The Saint (Notorious 3)

And really, I was going for porn star here.

“You make me a little crazy,” he said, kissing my lips, breathing across my neck until my nipple was in his mouth and it felt like I was being licked by fire.

“Okay,” I sighed, my mind going blank, every word I knew running away from me. “That’s…great. I…ah…oh wow…want you crazy.”

He bit me, just hard enough to light up every single jackpot sign in my body.

“Good,” he said, his voice all dark again, like chocolate and velvet and I felt that wave building in me. Was I going to come just listening to him talk? I squeezed my thighs together. Maybe. “Because I want you in my bed.”

I whimpered as he scooped me up, my legs around his waist, the head of his cock bumping the white-hot center of my body. He walked through the shadows, the darkness a living breathing heat around us. I felt like we were cocooned, safe.

My back pressed open a door and then I was bounced onto a soft mattress, a silky comforter against my skin.

Carter opened the drawer by his bed and pulled out a condom. I turned my head to watch him unwrap it and roll it over his cock. Sexy, I thought, and I’d never thought that before.

Everything this man did was sexy. I could watch him file taxes and be turned on.

His hands slipped up my legs and suddenly yanked me, pulling my hips off the edge of the tall mattress. His smile was wicked, delicious, his touch sure and confident. My legs twined around his hips, my weight balanced in his hands. Despite my belly, the pregnancy, I felt so small against him. I arched my back, notching myself against him.

Sweat pooled between us, our panting and the rustle of my body against the comforter the only sounds in the room.

Still he waited, pulling the moment so taut I thought I might snap.

“Cart-ah!” I cried as he entered me, driving so deep I felt him in the back of my throat. My body clenched him in hard triumph. So long. Oh, it had been so long.

“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning over me, his face etched with concern.

I laughed—I couldn’t help it. Running my hands over his shoulders, cupping the muscles, testing my fingernails against his skin—I laughed, delighted in the feel of him.

Rocking hard against him, I arched my back, feeling every inch of him, every inch of my body.

“I’m so good.”

He leaned over me, his hair falling over his eyes, and I reached up to touch his face. I arched again and watched his control begin to fray moment by moment, touch by touch.

Yes, I thought, glee riding my heartbeat. Yes!

Carter was gorgeous this way, human and vulnerable. I knew, in a wild tender moment, that this was a gift. Carter, with no defenses, his heart in his eyes, was a rare gift.

I arched and arched fucking him until I coaxed him into fucking me.

I couldn’t breathe as we pounded against each other. Until finally…finally.

He drove me back on the mattress, shuddering against me. I held him as hard as I could in my arms, while trying to keep him far away from my heart.

ZOE

I knew mistakes. I was an idiot savant with mistakes. If there was some kind of game show—Name That Mistake—I’d be a millionaire. A grand champion.

And as I watched the sun rise outside Carter’s window, turning the sky pink and pale yellow, tracing early-morning clouds in white-hot light, I knew that making love to Carter had been a doozy of a mistake.

My baby slept under my hand, and Carter slept beside me, facedown in a pile of pillows. I forced myself not to look at him, not to push the hair out of his face so I could see his lips. Count his eyelashes.

I closed my burning eyes and swore under my breath.

Last night had opened up some hidden chamber of want, of craving. And it was all focused on Carter.

My mother’s voice rang in my head—“You’re a single mother and this is no time to fall in love.”

Once again, my mom was right. Right man. Wrong time.

So, it was time for this particular mistake to end.

Quietly, carefully, I slipped out from under the silky gray comforter and tried as hard as I could not to notice other details of his bedroom. Like the painting over his bed; moonlight on water, a lonely boat in the foreground.

I could tell myself to stop caring, but it was too late. Because when I saw that painting I thought of Carter, so alone. Everywhere I looked, I saw parts of Carter that made him more endearing to me.

Last night, when Carter’s control had snapped, something had snapped in me, too, and I needed to get away from him, get back to my home, my pig mugs and yoga pants. Real life.