I’m stressing about it, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into, until I spot a new tweet from Tahoe appear in my feed.
So the guy actually tagged me.
Hanging tonight w/ my boys unless @MalcolmSaint girlfriend @RachelLiv objects
Fuuuuuck.
A dozen replies have followed up in the next few seconds:
I give it a week
Saint could not be monogamous if he wanted to, he needs the variety
She’s not pretty enough!
Is this for real? I thought this was some sort of publicity stunt. Saint really has a girlfriend?
Hours later, I see Tahoe deleted the tweet, and I’d bet my life Malcolm made him.
Later that week, Saint asks me out.
“I can’t, your social media is already ablaze about us.”
He ends up taking me to The Toy, and we go out onto the lake in the afternoon.
He spends all of the first hour doing business. “How many hours can you be on the phone, who are you talking to?” From my lounger, I attempt to pry his phone away, and he holds it above his head, out of my reach.
“Do you see the blonde on that other yacht?” I point, distracting him.
He’s wearing shades, so I can’t see what he’s looking at, but he keeps his phone in his hand and leans back casually on a folded arm. The sun really loves this man. He’s gold, his hair gleaming, my own reflection in a blue bikini staring back at me in his mirrored lenses. He doesn’t bother to turn around to scan the girls on the other yacht nearby. “I see the one in front of me,” he murmurs huskily.
“Blondes are your type, no?” I point at her again—she’s on the top deck of the other yacht, in a striped navy-and-white bikini, definitely looking this way. “Look at her. Pretty. Just your type.”
He tucks his phone under his lounger. “I don’t have a type, not really.”
“Am I your type?”
“You’re the first of a type.”
I laugh. “You’re the first of your type. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s another one quite like you.” I look at the girls again. “The other one is beautiful too. Malcolm! Look at them!”
He sits up now, lowering his elbows to his knees as he edges closer to me, the line of his mouth curving a little. “The things I used to like in a woman have lost some of their charm.”
“Why?”
I pry his sunglasses off. His eyes shine under the sun and sparkle with secrets, and my stomach dips and my breath goes when they meet mine. “I look at them and see one glaring fault in them all,” he tells me soberly, and he tsks and shakes his head, his gold skin gleaming under the sun. “A pity, really.”
“What?”
“They’re not the blonde I want.”
I stare.
My knot as tight as ever.
“They’re not you, Rachel,” he specifies.
He leans forward to seize my chin, forcing me to look at him.
“Now, why do you want me to look at them? Do you like girls?”
I burst out laughing and push at his hand. “Malcolm,” I chide.
“Do you?” he laughs, taking my chin again, teasing me.
“No! I would never share my man!”
With a low laugh, he leans back on the lounger, taking his sunglasses from my hand and trying them on my face. I giggle and pose; he chuckles and gives me goose bumps as he does then he plucks them off and encloses them in his big hands.
“That must sound terribly boring to a man like you,” I say. “That I won’t share my man.”
“I’m not contesting it.”
“The boring part?”
“The second part.”
“You’d be monogamous for a girl?”
“I would be, for my girl.” He leans forward again. “See, I’ve never had a girl I saw as mine. They’ve all been public property.” Smirking, he sets his sunglasses next to his phone under his lounger, then looks at me with the same brilliant, thick-lashed, deep-set eyes that have been appearing nonstop in my dreams. “But there’s this one girl. My private property.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but if she had any sense in her, she’d run away as fast as possible. It’s not sexy to be considered anyone’s property, Malcolm.”
“Come here. You know I’m talking about you.” His arm sweeps out and he seizes me by the waist.
“No, I don’t, because we said we were just sleeping together, just—”
I squirm a little as he draws me to his lap. “Why do you fight me on this?” He smiles and scowls, both at the same time, then settles me down on his lap and stares right into me—dead serious. “I’m good at the one-night-stand thing,” he tells me. “I’m excellent at fooling around. I was made to fuck around. If anyone can tell the difference between fucking around and the real thing, it’s me.”
Oh god. I’m melting.
I spread my hands on the sides of his jaw. “You were made for great things. Everyone can see that.”
“You want to be with me,” he murmurs. “I see the way you blush, hear you stop breathing, and I like being the cause of both.” He stares at me soberly, and I’m scared. I’m so scared, I’m trembling in his arms, on his lap.
“I’m not your girl, Saint. I’m probably the only girl you know who doesn’t want to be your girlfriend. I think you’re suffering from the wanting-what-you-can’t-have syndrome.”
He looks down at me, tender-eyed, as if he understands the battle in me. As if he’s been there or knows instinctively that I’m going to lose—but he will still have no pity on me. “I don’t think so, Rachel. I’ve got you right where I want you.”
“On your big yacht.” I roll my eyes.
“Nah. Next to me.” The comment makes my stomach dip and the backs of my ears flush hot.
“You’re teasing me.”
“You’re blushing.”
“It’s a suntan. I’m tanning right now. You know. On your big yacht. You’ve lost the ability to make me shy. I no longer blush.”
He tugs my bikini top open, and I yell, “Malcolm!”
“Not a suntan,” he says, his stare hot on my breasts as I scramble to tie the top up again. “You’re blushing all over, every inch of you,” he says approvingly.
Before I know it, we’re kissing, hot and lazily, for what feels like a minute and an hour. We’re so hot by the time we peel our lips apart, I’m sure he’ll pursue this in the bedroom, but he’s got a dinner, and we have to head to the docks before we can get into it.