I remember every moment with him, like a treasure and like a punishment.

He’s quiet, physical, and thrilling. He’s also tender, consuming my world with incredible power and at hurricane speed.

I’ve never wanted anyone like this, and had never waited for someone’s call. Wanted to see someone. I told him about the hole, about sometimes feeling like you wanted something to fill it. It has never been as big as it is now that I see him and hopelessly fear that I cannot have him.

But I want him nonetheless.

I guess reason has nothing to do with it anymore.

“Are you leaving Edge?” he asks me.

It’s almost unbearable, the intimacy of his voice in the close confines of the car.

One arm draped over the wheel, he shifts sideways to look at me even more directly. “Why are you leaving Edge? It’s doing better. Isn’t it? After that piece you wrote?”

“You mean . . . the love letter?” I ask, then lower my gaze. “That’s what my boss calls it.”

His voice lowers. “Yeah, the love letter.” A beat passes, charged with tension. “Why are you leaving?”

“Because.”

He curls his thumb and forefinger around my chin and the contact electrifies me. I jolt a little and lean back against the seat when he crowds me in, studying me. “You’re not coming to M4?”

“No.” I look at his mouth.

“So . . . ?” he presses, still holding me by the chin. “Why are you leaving Edge and not coming with me to M4?”

“How do you know all this?” I turn away to inhale and break the touch because it’s so, so painful.

“I have friends everywhere, Rachel.”

I turn back to him. “I only looked at a few ads and called to inquire.”

He’s so close his scent surrounds me like a cloak, heady like a shot of morphine in my veins. Hazy and nervous, I glance at the street behind him, and I shrug. Then admit, blushing, “I know your father’s interested.”

“And?” he presses, his green eyes capturing me.

“And I won’t work for anyone who’s against you. I’m Team Malcolm,” I whisper, flushing horribly.

“If you’re Team Malcolm, why don’t you come work for me?” he presses.

“Because . . .” I lower my voice. “Even if I’m Team Malcolm, I don’t want to be something to you that a thousand others already are.”

His eyes shine as he cocks his head. “Really. What is it that you want then?”

“You know what I want,” I whisper, lowering my face.

“I want to hear it,” he murmurs intensely under his breath.

Say it, I think.

Don’t be scared.

You cannot fuck things worse than you already have.

“I want you,” I whisper, unable to look up at him.

I hear the sound of his low exhale, and when I peer into the shadows, his face is all I see.

“I’m so mad at you,” he murmurs to me, growling a little as he drags a hand over his face.

I’m breathing hard, as if I just threw myself off a cliff, and maybe I did. I can feel the yearning inside me trying to claw itself out of my eyes and toward him.

“Saint,” I breathe helplessly.

“So . . . fucking . . . mad . . .” His eyes are heavy-lidded, incredibly so, his jaw jutting out. “So mad I can’t see straight.” He stares at me as if there are a thousand fires of hell burning inside him. “I close my eyes and see you. Rachel. Your eyes. Your hair. Your blushing face.”

“Malcolm . . .” My eyes blur, and I add, pleading, “I’d do anything to prove that I’m loyal and truthful to you.”

His jaw clenches just a bit tighter.

“You hurt me,” he growls out as he looks at me. “I’m angry at you.” His jaw squarer than ever, his eyes brilliant as ever. “But I can’t give you up. I can’t give you up even when I want to. I don’t want to back off. I don’t want to give you up,” he says.

“Saint, I don’t want you to exorcise me, because nothing can exorcise me of you,” I say.

He looks at me. We’re at a stalemate. He flexes his fingers on my arm.

“You said you could make what I did go away. Make it go away, give me a clean slate,” I plead.

I reach out and touch his face. His gaze flashes. Eyes burning with desire and possessiveness.

“I want a chance.” I open my mouth to beg; instead I lift his hand from the steering wheel and press a kiss to the back of his hand, his knuckles. I nuzzle it and close my eyes, afraid to see him look at me in disgust when his hand smells so clean and good. “Saint, please.”

I lift my head and my lungs seize when I see his expression. He looks almighty, and all hungry, like a man returning home after being shackled away from it for decades. My pussy is damp and swollen.

He couldn’t look more dominant and possessive. But he hasn’t stopped me. So I kiss the center of his palm next.

His gaze is blazing like there’s a fire inside him, like he’s in the fires of hell and I’m the one who put him there. He takes my face and kisses the edge of my mouth. He draws me over the separation between our seats.

He takes the other edge of my mouth and lowers me to his lap.

Am I feeling a huge erection against my abdomen?

Yes, yes I am.

He wants me.

He wants me so much I shiver with the knowledge. He pulls me close as he drags his mouth up my jawline and toward my ear, taking his time, typical Saint. You smell good, he whispers in my ear, his fingers running up my belly, causing shivers all over me. He wants me, lust humming between us.

“I want to forget you, Rachel, but I know you’re right, you weren’t lying. At least not to me. You were lying to yourself. You told yourself you’d get to the truth of me and all that time, you wouldn’t admit that you were falling in love with me.”

I hold his gaze, my lungs leaden in my chest. “And if that’s true?”

“It’s true, Rachel.” His eyes gleam with tender possessiveness.

I blush and lower my face, and when he reaches to slip his hand under my shirt and his fingers skim up my abdomen, I whimper and halt him by the wrist. “No, Malcolm, no. You’re going to take me to the edge, and then I’ll be there alone.”

He groans. “If I go to the edge with you, I’ll never come back.”

“What happened to my risk taker?”

“It’s not just myself I’m worried about. It’s my cautious girl who, like my fine wine, comes tightly wrapped and packaged.”