I shake my head, refusing to speak more of it.

Finished filling up my makeup box, I glance around to see what I need to tackle next. The room is looking sparse now, save for the big things. Which are staying. All the furniture stays here with Gina and her new roomie. Wynn is supposedly considering canceling her lease and moving in. I plan to beg her to because I don’t want Gina to feel lonely, and I’m afraid that the month I’m on my honeymoon there will be loneliness here to spare. Even though Gina assures me that she’s “good.”

Wynn leaves the box of fragile items for my mom to tape and then walks toward my bed. “Are you taking your pillow?”

“No.”

“How can you not take your own pillow?”

“I don’t know. I like to lie on his chest.”

“What if one day you guys are mad and there’s no awesome chest?” Gina counters, opening a new flat box to make a box for the pillow.

“I hope even when we’re mad I get to lie on his awesome chest. Or his awesome shoulder. Or his awesome pillows. In his awesome bed. No, no pillow.”

“Oh, you! Well, this pillow’s mad.”

She hits me with it, and I grab it, squeeze it, and toss it back on the bed with a little pang of remorse.

It is my pillow. It is my room. My apartment. But if I clutter my future with too much of my past, there won’t be room for the new. And the new—even though a little scary—is something I’m looking forward to.

We take a lunch break, and my mom goes to her canasta game. Wynn and Gina stay until Otis helps us load the rest of the boxes. By the time we come back up, sweaty and exhausted, I’m done, my room looks bare, and pretty, and . . . I look at it harder.

I sit on my bed. My single-Rachel bed. I look at Wynn and Gina, who are looking at me with mixed emotions from the door. Emotions like “how exciting” and “we miss single-Rachel” and everything in between.

I love single-Rachel. But she was never as happy as I am now.

“Wynn, I hope you come live here. It’s such a good little room. I’ve got great memories here.”

That evening, I’m finally at his place. Malcolm’s on a phone call when I arrive, and he trails off when I walk in. I had showered and changed and I am wearing a tight tracksuit and a ponytail. He’s in tan slacks and a black button shirt, and both of these clothing articles fuck his body every which way possible.

I melt first. Then I wave at him hello, walk up to kiss his jaw, and feel him give my ass a little possessive squeeze, his eyes meeting mine—hot and approving and welcoming.

I mouth: I’m going to go and invade your male space.

And as he murmurs something in German into the headset, he lifts his thumb and rubs it against the corner of my lips, his eyes silently saying, It’s all yours to invade.

God.

He makes my knees go weak, this fiancé I’ve gotten myself.

I go start making myself some room in Saint’s closet and en suite bath.

I hang all my clothes to the left side of the closet and put my sweaters, jeans, and shoes on one of the shelves next to rows and rows of identical designer items.

I’m finding space for my lipsticks and stuff in his bathroom when he stalks in, still speaking into the headset. A little cold, a little demanding. Kicking off his shoes, he yanks his shirt out of the waistband of his slacks and I can’t stop looking at him.

I can never seem to screw my head on right when he’s near.

Today, especially, when I think of how awful it would be to not have sex with him.

Torture.

Purgatory.

Absolute torment.

No, no, no, no abstinence.

My Sin is physical and hot for me, and I’m always a wet mess for him.

It would be hell for us. Hell.

I take off my shoes, kick them aside. At the sound of them falling he looks down, and then frowns a little as he stares at my legs, hugged by my tracksuit. He looks at my hand, my ring, smiling to himself, and his eyes slide up to meet mine.

And he looks so possessive right now.

Right now . . . that I moved in.

My stomach gives a squeeze and my hormones just won’t stay under control.

Not touching him?

By choice ?

Alas, it’s only so that you can have the most perfect wedding night, Livingston, I tell myself.

And the thought of our wedding night makes me even hotter.

He unbuttons his shirt. Seeing him bare-chested causes a whirlwind in my body, unstoppable. Tanned pecs, tight brown nipples, flexing biceps, all promising to wreck me again. I want to look away, survival instinct, my body too wired, too tense, but I am thirstily drinking him up, the way his shoulders stretch as he removes his shirt, how his dark hair gleams under the lights, the small smile on his lips that reaches all the way to his eyes when he finally cuts the call and pulls off his headset, setting it aside.

“My . . . invasion was a success. As you can see. It’s all yin and yang now,” I say, my voice thick with lust.

Still bare-chested, he opens a drawer on the side I just overtook and peers inside. “Pink.”

“Yes.”

I see him check out the second drawer on the same side. Also mine. While he scans all of my neatly organized cosmetics, clips, toothbrush, and comb, I tug the hairband that has been holding my hair back and send my hair tumbling down my shoulders.

I tap the outside of a drawer on the opposite side of the sink. “This side is yours. And that side is mine.” I signal to my side, with the pink stuff, and grin.

His green eyes look liquid like seas as he slowly winds an arm around me and pulls me to his chest. “You’re mine.”

My breath catches happily, and our eyes meet. We both look so satisfied right now, it’s like we’re smiling with our eyes.

And suddenly I burn with need.

I want those hot eyes.

I want him to look at me with those eyes on our honeymoon. Eyes that inflame me like they do now. That unapologetically say that they want me, and only me, for eternity. I take his hand and lead us into the bedroom, and then I let go and just stand there, visually making love to his features.

I adore this man.

God, I adore him so much that I can’t fathom ever surviving losing him again.

He’s unzipping my tracksuit jacket and my body is swiftly responding to what I know is coming next.

I want it so much my throat feels tight with raw need, but as Malcolm smiles down at me and I feel the weight of his smoldering green gaze on me, I suddenly ache to see those eyes smolder just like this on our wedding night.

“Malcolm . . .” I begin, curling my fingers around his hand to stop him.

And suddenly I know that I’m going to do this, that I will only have one wedding, to this man. One wedding night in our entire lives. Waiting to be with each other again would be so worth it. Because my guy, he deserves a perfect bride and a wedding night that he will never forget.

And I want to be that bride, I want to be the girl that he can’t wait to touch, that he can’t wait to be inside of.

“I was thinking about possibly . . . abstaining from sex until the wedding.”

I step back a little, fighting my own hormones and need for this man.

He looks at me intently. His smile starts to disappear as he lifts one dark eyebrow. Then two. “You’re not kidding.”

I slowly shake my head. “Unfortunately no.” I gaze into his eyes and already miss him. “This would make the wedding night so perfect. Almost like the first time. I mean it’s just a week and we’ll be busy anyway.”