We land in a tiny airport that’s hardly an airport at all, but there’s a beautiful car waiting for us, driving us across unpaved paths into the middle of nowhere. It starts raining. One minute there’s sun, the next there’s a storm. I reject the idea as absurd—it’s not in the plan—but then I look out the car window. The heavens suddenly open up and a torrential downpour starts. My dormant brain cells wake up a little when thunder crashes nearby.

Fuuck!

A tropical storm.

The car stops moving on our way up a hill, and I peer out the left window and glimpse a stunning staircase leading up the cliff.

“Car won’t go up, sir.” The driver shifts. “We can wait out the rain . . . a couple of hours, at most . . .”

I can tell by Saint’s flash of frustration that he’s not spending an hour or two hiding from anything. Saint tips him. “We’ll take the stairs.”

He steps into the pouring rain. With one swift move, he scoops me out and into his arms. “Hang on,” he says. He grins tenderly, and I laugh. Wet raindrops fringe his lashes. I grasp his wet neck and ball myself up from the rain, watching, enraptured, as a rivulet of rainwater slides down his throat and to his hard pecs. I want to catch it with my tongue, tongue him up, head to toe.

“We’re going to get a cold!” I shout through the noise of the storm.

He presses his wet nose to my ear. “Maybe. I’ll keep you warm.”

“You’re supposed to carry me through the door, not up a thousand steps.”

“Well, there’s the door.”

I smile as we spot it, still dozens of steps away. The house sits atop a rocky cliff, looking at the sea and surrounded by green foliage swaying in the wind. Nothing but angry clouds above.

Malcolm gets us inside and sets me on my feet. We remove our shoes and leave my classic taupe pumps and his sleek black Guccis on the mat to dry. What is it about bare feet and men in jeans? My husband gets a thousand gold stars for hotness.

He surveys the house like a connoisseur as we both pad barefoot through its rooms. Him in jeans, me in my Vera Wang white skirt and jacket.

We’ll be staying in this high-end Indonesian home, exotic and rustic on the outside, a city man’s dream on the contemporary inside. Wide windows; wood ceiling beams, large and thick; smooth-looking contemporary furniture.

I set about to investigate while Saint welcomes the luggage the driver has lugged up the steps. I see that we have a fully stocked kitchen, macadamia butters and jellies stacked near the coffee and tea offerings.

Walking into the master bathroom, my damp feet squeaking with each step, I peer into the mirror . . . to the reality that I look like hell. My hair wet. My silk shirt caked to my body. My makeup streaked down my face. My Saint’s perfect bride has just vanished—poof, back into the dream I imagined her from.

A heavy sense of inadequacy slaps me.

I scrub my face clean with soap and frantically try to brush my hair with my fingers. But I still don’t look like the perfect, beautiful bride I wanted him to see.

FUCK. ME. RIGHT. HERE.

Urgh!!!!

A messy bride is so not what Saint deserves.

“That will be all,” he says to the driver, then looks at me and closes the door.

Thunder crashes nearby. The wind whistles. There’s a storm outside, billowing trees, fierce, but not as fierce as the storm inside. There’s a storm inside my body, inside this room, and its name is Malcolm Saint. The storm within a storm, his force field protecting me, drawing me in with more power than any sweeping wind.

The tension that has been building all day thickens when he settles all the intensity of his attention on me.

A tingling awareness crawls over my skin. The kind I feel when he is near. I drink in every detail of his physique. The dark figure of him in the spectacularly large house, big and powerful. He stands there, devilishly handsome. Wet from head to toe. Those black jeans he wears so well hanging low on his hips, his muscular torso caked with rain. The scent of his soap reaches me. Suddenly I burn to make him breathless and groan, to feel his big body tighten for me. Quiver for me.

I want to lick his collarbone and feel and taste every inch of his gold velvet skin.

He starts coming forward, his eyes taking a leisurely trek across every inch of my body, as if he’s savoring the sight of me too.

My voice feels thick as cotton when I shake my head and say, “I need . . . to fix myself.”

“You’re perfect.”

“No, really, this isn’t . . . you deserve for me to smell divine . . .” I trail off when Saint stops before me. Between those wet lashes of his, his eyes couldn’t be more admiring or adoring of me.

“You smell like you—your shampoo, your soap, you, and rain.”

“You smell like rain too.”

He pulls the hair out of my face. “This is pretty perfect for me.”

“You, looking at me like this. You’re perfect.” His wet clothes are sticking deliciously to his body. I reach out and squeeze his biceps. Hard as rock. I press up to him, closer. He tugs a button on my blouse open. Kisses there. Below my pulse point, on the little triangle of skin he revealed. He tugs another button open. Kisses there.

I reach out to do the same, freeing one button on his shirt.

He watches me through his lashes as I undo another.

“You want to go first?” He wipes my wet hair away as he asks, voice raspy like tree bark.

I nod.

I’m shivering.

“You cold? Want a bath?”

“No. I want you inside me.” I push at his chest, urging him to lower himself to the nearest chair. I drop at his feet and work the rest of the buttons until I’m able to spread his shirt apart, revealing his muscled abs, his cut torso.