It bathes him in light as he comes back to me. He grips the sheet in one hand and starts tugging and I feel my resolve melt and melt as his gaze starts sliding down my neck, soft as a caress. I force my fingers to release it.

“Saint . . .” I protest.

“God, come on. Don’t be shy with me, Rachel. Not with me.”

I stop tugging at that, and he looks at me with such a look of tenderness, I melt.

He lowers it to my waist and my pulse quickens as his eyes take in my breasts in the lamplight, my abdomen, the lower half of my body hidden still by the sheet that dropped there. As he lowers it down my hips and it slides down my legs, my body starts to ache horribly for his touch. My senses coming to life before he even touches me.

He tosses the sheet at my feet now.

“What do you want from me?” I croak.

His hand coasts down my rib cage, his thumb slowly stroking my hipbone as he leans over and nibbles my ear. “Everything.” I sigh. His lips slide across my jaw and back to latch on mine. He doesn’t seem to want to talk now.

I can’t speak now either. I’m too busy tasting him back. Fingers wandering into his thick hair. Breasts pressing to his flat chest. And his warm tongue and strong lips leaving mine to wander . . . wander . . . down my throat. He moves the little R necklace aside and sets a kiss on the nook below as his hand caresses down my flat abdomen.

I start closing my thighs—this always makes me vulnerable. Thinking he’ll kiss me there. He stops my thighs from fully closing and urges one open to the side.

His breath coasts over my nipple before his mouth crosses the peak. On the inside of my leg, his thumb travels up my thigh.

“Saint,” I whimper anxiously.

He tastes my mouth again, harder. He rolls me to my back and comes over me in his jeans, his bare chest hot against mine. And that sexy smiling mouth of his kisses me, and I’m dragging my hands up the grooves of his back, undulating as I try to get him to give me what I need—him, all of him—right now.

He’s running his hands up and down my sides as he samples the skin of my neck, the tips of my breasts, my navel, like he truly doesn’t know where to start. He’s savoring, but at the same time, hungry. His lips nip and bite and his tongue swipes out to taste, his hands kneading as they go, his muscles taut with tension, his energy intense, I wonder if I’m enough to appease him.

He licks his tongue into my belly button and parts my legs with one wandering hand. I stare up at the ceiling and groan as I try to calm my body down, rolling my head to the side as pleasure rocks me.

He teases his thumb over my folds first, and then brings his two longest fingers to stroke over the outside. I fist his hair and pull him away from my breast, pulling him up hungrily to my mouth. He gives me the kiss I want, but then tears free and edges back. His eyes miss no detail of me splayed on his bed. My wet folds slick under his two fingers. My breasts rising and falling. My face, which feels soft and weak with desire.

One nipple disappears into his mouth again. His hair gleams in the lamplight, shadows cast across his muscles. He’s still in jeans. And I’m so very naked, so very caressed, so very turned on and vulnerable as he inches his head down. I sense him look at me down there as he uses his two hands to spread my legs open.

“Oh, Malcolm.” I’m red all over.

He leans down and sucks my clit. I arch up and groan.

He rubs me under his tongue and as I rock my hips instinctively, taken over, his fingers are there, ready to penetrate me. He watches me arch. I should’ve known he’d want everything. Take everything. He warned me he would. My instinct of self-preservation wars against the pleasure arrowing through me and the need to be taken by him.

I sigh his name and let my legs skew open. He whispers my name reverently and sucks and kisses me a little more.

“Saint, I’m going to—”

He doesn’t stop until I come. I’m still shuddering when he stands to undress; I’m too weak to cover myself. To pretend I have control over this kind of want. It’s like he knows my walls are up and he’s determined to crumble them.

I didn’t know desire like this existed. I see him stand there, rolling on a condom, ready to take me and I lie here, spread open and aching for him to. I relax in anticipatory relief when his naked body covers mine, and he opens me up to receive him.

I groan as he wraps my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips, my head falling back . . . ready, eager, wanting. He kisses my breasts, grabbing my ass and tilting my hips upward as he drives inside. Our bodies tighten in pleasure as we connect.