Page 22 of One Night Only

“I’m a man who knows exactly what he wants. My gut instinct has literally saved lives.”

“Of course, the surgeon and his ego!”

“If it’s too much for you, ifI amtoo much for you, we can simply go to bed. Or play more games.”

She stares at me so long that I begin to sweat.Did I push her too far too soon?

But I have to set the tone for this relationship from the get-go. And yes, it will be a relationship.

I’ll give her whatever she asks me for. Hell, I’ll give her the damned world on a silver platter. My one and only condition is that she has to go all the way with me.

A rough exhale escapes her lips before she chews on the lower one. Slowly, she scoots her bare bottom on the grainy wood and gasps.

My cock weeps at the idea of her leaving her wetness all around the suite. On the sheets. On my clothes.

On me. All over me.

Her foot comes up. Cupping her knee, I gently push it aside, and she’s open wide. For me.

“I knew it,” I say, reaching for her hand and kissing the wrist. “You’re pretty everywhere, Annika. Look at yourself in the mirror.”

“Dr. Cross!” She tries to sound scandalized, but I hear the note of curiosity that seeps in.

“Come, I thought your generation was wild. Have you already hit your limit?”

Those beautiful brown eyes flicker open, and she sees herself in the reflection. Her mouth falls open, and there’s a feverish glow in her eyes. She likes how she looks. That I’m right about her wildness fills me with dizzying joy.

“Tell me what you see when you see me like this,” she says, turning that languorous gaze on me.

Fresh surprise floors me. To willingly subject herself to my gaze and to demand I tell her, to make her a part of my fantasy, is a gift I didn’t expect. If I spend a decade with her, I know she’ll still surprise me. “Like a queen.”

Her shoulders pull back. Her magnificent breasts are rising and falling. Tilting her neck, she draws a line from her jaw to the valley between her breasts. A shudder wracks her. “Like a queen,” she repeats.

“That’s my girl,” I say, coming to stand in front of her. “Undo the buttons on the shirt.”

This time, there’s no protest. Without losing my gaze, she undoes the first few. “Shrug it off your shoulders.”

Again, she does so quietly. Her only reaction is the pulse pounding at her throat and now her perky, gently heaving breasts. She has the prettiest brown nipples that I want to roll my tongue around and tug with my teeth.

“You’re exquisitely made, Ani. I want to ruin all this beauty, mar it with my fingertips.” I draw a knuckle down her breast, over the shirt, and she hisses. “Leave divots in your flesh until you will know for days where and how I touched you.”

“Please…” she says, throwing her head back. A laugh escapes her, and she sounds like she’s at the edge of hysteria. “Either the universe is playing more jokes on me, or it listened. It actually listened this time. Custom order for Annika Rao, coming up, Dr. Ethan Cross.”

I laugh, nearly melting inside at how she claims me, even unknowingly.

I want to touch her and do all the things I just declared I want to do. And yet, I find my hands shaking by my sides.

How has this girl gotten into my head so fast? Into my heart? I understand her awe, her near-hysteria.

She’s tailor-made for me. I feel as if I’ve taken a dose of some reality-altering shot, and by morning, I will have the worst sort of hangover. Jesus, but I don’t want the sun to come up tomorrow.

“Is it the power exchange that gets you off, then?” Annika asks softly. “Seeing how far you can push me?”

“No. I would tell you if that’s what I want.” I reach for her and kiss her.

I want to keep it soft and slow, showing her through the kiss that I have feelings and that they are very much involved in this. That they’re taking up too much space in my head already.

But like everything else between us, the kiss spins out into something else, super-fast.

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