“Thank you,” Saint says. He guides me by the hand to the couch, and the waiter shuts the door with a soft, heart-dropping little click.

My legs can barely hold me but thank god, Saint sits me down. He shifts his toned, beautiful body so he can look at me. God. His eyes. I can’t even hold them with mine for more than a few seconds; my heart is pounding in my chest, my skull, between my aching legs.

“Malcolm . . .” I start.

He seems to have a one-track mind right now as we settle back on the couch, and he ducks his head and presses his lips to my neck. I moan and slip my fingers into his hair, feeling how thick and soft it is while a burning, boiling need circles around in my veins.

I shudder when his lips press to my pulse point. Then he’s tasting me with his tongue, slowly exploring the tender skin of my neck, and my toes are curling and my body’s trembling as he cups my breast in one hand and gently squeezes while he strokes his free fingers up my bare arm, up and down. “Are you okay with this?”

He leans back, lips curled as he looks at me, and when I nod, completely and totally breathless, he holds me by the back of the head and presses a slow kiss to the corner of my mouth. He’s gentle. Too gentle. Within a minute I’m too drunk, lust drunk, Malcolm drunk, to do anything but exist. Kisses. Touches. Kisses he sets on my ear. The corners of my mouth.

He slides his hand under my skirt again. “What are you wearing under there?” he husks out.

“Something.” My voice shakes with desire.

“Something you want to show me?” His lips curl again.

I’m helpless under his probing stare as he tugs my skirt up to reveal my panties. I don’t want to breathe, I don’t even want to live after this moment when he’s looking at me the way he is.

“Malcolm,” I plead, feeling all wanton and nervous.

“Shh,” he says softly as he takes a good look at my tiny, see-through lace panties, “I won’t hurt you. All I want is to look at you.”

“Only look?” I don’t know if I want him to say yes, no, I don’t know . . . what.

“And touch,” he coaxes. He draws my leg up to his hip and pulls me closer so that I half straddle him as his fingers skim the back of my knee. Suddenly a thousand nerve receptors awaken, so sensitive to the lightest pressure of his fingertips, I moan against his throat. When he pulls my hair up and ducks his head and uses his tongue on the side of my neck, I moan deeper . . .

Usually I’d expect him to head straight for my hottest, wettest spot, but this is one knowledgeable guy and he doesn’t do anything I expect him to. His lips press to my temple as he teases with his fingers up the back of my leg and then he grazes my inner thighs with his thumbs. My breath hitches, my nipples poking into my silk top and into his chest.

I arch my neck, pulling in deeper, faster breaths that smell of his cologne and intoxicate me. I think I just moaned his name. Using one hand, he slides a few fingers along the crotch of my panties.

“Tell me you want my fingers here,” he whispers. Against my temple, he’s smiling in obvious male delight because I’m absolutely wet already. I close my eyes and wrap my arms around his neck, and I imagine us naked, moving together.

He keeps one hand caressing my inner thigh and the back of my leg while he slides his other hand under my top. A restrained squeeze on my thigh and I can tell he’s getting serious. I can already feel an earth-shattering orgasm building, and I’m starting to get more than my little share of fear.

“Sain . . . um, Malcolm . . . don’t stop touching me, I just . . . need to slow down. . . .”

He eases back, and we separate for a moment, our breathing audible. My pupils can’t focus, he’s a blur. A blur I’m supposed to write about, not to have.

“Give me your hand,” he whispers. Lightly he reaches out and holds my hand in his strong grip, and I can feel his eyes, liquid and green, watching my reaction as he dips his finger to my palm. Suddenly I’m reminded of each of the forty thousand nerve endings in this very palm. He strokes between the base of my fingers and knuckles, the caress stimulating like electricity.

I watch, transfixed, as he interlocks our fingers and uses his thumb to massage my palm up to the base of my fingers in slow little circles. My blood vessels feel too close to my skin. A fire builds in my body as he holds my hand and slowly straightens out my arm. Gently, he kisses along the inside of my elbow, fluttering his tongue across my skin and bathing the warm spot with his breath. What he’s doing feels like a drug, a drug I never want to him to stop shooting into me.