“Come here,” he coaxes.
His arm wraps around the back of my neck and pulls me to his side only to embrace me. His voice murmuring close to my ear brings out the goose bumps on my bare arms. “I’m only going to hold you, Rachel.”
But just as he finishes speaking, he leans and kisses the corner of my mouth.
I feel the kiss between my legs. In my nipples. In my heart. Breathless, I steal a touch and cup his square jaw. “You said you were only going to hold me. And you just kissed the corner of my mouth. Do you classify that as only holding? Sin?”
“I do.” Although he smiles, the look on his face is intense. “Would you like to pretend I didn’t do that?” He rubs the spot and looks down at me with hot eyes. I’ll never forget the lust on his face as he looks at me. “Would you?” he presses, his voice gruff.
“No.”
He kisses the corner of my mouth again, holding my face in one big hand.
I’m melting.
I’m scared.
I want him so much.
“If you hire me, you can’t get away with that,” I whisper.
He looks at my lips with the hunger of a panther. “Oh, I can get away with it.”
“You’ve never touched any one of your employees.”
“I make the rules.” He raises a brow in challenge, and then starts lowering his head again.
I sit here, shivering, as his warm breath fans my face on the other side of my mouth. I swallow back a whimper, sliding my fingers into his hair. He exhales and goes to my ear, kissing the back of it, relaxing a little as I let him draw me back into his arms.
We stay there for a little while. I think I’m going to die tomorrow remembering.
I wrap my arms around his neck.
I want to speak but I don’t want to break this. He seems to need to hold me and for me to let him, and I need this connection.
“Malcolm Kyle Preston Logan Saint,” I say.
I feel him smile against my hair.
“Why so many names? Hmm?” I peer into his face.
“Because my father’s stubborn. He was determined to name the first boy like his father. And my mother wanted to have four children, so she gave my father the right to choose first if she got to use the three she wanted next.” He inhales and peers down at me. “I wasn’t an easy birth. When they told her she might not be able to have any more children . . .”
“She gave all the names to you? Kyle, Logan, Preston . . .” I smile, then breathe, touching my fingers to his chest, “Saint.”
“God, Rachel, you don’t know what you do to me.”
“Tell me.”
“One day I’ll tell you.”
“Good things.”
“Yeah. Good things.”
His mouth starts trailing and my lungs start overworking as he puts them on my ear. My forehead. My cheek.
“What did you do all this time?” I ask him.
“I worked.” His shoulder lifts carelessly. “Bought a new car. Tested a few planes. Got the top four. Three for the M4 directors and one for me.”
“I’ve been watching baseball,” I offer, setting my face on his chest with a smirk.
“Since when do you watch baseball?”
I shrug. “You know. I branch out now and then.”
“Do you?” He’s amused.
God, I love him amused.
“This is the year the Cubbies break the curse. Did you know that?”
“Really now.”
“Hmm. Yes. With our star pitcher? And that ERA? It’s definitely the year.”
“Really now?” He purrs, shifting, interested, amused.
“Are you watching? Baseball?” I ask, and peer up into his face.
He peers back down at me with a cocky little grin. “I’m busy watching you talk baseball right now.”
I shove him. “Come on. Have you?”
“Yeah.”
I sigh and settle in closer, and he hugs me a little tighter. “You’re right, it is the year the Cubs break the curse.” He grins at me, and I grin back, melting so hard.
Melting so hard and wanting him again equally hard.
We haven’t slept, aren’t aware of time or space or place, only of each other. Holy god. I’m so aware of him it’s as if I’m memorizing him all over again. The scent of his soap, his sheets, his shampoo, his warm, toasty skin, all the ways his green eyes change as he makes love to me, and how good it feels, right now, as he holds me.
He eases his forehead down on mine, then his hand turns my face aside so he can kiss me—I reach one arm behind me and caress his hair as I kiss him back, him inside me. “You’re insatiable,” I tease him. “Are you ready to go already?”
He tugs my ear. “As you know, Rachel, greedy men are insatiable by nature.”
I laugh and drop back, pulling the sheet to cover my sweaty body just because I’m suddenly shy. Is this really me?
Am I back in Malcolm’s bed?
Fucked to my bones?
My chest feels so full I am grateful, humbled, fearful, joyful. My job situation is a mess and I still worry about my mother and yet if I can slowly fix things with him, I feel like I can do anything.
Malcolm . . .
God, please let him be greedy. Please let him want all of me, not just this.
I watch him get up to get a foil packet and I plump the pillow, rearrange my hair, and pray to god I don’t look a mess by the time he comes back. I hear him run the sink water.
I said I loved him before, but shit happened and I haven’t had the courage to say it again. What happened after I said “I love you” the first time must have devalued my words so much that I’m not sure he even wants to hear them again. But I think he knows that I still love him.
I think the only reason he forgave me was because he seems to have an intuitive knowledge of me and I think he feels the love I feel for him as much as I feel the hurricane of his energy drawn toward me.
God. This falling in love—it’s the subject of so many movies, songs, books, and artworks. It’s as common to us as being born and dying and somehow just as mysterious.
There’s never a warning.
You think it’s lust first.
That the powerful feelings are something else.
Admiration and respect.
Then the feeling becomes stronger, deeper, and when you would do anything for them, when their happiness is your own, when even their flaws are fascinating, and when you want to be better, worthy of them, you know it’s love.
What now?
He walks back to bed, flops on his back, and pulls me over him. Seeking closer, I twine my legs around his hips and wrap my arms around his shoulders as we start kissing, and after I mount him, and ride him, letting him take me to places only he’s ever taken me to, I end up more exhausted than ever.