It didn’t seem right for you to spend another day without the luxury of a gift from a man who thinks of you.

M.S.

I shake my head and put the card down. Sandy, one of my work colleagues, stops by to see them. “Wow. A man after Rachel’s heart!”

Valentine peers into my cubicle. “Trust me, he’s aiming lower.”

Victoria and Helen want to know how it’s going. “I’ve got so many folders,” I tell them, hedging but trying not to appear that I am.

I tell myself that the time I spend with him tonight will be just mine. Just mine and his.

I’m stealing it, and this makes me a complete sinner, but I’m aching to Sin. Throbbing.

Thank you, I text him.

Thank me in person tonight

He knows; we both know what’s going to happen. I can’t wait for it to happen. I’m anxious for the day to end, can’t eat or think without him present in every thought in my head.

Everyone in the office seems to have Saint on their mind; they can’t stop discussing how fresh and exotic the explosive combination of flowers is, how perfectly they’re arranged, how much they must have cost.

Victoria comes to peer into my cubicle and tries to open the card. I snatch it away and quickly tuck it into my bag.

“Wow. Protective much?” Her eyebrows furrow, but then she laughs lightly and strokes the petals of a small fuchsia orchid with her fingertips and smiles. “Best quality.”

“I’m busy, Vicky,” I sigh.

“You didn’t look busy.” She crosses her arms and leans her hip on the edge of my desk. “You were staring off into space. Into the space of these flowers.” She happily points at them.

“Did you need anything?” I ask.

“Yes. Tell me. Does Saint usually send flowers to the women he seduces?” She taps the corner of her mouth and pretends to think. “Hmm. I’d never heard that before. What’s the secret?” She smiles in mischief. “You’re playing him well and good, aren’t you?”

I think of how seduced I feel. How much I ache. His kiss. His touch. How I can’t sleep. How I can’t breathe. How I can’t go on without feeling him inside me at least once. And I can’t help but feel like the one being played expertly could be me. . . .

I’m so in over my head, I’m drowning in air.

But I stand and lightly brush her away by pulling out the files under her bum, and say, “Trade secrets. Now scoot, you’re breathing my fresh, flowery air. Go get your own flowers.”

When she leaves, I look at mine. Majestic and unapologetic, they take up all of my oxygen in a way I love, and I swear to myself I’m going to look just as good and smell just as good for him tonight.

I doll up for him that night. Pink lace undies with a little bow at the top, the same bow in the middle of my front-clasped lace bra. I slip on an A-line skirt that twirls a little when I walk, and a slinky spaghetti-strap ivory-colored top that lets him see the pink strap of my bra peeking out from underneath. It screams I want you in the most blatant way I know how to say it.

He texts me that he’s outside my building.

Gina isn’t back from work, so I leave a note like the kind I leave when I’m camping out with Stop the Violence, saying: Sleeping out tonight. XOXO R

Both an eternity and a heartbeat later, I climb into the back of the Rolls and see him. Did he dress up for me too? He’s so handsome in a black button-down shirt and black dress slacks that my breath can’t seem to go past my throat. His hair looks wet from a recent shower, the top button of his shirt undone and the cuffs rolled to his elbows. The glimpse of his golden body under his clothes makes my heart beat more rapidly. The privacy glass is in place, and he whispers, as if for my benefit, “He can’t hear or see us.” I didn’t know I was so desperate, but when he reaches out and pulls my body closer to his and slides his hand under my top, to the bare skin of my back, I wedge a little closer.

Another corner kiss.

I shiver.

He grazes the second corner now, his lips warm but firm.

I slide my hand up his hard thigh, wanting to know he’s hard, not certain if I have the courage to let my hand wander higher. It feels so hot, his skin under his clothes. His eyes are so green and so dark.

“Where are we going?” I whisper.

“My place,” he murmurs. He brushes my lips with his and looks at them, then edges back so he can look at me completely.

I start to put a little distance between us, trying to get myself under control.

“Come here, I want you close to me.”