My best friend. Unlike Wynn, not a lot of people like Gina. Not a lot of people get her. But I love her all the same. I come back, give her another kiss on the cheek, and leave quietly.

“Monday,” I say.

“Have enough sex for the both of us!” she calls.

I come out into the evening breeze, swinging the bag with my things behind my shoulder.

And there he is, leaning against his car, arms crossed, wearing this most perfect smile.

I start forward and I’m truly breathless. I walk up to him and he meets me halfway. His smile, when he sees me, is the kind that stops traffic. And now it stops my heart. This man renders women stupid and I’m officially the most affected, because I’ve been seeing a lot of his smiles today. And I’ve been smiling a lot too.

I’m smiling now, a smile that receives a kiss from his smiling mouth as he helps me into his car.

The elevator doors close behind us seconds after we reach his penthouse. The city lights twinkle outside, and it looks so perfectly peaceful and happy as he lifts me in his arms.

Locking my legs around his hips, I grab his shirt collar and let my lips wander up his jaw in search of his. “I’m hungry,” I breathe.

“Open your mouth then,” he says. He wets my lips with his tongue for a moment before drawing back to look at me with fierce eyes. “That what you want?”

I nod and wrap my arms around his neck. He rubs his nose into my hair and inhales deeply, then drags his nose down mine and starts kissing me. He crushes me between the wall and him, and reaches to slide his hands under my dress. I feel his fingers caressing my flesh, up to my bra, and I hear him unhook it.

I’m shaking as he frees me, and then he takes my dress in one hand and pulls it over my head in one smooth yank.

I fist his T-shirt in my hand and tug, and he helps me, grabbing it in one fist and pulling it over his head. His hair ends up even more mussed than usual, and he looks so sexy that my airway constricts, and I can hardly talk as I rub his smooth skin with my fingertips.

“Malcolm.” I dive to lick a beautiful brown nipple while rubbing the other one.

I cling as he lifts me up in his arms and carries me to the bedroom, our mouths never unlatching. He doesn’t carry me elegantly like Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, because I’m not as hard-to-get as Scarlett, but he carries me with his hands on my ass and my legs around his hips, his delicious hard bulge pressing to the apex between my thighs as his mouth works on mine. My body trembles with his nearness and my mind races at the mere thought of us heading straight toward our happily ever after.

“Fuck me fast.” He sets me down on the bed and I stretch my arms over my head, moving sensually to tempt him. “Fast, then slow.”

“Shh. My bed, my rules. Strip the shoes and those tiny panties.” He unbuckles his belt, and at the sight of his sculptured body, I’m dying.

He is perfection. He looks impenetrable in a business suit, as if nothing can touch him. But naked, he’s a god, all tanned, toned chest muscles. Dark hair rumpled from my hands, those green eyes liquid. He’s everything I never knew I wanted and more.

My mouth waters as I edge back in bed and watch him unbuckle.

He watches me too, and I get a sense of both weakness and power as I start to take off my panties in slow, teasing movements of my legs, loving the way he watches me kick them in the air.

He looks at me with a smile that slowly turns wolfish.

Something about me giving him everything, my every wall shattered, seems to make him more possessive. Before I know it, he’s spread my thighs apart and is licking between my legs, his big, beautiful muscles bulging between my parted thighs.

Reveling, I pump my hips up to his mouth, every flash of his tongue knotting me up. I clench my teeth as I try to hold back my orgasm for a little longer. I’m about to combust when he raises his head and looks at me heavy-lidded.

“I love you, Rachel.” The hard emotion on his face as he looks down at me is so powerful, I shudder to my core. He strokes his hand up my side so that he can touch his thumb to the corner of my mouth. “I love you like nothing else in my life.”

“I just melt when you say it.”

He laughs softly, and I lie here and smile, feeling like goo.

His mouth covers mine, his kiss gentle and loving as he spreads over me. He fills my mouth with his tongue and my body jerks from the pleasure, watching him above me. I’ve never seen a guy look at me that way before, his eyes hot and proprietary and meltingly hungry.

He slides one hand down my abdomen, circling my belly button then caressing my sex lips with his fingers, until finally sticking his middle finger inside me.

“Malcolm,” I moan, rocking my hips and thrashing.

He takes my mouth, and I kiss him.

“No condom,” he murmurs, looking at me.

No condom . . . just him and me.

It involves a high level of trust, this thing we’re about to do. And neither of us hesitates as our lips fuse again. I grab him to me, curl my legs, and undulate welcomingly as he drives inside me.

He groans as I moan and before I can climax instantly from the feel of him, he pulls out. And I’m there, shivering, suspended in the pinnacle of both physical and emotional pleasure. Gasping for air, I look at him, panting, burning, and his chest is heaving as he holds himself up on his arms above me.

He likes prolonging. I close my eyes and savor the way he does it. His lips once again tug on my nipples then trail along my abdomen. Up my neck. He smells me. Tastes me. Relishes me. Experiences me. I grab his hair, undulating beneath his hot, hard body. Savoring him back. He’s my obsession and my addiction, the only place I feel both safe and exhilarated.

“Sin,” I beg.

He pulls free from my kiss and growls, “I am obsessed with you.” Then, he grabs my hips and fills me, whispering, “I adore you,” filling me completely, watching me with those smoldering green eyes I can feel in every part of me, building up a new orgasm, cupping my breasts in his hands, and bending to lick and lave both tips.

I thrash beneath him, unsure if I can survive so much of him. So much pleasure. Such total, consuming pleasure. But I do—and he goes deeper in me.

I sigh in relief every time he thrusts back in. Sigh his name pleadingly. He takes my mouth with his, his kiss ravenous.

“I am . . . crazy . . . about you,” he rasps, moving in me so deep I can feel him in my heart. His face moves to my ear. “Let me own you, Rachel, and I’ll let you own me right back. You’re my lady now.” He kisses my forehead, my nose, and my lips.