I hold his gaze, my lungs leaden in my chest. “And if that’s true?”

“It’s true, Rachel.” His eyes gleam with tender possessiveness.

I blush and lower my face, and when he reaches to slip his hand under my shirt and his fingers skim up my abdomen, I whimper and halt him by the wrist. “No, Malcolm, no. You’re going to take me to the edge, and then I’ll be there alone.”

He groans. “If I go to the edge with you, I’ll never come back.”

“What happened to my risk taker?”

“It’s not just myself I’m worried about. It’s my cautious girl who, like my fine wine, comes tightly wrapped and packaged.”

I lift my fingers, touch the hard square of his jaw, abrading my fingertips with his five-o’clock shadow. “Break me. As long as you’re touching me. Shatter me. Use me. Just want me.”

Malcolm. Powerful and in control. I touch his lips with my fingertips, he’s tense and still. I shudder inwardly touching him, but he doesn’t move.

I lower my hand, burning red that he doesn’t move his hand on my bare skin.

He rasps out, watching me through narrow eyes, “You still respond to me like before.”

“I’m the same. I never lied to you.” My heart pumps in fear of his rejection, but I can’t stop myself from needing his forgiveness. “I wanted to be with you and to see you. I didn’t want to stop,” I admit, easing my hand up his silk tie. I feel his abs bunch under my fingers.

I let my fingers wander, never once taking my eyes off his stormy green ones.

He lifts his hand to tug on my ear. I squeeze my eyes shut when he speaks, surprising me with his thick voice. “I remember this ear . . .” He tugs it a little.

I open my eyes to find him staring at me.

I melt.

“When you tease me, it hurts.”

“No, this hurts.” He curls his hand around my arm and I respond a little, moaning in my throat. “If I put my hand on you, you arch to my touch. You push closer so every inch of my hand is on you. You look at me like I’m a bastard, like I gave you your every dream and then took them all away. But you still want my hands on you?”

“Yes. But I want you to trust me.”

“Trust you? Rachel, I don’t trust myself with you.”

I wipe a stray tear. “I want dibs on you,” I whisper, broken.

Our eyes meet for the slightest second and the moonlight hits his face so that he’s so beautiful it’s otherworldly. He grabs my face and inches his head closer, tilting his mouth to my ear.

“I miss you,” I blurt out, reddening when I hear myself say that.

“Do you? Miss me?”

“I miss you so much. I can’t forget you, and I don’t want you to forget me either.” I swallow.

He grabs my face and inches his head closer, and when I open my mouth to say more, he says, “Shh.” Careful like I’m fragile, he draws my face to his.

I shudder as his lips ghost over the corner of my mouth.

His voice is so textured, it’s hardly understandable. Warmth from his big hand seeps into my cheeks as he edges back and strokes his thumb over my lips. “We’re going to start back up slow and easy.” The forests in his eyes are deep with intensity. “And when I’m ready, I’m going to ask you to be my girlfriend, and it’s going to be the last time I ask, Rachel. If you say no, that’ll be the last no you say to me about anything.”

God, I want him to ask me now. I turn my face and press a kiss on his thumb and he uses my action to rub his thumb along my lips a little, like he did when he fed me wine.

Longing unfurls inside me like a ribbon, soft and warm. I can’t even describe the way I want him to kiss me again.

“Don’t tease me,” I whisper.

“I’m not teasing you.”

My eyes well up. “I want you to be greedy, to want all of me, like before, Saint.”

He grabs my face firmly in both hands. “Go out Friday with me.”

“Yes,” I gasp, “I’d love to.”

“It’s black tie. Do you have something to wear?”

I look at the violent tenderness on his expression, my lungs like rocks in my chest as I keep on nodding and nodding. “I . . . I’m sure I have something here to wear.”

“Go buy a dress, it’s on me.”

“No!” I laugh. “Sin.”

“Yes,” he insists. “There’s no more saying no, remember.”

My breathless voice is barely audible. “At what time should I be ready on Friday?” I ask.