Chapter 30: Manwhore +1: Chapter 30

My last day at Edge, I cry. My friends cry, and Helen, she sucks it up. Valentine brings a pie and tells me, “I’m still rooting for Malcolm.”

“Don’t, Val,” I whisper. “What’s happening shouldn’t be happening. I’m not staying . . . Edge and I are done. Wouldn’t you like to start new?” I glance at Sandy, who’s also at my cubicle eating pie. “Maybe start up something like Bluekin, edgier, where we can all maybe own shares of our start-up—motivating us to really make a killing for it.”

Valentine looks around, then says, “Dude, I can’t forgo my salary for months while we try to get the online thing going.”

“I know, but—”

“And Sandy barely makes rent. She can’t afford to freelance while also working on our own website, just hoping it’s a success.”

“Let’s at least think about it. Maybe talk about it a little more. If you’re let go by . . . well, if Noel Saint lets you go or proves impossible to work for, please don’t just take shit from him. Move onward—to something better. Even if it doesn’t seem like that at first. It’s scary, I know. Hell, I’m still scared but I also know I want something more.”

“You? Not playing it safe? I’m . . . stunned, frankly.” Val nods admiringly.

“I can’t play it safe now. I’m taking a leap and if I find something good, I’d love you guys with me. I can’t have this guilt of you guys losing your jobs because I left—”

“Hey, it’s not you who’d can us, it’s that asshole.”

“Still—”

“Rachel, get out of here. Go and get a life. A different one. One where you can look back and all this,” he spreads his arms to encompass the newsroom, “was just a part of it. A big part, but only one part.”

I really had hoped Valentine would consider us maybe striking out together, giving ourselves a platform for our stories. I really wish they weren’t so understanding and kind, and so hard to leave. I really wish Helen had been an asshole all the time, so I could walk away with my box of things without tears in my eyes. But of course that’s not the case. It never really is, in real life.

So I do sniffle—a lot—and give out more hugs than I’ve given out in a while, and then I walk out of Edge and dump my box of things outside, keeping only the portrait of my mother I used to have on my desk and a little pen that I got at a motivational conference that says GO FOR IT, and so I am.

Without a call.

Without a text.

Without any kind of forewarning . . .

I head to M4.

Saint asked me to come to him, but the truth is, I need to. I just need to look at him and be inspired by all that strength of his and maybe, I just need to hear him tell me everything will be all right.

I’m leaving the old me behind at Edge.

I’m leaving all my mistakes.

I’m leaving the scared girl behind.

This is me taking the leap.

And I need to know that he won’t let his father goad him any farther, that he won’t be acquiring Edge.

Because Malcolm Saint has done enough for me.

I’d let him do anything else now, I realize, because I trust him—he can love me, protect me, help me—but not go to war over me.

At reception, the ladies are surprised to see me—but I can tell they’ve seen the social media. They know I’m the “girlfriend” now.

“Miss Livingston, what a surprise,” one says. “I’m sure Mr. Saint will be pleased—if you’ll let me ring you up?”

I thank her and then head up in the elevator. Breathe, Rachel.

Catherine is already on her feet when I get off, also a bit flustered by the surprise visit. “He’s with some of his board, if you’ll just take a seat for a moment.” I smile weakly and grip the M in my fist, tugging it and rubbing it against the R.

As I wait, I listen to his four assistants take calls and type on their keyboards. I smooth my skirt down my thighs when the door to his office opens and a pack of businessmen emerge.

They’re all screaming confidence and power. “Good day, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Thompson,” Catherine calls to the businessmen as they head to the elevators.

And then I hear his voice from within the room. It’s so deep—familiar—I feel it like a low hum, vibrating in the deepest part of my body.

“He should’ve known if he wanted to play hardball, I’d be game. I’d strike a home run before he even realized he made a mistake throwing a ball my way,” he says decidedly to the man with him. Then he spots me and lifts his eyebrows and the ruthless smile he’s wearing—the one directed at the person he means to crush—starts to fade when he sees me sitting here, my eyes maybe a little red as I struggle not to show how crestfallen I feel.

“We’ll settle this once and for all tomorrow at two,” he tells the businessman in a lower voice.

The man nods and leaves. My gaze is caught—my heart is frozen—as Saint slowly stalks forward. Directly toward me. He takes me gently by the arm as I stand, and leads me to his office, and I know by his gentle but firm grip that he knows I’m not okay.

Inside his office, he pulls me into his arms, tells me, “Breathe.”

I grip his tie and nod.

“You came to me,” he groans then, in my ear, as if that thought undoes him.

“Always,” I whisper, still gripping his tie.

“Mr. Saint,” his intercom beeps. “Your one o’clock just arrived?”

I watch him walk with that confident stride of his to his desk as I try to hold myself together. With a press of a finger, he tells her, “Reschedule. I’m going to need an hour.”

I shake my head. “Don’t, really. I’m all right. I just came to let you know . . . I’m out. I leapt.”

I spread my arms out and turn to stare out his window, not sure how I feel about my next words. Scared? Hopeful?

“I’m a free agent.”

“Then turn around and look at me, Rachel,” he whispers.

Hearing the raw emotion in his voice, I turn.

Holding my gaze with fierce intensity, he lifts the phone on his desk and dials a number. “We back down,” he says, and then, he hangs up, very slowly. Click.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I admit. “I just wanted to . . .”

“Know that I kept my promise,” he finishes.

“Yes, but . . . no. I wanted to see you, Saint. I always want to see you when I’m happiest, or saddest, or . . . I just always want to see you.”

I watch a dozen emotions skid through his eyes. “I’m here for you, Rachel.”

“I know,” I say. And for the first time I believe it, 100 percent.

Maybe no man has ever been there for me before. No father, brother, boyfriend, and now, I believe Malcolm Saint is here for me because he wants to be. My chest hurts with love.

“So you just backed out?”

“That’s right.” He shrugs dismissively. “There’s a binding agreement running through the auction, legally binding the winner to go through with the purchase. The bragging rights will cost him a fortune.”

My body’s shaking. I didn’t realize, in my haste to come here, that when I dumped my old stuff outside of Edge, I also dumped my sweater. Really Livingston?! The air-conditioning is blasting as high as these top business corporations always keep it. I’m shivering so much the last part of what I say is through clenched teeth.

“I know you said I could work at M4 but—”

“But you’re right, it’s not ideal for us,” he quietly admits, eyes probing me in silence. “I won’t be holding you back, Rachel. Tying you down where you’re not happy.”

My teeth chatter. “You know my reasons are because I want us . . . more. I’m going to start freelancing . . .” I stop talking when he crosses his office to a familiar, pristine white, smooth space on the wall.

With a tap, he opens the hidden closet and takes out a jacket. “Here.”

“I don’t . . .” He puts it over my shoulders and the brush of his fingers on the back of my neck triggers a tremor down my spine. “Saint, don’t,” I say. I’m afraid that his touch is going to make me crumble from the inside out.

His eyes look liquid on me as he touches the R and the M necklace resting at the base of my throat. “What happened to Malcolm?” he teases me.

I can see he’s trying to make me happy and it makes me love him all the more.

“Malcolm,” I then say, with a smile. His eyes go liquid with heated tenderness as he takes my hand. “Come with me now.”

“I’m sorry you had to butt heads with your father for me,” I tell him as we board the elevator.

We stop one floor down, and Saint tells the pair of businessmen about to board, “Take the next one,” and they instantly retreat.

He looks at me once we’re alone again. “You grew up without a father. In your mind, he would’ve cared for you, appreciated you, he would’ve talked to you. I had a father, but every time I threw a ball, he threw it farther just to show me how short my range was. Every time I built something, he smashed it in the simplest way he could, to show me all the flaws in my plans. Not all fathers lift you up. Some stick their foot out to trip you.” He speaks without inflection, as if it’s only a fact of life. “In the beginning, you try harder just to show him that you can. Then, you do it to prove to yourself that you can. Until there comes a day when you simply do things because you can. I’m not doing this for my father. I wasn’t backing Edge.”

He opens a room on the eleventh floor. “I was backing you, Rachel.”

I glance around at a dozen computers, high-tech equipment, the offices in the corners. It looks like a . . . newsroom.

“This is where Interface started. Before we went corporate. When it was just an idea, the start.” He signals around, and as I take in the impressive room, I feel him eyeing me with a gaze that is both achingly gentle and silently contemplative. “So you see, it’s standing here . . . just waiting for another great idea. Another great start.”

As I look at all of the high-tech computers and chrome desks, I have a déjà vu moment of the time he took me to the Interface building and kissed the fuck out of me.

“You can take this floor. Yours,” he emphasizes. “I’ll fund your start. You can build your own team. Your board. You’ll make the choices. And you’ll give yourself the platform you need to write whatever it is you want to write.”

He looks at me with a twinkle in his eye and hope, as if he wants to see me smile, as if he’s hoping this will be it.

“You’d have more responsibilities than writing, true. But you’re smart, you can bring in your team. If you get stuck, I’m sure you’ll think of someone who can help you. You can build your own Bluekin. Even better.”

His stare is so admiring and respectful and loving, I can’t breathe.

Oh.

God.

Epic love. This is it. Want it or not. Do you take the leap? Do you take it?

Saint did. He believes I can do something more than what I do—he believes he can give me freedom and help me build a platform to see me soar.

My eyes water a little and I duck my head and try to wipe a tear. He reaches for me. He puts one hand on my face, forcing my gaze to stay on him.

I feel a pull of heat in my belly.

“Let me give you this.” His eyes are completely mine, but at the same time, they swallow me. I’ve never felt his energy so powerfully wrapped around mine. Have never seen such pure, undiluted, raw emotion in his eyes. My chest hurts.

“You don’t know how much I admire you, Rachel.” His eyes glow with the force of his emotions. “How you care for others. For me. I appreciated your words before, but this . . .” He takes something out of his pocket, and I hold my breath when I recognize the magazine cover for the article I wrote. “This was very brave, Rachel. Putting yourself out there like that for me. This was a leap on its own. You’re right.” He lifts it up for me to see, then sets it aside on a nearby desk and starts coming forward. “It was our story, but not our entire story. It was only the beginning.”

I cry freely now. “I love you, Malcolm.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes, really.”

He frames my jaw in wide, warm hands, tilting me to his line of sight as he dries my face. “The first time I heard it, I couldn’t think of anything else. Even when all the shit came down, I’d think of those three words. I’ve loved you for a while, Rachel. All the fortune I’ve amassed and I’d never wanted to lay it out there for someone the way I want to lay it out there for you.

“You wanted your world to go still, stand still with me. I may be thirsty, ambitious; I’ll charge out there, but this . . . what we have. Let’s stand still here, you and me.”

My throat closes when I remember what I told him before. I’ve never been held like this by anyone else. I’ve never had a man’s arms around me in comfort, making me feel so utterly safe. I never imagined that I could stand in the middle of the storm that is Malcolm Kyle Preston Logan Saint, and truly feel like my world is finally becoming still.

His smile.

His. Damn. Smile.

I forget its effect on me.

My stomach is in a wild swirl.

“Malcolm,” breathlessly, I stare. “You’d do this for me?”

“I’d do more.”

A silence full of meaning falls between us. I want to say so many things but I can’t find my precious words. His actions won over this time, for real.

“I love you, Malcolm.”

“And I love you, Rachel. Very much.”

My throat closes. “Hold me for a hot second.”

He already is holding me as he whispers, “I’ll hold you for four.” Then, in my ear, he adds gruffly, “Go home and think about this—”

“Yes,” I cut him off, and this time it’s me who grabs him by the collar and kisses the fuck out of him.

“I’ve got to get back to work. Let me take you to dinner?” he asks me.

“I’ve used up all my no’s with you,” I say quietly, kissing him as I speak.

He kisses me as he speaks too, voice husky with male pride. “So it’s another yes.”

“Definitely.”

“Not good enough, Rachel. Say it.”

I laugh. “Yes, greedy man. You freaking woman-wizard. Yes, yes yes!”

That evening I call my ex-coworkers and tell them if they’re leaving Edge—I want them with me. I’m having lunch with a few of them next week, including Valentine and Sandy. Then I talk to Gina and we call Wynn.

“Rachel!” is all Wynn can say. “I’m . . .”

“Speechless, I know. This dude leaves me speechless all the fucking time now,” Gina jumps in to say.

I sit here speechless too, or rather wordless, feeling warm and fuzzier than my socks. They’re both getting hung up on the fact that he’s supporting me and my dreams. I’m hung up on the fact that—despite his upbringing, loving his variety in women and business ventures, and the fact that it seemed fairly impossible to do—I’m very, very sure that Saint loves me.

When Malcolm arrives, I’m wearing a little black dress and ballet flats, my hair down and hardly any lipstick.

The door of his Pagani Huayra flies open, and he holds my hand as I slip inside, and soon we’re speeding off.

“Hey,” I ask. “How was your day?”

“Good now.”

He reaches out to give me a brief, but delish corner kiss, and I reach out to take his hand after he changes gears, leaving it there.

We go to a private room at a five-star restaurant called Tableau. Behind a set of velvet curtains, we’re alone, just Sin and I, talking about today. I guess I’m the one talking the most, but he’s listening to me like he always does with a charmed amusement that spears into my heart and melts me.

“I called my ex-coworkers. I told them if they’re leaving Edge—I want them with me.”

“Your mother?”

“I haven’t told her yet.”

“You realize she can hand-paint your covers if you wanted her to?”

“Yes. And I do want her to.”

He sits across the table from me and I just want to lean over and eat him up with kisses. I feel cherished. Protected. Safe.

“I’m so excited.”

I laugh lightly while his boldly handsome face smiles warmly across the table. I love when his full lips soften with humor and his part-smile, part-smirk goes all the way to light up his eyes.

“So your father has officially bought Edge?”

He nods.

“You knew he wouldn’t back down to you.”

“He’s as proud as me. He told you he’d win, didn’t he?” He leans back and eyes me quietly. “He was obsessed with my mother. They were perfectly in love until I arrived. He couldn’t stand that his perfect wife gave him an imperfect son. He resented that she became protective of me. She loved me more than him. He didn’t take it well.”

“I never knew.” I look at him.

“Now I know.”

“What?”

“What he felt. That I’d do anything for you. Fuck over anyone to protect you. Do anything to keep you. Crush the world for you. My mother’s gone but he still wants to prove he’s better than me. Prove to her how wrong she was to choose me over him. She asked for a divorce but he never let her go.”

“It would’ve been hard. For a mother like yours not to love you hard. Especially if you were stuck with your dad.”

“I fared well.” He smirks.

“You did,” I say lovingly. I think he notices the longing inside me.

“Come over here.”

He reaches out for my hand over the table and tugs me around with the lazy confidence of a guy who knows—with certainty—he’s getting laid tonight.

“I like this smile,” he says as I carefully sit on his lap. I laugh lightly. “And this laugh.”

The lights are low. They shine on Malcolm as he moves the little M and R necklaces at the bottom of my throat and sets a kiss on my pulse point.

“Are we to be each other’s desserts?” I ask him.

God. I sound so hopeful I laugh after.

The lively twinkle in his eye makes me think that he’s planning something wicked. “You’re definitely mine.”

He dips his index finger into his wine.

“What are you up to, Sin?” I chide and before I can say more, he’s dipping his finger into my mouth.

Leaning over, he follows his finger with his kiss.

I lick his finger. “You’ve liked doing this since the wine tasting.”

“You have no idea.”

He shifts me on his lap, and looks at me lazily through half-closed lids.

He tugs my dress upward to my hips and slips his hand into the warmth between my inner thighs. My body jolts pleasurably at the touch of his fingers stroking me softly.

I’m nervous someone will come in, but he’s looking at me with such heated mischief, I can’t resist him.

I put my lips on his neck, my fingertips roaming the flat planes of his chest. The muscles harden under my fingers. My mouth is trailing up to his, and I hear his groan when my fingers start going down his chest, down his abs, to spread my hand over as much of his hard-on as I can.

And then Malcolm’s hand is easing off my ballet flats, and they fall with a clatter. He pulls one of my legs until I’m straddling him.

He kisses the tip of my nose, then my eyes, and his mouth takes mine again in another slow, drugging kiss. I inhale as he stops to look down on me. I hold my breath, exhaling as he reaches out one hand to cup my face. And then he kisses the corner of my lips.

“Oh god, don’t. I won’t last if you do that.”

“Why . . .”

I inhale sharply, then hold my breath as he slides his lips across mine and to the other corner of my mouth. My lungs strain as I hold my breath, savoring the ghost kiss until he eases back.

Our eyes connect. My lips tingle from his kiss. I exhale shakily, reaching out to cup his jaw. And I do exactly what he did. I brush my lips to the corner of his mouth. I hear him inhale too, deep and hard. Exhale when I ease back. Green eyes shimmer with desire and need and things he hasn’t said to me but maybe I don’t need him to. I don’t need him to at all. I lean forward and press my lips to the other edge of his mouth. But he cheats. He cups the back of my head to hold me still and turns a fraction of an inch so he can capture my kiss with his lips.

I try to edge back, very aware that the waiter will soon be returning and I need to go back to my seat.

“Did you mess up my lipstick?”

“What lipstick?”

I laugh, and Saint chuckles and holds my hand over the table as I return to my seat.

“I like this laugh,” he says, his thumb stroking over the back of mine. “I like this laugh very much.”

He wants me to spend the weekend with him, so we stop by my place. We’ll be hitting The Toy and doing lunch somewhere he wants to take me to, by the lake.

Gina is panicking when she sees me come home one minute and come out to the living room the next. “You have a bag? A big bag?” she asks, wide-eyed as she stares at the bag slung over my shoulder.

“It’s only one comfortable pair of shoes, Gina, for the gym in his building. One for going out. And one for the office. And my toothbrush, and just a few more things. I’m not moving in, I’m simply being practical. He . . . he asked me to spend the weekend.”

“Rachel . . .” she says.

“It’s only the weekend, Gina! Maybe one or two nights a week. I’ll find a good balance,” I promise.

“Dude, you’re making me want to get a dog. Someone who gives a shit about when I get home.”

“I DO!” I cry, hugging her as my heart squishes a little bit. How could I not have thought of this? I’ve been so happy and I didn’t think twice about saying yes right now. “I love you, G.”

She hugs me back in mopey silence, but then slaps my bum. “He’s out there?”

“Yes.”

“You know . . .” She pauses, her expression apologetic. “He’s no Paul, Rache.”

“I know, Gina.”

We stare at each other. We’ve never really been separated in a way that feels so . . . real for years.

“Okay. I’ll see you Monday,” I finally tell her, heading to the door as she drops back to the couch and glares at the TV.

“Monday is Monday, Rachel, not Tuesday or Thursday,” she threatens.

“I know what Monday is.” I groan and laugh, as I hold the doorknob in my hands, still somehow waiting for a bigger reassurance.

“Don’t look sad on my behalf, I’m having an orgy while you’re away. Shit is really going to go down here now that the responsible one is gone,” she promises, but all too soon, she drops the big bad-girl act and grows serious, her expression softening. “Rache, I’m so happy for you. I love how happy he makes you. I want you to know I’m on board with this, one hundred percent.”

My best friend. Unlike Wynn, not a lot of people like Gina. Not a lot of people get her. But I love her all the same. I come back, give her another kiss on the cheek, and leave quietly.

“Monday,” I say.

“Have enough sex for the both of us!” she calls.

I come out into the evening breeze, swinging the bag with my things behind my shoulder.

And there he is, leaning against his car, arms crossed, wearing this most perfect smile.

I start forward and I’m truly breathless. I walk up to him and he meets me halfway. His smile, when he sees me, is the kind that stops traffic. And now it stops my heart. This man renders women stupid and I’m officially the most affected, because I’ve been seeing a lot of his smiles today. And I’ve been smiling a lot too.

I’m smiling now, a smile that receives a kiss from his smiling mouth as he helps me into his car.

The elevator doors close behind us seconds after we reach his penthouse. The city lights twinkle outside, and it looks so perfectly peaceful and happy as he lifts me in his arms.

Locking my legs around his hips, I grab his shirt collar and let my lips wander up his jaw in search of his. “I’m hungry,” I breathe.

“Open your mouth then,” he says. He wets my lips with his tongue for a moment before drawing back to look at me with fierce eyes. “That what you want?”

I nod and wrap my arms around his neck. He rubs his nose into my hair and inhales deeply, then drags his nose down mine and starts kissing me. He crushes me between the wall and him, and reaches to slide his hands under my dress. I feel his fingers caressing my flesh, up to my bra, and I hear him unhook it.

I’m shaking as he frees me, and then he takes my dress in one hand and pulls it over my head in one smooth yank.

I fist his T-shirt in my hand and tug, and he helps me, grabbing it in one fist and pulling it over his head. His hair ends up even more mussed than usual, and he looks so sexy that my airway constricts, and I can hardly talk as I rub his smooth skin with my fingertips.

“Malcolm.” I dive to lick a beautiful brown nipple while rubbing the other one.

I cling as he lifts me up in his arms and carries me to the bedroom, our mouths never unlatching. He doesn’t carry me elegantly like Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, because I’m not as hard-to-get as Scarlett, but he carries me with his hands on my ass and my legs around his hips, his delicious hard bulge pressing to the apex between my thighs as his mouth works on mine. My body trembles with his nearness and my mind races at the mere thought of us heading straight toward our happily ever after.

“Fuck me fast.” He sets me down on the bed and I stretch my arms over my head, moving sensually to tempt him. “Fast, then slow.”

“Shh. My bed, my rules. Strip the shoes and those tiny panties.” He unbuckles his belt, and at the sight of his sculptured body, I’m dying.

He is perfection. He looks impenetrable in a business suit, as if nothing can touch him. But naked, he’s a god, all tanned, toned chest muscles. Dark hair rumpled from my hands, those green eyes liquid. He’s everything I never knew I wanted and more.

My mouth waters as I edge back in bed and watch him unbuckle.

He watches me too, and I get a sense of both weakness and power as I start to take off my panties in slow, teasing movements of my legs, loving the way he watches me kick them in the air.

He looks at me with a smile that slowly turns wolfish.

Something about me giving him everything, my every wall shattered, seems to make him more possessive. Before I know it, he’s spread my thighs apart and is licking between my legs, his big, beautiful muscles bulging between my parted thighs.

Reveling, I pump my hips up to his mouth, every flash of his tongue knotting me up. I clench my teeth as I try to hold back my orgasm for a little longer. I’m about to combust when he raises his head and looks at me heavy-lidded.

“I love you, Rachel.” The hard emotion on his face as he looks down at me is so powerful, I shudder to my core. He strokes his hand up my side so that he can touch his thumb to the corner of my mouth. “I love you like nothing else in my life.”

“I just melt when you say it.”

He laughs softly, and I lie here and smile, feeling like goo.

His mouth covers mine, his kiss gentle and loving as he spreads over me. He fills my mouth with his tongue and my body jerks from the pleasure, watching him above me. I’ve never seen a guy look at me that way before, his eyes hot and proprietary and meltingly hungry.

He slides one hand down my abdomen, circling my belly button then caressing my sex lips with his fingers, until finally sticking his middle finger inside me.

“Malcolm,” I moan, rocking my hips and thrashing.

He takes my mouth, and I kiss him.

“No condom,” he murmurs, looking at me.

No condom . . . just him and me.

It involves a high level of trust, this thing we’re about to do. And neither of us hesitates as our lips fuse again. I grab him to me, curl my legs, and undulate welcomingly as he drives inside me.

He groans as I moan and before I can climax instantly from the feel of him, he pulls out. And I’m there, shivering, suspended in the pinnacle of both physical and emotional pleasure. Gasping for air, I look at him, panting, burning, and his chest is heaving as he holds himself up on his arms above me.

He likes prolonging. I close my eyes and savor the way he does it. His lips once again tug on my nipples then trail along my abdomen. Up my neck. He smells me. Tastes me. Relishes me. Experiences me. I grab his hair, undulating beneath his hot, hard body. Savoring him back. He’s my obsession and my addiction, the only place I feel both safe and exhilarated.

“Sin,” I beg.

He pulls free from my kiss and growls, “I am obsessed with you.” Then, he grabs my hips and fills me, whispering, “I adore you,” filling me completely, watching me with those smoldering green eyes I can feel in every part of me, building up a new orgasm, cupping my breasts in his hands, and bending to lick and lave both tips.

I thrash beneath him, unsure if I can survive so much of him. So much pleasure. Such total, consuming pleasure. But I do—and he goes deeper in me.

I sigh in relief every time he thrusts back in. Sigh his name pleadingly. He takes my mouth with his, his kiss ravenous.

“I am . . . crazy . . . about you,” he rasps, moving in me so deep I can feel him in my heart. His face moves to my ear. “Let me own you, Rachel, and I’ll let you own me right back. You’re my lady now.” He kisses my forehead, my nose, and my lips.

“Don’t close your eyes; look at me,” he says, and when I lift my lashes, his eyes are luminous in his face, and he’s the hottest, sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, watching me as he fucks me as if transfixed.

He rams his hand into my hair and makes a hard fist as he moves his body over mine, pinning me down for leverage as he watches me come for him.

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.