He turns my head around and looks at my lips, rubbing them a little. “Good. My girlfriend wants to change the world, and I want to own it.”

“Why do you insist on me being your girlfriend?” I complain, but when his eyes slide up from my mouth to lock on mine, that typical shyness he brings out in me comes out with a vengeance.

“Why do we want anything?” he asks me, one eyebrow up.

“Because it gives us pleasure, satisfaction, it makes us happy.”

“So when can I call you my girlfriend?” he insists.

He’s so stubborn! I giggle because his question is “when.”

In Saint’s mind, it’s not impossible. He knows it’s happening, he’s actively carving his way to making it happen, and he’s just curious to see how long he has to wait.

I feel a yearning to say, Now! But I can’t. “Let’s talk about it again later,” I propose instead.

He takes my face in one open hand. “Next week.”

Knots, knots, knots in my tummy, my chest, my throat.

“I might need more than a week to come out of the box,” I begin when the flexing in his jaw and the tumult in his eyes tug at my heartstrings. Coupled with my own aching heart, resisting him is killing me. “But . . . will you be waiting?”

“I’m waiting, Rachel,” he assures me, his tone steady, as if there’s no doubt that he will wait as long as he needs to. He leans forward and gives me the sweetest, hottest kiss on the corner of my mouth.

I sigh inwardly, a sigh he doesn’t hear, doesn’t even notice.

His attention goes back to the computer as he starts to check out the software, and he works the keyboard with those long, blunt fingers that type, I realize, as fast as mine do—and I type like the wind. I’m sitting in his arms, watching him show me, so safe right now. His scent steals into my nose and I drag it inside, getting wet between my legs, happy in my heart. “I want you again,” I whisper, in his ear.

He lifts a hand to cup my pussy and shift me, starting to caress me. “That was the aim of all this,” he whispers, nuzzling my ear.

I turn around and his nose presses to mine, my breath on his lips as I speak. “I’m really wet,” I admit. “Let me get pretty. I want to look so pretty I give ‘your type of girl’ a whole new meaning.”

When I stand, he tugs me back down as if I’m being silly, chuckling, “Come here.”

“No, seriously!” I laugh, then I say, “I’ll be right back,” and head quickly to the bathroom to get a little pretty. I see my phone messages.

Wynn: Hey we’re worried, call!

Gina: Rachel where are you? You ok? We’re worried

I answer them both.

I am physically okay but so absolutely in trouble

I toss the phone aside, and when I come out, Saint is lying back in bed, arms crossed behind his head, the sheets up to his waist, and he’s naked already, his clothes tossed to the side. My stomach knots from the hunger, the fierce desire clawing inside me, begging for release. Begging me for him.

My hands shake from the heat already rushing through my veins as I slowly tug the strap of my bikini and start stripping for him. I prolong the moment, against every demanding throb of my body, every second that I’m not in that bed with him is torture, every pore in me trembling under the dark, tumultuous look in his eyes, eyes that make me feel owned, wanted, and absolutely wanton and sexy.

26

FRIENDS AND FANTASIES

Gina and Wynn are worried that I blew up at my mother’s house yesterday morning.

After Malcolm drives me home, I ask Gina to give me half an hour to shower and change. I hop into the shower, daydreaming a little bit as I rub my body and feel how tender I am between my legs. Gina is scowling and clearly concerned when I come out.

“What’s going on? Talk to me,” she goads as we head to meet Wynn that afternoon. “You were with Saint all this time?”

“Yes,” I admit.

“And? Did you break it off? Or did you call Helen? What’s going on? I’ve been deliberating and I don’t think dumping your career for a man is a good move. Especially a man with a reputation. When he breaks your heart, you can’t even say you didn’t see it coming, Rachel!”

I tune out a little bit as she keeps going because, at this point, my empty stomach is filling with bile over my own decision—the one I have to make soon.

When I don’t agree with or reject her suggestions, Gina switches gears and suddenly can’t stop talking about how great it is to be single. Does she want to make me feel better because obviously Saint and I are going nowhere? Or is she concerned and thinking I would actually dare go out with Saint publicly and expose myself to the same scrutiny he’s subjected to?