Another rueful smile, but there’s nothing rueful about the raw desire on his face as he looks at me. “Come here, Rachel.” He pulls me back to his chest, where he caresses a hand down my hair and whispers against my temple. “I’m very sorry about your neighbor.”
My brain is muddled with his nearness, his unique aroma of male and soap and his shampoo and cologne and aftershave. It’s such a powerful combo, an aphrodisiac to my senses. I close my eyes and stroke my fingers over his chest—just a little. I don’t mean to be devious about it, but I can’t stop touching his skin and his muscles; I can’t stop my heart from beating fast, my chest from feeling knotted over what he just told me.
Want.
I want to run my fingers over the stubble on his jaw. I want to press my lips to the top bow and the bottom curve of his lips. I want, want, want.
Want is such a short word, and yet it can encompass so many infinite things.
Saint is momentum. Movement. He’s a man who’s always moving forward, pushing for more.
He will never stand still until he owns the world, and I just want to find my place in it.
It couldn’t be more wrong.
He’s a womanizer. No one woman will ever appease whatever thirst he has for more and more and more.
Love is for romantics; I’m a journalist.
Still, I lie in a man’s bed for the first time in my life and can’t help but want . . . for a night to be someone else.
19
MORNING
We wake up, his hair bed-mussed, his face fully rested, a scratchy beard on his jaw. He was watching me, and I feel myself blush because I slept so well. I feel loose and relaxed. “Hey.”
He touches me. And I edge closer and move my head closer to his hand. It’s a really tender gesture, and I worry I’m starting to crave them.
His shirt still hugs my body—the feel of the fabric brushing against my skin beneath, the same fabric that touches his bare torso too, warms me to my toes. It’s a struggle to hold my reactions under control. I’m in bed with him, my hair falling past my shoulders, our bodies only partly dressed, our stares equally restless and ravenous. All the ice inside his eyes is gone, replaced by a thermal heat that causes a pooling of volcanic matter inside me.
“I’ll get breakfast for us,” I murmur.
I head to his kitchen in his shirt and, after a bit of fumbling, I get his fancy coffeemaker to work. Then I make some toast.
He comes out fully dressed in slacks and a white shirt and hangs his jacket on the back of a chair. His hair gleams from his shower, wet, dark, slicked back from his smooth forehead, his features sharp and tan.
There’s intimacy between us as I curl up on the chair and have breakfast. Saint drops down and reads the news on his iPad. I don’t want to take his shirt off. I miss having it in my closet. I never realized how much I want it. “Is it okay if I take your shirt? I’ll dry-clean it and bring it back . . .”
“Don’t bring it back.” He sets his iPad aside. Leans forward, his business shirt all over his muscles the way I want to be. Saint spreads his large palm over my cheek as he pushes my hair aside and kisses me with painstaking gentleness. “Rachel.”
That’s all he says. That one last word sounds frustrated, aroused, annoyed, confused—almost pained. Before I can get him to get into the kiss, Malcolm takes my face between his large hands and looks at me with ice-green eyes that carve into my soul. “I’m not the guy anyone comes to for comfort, Rachel. But I like that you came to me.”
I realize that he looks rawer this morning, on edge, his eyes not shuttered or icy like usual. He looks . . . like he’s burning on the inside. I swallow the strawberry jam and lick the corner of my lip, finally realizing how much last night must’ve tested him.
“You didn’t sleep, did you?” I whisper.
He brings me closer to him, his breath hot against the back of my ear as he lowers me to his lap. It feels so good, and at the same time I can’t stop shaking.
“I haven’t had anyone in bed with me for a while. It’s harder for anyone to hit my engage buttons. It’s because of you.” I can’t help but notice how heavy his lids seem to have become. I lick my lips, anxious.
His attention drops to where my breasts press into his chest, and my body homes in on how good this contact feels, how oversensitized the tips of my nipples are.
“Saint . . .” I trail off.
He cups the back of my head; then he silences me by pressing his mouth to mine and sweeps his tongue into my mouth.
“I’m obsessed with you,” he says.
He tastes of toothpaste and coffee as he teases my lips apart, one of his hands planted on the back of my neck. My hands seem to get away from me, and before I know it, they’re caressing his hair. “Saint,” I moan, pushing my breasts upward.
He groans, pulls me over and around him, adjusting my body over his in a straddle position, his hands on my ass.