No. My assignment, the story that I thought I’d wanted, the city’s playboy who became my friend who became my lover who became my love.

Now he wants to be my boss, and I want him more than ever.

MY LIFE NOW

I’m lying in bed and he’s dropping delicious, shivery kisses all along the back of my ear. I’m breathless as I absorb the feel of his tanned skin against mine, the strength of his muscles, the ripples of his abs against my tummy. Oh god. I can’t take him. I want to eat him with kisses and I want him to eat me back, every inch of me, I don’t even know where I want him to start.

He takes my hands and pins them to his shoulders, leaning over to buzz my mouth with his. “Open, Rachel,” he murmurs, and his green eyes, his green eyes are looking at me in the dark.

“Are you real?” I breathe, my heart in my throat, my lungs working madly in my chest.

He’s looking down at me so familiarly, I’m not sure if this is a dream or a memory as he drags his fingers up my arms, sinuously, and I close my eyes. Oh god, Sin. He feels so good. I murmur his name and shakily trail my hands up the hard planes of his chest. God, he feels so real. So excellently real. He feels just like he used to feel, moves like he used to move, kisses like he used to, takes control of me like he used to.

He pins me with his weight and I struggle to get closer, wiggling and arching and shivering, his long, strong body stretched out on top of mine.

I close my fingers around his shoulders like he seems to want me to do as he circles his hands around my waist now and continues to set slow, tingly kisses on my neck, and need slams into my midsection, my skin screaming while I burn. I want. Want his hands all over me, his touch covering me, head to toe. His mouth. Oh, please.

“Malcolm, please now, please now . . . inside . . . now,” I hear myself beg.

He’s not in any hurry. He never is. He curls my legs around his hips, kissing his way up to my mouth. It’s been forever since I felt this, his lips at the corner of my mouth. I feel my eyes well with tears. Every inch of him is missed by every inch of me. One second I’m rocking my hips in silent plea, the next he’s driving inside me.

It’s the sound that wakes me. A soft mewling sound that I make. A sound of absolute pleasure, such absolute pleasure it borders on pain. I’m soaked in sweat when I bolt upright in my bed. I look around, shakily wiping the wetness on one side of my face, but no. He’s not back in my bed. I’m still crying at night, my body’s still aching for his at night.

I wrap my arms around my legs and put my cheek on my knee, exhaling as I try to push the part-dream, part-memory out of my mind. I go into the bathroom, splash my face, look into my eyes and I’m still the lost girl in the elevator. When did I become this girl? I’m not this girl, I think in frustration as I stamp out to my room.

I go back to bed and cover myself with the sheets all the way to my neck, rolling my cheek into the pillow and punching it as I stare unseeingly in the direction of my window. A stream of streetlight filters inside. If you listen hard enough, you can hear the sounds of the city outside. I wonder where he is right now.

You’re fucking haunting me, Sin.

You’re fucking haunting my every second.

I can’t sleep, can’t think of anything but the way I feel when I stand close to you. When you look at me. When we’re in the same room.

The way you were in your office . . . I couldn’t read you. I couldn’t read you and it’s killing me.

Turning on the light, I lose a battle I’ve been waging with myself for a whole month.

I go get my laptop and boot it up in the darkness, then I do something I haven’t done in a while. Gina had forbidden me to. I had forbidden myself, for survival. And sanity. I haven’t checked in so long it’s not even coming up in my browser. But now I brave Saint’s social media and brace myself for what I find as I skim through. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Or maybe I do. I’m looking for anything, anything that links me to him.

Hey @MalcolmSaint I’m Leyla, Danis’ friend ;)

@MalcolmSaint Hey bro meet us at Raze

@malcolmsaint is better off without that bitch who betrayed him

Marry me @malcolmsaint!

@Malcolmsaint I’ll be your slut and I’ll mud wrestle your lying bitch ex to the death, if need be!

@MalcolmSaint are you going to forgive your girlfriend? PLS forgive her, you look beautiful together!

Speaking of bitches @MalcolmSaint should know

@malcolmsaint please tell me you told your exgirlfriend to go fuck herself! YOU DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER YOU DESERVE A PRINCESS