There’s intimacy between us as I curl up on the chair and have breakfast. Saint drops down and reads the news on his iPad. I don’t want to take his shirt off. I miss having it in my closet. I never realized how much I want it. “Is it okay if I take your shirt? I’ll dry-clean it and bring it back . . .”

“Don’t bring it back.” He sets his iPad aside. Leans forward, his business shirt all over his muscles the way I want to be. Saint spreads his large palm over my cheek as he pushes my hair aside and kisses me with painstaking gentleness. “Rachel.”

That’s all he says. That one last word sounds frustrated, aroused, annoyed, confused—almost pained. Before I can get him to get into the kiss, Malcolm takes my face between his large hands and looks at me with ice-green eyes that carve into my soul. “I’m not the guy anyone comes to for comfort, Rachel. But I like that you came to me.”

I realize that he looks rawer this morning, on edge, his eyes not shuttered or icy like usual. He looks . . . like he’s burning on the inside. I swallow the strawberry jam and lick the corner of my lip, finally realizing how much last night must’ve tested him.

“You didn’t sleep, did you?” I whisper.

He brings me closer to him, his breath hot against the back of my ear as he lowers me to his lap. It feels so good, and at the same time I can’t stop shaking.

“I haven’t had anyone in bed with me for a while. It’s harder for anyone to hit my engage buttons. It’s because of you.” I can’t help but notice how heavy his lids seem to have become. I lick my lips, anxious.

His attention drops to where my breasts press into his chest, and my body homes in on how good this contact feels, how oversensitized the tips of my nipples are.

“Saint . . .” I trail off.

He cups the back of my head; then he silences me by pressing his mouth to mine and sweeps his tongue into my mouth.

“I’m obsessed with you,” he says.

He tastes of toothpaste and coffee as he teases my lips apart, one of his hands planted on the back of my neck. My hands seem to get away from me, and before I know it, they’re caressing his hair. “Saint,” I moan, pushing my breasts upward.

He groans, pulls me over and around him, adjusting my body over his in a straddle position, his hands on my ass.

I’m aware of the heady friction of our clothes as I let him adjust my body so that we’re both fitted so right; if our clothes weren’t between us, he’d be inside me.

And that’s the way he kisses me for a long while. A piercing need floods me, the kind of longing I’ve never known before. He opens my mouth with a firm parting of his lips; then he tastes me, his tongue relentless against mine, pushing hungrily over and around. The heat and seductive dampness of his kiss make me quake for more, every stroke thrusting me deeper and deeper into a whirlwind that revolves and focuses entirely on him, Malcolm Saint, the one who makes my heart race, my life spin faster and faster, my every waking thought now centered on what he does, who he’s with, what he likes, who he is. . . .

He doesn’t break the kiss as he keeps me on his lap, all while his greedy mouth keeping mine attached to his.

I straddle him better, shifting on top of him, seeking to bring the biggest, most delicious hardness I’ve ever felt as close to me as I can; he’s so big and thick, I almost jump from shock but instead I rock against it, wanting it. Needing it. A pained groan rumbles up from his chest as he brings me down by the hips, rocking me harder against his hard lap, his breathing rough and uneven in my ear.

“Come back tonight. I’ll send someone to pick you up after work. We can grab some dinner. . . .”

“No! No dinner.”

“Why not dinner?”

Because I can’t bear to be online like one of your floozies. I press my hands against the smoothly shaven flesh and hard bone of his jaw and whisper in his ear, horny as fuck. “Because you know what I want,” I breathe. It presses between my legs. It looks at me. It’s touching me. It smells good, tastes good. “Because,” I say, “I want you.”

20

TONIGHT . . .

I’m at my desk, editing, when a flower arrangement almost larger than the guy carrying it stops by my chair. “For you,” the guy says from behind the forest of orchids.

Shock freezes me for a second. I glance around, narrow-eyed. Did somebody in the office decide to play a prank on me? They’re all typing, but some are glancing curiously my way.

Then I realize the poor guy is about to pass out from exhaustion. I scramble to clear a little space for the vase and let him set it down. Then I stare at the most wild arrangement of orchids you can imagine. I pluck the card nestled in between all those white and purple beauties, and my heart quivers so hard I need to sit down.