Page 36 of One Night Only

“You should not doubt her intent. Since you’re worth knowing.”

She turns, and our gazes meet. A light shines in hers, and I realize, with a shuddering exhale of my own, that she’s coming back to me.To us.

Instantly, the very air around her charges, the way she holds herself changes. As if the Annika, who’s spending the night with me, is a freer woman than she is with anyone else.

Or so my poor heart hopes.

Her knuckles trace my jawline. “How do you know to say the right thing?”

“I’m not saying it to placate you.” I kiss the underside of her wrist and continue trailing my mouth to her elbow. “It’s knowing here,” I bring her hand to my chest, “that you are someone special. Maybe your sister selfishly wants some of that specialness in her life.”

“Specialness, huh?” she says, throwing her leg over mine and straddling my hips.

I instantly kick my legs higher on the bed, scooting up, before I realize what I’m doing.

Making a place for her.

She slides on my lap until her core settles against my shaft. Her bare, warm pussy nudging up against my stirring cock. Within seconds, I’m rock hard.

Our groans puncture the silence.

“Is it too much if I admit you make me insanely needy, Dr. Cross?”

“Ani—”

She wriggles her brows and her hips, the saucy minx. “Don’t you want some of my specialness too?”

My laughter shakes me. I tweak her nose. “Let’s finish talking about that phone call.”

“Nothing more to talk about.”

My hands find her hips as she grinds down on me. No man could take the torment of her ripe body rubbing up against his, but I try. To do the right thing, to get to the bottom of the ache I see in her eyes. “You’re avoiding the discussion, Ani.”

“No.” Her palms cup my bare shoulders and rub down, leaving indents in my skin. “I’m showing my appreciation for a man who, it seems, has an endless capacity for understanding. I’m overcome by desire for a man who could be the hero from a well-thumbed romance novel. I’m beset by lust for a man who wants me, despite the ugly truth he sees.”

I clasp her cheek, the fingertips digging into her fragile bones. “What is it you think I see?”

Eyes closed, a silent tear rolling down her cheek, she remains quiet for so long that panic beats at me. I feel as if I’m losing her at that last line.

I grip her hips firmly and press my mouth to her breastbone. Her heart thunders under my lips. “Let me in, Ani. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

Brown eyes flare open. “You heard me on the call. You know the hollow foundation of lies I’ve built my life on.”

Tears fill her eyes, but there’s more than just shame there. Some kind of focus or clarity like she’s decided to face me in all her messy glory. It flashes through me like a lightning bolt, making every sense sharper. The need to hold her, to protect her, and to love her is a gaping abyss inside me.

I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and she shivers. “It’s not the foundation of your life, is it?” My throat is sticky with the ache I feel for her. “With your friends, with Mom, and with me, you’re real and brave. It’s only with your family you pretend to be someone else.”

“You can say it… it’s pathetic.”

I shake my head. “No. Whatever you did would have been because you felt cornered. Unseen and unwanted.” I hate having to use those words, and I hate the people who made her feel like that even more. But it’s a wasted emotion.

Ani needs me here, now. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure she never feels like that ever again.

This woman, with her aching vulnerability, her quiet strength, and her self-proclaimed chaos, will be mine. I don’t know how I will manage it, but I will. I will love her so well, so thoroughly that her light will shine like a bloody halo around her for everyone to see.

“We all use coping mechanisms to move through the world, sweetheart. But when it’s family that hurts us, when it’s people who are supposed to love us but don’t even see us, it hurts so deeply. To avoid it, we will do anything.”

“I never meant to hurt anyone,” she says.

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