God, he really wants me. . . .
“This doesn’t mean anything, right?” I ask, panting and ready, so sopping wet I’m a little embarrassed about it, because his fingers are already trailing there.
“Right.” He drags his tongue over my ear, his hand sliding over my pussy lips.
I watch the harsh look on his face as I move slowly over his lap, teasing his hardness with my wetness, until he rasps in my ear, “A guy would kill to live here.”
He seizes my hips and urges me down on him; in this position he fills me to the hilt. Our eyes meet and cling. I lick my lips, and he runs his keen male attention over every part of me he can. He slides his hands down my butt, the backs of my legs, to curl over my ankles, his thumbs rubbing my ankle bones as I do the rest of the work.
My breasts bounce. He lies back on the bed, watching, as he drags one hand down the flat of my abdomen and fondles my clit. “Look at you,” he croons huskily, ducking his head to suck on my breasts in a way that makes my eyes roll into the back of my head. I just lose control.
“Malcolm,” I moan, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, savoring how they flex.
We hear the door.
I stop riding him for a second, but he’s so big and full inside me, I don’t want to stop.
“Shh.” He sits up, hands on my hips, locking me on top of him. “It’s just the guys, they won’t come in here.”
He sucks the tip of my breast into his mouth. My head falls back in pure red-hot pleasure as I move again.
More noise.
“Mmm,” I moan, savoring him. Every pulse in his body, I feel too.
“Saint!” they’re yelling.
He lifts his head. “BUSY!!!!”
Oh god, I can’t. I lift up on my thighs and pull him out of me, too nervous about being heard to continue.
“No, come here.” His arm locks around me, gently tugging me back to him.
“They’re going to see I’m in here with you!” I hiss as I squirm free and start gathering my clothes.
“So?” As I get my pretty little thong and my bra back on, his attitude becomes more serious.
“So I really don’t want to be your new whore to everyone. Just to me and you.”
I slip into my top and skirt, and he jumps into his jeans, still hard, his face completely remote now. He comes and wraps his arms around my midriff. “Stay here, and I’ll get rid of them.”
I close my eyes, his touch, firm, persuasive, inviting me to stay and have my way with his hair, his lips, him.
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
“You sure?” The mere touch of his hand on my chin sends a warming shiver through me, and I nod.
We go outside in silence. He gets me a cup of coffee and then brings a bottle of wine out from the wine room.
“Hey, bro!” The guys high-five him, and he gives them a silent look that clearly speaks volumes. As in: Why are you here?
“Well, hello there, Rachel.” Tahoe waggles his brows as he and Callan settle down on the huge leather living room couches. “You know, Rache, people have been asking me about you. Especially old Saint acquaintances,” Tahoe tells me.
“I can imagine. I’ve lately experienced a friend surge on Instagram, FB, and Twitter since the Interface inaugural,” I reply.
“Callan’s gotten more inquiries than me, even,” Tahoe adds.
“ ’Cause you’re a man beast, chicks are partly scared of you.” Callan nods at him and looks at me. “He didn’t hit puberty, he beat the shit out of it.”
I laugh.
They both look at me as if waiting for me to explain the situation, but I won’t. I think those two are too scared to drill Saint. So the guys start talking.
I’m trying to take mental notes, but mainly they’re talking about the White Sox.
I curl up on the couch and set my cup to the side, grabbing a little pillow. Sin sits across from me, maybe because I told him that I didn’t want them to think I was his whore. I smile at him in quiet gratitude.
He smiles at me and sips his wine.
I’m trying to convince myself that it’s better if I go home—though my body protests at the mere thought of not seeing him until I don’t know when—when I hear Tahoe casually tell Malcolm, “Her girls are coming over.”
My cup of coffee comes down with a clatter. “What?”
“Yeah. I invited them.”
“You? How do you even know my friends, Tahoe?”
“Succulent Gina?” He smirks. “Saint’s got dibs on you. And he’s got your landline.”
I stare at Malcolm, flushing when he returns that look with a straight, unflinching stare.
And true to Tahoe’s claim, in fifteen minutes Wynn and Gina appear at Saint’s place, dressed to impress. They gape a little at their surroundings, and I’m almost embarrassed for them at how long it takes them to recover. The guys usher them to the living room with the huge cinema-size screen. “What are you girls up to?” Tahoe prods—gazing directly at Gina. “What were you so heatedly discussing coming off the elevator?”
“Um . . .” Wynn says, hesitating. “We were talking about Rachel’s love life,” she blurts out. “How she’s lived perfectly well without a man her whole life. Not even a boyfriend, ever, really.”
“Really?” Tahoe asks. “So is she like, a virgin, or what?”
The silence from Malcolm’s vicinity feels leaden, and then he growls, “Dude, Rachel and I . . .”
He falls silent upon my glare, and then the silence grows endless.
“You’re what?” Tahoe asks.
He raises his eyebrows and looks at me in question.
“You’re what?!” Gina echoes.
Malcolm keeps looking at me, as if just now realizing I hadn’t wanted my friends to know, either. I’m frantic wondering what the hell he’s going to tell them we’re doing. Well. What are we doing?
“You two are sleeping together, holy shit, I could stick a sock in my mouth right now!” Wynn says.
“I could do that for you if you’re into that,” Tahoe offers.
“It’s nothing, really,” I quickly say, to appease my shocked friends. “We hooked up, twice. So.”
I’m aware of the way my friends stare at me in confusion, Malcolm in quiet assessment.
“Just twice, dude? And looks like there might not even be a third!” Tahoe laughs.
“Shut up, asshole. I’ve got this pocket on lockdown.” Malcolm crosses to my couch and drops beside me, reaches out and kisses my temple, his whisper low and husky so that only I can hear, “This Hershey’s Kiss, all mine.”
“Malcolm.” I swear I just blushed from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes.
“Look at that pink on your skin.” He laughs softly, clearly amused, a smile on his face, his eyes dark and gleaming.
“Twice?” Gina explodes in delayed response to her shock. “And you did not think to tell your best friends?”
Saint heads to the wine room, a cold space encased in glass near the back of the bar, bringing out a bottle of wine and a handful of glasses, all the while looking at me with curiosity. “It just didn’t seem important,” I hedge uncomfortably.
“Considering . . .” Gina scowls. “Considering.” She gestures at him. “It was important.”
Gina looks at him.
Then me.
“It’s not important,” I repeat.
“Oooooooh, that’s bad, man,” Callan ribs Saint.
“You fucking sly dog,” Tahoe says. God, that man is obsessed with dog references, I swear. “You’ve been jousting all this time. I bet you were jousting right fucking now when we came in.”
Malcolm’s eyes flick up to me in quiet evaluation and then he whispers, his voice low, “Rachel’s a lady.”
I’m tomato red.
Malcolm’s eyes are totally talking to me. What’s this about?
“Hell, I bet you joust with the lady when we leave!”
“Drop it, T,” Saint murmurs, draining his wine, looking
at me still with that quiet concern. He’s trying to know what to do; I can tell he wants to get a cue from me, but I can’t even think of what cue to give him now. Oh boy.
“Let’s bet on it,” Tahoe suddenly tells Callan and then turns to Malcolm. “If you get the lady under your charms, I give you my wheels. If you don’t, you give me one of your insects.”
Saint sets his glass down, and I stare at him, waiting.
My friends stare at him too.
It seems like the one question they’re all asking—are Saint and I are sleeping together?—will be answered right now.
And Saint looks at me, a look that’s part challenge, part quiet command, and says, “Done. I’ll get both your wheels when I do.”
The guys woot.
My blood rushes through my body, hot with arousal, and also hot with humiliation.
“Saint! You said she was too good for you!” Tahoe jabs a thick finger in his direction. “You wore her down in true Saint form.”
I stare at Malcolm, and he’s still staring at me, a small smile of victory on his lips as he pours himself a fresh glass of wine and sips it. As if now all is right in the world because he’s on top of it once more.
I explode.
“You did not seriously just bet your cars that you’re going to . . .” I trail off, and when he nods, I go get my bag. “Okay, enough. We’re leaving. Thanks for the great time, Sin,” I mumble, charging for the elevators.
He comes over. “Get back here, Livingston. Everyone’s leaving but you. . . .”
I walk by, and he moves his big body so I can’t leave. “Didn’t you hear what I just told the guys?” he asks me softly. His eyes are curious and look completely puzzled by me, as if I should be ecstatic he claimed me like this.
“I did, and that’s exactly why I’m leaving.”
I stomp away, and at the elevator I swing around and glance at him one last time, and his eyes are as shuttered and unreadable as his expression is.
The girls follow me into the elevator. “Rachel, you’re in deep. You’ve already promised the story to Helen.”
“I know, Wynn.” I shake my head because both my friends look so concerned about my situation. I just realized how reckless I’ve become.
I pace around. Suffering for the way I left.
I can’t believe how these powerful businessmen are, deep down, also such boys. But I still like one of those boys very much: the ruthless one who is too ambitious for his own sake. Who doesn’t like to lose. I like that boy; I still wanted to be with him today, and before his bozo friends arrived to chill out, I know he only wanted to be with me.
“He’s really dicking you out, isn’t he?” Gina says as if she can read my mind, turning around to see if Wynn is with her. “It’s a bad idea, Wynn. Do you agree?”
I don’t even let Wynn reply. “You two have always been pressuring me to hook up with someone. Well, I hooked up with Saint.”
“Who’s also your research material,” adds my roommate.
“Thanks, Gina, for reminding me. Fine, so I had a moment of weakness. Or . . . several. He’s so easy to be with. He’s different than what I expected, and he’s got me in a tangle.” I scowl. “Look, he’s fair game. He’s single, isn’t he?”
They’re both silent.
Gina whispers then, “You slept with him and you didn’t tell me? I’m so hurt right now, Rachel.”
“What can I say? The power of Sin compelled me to?”
“You two spent all night playing jack-in-the-box, Jill, and we knew nothing!”
I groan as we hit the lobby, then realize I don’t want to go. I stop and say, “I’m going back.”
My friends gather close around me by the elevators. “Rachel, I totally approve of the hookup, but there’s a reason he always keeps it to three times. . . .” Wynn says.
“Four, actually. He’s big on the number four.”
“And I’m not doing this to be a dick,” Gina tells me. “I’m doing this because you’re my best friend and I love you. You don’t date a lot, you never wanted to, but I’m telling you right now, I never, ever want you to feel the way I did when Paul left me. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to feel as used, as worthless, as small, unbeautiful, and completely foolish as I did for having loved him.”
We both stare.
“You know if you go for this thing with Saint, I’ll be there to pass the Kleenex, like you were. But I hope you know that I care about you enough that when you go out there and get your heart broken, you’re going to break mine too.”
My eyes sting a little. There’s the kind of support you ask for, and the kind that just is there. We hug a little and I promise I’ve got it and ride the elevator to the penthouse again.
I walk in. My body pricks everywhere when a particularly sexy green stare lifts from what seems to be the start of a poker game and targets me. He drops his cards and stands up, a flash of pure primal need in his eyes. I feel it in my core.
My voice is husky as I whisper, “Gentlemen.” I address the two stunned men, “If you don’t mind leaving your keys with the concierge.”
Saint’s devil grin: I will never forget it.
My girl parts scream for mercy as Malcolm tells his guys they have to leave. “Now.”
My girl parts scream for mercy, for him. They scream as he points me to the bedroom as he watches the elevators take them down and then pulses an alarm code so that nobody can interrupt us while we’re here. My senses still scream as he follows me to the bedroom, and as I back in the direction of the bed, he walks straight to me.
He says nothing, just looks at me, then slides a hand around my waist and I’m yanked flush against him. I feel the feather-light brush of his lips first, warm, light, then the pressure as he locks them over mine, fitting perfectly, so perfectly he swallows my “god” . . . It’s a kiss that goes from dry to wet, from slow to fast, from light to deep. . . .
I’m starting to pant, sliding my fingers up the placket of his shirt.
And still he kisses me, longer and wetter. A soul-searing kiss. A kiss I can tell he means. He cups my breast, caresses it, his thumb on my nipple, rubbing lightly, his expert touch promising me no one will ever sate, take, or please me the way he does.
“How many women have you kissed?” I ask against his mouth, his glorious mouth. I’m jealous of all the women out there, asking his friends about him. When he only looks at my wet, reddened, Saint-kissed lips, I edge free and start backing for the bed.
How many women are asking about Saint . . . ?
I bite my lower lip and feel the ache between my legs run upward. I wonder if some of these women have done what I shocked myself wanting to secretly do when I met him, which was to just totally rip his shirt off. He exudes all kinds of sexual pheromones, and I have this big little ache and I want to smell, touch, taste that wide, flat chest and those big square arms and that full male mouth. I bet those women tasted more than I’ve ever dared. I bet—
“Come here.”
He takes my hand in his and stops me from backing away any more. And I’m breathless. He’s staring down at me with glowing green eyes and lids that fall halfway over them. . . . They look at my hair, those eyes, and at my lips, and at our joined hands.
“Kiss who?” he finally asks. His thumb strokes across the top of my hand slowly as he reels me back toward him and brushes his lips across my forehead.
“Kiss who, where? Here?” he lightly teases me in a gruff, textured voice.
“No.” I moan and laugh lightly and bury my face in his chest. He smells clean, minty, and . . . just manly. His hand is still holding mine, his fingers intertwined with mine. He reaches his other hand out and cups my cheek in it, kissing the tip of my nose. “How about here?” He dips his head and starts kissing my neck, lightly tasting me with kisses from my collarbone to the edge of my jaw.
“No,” I breathe. My chest is rising and falling quickly, I’m trembling all over. I just want him to keep touching me, holding me, kissing me.
>
“How many men have kissed this?” His smile fades, his eyes burning with smoldering intensity as he rubs a silver thumb ring over my lips.
I tip my head farther back and offer him my mouth. “Two . . . and you.”
“But no one’s been here?” In one sinuous move, he dips his thumb inside. “No one’s come inside this mouth.”
“No . . .” I urge his shirt out of the waistband of his slacks. “I want you to.”
I push the fabric up his chest and he jerks it over his head with a tug. His hair ends up tousled and glorious as he discards it, giving him a bed-mussed look that makes him even more gorgeous in my eyes because he looks approachable. Powerful but human. So human I can feel his body heat. Chasing my breath as I reach out and caress the hard planes of his pectorals and chest, suck his nipple. I smooth my fingers up his biceps.
The palms of his hands are holding my face upward, to his kiss. I give up my mouth with no protest, letting him move it at will.
His kiss makes me feel like my blood is gasoline, running through my veins. And Saint’s lips are the fire, lighting me up.
I let him caress me, his tongue lightly stroking my own, and then he’s heatedly kissing my throat, the peaks of my breasts. My breasts are heaving, and I can’t believe how much I hurt between my legs.
He places a kiss right between my breasts, then teases the tip of one nipple over my top. I feel the lick arouse me. Shivering, I don’t move a muscle, so he doesn’t stop.
He makes his way back to my lips. I open my mouth immediately and wind my arms around his neck. I’m kissing him back with abandon, holding nothing back while his hands steal under my top.
Holding me close, he backs toward the bed and drops down, pulling me over. Quickly he shifts us around so that he’s on top. He props himself up on his elbows at my side and looks down at me. Beautiful. I look up at him, his lids low and his eyes dark with desire. I lift my head and twine my tongue with his, my tongue circling, pressing, tasting. He hunches over me and tries not to crush me but gets close, so deliciously close. He feels so good, and tastes like heaven. I reach out and slide my fingers along his abs, needing to touch him.
His cock was made for sucking and for fucking, his cock, and I feel its hard length with my fingers. Then his hand is easing between my legs and teasing me with his fingers, and he’s asking me, “Do you want it?”