“I don’t want to take it off just yet.” I cover it possessively, then shoot him a sly smile. “I’ll roll Scotch tape around one side to make it plumper and keep it in place.”

“Classy,” he says drolly, and as we start to laugh, both his hands curl around my skull and he sweeps down to tease his smiling lips against mine.

I tip my face up to his, and my smile fades at the sight of Saint’s smoldering green gaze. I wrap my arms around his neck, hungry for him, so desperately in love with him, breathing, “Kiss me, Sin. Kiss me like we just got engaged.”

He carries me down to his place. He’s holding me so tight I can’t breathe, but I don’t want to breathe.

We undress and pet heavily for half an hour in bed, our mouths latched and savoring each other’s taste, each other’s warmth, each other’s mouths. My mouth is red and swollen from his kisses, and my skin feels hot and tingly under his fingertips.

God. I feel like Venus. Beautiful, weak, strong, everything, as he tenderly tells me how good I taste, smell, feel.

“I really love you.” Four words spoken in quiet amazement—husky and deep and just a whisper in my ear.

“I do too.”

Warm fingers stroke along my curves as I rub my hands up the wall of his chest and look at his eyes in the dark.

The sheets beneath me feel so soft and like nothing compared to the hard substance of his body above mine. Strong, firm lips take me again, a perfect fit. We kiss for a long minute, stopping to nibble only so we can catch our breath.

His breath is hot on my face as he looks at me closely, in the dark. “I loved hearing that ‘yes’ come out of your mouth.”

I smile up at him. “Mmm. Yes ,” I repeat, all sultry and wanton.

He smiles a little, and he looks so boyish and carefree. But then he grows serious again. Hungry again.

He sits up in one fluid move, pulls me on top, and fastens his mouth to my lips, never taking them off me as he drags them down my neck to suck on one of my breast tips.

The suction causes my nerves to start tingling and the blood to start boiling inside me. We sit in bed like this, my legs wrapped around his hips, his thighs beneath me, his mouth and hands devouring me. This man devouring me.

I rock my hips, slowly pleading for him to fill me. He comes back to my mouth and kisses me passionately, deliciously, deep enough to make my toes curl. My nipple beads under the brush of his thumb.

Before I realize what I’m doing, my nails are digging into his hair and I hear the low, soft pleas I make, begging, Saint, please, I’m aching for you . . .

The words end up a sigh that he covers with his mouth again. Our bodies shift closer, my smaller one molding to his hard, unyielding planes.

“Rachel, you’re drenched for me.”

A breathy gasp escapes me when he teases my entry with his erection. He rolls me onto my back and folds my legs, curling them around his shoulders, opening me. Every inch that he advances is bliss compounding on more bliss. The sharp, clean smell of his soap envelops me, weakens me. My senses overload on Malcolm Saint.

His mouth opens on mine with the same thorough deliberation he opens me with his hardness. His weight presses me down on the bed as he drives all the way inside. I groan. Saint rocks his hips to set a rhythm, his hottest parts taking over my softest ones. I pull his face closer to me and drop kisses on his thick neck, up to his jaw, as he gnashes his teeth while he enters me, over and over, harder and deeper.

My folded legs tighten against his shoulders. “Oh. More,” I beg, surprised by my own breathlessness.

He gives me more, giving and taking with each thrust.

He waits for me to get to the pinnacle. Quickly, I reach it. I hear myself purl out his name. I whisper I love you as he intensifies his thrusts and jets off powerfully inside me.

When I fall limp, he uncurls my legs from his shoulders, lies on his back, and runs a hand down my back as I spoon at his side. I sigh in relaxation. Is love like this? Where you keep falling and falling, every day that you look into his eyes?

I hear him inhale. He’s relaxed and satisfied as he tucks my face into his neck and rests his chin atop my head and strokes a hand down my hair.

What will it be like to marry him?

As if he’s thinking the same thing, he looks at the ring on my hand and kisses my knuckles, wiping my sweaty hair from my face.

“Should we spend the night at my place?” I ask. “That way I can tell my friends, call my mom, and you can leave to your early breakfast.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he says, his voice still gruff with lingering lust.

He goes to the bathroom to clean up and when he comes back out, we get dressed.

An hour later, we’re at my place, having the best sex—again.

“God, have we been making noise? Gina . . .” I breathe into his neck, tightening my arms around him, then I giggle in embarrassment.

He squeezes me, husking out, “I think we’re good.”

“ You’ re good,” I counter.

He gives me a heavy-lidded look before he kisses me for a long, long while, slow and lazy, his fingers spread out around the back of my head, and then he rolls me around to my stomach. He caresses my ass as he pulls me up to my knees and drives into me from behind. I make fists, moaning low. The bed squeaks as I clench the sheets, the engagement ring on my finger flashing as it catches light from the streets.

THE MORNING AFTER

“OOOOOPEN SESAME!” I hear my roommates yell through my door.

“I’m not Sesame and I’m sleeping,” I murmur into my pillow.

“Speaking of sleep, you owe me sleep time. I heard you all fucking night, you fucking horn dogs—open the door!” Gina demands.