Page 37 of One Night Only

My heart squeezes tight, as if it’s in her fist. “Only yourself.”

She smiles through the tears and wipes her cheeks with the back of her hands. Her soft kiss at the edge of my mouth is a benediction. “I’ve never felt so seen. Not even with my friends.”

“I’m glad to be of service.”

She laughs. Her mouth hovers over mine, the tight points of her nipples raking against my chest. But she doesn’t kiss me, eager as I am for it. Her forehead touches mine, then she pulls back. “This night with me… are you beginning to think it’s a mistake?”

“Never.”

But her mind is eons away, mired in the pain that came to the surface with that phone call, in the ache that she had to show me. She slides back and nearly moves off of me when I arrest her.

I feel like I’ve been running in place for years, and finally, this girl is in my path, in my arms. I refuse to let her go at this last hurdle.

“No, Ani. No hiding away now.” I pull her lower lip with my teeth, and she jerks in my lap. Then I lick at the indent and kiss her roughly. I sweep my tongue inside the moist cavern of her mouth, play with her tongue, dip in and out until she’s moaning and writhing. Until she’s back here with me.

“Dr. Cross?”

“You’ve been teasing me all night, Annika. Begging me for my cock, yeah?”

Brown eyes widen at my taunting tone. "I wantyou, Dr. Cross." Her gaze dips to my bare chest, my stomach, and then the bulge pushing against my sweatpants. “Not just your cock.”

I laugh and push her up until her warm core is pressed up against my stomach. My skin burns as a little of her wetness seeps into me. “You’re ready for me?”

“Yes, but—”

I grip the lapels of the shirt and pull hard until the buttons pop and she’s fully bare to me. The shirt hangs off her arms, and the ends of her hair kiss her warm skin. I lick at the pulse fluttering at her neck, gently skimming my hands under her heaving tits.

She is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen or touched.

My fingers tremble as I lift them to her, the intensity of my need a savage beat in my blood. “Tell me, Ani. Do you still want me to fuck you? Because I would very much like to.”

Chapter Seventeen

Annika

I stare at Dr. Cross,every inch of me on fire.

Now he wants to fuck me? After everything I have blurted out about my personal life? Now, when he knows what a mess I make of my closest relationships?

A wild light fills me as if he took a match to the small wick that was almost burning out at the heart of me. I feel as grounded as the roots of a mighty oak tree and as light as a feather, as if there are no limits to what I want and who I could be.

Not with this man gazing at me like I’m priceless.

I search his eyes, but there’s nothing but desire there to fill me up. Nothing but how much he appreciates me and how many filthy things he wants to do to me.

It’s a dizzying sensation, to have someone gaze at you as if your very ordinary, very messy self is actually something special. But at that moment, I believe it with my full chest.

I am deserving of the way he looks at me, to be wanted, to be fucked to within an inch by his monster cock.

I laugh at the thought, and he kisses me again. It’s a rough, wild, dominating kiss where he steals my breath and my senses. The last kind of kiss I expect from such a composed man, but I like it.

I like it more for the fact that he’s lost whatever control he had all night. I like it that he thinks I am equal to it.

“Your laughter is like a rainbow, Annika. I want to roll around in it,” he says, awe tinging his words. “And if you tell me what makes you laugh so, I will do it again. And again.”

“I don’t want to laugh, Dr. Cross. I want you to touch me as if you can’t bear not to. As if, whatever you do to me, it’s never going to be enough.”

Pale gray eyes smolder. “I don’t have to pretend, sweetheart. That’s exactly how I feel.” His large hands are slightly cold as he cups my breasts, thumbs playing with my nipples.

---