Manwhore +1 (Manwhore, #2)(26)

“Nothing changed?” he asks me.

I actually consider what I would like to change. But how impossible it would be. Him? He can’t even commit to a wine, how can I expect him to ever want me for long?

My voice is soft as a breath. “What I want isn’t known for . . . committing.”

“Known by who?”

“I don’t know.” I laugh again, then I glance out the window and inhale slowly, feeling his gaze on my back as the sadness of my circumstance overwhelms me. “Why do you want to hire me? You’re so smart. You always think out your actions. For the salary you’re offering you could get three journalists with much more experience and prestige.”

“None of which would be you.”

I sigh. “You’re dangling an apple before me. It’s hard not to take a bite.”

“Now you know how I feel.”

“With what? You don’t need a bite; you can chow down anything with one swallow. You can take anything you want.”

“No. I work for what I most want. I win it, or I don’t feel like it’s mine at all.”

“You didn’t feel like your money was yours until you earned it on your own?”

“That’s right.”

“You like the chase.”

“Relish it.”

“You like a challenge.”

“I live for them.” He looks at me with more emotion than I’ve ever seen in a guy’s eyes. I’m melting, warm.

“You’re enjoying me saying no then? That is your challenge with me now? You get me to say yes, and you win.”

“No, Rachel, we need to get you some glasses. Because you’re not reading me right.” He looks at me, smiles to himself, drags a hand over his head. “I can never seem to win with you.”

“Well . . . I lose,” I whisper.

“What did you lose?”

I lost my mind and my heart, my muse, and, I think, my soul to you.

It’s the combination of the wine and him. This man who weakens me like this. “I lose. I’m falling asleep now.”

I wasn’t supposed to yet. But I’m warm and relaxed, over-sensitized to him; his warm breath across my forehead, his hard, thick thigh close to mine . . . the square of his shoulder nearly touching mine.

“I used to play this with Gina . . . first one to fall asleep loses. I bet you never lose . . .” I mumble.

There’s a thoughtful silence. Then, in my ear, sending shivers down my spine, is his voice: “I don’t like to.”

I smile a little and am dozing when he takes my arm and helps me up slowly. “Come here. There’s a bed here with your name on it.”

“Oh. You can afford a bed.”

“Yeah. Do you want me to teach you how to use it?” he mocks me.

“I use a bed for sleep . . . but I don’t know what you use it for.”

“You know. A little fun here and there.”

He walks me to the bed and then eases me down there. I sleepily watch him go to the bathroom and search for a toothbrush.

He’s still in his shirt, washing his face with big hands, scrubbing his square jaw, then ramming the toothbrush into his mouth and washing fast and hard. He flicks the lights off and comes out, and I close my eyes and exhale before I open them again.

He spreads out on top of the bed, over the comforter while I’m under it. Slowly, he sets his phone aside and curls an arm behind his head as he studies me with an unreadable expression. I smile shyly.

He looks so handsome lounging in that shirt and his slacks on that big, white bed; I want to tease him. I want to see him smile again and again and again. “Sure the entire wine cellar is enough to feed your M4 minions?” I frown.

I feel a couple butterflies when his lips curve, and he shakes his head, then he drags one hand over his dark hair.

“I’ve heard the M4 annuals are such an event. Do you already know who you’re going to go with?”

“Just a friend.”

“Oh. A bed friend?” I lift my brows tauntingly, and tease: “Someone you can teach how to use a bed?”

He looks at me.

And slowly arches his brows. “Do you really want to talk about this?”

His expression has gone from relaxed and flirtatious back to serious again.

Taken aback, I turn to my back and exhale. “I . . . no.”

Fuck.

Why did I ask that?

Saint says nothing for a long time.

Then: “Do you miss me?”

He rolls to his side and the fabric of his shirt is about to tear open under the flex of his muscles as he searches my face. He leans close to my ear, and says, “Do you think of me sometimes when you don’t want to . . . do you need me . . . do you still feel me?”

“I feel you everywhere.”

He curls his hand around my throat, leaves it there, hot and enormous, pinning me down on the bed with gentle firmness.

For minutes and minutes he stays there, with his forehead on my temple, his lips on my ear and his hand on my throat, owning me.

“I can’t breathe when you’re near, but I can’t live without you,” I pant, quietly, and he squeezes his eyes shut, drops his head on mine, and we say nothing else.

We lie here with his body leaning over mine, strong and hard, and me, panting in bed, weak and warm. We lie here as if we broke and there’s no more glue to put us together no matter how much I wish for it to . . . but we also can’t pull apart, as if something else entirely different from glue keeps us together.