Page 26 of One Night Only

Her smile falls before she gives me her profile. As if to stand in solidarity with her, wind gusts make the French doors rattle. “I just wanted a catnap anyway.”

My chest aches at her solemn expression. I wonder what went through her mind while she crawled into bed and waited for me.

God, the day she discovers she could have so much power over me, I’m doomed. And yet, I’ve never looked forward to my own destruction like this. “You look tired. If you want to go back to sleep—”

“I have the rest of my life to catch up on sleep,” she mumbles, but I can hear her.

A loud growl from her stomach breaks the tension choking us in a bubble. She covers her belly and her mouth, but her embarrassed laughter spills out.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about being hungry,” I say with mock sternness. I move toward the new tray the staff brought in. “Do you want the hot chocolate?”

Her eyes light up. “Yes, please.”

I pick up the mug and slide the box of cards into my sweatpants pocket. I’ve never been a superstitious or a sentimental man, and yet suddenly, they have become my talismans.

With my knee on the bed, I hand her the hot chocolate. Her fingers grip mine, then rub at my knuckles. She looks down at them and then up. “You’re gorgeous when you laugh like that.”

I have nothing to say to it, nothing that wouldn’t scare her, so I simply kiss the top of her head.

Once she has the mug, I slip back into the bathroom and pull on an old T-shirt. If she puts her fingers on my skin, this will all be over. I will fuck her raw and hard, like she’s been asking me to all night.

Where will that leave me and my plans? It’s not that I want to deny her. But if I give in, we’re going to be out of it. There would be no stopping, and every minute I have with her is precious.

There’s more stuff I need to learn about her. Why is she so cautiously happy about getting into nursing school? Why is she so damned stingy with details of her life?

“I saved some for you,” she says, coming to her knees on the bed and crawling toward the edge as I walk back in. Hair a wild tangle around her face, she looks like a water nymph swimming to the shore to meet her lover.

My cock throbs painfully.

I almost protest that I don’t want it and then bite it off at the last second. Something about her expression as she holds the mug aloft… I wrap my fingers around hers and drink it up.

She brings it back to her mouth, finishes the last sip, and pushes the mug off the bed. I raise a brow as it falls to the floor with a thud. “That’s not—”

Her mouth, her arms, her lush, tight body is on me before I can finish the thought. My senses overload with the bounty that she is.

Our kiss spins out fast, into erotic territory, as Annika rubs herself against me in wanton glides. I groan and grab her bare ass under the tails of my shirt, roughly grinding my throbbing erection into her soft belly.

She moans and writhes harder. The way she fits against me, the way she responds to my kiss with equal fervor, the needy little noises she makes in the back of her throat… each and everything decimates my control.

There’s nothing but my sweatpants separating us.

All I need to do is lift her until her bare pussy lines up with my cock and thrust up to claim her as mine. I can just imagine how she would squeeze my thick length based on how hungry she was for my fingers.

She tugs at my hair hard, pouting at my distraction, and nips at my lower lip. And then she’s pulling me into her gravity. I follow her lips, realizing too late what she’s about.

My breath punches out of my lungs on a wave of fear as I fall on top of her and somehow manage to avoid my limbs from crushing her. “I could seriously hurt you, Ani.”

Her hips cant up, the damp heat of her pussy rubbing up against the ridged length of my cock. Her arms lock around my neck, her mouth open against mine. “I want to feel your weight on me, Dr. Cross. And you were taking too long. Now and earlier, in the shower. It’s almost—”

I roll to the side and cup her pussy roughly. Her protest and her moan combine into an erotic sound I swallow.

“I needed a minute to think. About what the cock-tease half my age is doing to me. While I still have a grasp on reality.”

She presses up against my palm even as her fingers scrabble with the band of my sweatpants. The damn thing’s clever because while I bury my fingers inside her folds, she’s pulling them down.

And suddenly, her warm, soft hand is there and my greedy, weeping cock plops into her clasp eagerly.

I hiss out a breath at the same time she does. My fingers gather up her arousal while hers test the heft and weight of my erection.

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