I frown. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a difficult man, I’m not easy to handle—some might argue I refuse to be handled. I’ll never commit to anyone—I never have, and I don’t think I ever could. You don’t want my money, you don’t want to party with me—not the way others want. You almost wouldn’t sleep with me. But then you come to me as if you want my protection, and it makes me want to be that man.”

I stare at him, quiet.

He’s always said I confuse him, and he looks so confused right now, I’m confused by his puzzlement too.

“Malcolm,” I begin, but what can I say? So many truths, and in the end, he’ll think all of them a lie. It breaks me to think about it all of a sudden.

“When my mother was diagnosed . . .” He pauses. “I promised I’d be there for her. By her side. She was given two years. She still had a year and a half left . . .” He pauses again but never takes his eyes off me. “She didn’t want me to know the leukemia came back. And when it was only a matter of hours, my father refused to let anyone tell me. He thought I should be punished for leaving the country for Tahoe’s birthday.” I can feel the blood drain from my face. “So you see? I’m no good with promises. But I’ll take your cause as if it were mine.”

“I’m so sorry. I . . . when my father died, I was too young. But I have nightmares sometimes about the way he died, alone.”

We share a stare.

“She died asking for me.” He looks away, then heads for his phones and other items, his jaw completely flexed.

“She knew you loved her,” I whisper.

“Did she?”

“Women know these things. My mother said . . . she knew even before my father did that he loved her. Women know these things. Your gender wasn’t made for subtleties, you need to be hit in the head with it, and sometimes love just creeps in even when all your doors and windows are shut to it.” He stares, and I add, “Everyone is born with a natural love for their parents.”

“You outgrow that love. There’s no point to love. Truth, loyalty—there’s something that lasts.”

Speechless, I’m not sure if I’m more surprised by the words or the casual tone he used, which only brings home that the sentiment is so completely natural to him.

The fact that he has no trust in love, any kind of love, astounds me.

I drop my face a little to hide the tender emotion I’m sure he’ll be able to see reflected in my eyes. My chest feels suddenly swollen with it.

But we have so many things in common—Saint and I. We love to work. We work hard, squeezing in a little fun but not much else. We’re both proud, maybe closed off. I also thought I didn’t believe in love, not romantic love like Wynn does. So why do I suddenly feel like changing my mind?

I finish dressing, unable to look at him again.

After the “truth and loyalty” comment I’ve gone quiet, very thoughtful because, naturally, I’m questioning what the hell I’m doing with him right now. What do I think will come out of this affair?

I didn’t think, I guess. I only wanted. I wanted, obsessed, and had to have, like a young, reckless girl. Like a girl he brings out, someone I’d never been until now. I’m acutely aware of his effects on this girl as he drives me home.

I should feel satiated, content, and happy by now. Instead I don’t want to say goodbye, and when he tells Otis to wait for him as he walks me up, I feel frantic that he won’t stay. That I’m not truthful and loyal, and he will soon go away.

“I have work tomorrow,” I say, just to give him an easy out.

“I have work too,” he says, but he keeps following me to the door, waiting behind me as I open.

I shiver when he nibbles the back of my ear, his hand running up my bare arm to caress the shoulder I teased him with hours ago when he picked me up.

“Do you want to come in?”

“Yeah.” He kisses my ear.

I can’t even explain the way my heart unravels in my chest, spreading warmth all over me.

Not wanting to bump into Gina like this, I press my finger to my mouth, hook my little finger in his, and pull him into my bedroom. We shut the door. He looks big and beautiful.

“Sit down,” I gesture toward the bed, my hormones already joining the party.

He starts unbuttoning his shirt as I go and slip into my Wildcat T-shirt. I walk back to my bed. He looks at me with that naughty curve to his lips, and from his expression you’d think I was the sexiest thing to come out of my university. I look down-to-earth, while he looks exquisite, his shirt stretched in all the right places.

Quietly I straddle him and unbutton the rest of his shirt while he eases his hands under my T-shirt, squeezing the flesh of my ass.

“Malcolm, I don’t have condoms. . . .”

He kisses me slowly, deeply, savoring me. “Don’t worry, I got us covered.”

In less than a minute we’re all set, all naked, and I’m pushing him down to my bed, delighted that he lets me straddle him. Run my hands up his massive chest. Watch him watch me move over him. I take him in my body, and my breasts feel heavy with need, tender from his fingers as he caresses them, raises his head and licks and laves the sensitive tips. He sits up with me, then, eye to eye, we move together. He pounds me with his hips, pulling me down harder to meet him. He comes fiercely, my orgasm tearing through me at the same time.

Our breaths come fast. He looks confused, awed, grateful. He wanted to break me, but I could almost see a crack in his huge, huge walls as we made love. Because that’s what it felt like. Strangers who should be fucking somehow ended up giving more and opening up more than planned. Content, I rest against the hard, warm lines of his body for a long time, his hands lazily trailing a path up the line of my spine.

I go out on a limb and whisper, “I like being just like this with you.”

“Do you?” he asks, his look soft and teasing, tender.

I nod.

He pats his chest. “Then come back here.”

I put my hands around his neck and curl into his chest. He smells like safe. Like strength. Like his shirt I now have tucked in my closet. He smells like control and power, and he also smells like sex and connection and happiness to me. I turn the feelings around in my being and then in my head, but I won’t be writing these words on my note cards. These are just mine, and though they’ll leave my mind, the feelings behind them, I know, will stay.

He says, “Hang on,” grabs his phone, then sends off a text. “You okay if I spend the night?”