Manwhore (Manwhore #1)(60)

I’ve got to go.

Saint looks so delectable in bed as I gather my clothes that I almost can’t bear to look back when I’m finally dressed and at the door. Whatever just happened here, I don’t think either of us wants to face it. Especially not him. He once told me he didn’t do sleepovers . . . and though I slept with him before, this was so different, I couldn’t take it if he had regrets because . . . I don’t.

I sensed him put up a huge wall as soon as he was done coming. He roared out my name, hard and deep, like a war cry that made me explode on the spot. We were both mute afterward. When he came back to bed after getting rid of the condom, he didn’t touch me as he doodled on his phone.

I quietly start dressing, eager to go to my bed, where I can process this better. Or try to forget. He just crosses his arms behind his head and stares back at me, and I hear him call his driver to pick me up at the door.

“?’Bye, Saint.”

I see him nod and hear him murmur, “Let me know when you get home, Rachel” as I head to the elevator.

“I will,” I murmur.

And once in my bedroom, I text.

I’m home

I can still taste you

I smile and slide into my bed, groaning into my pillow, thinking of that big, hard, beautiful part of him. “I want to taste you too.”

21

AFFAIR

Facebook wall:

Saint, saw those pics of you with a new chick on The Toy. Got bets going on if she’s a weekend-deal?

Twitter:

@MalcolmSaint hey I’m not sure you lost my number? It’s Deenah from the Ice Box—call me

Please follow me @MalcolmSaint!

Instagram:

Who’s the chick on The Toy, Saint? She the flavor of the hour?

After scanning Sin’s Twitter feed, I toss my phone aside, turning around in bed, wanting him again. Pale morning breaks overhead. It steals in through my blinds and falls on my second pillow. I imagine him lying on it, the sheets draped low on his hips. I’m here, close, so I can tuck my face into the crook of his neck like I did yesterday.

Yeah, like he’ll ever let a woman see him like that.

It doesn’t matter, it probably won’t happen again. Remember that he ran instantly cold after all the heat? Still, last night feels like a dream. An amazing dream. I should probably feel remorse, because we probably shouldn’t have done what we did. But I can’t. I melt when I remember. I can’t even believe this feeling. If only I could bottle it up and get high on it when I’m away from him. He oozed confidence. The way he worked me into a fever. The way he made me cry out. The way he controlled himself. The way he gave me oral.

Urgh. I’m so comfortable right now. I could stay here all day remembering. But I must. Fight. Bed gravity!

I manage to get out of bed, brush my teeth, and head to the kitchen. I look around as Gina pads in. I know deep down what I’m doing is so wrong and inherently risky. Proof of that is that I haven’t told my friends I slept with him.

We talk about the lamest things. I talk to Gina and Wynn every day, even if there’s nothing to talk about. We usually don’t even have anything significant to say except: “I just pigged out on a sundae.”

And I will be: “Oh, those are good.”

And: “I watched Sleepless in Seattle again; I can’t believe how good that movie still is, so many years later.”

“Oh, I love Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Where are those two, anyway? Where’s Meg? I miss her. . . .”

Sleeping with a guy after a three-year dry spell—and only having slept with two other guys in my life, neither of them anything to scream about—definitely classifies as noteworthy material. Sleeping with Malcolm Saint is a ten on the Richter scale. It deserves waking the girls up, if need be. It deserves screaming and scolding and more screaming, it deserves a day of daydreaming—What if he really likes me? and What if it happens again?—but because it’s him, and because this is me, and because everything is more complicated, I can’t say it. I can’t share it, and I can’t bear to share him or hear anyone’s advice or opinion when I’m so tangled up about it all.

“What’s up with you?” Gina asks.

“Nothing. I’m going to write,” I murmur lamely.

I head to my laptop and stare at it, not writing a single anything at all, my fingers just stroking the keys as I glance at my phone.

Oh god, I’m such a f*cking slut. I force myself to exhale the breath I’d been holding and read the text I just sent him:

Tonight?

Tonight, he’d answered.

We’re heading back from a night out with Callan and Tahoe. I can’t even believe how turned on I got watching Saint have a sportgasm when the White Sox won. His friends had one too. They yelled in Tahoe’s apartment. Tahoe started running around like a madman, banging his chest. Callan opened a bottle of champagne and gave us all a bath. Malcolm’s muscles gave my saliva glands quite a workout when he took off his shirt, balled it up, and threw it at the TV. “FUCK THAT, YES!”

He kept staring at me as I went to and fro.

“Hey, we’re having a good time. Why don’t you call the girls?” Tahoe says.

“No, thanks. You can leave your paws off my girls,” I say.

“We’re actually bailing,” Malcolm says. I look up at him, and he’s looking at me meaningfully.