“God, I’ve been wanting to do this since I saw you at your apartment.”

I’m panting crazy hard by now, tearing myself free so I can breathe. I’m at the point where the merest touch in any sensitive part could set me off. I’m glad his phone starts ringing.

“Work?” I ask.

Well, not work, I find out when he hangs up.

“The boys are blowing up my phone. They want to come over, celebrate. T wants to see if your friend Gina wants to come.” He lifts his brows at me, waiting.

I reach down to pat my swollen lips. I swear Saint just helped me invent the female equivalent of blue balls. “He’d better keep his hands off Gina. But I’ll text her.” I pull out my phone and shoot her a message.

Saint is breathing hard too. His hair is rumpled by me. He looks sexxxy with triple Xs.

“You don’t like T and Carmichael?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Your friends hate me too.”

“They don’t. They’ve misjudged you. They never knew what to make of you.”

He thinks about that, then leans back and spreads his arms out as he thinks about it some more. “All right. Let’s talk about how this affects us.”

I blink.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve already talked to my friends, Rachel.”

“What do you mean, talked to them?”

“I told the two bozos that I like this girl, I like this girl very much, and I expect them to respect my choices.”

“I didn’t know there was a choice.”

“I chose to get serious with you—and I wanted it to be clear I won’t be taking any shit from them. They fuck with you, they fuck with me.”

This conversation is . . . I cannot. I look at him. “Saint, you’re a player the likes of which this city has never seen.”

“That’s what the world sees. Is that what you see?” He looks at me curiously, starting to frown. “Tahoe threw a thousand and one parties for me. I had fun. That’s what people saw. I got drunk. I was surrounded by girls.”

I’m frowning now too. “Tahoe just cares about getting laid and he thinks that’s all you care about.”

“But it’s not. Is it?” He looks at me intently. “There were a hundred women for the taking, every weekend. I could have. It was all there, no strings and available. I wanted to take them. Over and over.”

I inhale sharply, and suddenly, I want to puke at the thought of his hands on anyone.

“But I kissed one right here,” he touches the corner of my mouth with a pained look, “and I starved even more.”

My throat hurts as if I swallowed arsenic. I have no right to feel this jealous. But the jealousy is here, like a knot of bitters in my gut. “I bet they know all kinds of sexy moves, your groupies.”

His answer is feather soft. “They do.” He strokes his pad across the corner of my lips again, and then leans back in his seat, and looks at me quietly and almost reverently. “But not one of them talks to me the way you do. They want money or fame but not one of them has asked me to save the world. Not one wanted my comfort. They look at me with lust but never like I’m the spot where their sun rises and sets. I see a girl who didn’t know what she was getting into with me. I see a girl I can’t forget. What do you see when you look at me?”

“I see you. I have no words for you.”

“My friends see a guy who got fucked up over a girl.” He leans forward and tips my head back with his knuckles, angling it so his gaze can grab on to mine. “They play when I want to play, but they know me far beyond the shit we do. We’ve known each other since we were ten. They know me . . . like I thought you did.”

His eyes grow shadowed.

“But you didn’t know me at all, Rachel. You thought I deserved for you to play me? You saw me like everyone did and all that time I was standing there being real with you.”

I drop my gaze as the regret sits heavily on me again. “I was scared of believing it to be true. If you get tired of me and want something new . . . or a foursome again . . . there will be no power on earth that will be able to draw your eyes back to me.”

He laughs softly. “I don’t want to look away.” His expression mellows as he looks at me between his lashes. “I’m hooked on you,” he says. “My friends know I’m serious.”

“So do mine,” I whisper, then look at him. “Saint, I don’t hate your friends. I like your friends. I just don’t want your friends messing with my friends.”