything, and last you told me, it’s today at two p.m. In the meantime I’m going to meet with my possible future team and start getting to work.”

  “All right, Rachel,” he says, clearly indulging me. “I’ll only take four minutes and fifty-nine seconds.” He pulls me back down.

  “Malcolm!” I laugh, then look at him, my smile fading. “Are we really going for this? Your first monogamous, exclusive relationship?”

  His grin remains, but the glint in his eye turns serious. He nods, kisses my shoulder, then smiles softly down at me, brushing his thumb over my skin. “We’re doing it. And I’ve got an eight-thirty.”

  After a quick shower where it’s hard to focus on just showering, I find myself sitting on the corner of his bed with a towel wrapped around my body, just watching him—not even caring I’m going to be late. He’s got a thousand and one identical shirts and ties and jackets, and as he buttons the one he plucked off the hanger, I watch him become Malcolm Saint before my very eyes. My eyes taking in his every move, his nimble fingers zipping up his slacks, his muscles flexing as he slides a shiny leather belt around his narrow waist.

  He looks at me when he feels me watching, a dent appearing in his forehead as he frowns. As if he doesn’t realize I’m just sitting here drooling my face off. Why can’t it be like the cavemen times, when all that mattered was getting food and then we could gorge on each other and lock ourselves in here forever?

  But he doesn’t want just the food; he wants the world, the moon.

  And, apparently, me.

  “Come here.” He pulls me up and I close my eyes, my toes curling when he sets a kiss that’s almost chaste on my lips. “We’re meeting the lawyers at two to make it official. Start planning your board; one that’ll help you make your new venture whatever you had once dreamed Edge could be. Give yourself a team that will help you build the platform you need to put what’s here,” he taps my temple, “out there.” He signals out the window.

  Laughing with a combo of pure raw nerves and excitement, I nod.

  He chucks my chin. “Have coffee with me before I go?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m knotted up.” He twists his neck side to side as we walk out. “You really know how to tangle up a man in bed,” he says, patting my butt affectionately as we walk to the kitchen.

  I inspect every inch of him leisurely as he makes coffee and—trying to be a good girlfriend—I reach out to massage his hard shoulders.

  It doesn’t last long. Easing behind me instead, coffee in one hand, me in the other, he stares out at Chicago like an overlord surveying his land. I lay my head back on his shoulder and let him rock me slightly as we look at the city. The city, the world, the horizon. I sense he has most of that, but he wants more, everything we see out there, and what we can’t see.

  Everything he thinks he can accomplish, he’s going to get.

  When I go pour my coffee, I spot a crisp, white, posh-looking invitation on the kitchen island near one of his sets of car keys. It reads:

  Malcolm Saint +1

  I smile when I read the invitation to one of the city’s grandest galas. “Are we going?” I ask his back.

  “We’re always going.” He brings his coffee cup to the sink, his eyebrows drawing together as he looks at me. “And that smile?”

  “I was just thinking that . . . it’s nice.”

  He kisses my temple. “Get a dress.”

  “Saint, I have a dress.”

  “Get one on me.”

  He sets down his credit card. I leave it on the granite counter, knowing he’ll kick up a fuss when he sees that I didn’t take it. I’m humming as I put the invitation back in place.

  I can’t wait to see where our relationship is going. People speculate on what I a
m. His girlfriend, his four-month girl, his lover, his fling, his obsession, his one sole error in judgment, his mistake. They can call me whatever they’d like, it doesn’t change anything.

  I’m his plus one . . . and he’s my everything.

  EPILOGUE:

  OUR LIFE NOW

  It’s a busy day at Face.

  Face is my baby—brand new and still taking its first steps into publishing, both online and in print. I teased Malcolm about calling it that as a play on Interface, and when he chuckled in that amused way of his that tells me he kind of liked what I just said, I knew it was the perfect name.

  Valentine, Sandy, and twelve other reporters are busy outside my office today.

  It’s great. But it’s difficult to be in the same building as the guy I’m dating.

  Sometimes I spot him leaving out the window, his hair and suit dark as the gleaming Rolls-Royce parked outside. Sometimes I watch him arrive from a business lunch, a conference, a board meeting at one of the multiple companies he advises—it’s hard to keep my Saint hormones from running wild.

  Sometimes we accidentally meet in the elevator as I ride up to my floor . . . and he rides to his. He’s good at showing no emotion. But when our eyes lock, there’s that inevitable spark I see light his green eyes. Our companions move as though by instinct to let him get close to me. We don’t touch. At least, I don’t. But he sometimes stands so that our hands graze. Sometimes his thumb comes out for mischief, brushing the back of my finger—the tiniest bit. Other times, he laces our fingers for a heartbeat.

  A most delicious, achingly sensual heartbeat.

  And there was this one time when he hooked his pinky to mine and rode the entire way up to my floor standing there, tall, quiet, among the bustle of people, nobody but me knowing that this man—this man really loves me.

  Sometimes I go up to his office or he comes down—and somehow we both know why we’re there. To talk, sometimes.

  But sometimes to be quiet.

  Superduper quiet as he kisses my mouth red, and red, and red, and simply coaxes me to promise him that I’ll come over to his place tonight.

  At his place, we fuck all night long.

  In mine, we fuck quietly so that Gina doesn’t hear us.

  It’s perfect. I wouldn’t change a single thing.

  Not of him, not of us.

  I took the leap, and Malcolm caught me.

  So we have this arrangement. During the week, we generally sleep at my place because I don’t want Gina to feel lonely. The weekend, we’re in his. This Thursday he has offered to drive me home, but he makes a five-minute stop at the bank. I stay answering some last emails on my phone and then peer curiously out the window when he comes out with one of the managers, who shakes his hand goodbye, then he climbs on board and asks Claude to take us to his building.

  He’s holding a suspicious envelope in one hand as he settles into the seat across from mine and slowly gets rid of his tie and tucks it into his jacket pocket.

  “This is so not the arrangement, mister,” I chide him, scowling.

  He smirks. “Are you mad at me now?”

  “So absolutely mad,” I exaggerate.

  “I’ll make it up to you easy.” He leans forward and runs the pad of his thumb down my jawline. “I have a surprise.” He waves the manila folder in his hand in the air, and the butterflies respond.

  “What is that?” I pry.

  “Something.”

  “It’s clearly something. But what?”

  “Patience, grasshopper.” He leans back in the seat with this infuriating smirk, the very image of patience itself, and stretches his arm out behind him, a very self-satisfied look in his eye as he watches me squirm to find out his surprise.

  We head to the top of the building. At the very top, there’s a pool exclusive to the penthouse. It’s an infinity pool, where the water seems to blend out into the twinkling lights of Chicago.

  We’ve used this pool a couple of weekends, but this evening, the luxurious white chaises have been removed. They have been vacated to make room for one lone table at the center platform that crosses the pool. Connected, also, to the pool is another platform featuring the only lounge area that seems to have been left untouched.

  The one Saint and I always sit in to enjoy the view.

  The paths toward both the table and the lounge are littered with electric candles that glow quietly as we pass.

  It’s so breathtaking—and so unexpected—that I spin around with wide eyes.

  “So this is how you’re making it up to me?” I catch him watching me a little too closely, and I kiss his jaw and whisper, “I like it. Make me mad again.”

  His hand engulfs mine, then he leads me forward to the lounge. “Dinner comes after the surprise.”

  He sits me down on the larger couch and settles next to me, and then draws the envelope to his thigh.

  “If my mother couldn’t meet you, I thought you could still meet her.” He pulls out a 5 x 7 color photograph from inside and extends it to me.

  I feel a visceral reaction to the image of the woman I see, and the handsome teenager standing beside her, letting her wrap her arm around him even though he’s already taller. I recognize him instantly.

  How can I not? I love him to pieces. Every part of him. And I love that woman in the picture simply because of the smile she’s wearing and how lovingly she’s holding him.

  “She was reckless, spent money like her life depended on it,” Malcolm tells me. “She was passionate, and brave, and she loved me. Despite everything.”

  He reaches into the folder again, and this time takes out a box with the name Harry Winston on it. He snaps it open. And there’s this lovely, exquisite ring sitting proudly at its center. It’s a round stone, super classical.

  “When I was born my father told her to go buy the biggest rock she could find to celebrate the birth of what could now only be their only son. She didn’t buy the biggest rock, she bought the most perfect: D, internally flawless, 4.01 carats. She took off her engagement ring and wore this ring for as long as I can remember. When her leukemia was diagnosed, she told me she wanted to give me this ring. This was symbolic to her for me, and she wanted my bride to have it. I told her there would be no bride, to keep it. When I . . .”

  He pauses, his expression troubled by the memory.

  “When I came back from my skiing trip with the guys, I was given a folder with that picture she kept on her nightstand. A trust fund. And this ring.”

  As he lifts the ring, it refracts all the lights around us, sparkling rainbows.

  “So I went to the bank, got it the biggest box I could find, and stored it, having no intention of ever opening that vault. But all I’ve been able to think of lately is getting this ring out of that vault . . .” He kisses my hand and slips it on. “And onto your finger.”

  The ring slides easily onto my finger. It’s a little big, and suddenly my finger feels just as heavy as my chest. Sin surveys my adorned hand, then looks up at me with this hopeful, loving gleam in those eyes of his. Eyes that used to be cold, when I met him for the first time, now look at me with the heat at the core of the earth.

  There’s a smile on his lips too, a smile so adorable it’s almost boyish.

  “Tie the knot with me. Be safe with me. Reckless with me. Be who you are with me. Be my wife, Rachel—marry me.”

  My eyes get blurry and my lips are trembling as I purse them painfully because of his story. Because I’m wearing a ring on my finger.

  And he speaks: “You once told me you wanted the world to stand still, you wanted a safe spot to stand still. I want to be that place for you.” His hands are almost swallowing my face, but it’s his stare that swallows me most—swallows me whole. “Even if I’m spinning through life, the spot beside me will be the eye of the hurricane, and nothing there can be touched or harmed. I want you here with me, beside me.”

  My breaths have become ragged and I’m shaking all over in disbelief and happiness and
emotion.

  “Have you wondered what a man in love looks like?” As confident as ever, he kneels, ducks his head and kisses my naked hand. “This is what he looks like.”

  I break down and duck my face and bury it in his hair as a sob escapes me. I’m melting. Swooning. Dying. I should probably speak but I’m struggling with a wet face and a clogged throat. His mother. The only other woman this man has ever truly loved before me. I feel so grateful to hear about her. I feel so humbled that he thinks me worthy of wearing this ring.

  Saint hears my sniffles and straightens back so he can dry my tears.

  I love my mother so much; I can’t imagine how it must’ve hurt him to lose her.

  “This . . .” I struggle to explain, “is what a woman in love looks like when the man she loves shows her he loves her too.”

  There’s a deep texture in his voice when he lets out a breath and says, “She looks lovely.”

  He starts to straighten and tucks his hands under my armpits. “What are you doing? What is—what are you—Malcolm!”

  Laughing, he lifts me up to his eye level as he stands—lifts me up as if I weigh nothing—kisses me on the mouth. “What does she say?”

  He waits a little, eyes searching, impatient, anxious, claiming, primal, male, Malcolm’s. “Rachel?” he prods softly.

  I’m hyperventilating. “We never . . . we never . . . you never told me you wanted . . . you were thinking . . .”

  He takes my hand. I feel him rub the diamond under his thumb in a slow, languorous circle. “I’m telling you with this.” He looks at me somberly.

  My reaction is visceral, instinctive, there is no doubt in my mind as I grab his shirt, boost up and I’m shaking all over and press my mouth to his, answering with my wet kiss. He lifts me up by the waist and my skirt hikes up as I curl my legs around him.

  “Yes,” I breathe, grabbing his jaw in my hands and drowning in the lights inside those green forests of his that I swear to god contain the sun right now.

  He nuzzles my nose. “Yes?”