I squeeze her hand, breathless at the thought. “You have no idea how he is when he’s after what he wants. Patient but so, so ruthless.”

She smiles at me, and I smile back. Dropping my hand, she heads to peer out the door. “Don’t open it yet, Wynn, she has to look perfect,” Gina orders, but seconds later, Wynn is the one we hear speaking.

“Saint, come in! She’s just about ready!”

I hear his low voice as he greets her and I’m not immune to the sound.

I’m in my bedroom, but through the parted door, I see a glimpse of a long arm in a black jacket, silver cuff link and white cuff—his hand at his side. Tanned and square, his long fingers idle. I feel a visceral reaction seeing that hand, those strong, knowing fingers, my body flushing in remembrance of how it feels when he touches me.

I take one last look at myself in a strapless blue dress that falls to my feet, with a long, sexy slit on the left side, the color bringing out the bluish shades in my gray eyes. My hair is loose and, because my shoulders are bare and I could get cold, I draw the matching shawl a little higher.

The nerves tangle up inside me as I step out and take in the full image of Malcolm. His back is to me, but I take a tiny pleasure in seeing the back of his head, his confident stance, the incredible amount of energy he seems to suck from his surroundings.

“Oh, there she is!” Wynn happily tells him, signaling past his shoulder.

He turns, one hand in his pocket, the other at his side, and I can’t help but notice how he makes a fist when he sees me. “Rachel,” he says.

A massacre of emotions sweeps over me.

I can’t fight the nature of my body, and though I want to look cool, I’m blushing bright red as I smile shyly. “Hey, Sin.”

I walk over, tentatively set my hand on his chest and, seeing the admiring way he’s looking at me, press up on my toes to kiss his jaw.

He touches my bare back and holds me in place, prolonging the time that my lips are on his skin.

“You ready?” he asks quietly into my earlobe, so only I can hear.

I nod and we say goodbye to the girls. He slips his large, square hand into my smaller one, and as he leads me out of the apartment, I turn and see Gina mouthing, “Ohmigod!” and Wynn, a big wide “AAAAAAA!”

When we reach the sidewalk, Otis opens the door of the Rolls as Malcolm gives him instructions. I’ve barely slid into the center of the seat when the door on the other side opens, and Sin slides onto the bench opposite mine.

I don’t know if he likes my little strapless blue dress, the pink-painted toes displayed by my pumps, or the long slit on the side of said long dress. All I know is that my skin has broken out in goose bumps because of his nearness. And as he settles down across from me and his eyes take a slow, delicious trek up my body, there’s a little bonfire in my stomach.

I check him out too, because his tuxedo loves him so thoroughly it’s an instant aphrodisiac to watch them together. God, I’m this living, wanting, throbbing ache now.

“Hey,” he says, his eyes just a little bit liquid. “You look beautiful.” His eyebrows pull low then, shaping a perfect frown. “Though I was supposed to buy you a dress.”

“No,” I deny, smiling and shaking my head firmly.

“Yes,” he grins. “Stop saying no to me.”

Jesus. He looks at me with his green, green sparkling eyes, and I’m gone, gone, totally gone.

“I said yes to this black tie,” I counter.

I’m not supposed to feel shy right now. If there is a man who knows me, it’s this man. But he’s so masculine and looking at me as if I’m so female, he has the ability to make me feel so young and so terribly fragile.

“I bribed you with wine, I’ve come to know your vices,” he gruffs out teasingly. Then, he reaches out to take my hand and draws me across the car, to his bench. He chucks my chin when I’m settled down. “Your every vice,” he adds, deathly sober now.

“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.