Manwhore +1

Fuck. How was it indeed? Too curious for her own good, is the lady? “Fruity, I think. Dry.”

I lick my lips and there’s a silence. Is it odd that my stomach feels warm when I feel, sense, his eyes on my lips as I lick them one more time?

Then warm, gentle fingers on my hand as he gives me another glass. “Smell it again,” he tells me, the touch of his fingers lingering on mine. The tone holds a degree of warmth and command as well as curiosity.

I lift it to my nose and sniff, the aroma opening my lungs somehow.

“Now taste.”

God, his voice is all man. All sensual. Pure Sin. He makes the command sound coaxing to the point you never consider not obeying.

“His phantom corporations,” the man goes on, speaking words that sound important but that I have trouble registering in my dizzied mind, “all those overseas, hiding money, rumors of corporate espionage going on? Aren’t you concerned these snoops could be around M4?”

“Nobody gets into M4 without a thorough screening. Procedures too lengthy to discuss here,” he says.

Then Saint, to me, “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” I breathe.

Saint speaking: “Catherine, we’ll order three cases of each so far . . .”

I’m listening to everything but at the same time focused on this second wine. I’m loving the way it rolls down my throat, swirls in my mouth. Dry but sweet.

“One more,” Saint coaxes quietly as he hands me a third. His whisper tickles my ear when he takes the glass from me. “What’s the lady’s verdict?”

I smile and go up in knots at the teasing in his voice.

God, I can’t take it when he teases me. “It’s a little dry and earthy. The tastes really come alive with this.” I touch my fingers to the blindfold.

“Hence the purpose of wearing it,” he explains.

He takes it off me so gently that I hardly feel his fingers unwrap it from around the back of my head. There’s something quiet in the air between us as he lowers it. Like a secret. His eyes shine on me with intimate knowledge. Somehow, I can tell he likes the trust I placed in him just now.

Trust.

God, was this a test? He’s so beautiful and he was once a little bit obsessed with me and my windpipe swells with the force of the feelings he gives me.

We smile at each other before he’s forced to return to the conversation. I lean against the back of my chair, relaxed and drowsy, other parts of me tense with awareness.

“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” one of the men finally says.

I watch Saint, this ever-changing mystery to me. I watch his mouth as he talks, quietly, to them about something, and I watch his mouth as he takes a drink. The mouth I haven’t kissed in so long. As he talks, I tune out and wonder if I could be that wine, that glass. He reaches out with this knowing male smile and lifts it to his lips again, glancing down at me quizzically.

The lights from above hit his tanned face, the quiet melody providing the ambience. But no soothing background music can detract from the pulsing energy of this man beside me.

He’s a complicated man.

He never really mentions business, or anything about himself. He’s unselfish. Some men love to talk about themselves or brag—never him. He teases you instead, he baits and challenges you. And I know that when he’s quiet, and looks the calmest, that’s when you should be most scared.

He is very calm and quiet beside me now.

Like a nuclear weapon, charging.

“Enough talk about my father. Rachel, would you like to go to the terrace?” he asks.

I realize suddenly he was playing along with these men until this moment, when he firms his voice and snaps the door shut on their curiosities. He indulged them for a while, but he’s the most powerful man in the room, and he’ll indulge them no longer.

When he stands and instructs the waiter to carry our wines outside, I stand and excuse myself from the men, taking a moment to head to the terrace to regroup before he joins me.

“He has a temper.”

Turning at the voice, I find a gray-eyed young man in a navy suit approaching me, speaking with a bit of a slur. “You don’t want to see him lose it and you definitely don’t want to make him lose it,” he says, coming over with a full glass of wine. “Only reason he can be so contained is if he gets it every time he wants. That’s all he wants a woman for. Lucky bastard.” He offers the wine to me.

“I’m glad he’s found something that works,” I say noncommittally, shaking my head, declining the offer. But if Sin needs to work out something, I wish he’d work it out on me.

“Try it,” he insists.

“Oh no.”

“Come on, try this one, it’s a ’seventy-three.” He hands me the glass, and as I take it, he moves around behind me.

“Thanks, but pass,” I say, shaking my head as I try to set the wine down, but he’s already put his hands over my eyes.

“Come on, indulge me,” he says in my ear.

I sip a little, just to get him off my back, and say, “Good. I’m done now.”

I notice, through a slit in his fingers, a very broad, muscular chest in a white shirt suddenly blocking my line of vision, and the guy’s hands drop from my face as he croaks, “Mr. Saint. I was getting acquainted with . . . well, this young lady here. She seemed so lonely just now.”

Green eyes look at me and something feels stuck in my windpipe. “Are you lonely?” he asks, as he studies me, and I swear I’ve never, ever, seen such a look of challenge and jealousy in Saint’s eyes.

“No,” I whisper.

Without looking at the other guy, he tells him, in a chillingly low voice, “You can go now.”

The guy looks paralyzed. Saint looks at me with complete calm and gestures around the terrace. “How about we move over there?”

As if expecting me to obey, he starts walking, and I follow him across the terrace. It’s more private here and a bright fireplace flares at the end. Still remembering the crestfallen look on the pale guy’s face when Saint dismissed him, I burst out laughing. “Sin!” I chide. “You were so mean. So intimidating. He didn’t do anything.”

His voice is calm, but his expression is all steel. “He touched you,” he says simply.

“Whaaat?” A disbelieving laugh leaves me.

He faces me fully, frowning in curiosity as he leans against a stone wall and crosses his arms. “I remember that laugh.” He looks at my smile with a sober expression, and his eyes grow dark. My laugh fades.