His eyes grow shadowed.

“But you didn’t know me at all, Rachel. You thought I deserved for you to play me? You saw me like everyone did and all that time I was standing there being real with you.”

I drop my gaze as the regret sits heavily on me again. “I was scared of believing it to be true. If you get tired of me and want something new . . . or a foursome again . . . there will be no power on earth that will be able to draw your eyes back to me.”

He laughs softly. “I don’t want to look away.” His expression mellows as he looks at me between his lashes. “I’m hooked on you,” he says. “My friends know I’m serious.”

“So do mine,” I whisper, then look at him. “Saint, I don’t hate your friends. I like your friends. I just don’t want your friends messing with my friends.”

“If you mean Tahoe and Gina—”

“That’s exactly who I mean,” I say as I start to get off him, waving my hands in the air, but he catches them, locks them by my sides as he pulls me down flush with his lap.

“It doesn’t concern you and me.”

“Tahoe is a player. Jetting across the world with champagne and naked flight attendants. He’s used to getting it all, whenever he wants.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, that’s so. He’s used to several women catering to him at once, giving him all kinds of sexy treats like blow jobs together. How can Gina compete?”

“How can she? Against several at once?” He clucks, but he looks amused.

“See. It’s impossible. And she’s . . . a good girl. She doesn’t stand a chance with a guy like him.”

“But it’s guys like us who maybe don’t stand a chance with a smart, good girl who actually wants us for more than a quick . . . fuck . . .” He lifts his brows devilishly.

“You stand every chance. You sweep us off our feet with just one sexy corner kiss.”

He leans in. And grazes his lips across the fringes of mine. Every corner of my body feels this most perfect kiss. Squeezing my eyes shut against the onslaught of emotion, I breathe, “I’ll kick his ass if he hurts Gina.”

When I open my eyes, Saint’s eyes are fixed on me, his voice low with conviction: “I’ll kick his ass for you, Rachel.”

CELEBRATING

We’re on Sin’s terrace, celebrating the win, talking, the drinks flowing. Gina and Wynn and I are lounging in the outside sitting area by a pristine blue pool while Saint and his guys stand by the bar, discussing the plays. Soon, Tahoe is bitching about his dumb hedge fund manager, and how they’ve sliced his net worth by over half.

“Seriously,” Gina calls from where we sit, “I invite you to come and work at my posh department store one day, and I’ll be the oil tycooness shopping there for a day, even at half your wealth.” She adds snarkily, “You’re still worthless anyway. You act like you’re still in kindergarten.”

“I’m a Princeton grad,” he counters.

“Then you shouldn’t have trouble finding a good job if your oil wells dry up.”

“Ha. You’ll be a dried-up old lady by the time that happens,” Tahoe assures.

“Seriously, men.” Gina scowls when she turns back to us. “We’re royalty when they want to fuck. Thrilled to have as much sex as their anatomy allows, and then we’re nothing.” She shakes her head. “Women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place.”

“Between your legs,” Wynn mumbles.

I burst out laughing, but Gina keeps scowling, and tells the two of us, “I swear, boobs are probably the only thing a guy like Tahoe can multitask on. Two may be one too many for him.”

“Well, why don’t you find out?” Wynn nudges her cheekily.

I find Malcolm watching me while his friends keep talking to him, and a fierce ache in my chest starts to grow. Saint is momentum. Movement. He’s a man who’s always moving forward, pushing for more. Where is he taking us? Where does he see us going?

“You fucking sly dog!” Tahoe calls over on their side. “Stop eyeing your juicy little steak over there like you haven’t been slobbering over her all day!”

Saint lifts his glass to me in toast. “To my classy friends.” A curl hikes the corner of his lips while that same smile touches his eyes.

Tahoe shoots me a look that’s like a mix between admiration and annoyance. “I swear you’re like his favorite damn poison, woman.”

“We swear,” Gina points at Wynn, “He’s her favorite crack!”

While our friends laugh, I feel myself go hot, and Malcolm only looks at me, neither smiling nor laughing, simply those green eyes of his looking straight at me from his chiseled face.

Callan clears his throat when he notices our silent communication. “Well, fuck, Saint, you liking your new leash?”

Tahoe chuckles.

“Shut the fuck up,” Malcolm growls.

That voice probably sends groups of elite businessmen out of boardrooms having just peed their pants. But having been friends since childhood, Tahoe and Callan just laugh harder.

“What’s so funny?” Gina asks, as if she didn’t hear.

Tahoe wanders over and answers her in his slight Southern accent, his deep voice a lazy drawl that I have to admit is pretty damn sexy. “We’re mourning over having lost our dear brother to the most powerful thing on this earth.”

“What’s that?” Gina counters, sounding curious, leaning over to him flirtatiously.

Tahoe murmurs something in her ear.

I hear a sharp sound of skin hitting skin, which I don’t have to see to know Gina just playfully whacked Tahoe on the arm.

The boys laugh, all except Malcolm, who’s not laughing but whose perfect lips are forming his perfectly lopsided smirk.

“Sorry, ladies,” Tahoe apologizes. “To be fair, you did ask.”

“Of course we know it’s just about sex, with men,” Gina says. Her trademark realism, what others call sarcasm, is heavy in her words.

“Why do you say that?” Tahoe asks, sounding somewhat serious now.

“Men don’t love like women do. It’s different for them.”

“Well, I object,” Tahoe says. “I love my mother,” he finishes proudly.

Gina chuckles a little. “That’s different. We love our mommas too. In fact, Rachel’s momma is anxious to meet Saint.”

Saint looks at me.