“Online.” His eyes darken a little as he looks at me, a muscle tightly flexing in the back of his square jaw.
“Do you keep photos of all the people you employ on your phone?”
“I don’t employ you yet, remember?” He goes back to the yacht picture. “Nor was I employing you when you were here.” He looks at me.
“Saint,” I say, breathless at his proximity and getting scared by what it’s doing to me. “You never will. I could never look at you as my boss.”
“I wanted to show you this one,” he says, then plays with his phone before turning it back to me again. I see an email from a zoo, and he opens the attachment to show me. I see a huge elephant with its trunk up in the air, almost as if saluting the camera.
“That’s your elephant,” he tells me, watching me closely.
“Rosie,” I say, and when I look at him, I can’t believe the kinds of kisses I want to put on his face and body, on his lips and on his lovely and hard-to-read green eyes.
He lifts his wineglass, cocking his eyebrow, and drinks, then he hands it over since I don’t have one to toast with. I take his wineglass, and—holding his gaze—I set my lips where he drank, finishing it.
The smile he’d been wearing is completely gone when he noticed what I did.
“To Rosie,” I say, lowering the glass.
His phone sits idle in his hand, while the wineglass sits empty in mine.
And Saint sits next to me. He’s staring at me with such intensity, it almost feels like he doesn’t know if he wants to kiss me, spank me, or fuck the hell out of me.
Yes, please.
Handsome and dark-haired, Saint is among the youngest of everyone at the tasting. We both are, but he looks distracting as a comet.
He sits here, overwhelmingly sexual and physical, casual but strong and sophisticated in the clothes he wears, compared to the older men in their suits walking by. I’m conscious of his body heat under the blanket and how, combined with mine, the air is hot enough.
I’m so aware of the hardness of his thigh against mine, of the crackling air and the magnetic pull between us.
Does he feel it too? Does he hate me, but want me still?
Could I compartmentalize like that? Be physical with him while I love him so completely?
I’m not sure I could.
So I sit here stiffly and look at him quietly, looking away when it’s too much to bear, and then back to find him still watching me.
Maybe he doesn’t want me the way I want him anymore. But even when he wanted me, he had the patience of a saint. And I’m afraid he’s going to wear me down until I agree to everything and anything that he wants. Even employment.
“So when is this event at M4 that you’re purchasing all this wine for?” I ask, searching for safer ground.
“Six weeks from now.”
I nod and smile a little, then tap at his glass I just drained. “This one,” I confirm. “I’m obsessed with this one.”
“Okay,” he concurs with a curve of his lips as he calls a waiter and asks for a similar one. “Try this one now, Rachel.”
He puts it in my hand, but I push it back into his, delighting that I have an excuse to touch the tips of my fingers to the backs of his.
“No.” I shake my head and push the glass deeper into his hand, prolonging, stealing the touch of his hand. “I don’t want another. I want this one.” I lift the empty glass, and he laughs and asks for a refill.
I ask him, as we sip, “Why hire me? I’m still battling with myself to write every day.”
He shrugs and looks at me devilishly. “All right,” he concedes. “Then I need a wine taster.”
“So determined, are you, to get me under your command?” I tease.
He looks at me. He looks at me so deeply, I haven’t felt this seen in a while.
“You have no idea.”
JUST A LITTLE DIZZY
It’s dark outside when we head back into the event room and toward the hotel lobby.
“It’s a good night as always for you, Saint!” he’s told by one of the businessmen as we head out.
He doesn’t answer. Vaguely, I notice the speculative stares coming our way. The men are checking me out, but the women have eyes only for the green-eyed god beside me. They look ready to charge him and get on with the baby making.
“Mr. Saint!” Catherine stops him at the door. He converses with her about the wine orders. He takes my arm in his hand to steady me as we head back into the event room and I discover the world is spinning a little too fast.
“You okay?” A corner of his lips is curled as he looks down at me.
“I’m perfect.”
I don’t think he believes me, because he secures me against the wall of his side with one arm around my waist. And it’s so familiar, so . . . right.
He’s more relaxed than he’s been all night after all the wine we imbibed, and so am I. My defenses are wavering. His presence is intoxicating. He shoots me a smile to melt whatever hasn’t melted already.
“You really are drunk,” he murmurs, as if to himself.
He walks me over to the elevators.
And I don’t question that.
Because . . . because he mentioned there’s a room upstairs where we can chill out for a bit. And I said yes, let’s chill out for a little bit. Because I can’t bear to leave, not when he’s still here and every other woman in the room has been waiting, waiting for me to leave so they can have him.
“You drank more than me,” I chide him. How come he looks as in control as always? “I bet you drank wine in the crib, only accepting vintage bottles even then.”
He’s suddenly wearing this secret smile. “You know me so well, Rachel.”
We head into the elevator and it takes me a moment to realize he’s teasing me. I laugh a delayed laugh, but then I’m silent and sleepy and I would have usually stood apart, but I’m cold and he steps impossibly close. So close as he presses the top-floor button, that I can feel his body heat, smell the warm, familiar scent of his skin and the scent of wine on his breath as he stands there, staying close as if offering himself to lean on.
He stretches his arm along the wall behind my back and stares up at the numbers. I don’t know what to do but I lean against his arm.
“I’m sorry, it’s cold,” I whisper, blushing.
“It’s okay.” He curls his arm around me then, and holds me, lightly but close.
God. Malcolm . . .
The very idea I had about desire and sex and love, he completely turned it upside down until they’re all mingled now. He is the embodiment of them all to me now. I can’t love him without desiring him, wanting to be physical and show my feelings for him.
This touch is light—only around my waist. But it doesn’t touch what I really need. That touch—all over, please.
I want to press my cheek to his chest, and when I do—because, well, I just went ahead and did it—I hear his heart beating under my ear . . . beating nowhere near as fast as mine is. I fist a hand on his delicious-smelling shirt.
“I’m dizzy, Malcolm,” I say apologetically.
“Watch your step.” As we exit the elevator, he keeps his arm around my waist and leads me to the room.
He opens his room, and I’m stunned by how huge it is, containing lounge areas, bar, dinner table, breakfast table, and the most perfect, beautiful views. On the bar there’s a bouquet full of flowers, champagne, and chocolate-covered strawberries. And a note to Mr. Saint.
I feel like I’m in a dream, in a dream where I’m his girl and he brings me to these kinds of hotels when he travels for the weekend. I kick off my shoes and drop down not on the couch, but rather on the floor at its feet, leaning my head on the couch seat for support.
He flicks on a lamp and sits down beside me, kicking off his shoes and stretching out his legs. His scent surrounds me and just looking at his long, lean body, all six-plus feet of him sprawled next to me, I feel safer than I have in such a long time.
I want to make him smile.
He’s so serious right now. His voice a little gruff, his hair rumpled. I tease him about his having ordered several whole vineyards, and finally, I seem to draw him out.
There’s a playful gleam in his eye as he teases back, “A man’s got to have ambitions.”
He sits with his head back on the seat of the couch, studying the ceiling.
“What if you reach all your ambitions . . . by the time, say, you’re forty. Or fifty. Then what?” I ask him.
He faces me again, and suddenly our noses are inches apart. “Then I’ll come up with new ambitions.” He lowers his voice as if he’s just realized I’m sitting super close.
Kissably close.
“And a few new groupies?” I whisper.
His nearness is making me ache in tender places I didn’t even know I had. I turn and stare at the ceiling, my stomach hot.
“I can already see you. You’ll be in one of your sports cars, brought in from somewhere exotic so it’s unique and nobody has it but you. It’ll be faster, grander, so shiny. Two girls in the back, your cell phone riding shotgun. One’s a Victoria’s Secret model and the other is a TV series actress—BUT they have nothing interesting to talk about.”
“Well, what are they doing?”
“Hmm?”
“If they’re not talking, what are they doing? Are they kissing me? Caressing me?”
“They’re kissing each other—in the back while you drive. They’re also one-clicking on their phones, spending your money.”
His lips curl a little higher and his eyebrows lift too. “I no longer have drivers to keep my hands free for the girls?”
“Nope, they quit. It had to do with the scandal of an orgy in the back of the car, and their families were devastated.”
“Rachel,” he chides. “Where do you get these ideas about me?”
“The internet.” I laugh a little. “Everywhere.”
His eyes drop to my lips for a second. My breath catches a little and my laugh drifts into silence. I feel his gaze squeeze my stomach.
He seems to check himself and lead his eyes firmly back up. “What about you? What are you doing when you’re forty?” He shifts to look at me more intently. His shoulder grazes my shoulder and I can barely stand the buzzing down my arm.
“I guess . . . I’ll be working. Writing, hopefully,” I say.
“Nothing changed?” he asks me.
I actually consider what I would like to change. But how impossible it would be. Him? He can’t even commit to a wine, how can I expect him to ever want me for long?
My voice is soft as a breath. “What I want isn’t known for . . . committing.”
“Known by who?”
“I don’t know.” I laugh again, then I glance out the window and inhale slowly, feeling his gaze on my back as the sadness of my circumstance overwhelms me. “Why do you want to hire me? You’re so smart. You always think out your actions. For the salary you’re offering you could get three journalists with much more experience and prestige.”
“None of which would be you.”
I sigh. “You’re dangling an apple before me. It’s hard not to take a bite.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
“With what? You don’t need a bite; you can chow down anything with one swallow. You can take anything you want.”
“No. I work for what I most want. I win it, or I don’t feel like it’s mine at all.”
“You didn’t feel like your money was yours until you earned it on your own?”
“That’s right.”
“You like the chase.”
“Relish it.”
“You like a challenge.”
“I live for them.” He looks at me with more emotion than I’ve ever seen in a guy’s eyes. I’m melting, warm.
“You’re enjoying me saying no then? That is your challenge with me now? You get me to say yes, and you win.”
“No, Rachel, we need to get you some glasses. Because you’re not reading me right.” He looks at me, smiles to himself, drags a hand over his head. “I can never seem to win with you.”
“Well . . . I lose,” I whisper.
“What did you lose?”
I lost my mind and my heart, my muse, and, I think, my soul to you.
It’s the combination of the wine and him. This man who weakens me like this. “I lose. I’m falling asleep now.”
I wasn’t supposed to yet. But I’m warm and relaxed, over-sensitized to him; his warm breath across my forehead, his hard, thick thigh close to mine . . . the square of his shoulder nearly touching mine.
“I used to play this with Gina . . . first one to fall asleep loses. I bet you never lose . . .” I mumble.
There’s a thoughtful silence. Then, in my ear, sending shivers down my spine, is his voice: “I don’t like to.”
I smile a little and am dozing when he takes my arm and helps me up slowly. “Come here. There’s a bed here with your name on it.”
“Oh. You can afford a bed.”
“Yeah. Do you want me to teach you how to use it?” he mocks me.
“I use a bed for sleep . . . but I don’t know what you use it for.”
“You know. A little fun here and there.”
He walks me to the bed and then eases me down there. I sleepily watch him go to the bathroom and search for a toothbrush.
He’s still in his shirt, washing his face with big hands, scrubbing his square jaw, then ramming the toothbrush into his mouth and washing fast and hard. He flicks the lights off and comes out, and I close my eyes and exhale before I open them again.
He spreads out on top of the bed, over the comforter while I’m under it. Slowly, he sets his phone aside and curls an arm behind his head as he studies me with an unreadable expression. I smile shyly.
He looks so handsome lounging in that shirt and his slacks on that big, white bed; I want to tease him. I want to see him smile again and again and again. “Sure the entire wine cellar is enough to feed your M4 minions?” I frown.
I feel a couple butterflies when his lips curve, and he shakes his head, then he drags one hand over his dark hair.
“I’ve heard the M4 annuals are such an event. Do you already know who you’re going to go with?”
“Just a friend.”
“Oh. A bed friend?” I lift my brows tauntingly, and tease: “Someone you can teach how to use a bed?”
He looks at me.
And slowly arches his brows. “Do you really want to talk about this?”
His expression has gone from relaxed and flirtatious back to serious again.
Taken aback, I turn to my back and exhale. “I . . . no.”
Fuck.
Why did I ask that?
Saint says nothing for a long time.
Then: “Do you miss me?”
He rolls to his side and the fabric of his shirt is about to tear open under the flex of his muscles as he searches my face. He leans close to my ear, and says, “Do you think of me sometimes when you don’t want to . . . do you need me . . . do you still feel me?”
“I feel you everywhere.”
He curls his hand around my throat, leaves it there, hot and enormous, pinning me down on the bed with gentle firmness.
For minutes and minutes he stays there, with his forehead on my temple, his lips on my ear and his hand on my throat, owning me.
“I can’t breathe when you’re near, but I can’t live without you,” I pant, quietly, and he squeezes his eyes shut, drops his head on mine, and we say nothing else.
We lie here with his body leaning over mine, strong and hard, and me, panting in bed, weak and warm. We lie here as if we broke and there’s no more glue to put us together no matter how much I wish for it to . . . but we also can’t pull apart, as if something else entirely different from glue keeps us together.
It takes forever to fall asleep.
I should go home, but I don’t want to. I’m in hell but I don’t want to leave i
f he’s in hell with me. My awareness is so heightened that every sound awakens me, every shift beside me on the bed. Even the loss of warmth at the merest shift of a leg stirs me awake and urges me closer to the warm, hard wall beside me . . . but when I sleep, I lose all restraint.
I’m unzipping his pants and devouring him with kisses, dragging my mouth down his square abs, trailing my fingers across his chest muscles with a thirst that is unquenched. When I finally curl my hands around his hard length, I do so reverently. I stroke up and down his shaft as I lower my mouth and kiss him there, right where he’s most man. I make love to him with my mouth because I need to claim him. Feel him. Love him so that he loves me.
He lifts my chin. “Look at me.” The words have a bite, harsh with need.
My eyes lock with his and his are stormy green. He sees something he wants in my gaze because I sense he doesn’t want me to close my eyes. I blink and look back at him as I drag my tongue along his long, hard length. The crown of his cock is thick, swollen, pink, and as beautiful as the rest of his length. His sex is full for me, gushing for me. Between my legs, I’m gushing for him.
I murmur his name around his flesh.
“Malcolm.”
He tugs my face up close and slides his lips over mine in a tender kiss.
“Is this what you want, little one?” he asks, pulling me up so I feel him between my legs.
In a world where he can buy anything he wants, I’m his littlest thing. And he’s my biggest, grandest thing.
Full, lush lips feather over my cheek before pressing against mine. Soon he’s parted and tasted me, his tongue thrusting powerfully inside, seducing me.
He eases me back and parts my thighs, and I feel the gentle tug of his teeth on my clit. Every sensation coming to the surface. I feel my orgasm build, and I beg him, please Malcolm please—when I hear a door close, and I bolt awake.
I’m sweating in bed, soaked, shivering. I glance around, confused, when I recognize the hotel suite and hear the shower water start with a squeaky, angry jerk. I close my eyes tight and my stomach drops. Oh god. Malcolm heard me. He heard me say his name. He heard me lose my shit.
I put my face in my hands as I hear the slap of water and I know he’s showering. A cold shower?