Manwhore +1

Then Callan says something about going on the yacht tomorrow, and Gina and Wynn start debating about bathing suits and weather predictions. Slowly, Saint wades his way through the terrace and drops down beside me. He stretches his arm behind me and looks down at me soberly.

“Your mother wants to meet me?” he asks.

I chew the inside of my cheek. “Everybody wants to meet you,” I hedge. And when he just stares at me, I admit, “She’d love to. She’s been asking.”

“Then I’ll meet her,” he whispers.

“Serious stuff, that,” Tahoe whistles, sitting down nearby. “Just don’t take her to your dad, Saint. Unless you want her to quit you.”

I look at Malcolm, and he’s as calm as usual, though I’m all tense now at the mention of Noel Saint.

“Why?” Gina asks.

“His dad’s a real piece of work!” Tahoe declares.

“He couldn’t even stand us stopping by the house,” Callan growls angrily.

I smile wanly at Malcolm and although he returns my smile, he promptly steers Tahoe back to the topic of his portfolio and ends the subject. Easy as that.

“So T,” he begins, and everyone follows his direction into that.

I know Saint’s dad is an ass. He’s called an ass by most everyone who knows him. Blunt, rude, presumptuous. I read it and saw it online, countless times, how he tries to pretend he’s so much bigger and grander than his son. Though Saint seems to reject even the thought of the bastard, he’s made it clear he doesn’t want me within the same zip code as his father. Still, the thought of Noel Saint setting a foot on Edge, a place I have come to love and sacrifice so much for, haunts me a little.

It doesn’t last long.

Five minutes later, Otis comes up to the penthouse. Saint greets him for a minute by the elevator, then comes back to head to the guys. On his way there, he says, “Livingston?”

I perk up from my chat with the girls and turn to see him ball a piece of fabric into his hand.

“Got you something,” he says.

He tosses it into the air, and it lands softly on my lap.

“What is it?” Curious, I spread the cotton fabric open and make out the Cubs T-shirt, size small. Signed by every fucking player who played tonight.

“You didn’t!” I look up at him, balling it up and tossing it back at him as if it burned.

Holy shit!

Holy, holy shit!

He catches the shirt easily, then frowns and looks down at it. “Yeah, I did.” Frowning harder even as his eyes start glimmering with pure amusement, he brings it over and presses it into my hands. “It’s yours,” he chastises me.

When he bends to kiss my cheek, I burst out with glee, “I’ll frame it!”

My friends manhandle my present so much, I hide it in Saint’s closet next to his perfect designer clothes, occupying a hanger of honor right in the middle. When I return to the living room, the girls inform me they’re leaving. Sin’s friends are still going strong and seem cranked up for more, as if it’s not 2 a.m. already.

I waver on what to do.

This staying-over, not-staying-over thing is new territory for me.

For . . . us.

“Saint?” I draw him out of the group for a moment. “I think I should maybe go with Gina,” I tell him.

He glances at the girls for a second, then peers down at me with a little smile. “I think you should stay.”

“I . . .” God, I’m blushing? “I don’t have fresh clothes. And don’t even mention my T-shirt ’cause that’s getting framed.”

“All right. Then Claude or Otis can drive your friends home, and if your roommate will pack some things for you, he’ll bring a bag back.” He waits for a reply, and I can tell by the vibe he’s putting out that he very much wants to be with me tonight.

“It’s okay,” Gina says, shrugging. “I’ll happily be driven home in Saint’s car.” She smirks.

Sin watches me, his green eyes reeling me in, pulling me under. He looks expectant and . . . adorable and . . . irresistible. Ohgod. Is this going too fast for us having just started back up?

No way.

Or . . . yes.

Maybe.

“Rachel.” He steps closer, and I can see he understands my hesitation—we’re supposed to be taking it slow—and his voice low as his lips brush my ear. “You don’t want to leave any more than I want you to leave.”

“You’re asking me to sleep over again?” I put an inch between us to search his face. “Your friends are still here—”

“You want my bed more than yours right now, and I want you in there.”

God, I’m in so deep. So very deep I’m almost frightened but he makes me reckless enough to want to go even deeper.

“Okay,” I say, smiling at him a little.

“Okay?” His eyes lighten at that, and he tips my chin up and firmly kisses my mouth.

It’s so warm, so absolutely perfect, his mouth, that I smile against it and tell him, only so he hears, “I’ll be in your bed.”

And him, only to me, lips grazing my earlobe: “You won’t be alone there for long.”

I head to his room, first check on my present, then drop down on the side of the bed that I always end up on, taking a minute to think about today.

When he smiled?

I think the jerk tapped a vein and injected me with pure happiness.

I think of me and him, and sports, and how his passion flared, and how we as people go crazy over the stuff we love.

Which reminds me . . .

I need to start a new article. As I try to stay awake and wait for him, I pull out my cell phone and write down notes and ideas in an email to myself.

I write about the stuff we get crazy over. Obsessed. Like our favorite sports teams. The Cubs can lose a thousand times and we still love them. They can fuck up, and we still believe in them.

I take down a lot of ideas while absently listening to the men laugh in the living room, somehow specially attuned to Malcolm’s laugh. I like his laugh more than any other. It’s deep and it resonates in his chest, but it’s never too loud or obnoxious. Another obsession.

Smiling while I reread the email with ideas, I send it to myself and text my mom, who usually paints until very late during the weekends.

Are you up? I try.

Just finished cleaning up the studio, she replies. Off to bed! Everything all right??

More than all right. Mom! You’re going to get to meet him!! I don’t need to tell her who “him” is; she knows exactly who’s got her daughter hooked.