I stare. “So you’re used to parading your lovers, and they love flaunting the fact that they slept with you; I don’t do that.”
“Aren’t we a little old to play the hiding game, Rachel?”
“Aren’t we too old to be betting on whether you can have me?”
His lips twitch, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
“You can’t stand them thinking you wanted me and didn’t get me.”
“That’s right, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause I called dibs.”
“I don’t understand you, Malcolm. See, this is why I don’t want a relationship. It would kill me to try to figure out my man.”
“It’s killing him trying to figure you out.”
I blink.
He goes on, as if what he said wasn’t something monumental. As if my heart isn’t just something frozen with a strange hope and fear in my chest.
“See,” he continues, “usually girls like people knowing they landed in my bed. Some girls claim to have landed there and I’ve never even met them. You’re the first who’s been there but doesn’t want to be.”
I duck my head as an awful feeling of betrayal and dishonesty sweeps over me. “If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here,” I murmur. “I’m here despite . . . despite the fact that I shouldn’t be here at all,” I explain, raising my eyes to his. I should not be here, Saint, I think miserably.
But he just stares at me with that same puzzled look he gets when he’s trying to figure me out. I grab my top and feel him watching me as I dress. This is the kind of conversation you don’t expect to have with a one-night stand. But he’s not a one-night stand. What is he? “I don’t want to be a number on that list. Just thinking of all the women you’ve slept with makes me want to go sign up for a pole-dancing course.”
He laughs. “Why?”
“Because I’m vanilla. I’m just some normal . . . girl. And you’re you.”
And I’m addicted.
It’s past 3 a.m. We’re both rumpled and supposed to be relaxed after the way we fucked like crazy. But there’s tension in his jaw, and my muscles are tight with it. I want to jump him again and work out this tension the way we’ve been doing, but I’m beginning to grow scared of this addiction. Scared of him. I stand at the door and turn to say goodbye, but he’s already slipping into his sexy black boxers and then his slacks.
“It’s not safe out there this time of night,” he murmurs.
“It’s never safe out there,” I mumble.
Bare-chested and barefoot and still giving me butterflies even after he had his hands all over my naked body, he accompanies me to the elevator and waits next to me as it arrives. When it tings, he turns me to face him. I let him kiss me on the lips and I kiss him back, wrapping my arms around him just for a second. Two. And then I peel myself away and hop onto the elevator. “’Bye.”
There’s something intimate in his gaze as he watches me, holding eye contact right until the doors shut between us.
God, I never thought a man could look at me like that.
I’m walking out of the building when I see his driver emerge from the Rolls.
“Miss Rachel,” he greets, and opens the door.
“Oh, Sin, really?” I look up to the top of the tower but I can’t even see it. I’m about to argue with Otis, but it’s 3 a.m.
As I slide into the back of the car, I hear someone say, “Mr. Saint, good eve—good morning,” behind me. I’m barely seated when I see his face and that happens; that way my heart keeps leaping when I see him.
“Rachel,” he says as he takes my arm and pulls me out of the car.
“What . . . what are you doing?”
“Something I should’ve done before.”
I refuse to take a step as he takes my hand and tugs me toward him. My eyes are huge. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“I have,” he agrees, then he lifts an eyebrow. “Are you coming up, or do you want me to carry you?”
“Please don’t carry me,” I beg, aware of Otis’s absolutely stunned stare.
“Then come with me.”
I take one step forward, his fingers lacing, strong, through mine, and then we’re back on the elevator. When the doors open, when nobody else can see us, he swings me up on his arms and folds me over his shoulder.
“Saint! Malcolm SAINT! Put me down, what are you doing?”
“I’ll put you down soon.” I fall still and melt a little inside, my heart done for. “You’re not doing this,” I say in swoony disbelief as he drops me down on the bed.
“Yes, I am. You’re sleeping over. You’re staying the night here.”
Looking pretty serious about it, he tugs my top over my head to get me comfortable, and I know I should probably not stay over, I know I shouldn’t like being together so much, and I know I’m not thinking straight right now—no, I’m not thinking at all—but that doesn’t stop me from unbuttoning his shirt with reckless speed, until I quickly pull it off his chest, sighing when he spreads his body above me.
@MalcolmSaint is it true you have a girlfriend? #imsad #pleasesayno