So what are the pouty feelings for? Did you actually expect him to invite you tomorrow, Rachel? Really? To his mother’s commemorative event?

Well, maybe I did. And I hate that the next day, I feel like a voyeur looking in on his pain as pictures flash on the internet. Saint, his father, their faces, the tension. The event is held in memory of his mother, who died of leukemia; his father hosts the yearly gala to raise money for a foundation in her name.

“Noel and Malcolm Saint, as we can see, are still not talking to each other. . . .”

I slam my laptop shut and go do something productive instead. I start scanning all of Gina’s fashion magazines. “Don’t unfold the folded corners,” she warns from where she’s on her laptop, listening to music on the living room couch. I untuck a folded corner and wonder why she marked the page. Maybe the cute boho bag? Or the yellow shoes the model is wearing? I’m mindlessly flipping, then I see his text message.

You busy?

My heart leaps so hard in my chest I forget the cardinal rules of not texting back too fast. I instantly text him back, No

I wait, my pulse fast in my body as the image of him standing tensely by his asshole father comes to mind.

Pick you up?

Where are we going?

Anywhere

Give me 5 mins

I leap to my feet and hurry to change. “Oh no,” Gina groans from the living room.

I slip into a pair of sexier underwear—white lace. White lace for Malcolm. Then I select a cute little skirt and top. I know Saint is closed off. There’s no real hint of his inner psyche, aside from his rebellious nature, in anything online that I’ve read. The fact that he texted me when I know he’s had a difficult evening makes me feel somehow protective of him in a way I’ve never been protective of anyone except my mother, Gina, and Wynn. I can barely stay inside my skin when I spot the Rolls out the window.

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” I tell Gina.

“Rachel!” she calls worriedly after me, but I’m trying not to hear that right now. I can’t. There’s no place in all of Chicago I’d rather be than at his side, and that’s all there is to it.

I climb in the car, my eyes hurting from my glimpse of him across from the bench I sit on. He’s cloaked in shadows, but some of the lights outside the window fall on his neck, his square jaw. His lips. As I grow accustomed to the dark, I slowly study the clear-cut lines of his features. He’s so handsome, with those emerald-green eyes and a secret expression, and suddenly the cool ice in his eyes warms when they fall on me. “You look edible.”

His voice ripples down my body. Quiet, but not cool as usual—warm. Quite unexpectedly warm, as if I’ve just heated up his whole existence.

“Yeah? I’ve got news for you,” I say with a sultry little smile. I value words, but Saint is a man who values action and I want to take some action tonight. I lift my fingers up, tug my sleeve a little to the side to reveal a creamy expanse of shoulder. “I am edible.”

“And I want a bite.”

Seized by my own desperate, growing, clawing hunger, I pull it downward, Saint’s face absolutely livid with lust.

“Where? Here?” I ask in a sensual whisper as I brush my fingers over my shoulder. I can’t even find words to describe how much I like when his voice goes rough like tree bark.

“Right there. I’m running my mouth up your neck, down your shoulders, your arm.”

My breath’s gone.

Like a living, breathing thing ready to devour the both of us, desire leaps between us, arcing from him to me, from me to him. “What else will you do?” There’s need in my voice: arousal. I can’t hide it, not from him.

“I’m going to make love to you hard, and then I’ll take you softly. Show me your other shoulder, Rachel.”

I do.

The car is rolling down the street now, but if you ask me, the entire universe is in this car, looking at me.

My veins sing happily over his stare as I drop my top sleeve as far as it will go, baring the most of my shoulder possible. Every day my desire for him deepens and intensifies, magnifying my attraction to him to a level I could have never imagined. I know him by heart now, the different angles his mouth twists to create each of his smiles . . .

“I’m going to run my tongue over its curve, dip it right where your pulse beats fast,” the Universe says. “Show me more,” he coaxes.

“Mmmm. You’re so greedy. Will anything in your life ever be enough, Malcolm Saint?”

He shakes his head very slowly, as if in warning, a tinge of amusement in his voice. “Nothing’s ever enough and it’s especially true when it comes to you. Show me more, little one.”