When Malcolm arrives, I’m wearing a little black dress and ballet flats, my hair down and hardly any lipstick.

The door of his Pagani Huayra flies open, and he holds my hand as I slip inside, and soon we’re speeding off.

“Hey,” I ask. “How was your day?”

“Good now.”

He reaches out to give me a brief, but delish corner kiss, and I reach out to take his hand after he changes gears, leaving it there.

We go to a private room at a five-star restaurant called Tableau. Behind a set of velvet curtains, we’re alone, just Sin and I, talking about today. I guess I’m the one talking the most, but he’s listening to me like he always does with a charmed amusement that spears into my heart and melts me.

“I called my ex-coworkers. I told them if they’re leaving Edge—I want them with me.”

“Your mother?”

“I haven’t told her yet.”

“You realize she can hand-paint your covers if you wanted her to?”

“Yes. And I do want her to.”

He sits across the table from me and I just want to lean over and eat him up with kisses. I feel cherished. Protected. Safe.

“I’m so excited.”

I laugh lightly while his boldly handsome face smiles warmly across the table. I love when his full lips soften with humor and his part-smile, part-smirk goes all the way to light up his eyes.

“So your father has officially bought Edge?”

He nods.

“You knew he wouldn’t back down to you.”

“He’s as proud as me. He told you he’d win, didn’t he?” He leans back and eyes me quietly. “He was obsessed with my mother. They were perfectly in love until I arrived. He couldn’t stand that his perfect wife gave him an imperfect son. He resented that she became protective of me. She loved me more than him. He didn’t take it well.”

“I never knew.” I look at him.

“Now I know.”

“What?”

“What he felt. That I’d do anything for you. Fuck over anyone to protect you. Do anything to keep you. Crush the world for you. My mother’s gone but he still wants to prove he’s better than me. Prove to her how wrong she was to choose me over him. She asked for a divorce but he never let her go.”

“It would’ve been hard. For a mother like yours not to love you hard. Especially if you were stuck with your dad.”

“I fared well.” He smirks.

“You did,” I say lovingly. I think he notices the longing inside me.

“Come over here.”

He reaches out for my hand over the table and tugs me around with the lazy confidence of a guy who knows—with certainty—he’s getting laid tonight.

“I like this smile,” he says as I carefully sit on his lap. I laugh lightly. “And this laugh.”

The lights are low. They shine on Malcolm as he moves the little M and R necklaces at the bottom of my throat and sets a kiss on my pulse point.

“Are we to be each other’s desserts?” I ask him.

God. I sound so hopeful I laugh after.

The lively twinkle in his eye makes me think that he’s planning something wicked. “You’re definitely mine.”

He dips his index finger into his wine.

“What are you up to, Sin?” I chide and before I can say more, he’s dipping his finger into my mouth.

Leaning over, he follows his finger with his kiss.

I lick his finger. “You’ve liked doing this since the wine tasting.”

“You have no idea.”

He shifts me on his lap, and looks at me lazily through half-closed lids.

He tugs my dress upward to my hips and slips his hand into the warmth between my inner thighs. My body jolts pleasurably at the touch of his fingers stroking me softly.

I’m nervous someone will come in, but he’s looking at me with such heated mischief, I can’t resist him.

I put my lips on his neck, my fingertips roaming the flat planes of his chest. The muscles harden under my fingers. My mouth is trailing up to his, and I hear his groan when my fingers start going down his chest, down his abs, to spread my hand over as much of his hard-on as I can.

And then Malcolm’s hand is easing off my ballet flats, and they fall with a clatter. He pulls one of my legs until I’m straddling him.

He kisses the tip of my nose, then my eyes, and his mouth takes mine again in another slow, drugging kiss. I inhale as he stops to look down on me. I hold my breath, exhaling as he reaches out one hand to cup my face. And then he kisses the corner of my lips.