“Do you?” I playfully say. “You don’t know them all. If you did, you’d be kissing me.”
He steals a heavy-lidded look at my mouth and I get a delicious little squeeze in my lower body when I realize he is going to kiss me. “But if you kiss me, you’re going to mess up my lipstick,” I say, but he’s already curling his strong arm around my waist and slowly, surely, dragging me flush to his side.
“Your lipstick will look great on me.”
“Sin!” I throw my head back and laugh.
He trails his thumb along the curve of my neck. “That laugh of yours,” he tells me quietly.
He says it as if it’s his greatest discovery.
A hairsbreadth from my ear, he whispers, “I can think of over five feet of you that I can kiss without messing your lipstick.”
Suddenly trembling in anticipation when I recognize the look in his eyes, I let him brush the shawl off my shoulders, laughing faintly and chiding “Malcolm” as he eases my hair aside to reveal the curve of my neck and shoulder.
He rubs his thumb along my collarbone and looks into my eyes as he continues to gently fondle my skin. He kisses the roundest part of my shoulder, his lips caressing up and down, side to side, before he sets a second kiss upward, heading toward my neck.
“Rachel,” he whispers, so thick and raw, trailing his fingers to the R necklace resting at the base of my throat.
I’m acutely aware of his fingers shifting the small, gold letter aside. Then his warm fingertips are lifting the metal so he can press his lips into the delicate nook where my pulse is fluttering wildly. I’m mad with lust under his moist breath on my skin, the space between his thigh and mine, the deliriously slow path of ghost kisses he drops on his way up my neck, toward my jaw.
“I lose,” he says when he reaches my mouth.
I’m confused. I’m bewildered by his meaning. He’s definitely not falling asleep—his stare is as alert as ever. But he said I lose and I can see that he’s really determined to lose somehow. Determined to lose against whatever it is he’s fighting. He looks completely unapologetic too.
“I lose,” he repeats.
My eyes widen when he reaches out and brings me over to his lap and every bit of Malcolm is surrounding me, enveloping me, maddening me. The dark gleam in his eyes is completely serious, completely unlike the times he teases me. Jaw set, he curls a hand around my nape and pulls me to the wall of his chest, so close that all that’s between us is my dress and his shirt.
His eyes are fastened to my mouth now and OMG, I’m so breathless when he brushes his lips across mine.
“Do you think it’s this intense between us because of what happened?” I whisper.
His lips feather across mine again. “I don’t know . . . but I’m pursuing it. I’ll take this fire any day over the ice I live in.”
His chest is rising slowly, and I’m starting to pant. I’m trembling all over. My heart is beating madly and I’m holding my breath, waiting for what he’ll do next. His warm hands, his strong chest, his soft mouth suddenly pressing to the corner of mine. I catch a sob as he sets the ghost kiss right there, right where I need it, where I love it, where it branded me from the first time.
The lipstick doesn’t matter anymore, nothing matters.
I open my lips, but he drags his mouth up the side of my face and exhales slowly, fisting a hand in my hair as he holds me to his chest. I don’t move a muscle. If he’s giving me time to protest, I can’t. I just can’t. I missed him so much, a ball of emotion is forming in my stomach and my throat and my heart.
His delicious scent is killing me. So familiar I’m high.
His hair tickles the side of my face as he goes to the other corner, and I can smell his soap, and when he sets his lips fully on mine, I quiver. He slips his tongue lightly into my mouth, as if testing my resistance.
I open easily and when his tongue strokes over the side of mine, I rub back languorously, a low, dull throb building between my legs.
He eases back and then he’s staring down at me with smoldering heat that’s almost frightening. He’s looking at me like I’m something else, something extraordinary, something perfect, like he can’t believe I’m trembling in his arms.
His hands frame my face, his palms swallowing it as his lips start to crush over mine harder. Groaning, he starts kissing me a little bit faster, and I can’t get enough, can’t work my mouth fast enough to get all of him that I want. I push my fingers into his hair—his hair! And let him use the small of my back to press my breasts against his chest as he sucks on my tongue, slow and greedy. Saint is kissing me like he wants me more than the world he likes to conquer and more than the moon he’s never been able to get.
We kiss a little more.
I pour all my love into the kiss. My walls are crumbled at my feet when the kiss stops, but I have no energy to pull them up right now. My lids are heavy, but so are his. I’m struggling to breathe, but his chest is pushing against his shirt as he breathes deeper too.
“I missed you,” I whisper.
He murmurs into the top of my head, “I missed you too.”
We fall silent then, simply in each other’s arms, until we reach our destination.
I’ve never been both so relaxed and at the same time buzzing all over.
When the car halts, Saint wipes my lipstick off his face, strokes his thumbs over my lips while I fix my hair, then he steps out first to a few audible gasps outside. He stretches his hand into the car for me, I slip my hand into his and then let him pull me out, immediately stunned by the dozens of heads in line at the entrance of the party already fixed in our direction. They spot Saint and immediately their curiosities are piqued as to who he’s with, so they glance at me and can’t seem to hide their surprised faces.
I’m shaking inside but his hand, oh, it feels so steady as we head over to the bouncer to be admitted inside.
He squeezes my fingers to catch my attention. “The look in your eyes. What are you afraid of ?” he asks as the bouncer swiftly recognizes him and tugs open the door for us.
“The world.”
He grins down at me, so tall and powerful. “Relax,” he says. “The world’s in my pocket.”
And I feel relief flood me as I let myself believe it.
The ballroom is glistening when we arrive. It seems like all of the rich in the city are present. I force myself to hold my head high.
Modern glass chandeliers hang like tangled wires from the ceiling, while a wall of shimmering waterfalls greets us to the right. There’s a live orchestra, chocolate fountains, and perfect round tables covered in white linens and silverware, complete with Tiffany chairs to match. We venture deep into the crowd, walking amidst an impressive amount of glittering dresses, men in black ties, women in exotic perfumes. I’m aware of how those women watch Saint, and the men watch me. God, it’s incredible, the eyes he draws. Even if people don’t know who he is, Malcolm’s presence is so magnetic you instantly know he’s someone.
“Don’t let them own you, Rachel.”
“I won’t,” I say.
“You’re with me.”
I look into his eyes. “I know.”
“Then let’s make a round and I’ll take you away . . . if you’re good,” he warns. And there, suddenly, is the spark of mischief in his eyes that I’ve missed so much.
With a brief look at my mouth that reminds me of the kisses he just gave me, he leads me to our table and introduces me to our table companions. I keep expecting to be sneered at, shunned. But soon I realize, no. These people respect Malcolm too much for that.
And they steal him away every second they can too.
I engage in a brief conversation with a couple he introduced me to, shaking my head when three different women come to flirt with Saint.
When we finally come back together, I can’t help but tease him. “Can’t you be alone for a minute? Without anyone catering to you?”
He smiles at me and turns me to a spectacular-looking olde
r woman. “Rachel Livingston, this is Norma Dean. She’s our host.”
“Oh, I’m familiar with your work! I read your piece on this thing right here.” She smacks Malcolm’s chest. “And I was hooked by your voice. Such a lovely, smart, passionate girl. What took you so long to snatch her up?” she chides.
“Traffic.”
When I look up, Malcolm’s lips are curled slightly and his eyes are twinkling and a ribbon of heat unfurls in my stomach.
And then I realize after her comment that maybe, incredibly, some of these people also respect me.
He soon leads me back to our table and introduces me to a few CEOs and their wives, philanthropists and entrepreneurs. They’re all older than us and very friendly.
I feel like I belong, even though I’ve never belonged here before, and I realize as we sit here discussing everything from ponies that they bought for their daughters, to business merger news, to the best hairstylists in town, that Malcolm wouldn’t have brought me somewhere if he thought I’d be shunned or laughed at. He respects these people too, and expects them to respect me. Every time one of them says his name and leans forward a bit in their seat to talk to him, they do so with such admiration that I realize he knows that my just being in this space of his will protect me. And I do feel safe.
A man has taken up a conversation with Malcolm on one side, while a woman is completely telling me the story of her marriage to the man sitting beside her. She’s at the part about how the ex-wife and her actually became good friends, when Malcolm whispers, “Let’s get away for a bit, Rachel.” He looks at me as though it’s not even a question. “If I can borrow her for a bit, Julie,” he apologizes.
I’m aware of us drawing a few glances when we stand, his friends raising their eyebrows as he takes me by the arm and helps me to my feet.
He puts his hand on the small of my back and I feel it rush through me until I feel it in the tips of my breasts, between my toes, as we head out of the room to a set of elevators.
I notice that a couple of groups of young ladies in the room pause what they’re doing to watch us head to the elevators. They clearly don’t like him leaving with me.
“Your girlfriends weren’t too happy about you stealing away with me.”
His lips curve in amusement. “They’re not my girlfriends.”
“So what do you call all those girls who strip for you and cater to your whims for a day or two . . . or four?”
He stares at me, laughing, his smile like a bolt of light. “They’re just girls.”
We reach the top of the building, and he leads me out onto the roof terrace. “Come look at this.”
I turn with him and head to the very edge of the building’s roof, by the railing, with a breathtaking view of the lake. A sliver of moonlight dances in the middle of the water tonight. As he looks at it, I watch him in my peripheral. I have a thousand pictures of him but none like this. Pensive. Raw. The face I see right now isn’t for any camera, it’s for nobody to see.
“Won’t your friends miss you downstairs?” I ask, my voice whispery.
“They know I’m a busy man. They also know I enjoy my privacy when I feel like being private.” He studies me with the moonlight gleaming in his eyes. “I have a date with that blue dress of yours.”
“No you don’t.” But my stomach dips in excited contradiction. “I have no intention of letting it get acquainted with your tuxedo.”
“Yes, you do.”
He takes my hand, his warm fingers closing around mine. “I feel like being private right now.”
There’s a swooping pull in my insides as he reels me closer.
He’s the first to move, his hand lifting only a fraction to rest on my face as he curls me in his arm so we both face the lake.
I hadn’t ever grown accustomed to being held like this, the few months we were together. I stand here and just absorb the feeling of being close to someone who’s so much bigger and harder than I am.
We stay like that. The very air over the water seems electrified. He runs his hand through my hair and the sensation is so sweet and so intoxicating, I couldn’t move if I wanted to.
He obviously knows he affects me. But he looks affected too, his body stone-like and buzzing with tension. “I wanted to show you this. You see that lake?”
The wind brings his scent toward me and I swallow and almost taste it.
“I don’t ever want to leave Chicago simply because I love being near that lake. My mother used to take me out there—the Pearl was her yacht,” he says. “She’d never let me get in the water. After I was sick, she became paranoid. So I had to test my limits in private.”
“She took you out there just to look at what you couldn’t touch?” He shrugs. “And now you test your limits all the time.”
“I do. Sometimes to feel immortal, and sometimes to remind myself that I’m not.”
His eyes are mesmerizing right now.
“She was a good mother?”
“She was a good mother; I was a bad kid.” He smirks.
“No,” I say, instantly.
He smiles.
God, my stomach moves every time he smiles at me.
“I’m telling you, Rachel.”
“No. I don’t believe you were a bad boy.”
He laughs. “I’m still a bad boy, only I’m a man, with the ambitions of a man. The desires of a man.”
As he investigates my reaction with a quiet but penetrating look at my face, I remember his father. The things I’ve seen and read online. In every video of them together I’ve seen, Saint is chill and controlled, admirably diplomatic even when the father is aggressive and full of venom. If Saint had been a “good” boy, though, he’d never have become who he is. His father would have kept his “good” boy under control, but instead, he became Malcolm Saint, and now the shadow Saint casts is so much grander than his father’s ever was.
“You know,” I hear myself offer, my voice showing my admiration for him, “my mother worked too much. Day and night. Maybe that’s why my imagination flourished, it was sometimes the only company I had. We didn’t really get to spend a lot of time together. Which makes me always want to give back, but it never seems like I can make it up to her.”
“I know what you mean. I can never say goodbye to mine.”
I’ve never been more aware of him as a human being.
Malcolm stands with his legs spread apart, staring out at the city, his profile mysterious and unreadable. I can tell by the sound of his deep breath he’s trying to remain unaffected. By the conversation. Maybe by me. But when I brush my body against his and he looks at me, his eyes turn to fire.
“Come home tonight, with me.”
One second I’m opening my mouth, trying to come up with an explanation why maybe we should take it slow, the next he brushes his mouth to mine.
“What are you doing?” I laugh nervously. “I’m going to end up with no lipstick at all.”
My skin breaks out in goose bumps when his reply is merely a curve of his lips. “Tell me you want to talk about Interface,” he whispers in my ear. That used to be our code for kissing . . . making out. “Tell me you left something at my place.” He rubs his nose against my ear. “Tell me you want me tonight.”
“I . . . I want to talk about Interface,” I say, not able to hold back a small laugh.
He strokes a finger up my arm, watching me. “My goal is complete domination of the market . . .” he murmurs as he lowers his dark head, his lips soft and warm as they press on my throat. “Elimination of all competition . . .”
He ducks his head and I feel his mouth brushing, almost like air, over the tip of one breast. I can’t breathe.
He lifts his head and frames my face in his hands, warm, strong hands, and then he smoothes a hand back, pulling me closer, his long fingers encompassing so much of me I feel it like a collar around the back of my neck. A collar that’s remarkably welcome, that makes me feel safe and controlled while the rest of my body’s in chaos.
His voice is low and gruff and his breath is too close to my face, my ear. “I’m taking over,” he continues in a husky voice. “Until there’s absolutely nothing left. Nothing before it. Nothing after it. Only what’s mine, what I claimed and what I make of it.” He kisses me then, and we kiss for a long time.
“Maybe I’ll invest in this Interface,” I whisper.
“Come down with me. One walk across the room to meet a few of my business partners. And then we leave.”
“I haven’t said yes yet.”
“I’m not asking on this.”
When we head back downstairs, he places a hand on my waist. He caresses it as we go down—and oh, I definitely feel like his date.
“You’re a devil.” I laugh as I check my reflection in the shiny elevator wall.
“And you want me.”
I mock-gasp. “You’re a deluded devil.”
“I’m one who won’t stop until I get what I want.”
When we step off the elevator, he guides me into the ballroom with his hand on my nape. The touch is light enough to remind me I’m free to choose, but with just the right amount of pressure that says—I’m here. I desire you. Turn yourself over to me for a night and I’ll make every inch of you remember you’re my woman.
He lowers his hand to the small of my back, even when he’s stopped at a table to chat with a few businessmen. I let him introduce me and talk mostly to the men.
Only a few of the younger women at the table make me a little uncomfortable.
They’re draped in the most beautiful jewels, and looking at my tiny, simple R. Their dresses glitter and sparkle as they take in my plain silk one. Their hairdos are styled and swept and elegant as they stare at my straight locks. And judging by those looks, they just can’t seem to believe that the one standing next to him is me.
And still Malcolm’s hand remains on the small of my back.
I’m surprised that, for the first time since I’ve known Malcolm, I don’t care about these women, if they read my article or not, if they’re jealous, if they think I’m pretty enough for Malcolm Saint.
I’m human and flawed and hopeful and afraid and strong and weak and independent—and in love with him in a way I’m sure they are not.