Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Ethan
I rub a hand over my face, undone by her honesty.
With each word she blurts out, my self-control and my strategy are shredded to bits. For all that I feel like I’m about to burst out of my trousers; I didn’t plan to fuck her tonight.
I wanted to steal some kisses, get to know her, build this tenuous connection into something more solid. Persuade her to stay with me for a few more days. Especially since she admitted to not having anywhere to go immediately.
I want to pamper her in any way she will let me. Look after her. Probe her for all her secrets and future plans and stitch myself into them.
But this girl upends me and my plans in the best of ways. I know that now, and I fully accept it. Nothing about this, about… us is going to be easy. I’m committed to her anyway.
I haven’t known that kind of unshakeable conviction except about going to med school. My head is dizzy from all the catching up it has to do with my heart.
“You have that disapproving look in your eyes again.” Her voice is small, and I hate it. “Like when you caught me flirting with Bruno Mars earlier.”
“I wasn’t disapproving of you, but myself,” I say, pulling her to the edge of the dresser I’ve put her on. Holding her gaze, I push her knees indecently wide and move closer.
Her “ Why” is breathy.
“Because my mind went there instantly with you. And I don’t sexualize women immediately like that. Like ever.”
“Only me then?” She flutters her eyelashes as if I’ve paid her the most elegant compliment. “I feel so special.”
Her sass goes straight to my balls, and God, I need relief. This is the longest foreplay I’ve ever indulged in, and I won’t be surprised if I turn into a two-pump chump the second I get inside her.
Fuck, I need to do this right.
I grab the hem of her shirt, my shirt , and start rolling it up. “Do you see what’s up against that wall?”
“Floor-to-ceiling windows, with rain streaking the glass.”
I give her the wad of rolled-up shirt, and she holds it. “Can you see yourself in it?”
Her gasp is like a waft of cool air over my cock. “Yes.”
“Lift your ass,” I say, grabbing the seam of the boxer shorts.
She does, instinctively reacting to my voice, and I harden into steel. God, the trust she shows me is heady.
I pull off the boxers and throw them over my shoulder.
“Dr. Cross?” Her fingers grip the shirt in a death-grip while her eyes widen to big, brown pools. “What are you… ahh…”
I run my hands up from her knees to her thighs and squeeze. She’s all toned over here. The flare of her hips is lush. “You’re like silk everywhere.”
She leans her forehead on my shoulder with a soft cry. Her exhales are rough strokes against my neck as my thumbs inch inward, toward that line where hip meets thigh. Long lashes flutter like butterfly wings when I palm her mound.
A thin strip of hair is at the top and then velvet-soft flesh meets my probing fingers. Fuck, she’s utterly bare! I lick the shell of her ear. “I’m burning with jealousy, Annika.”
She lays her cheek on my shoulder, her body quivering. “Why, Dr. Cross?”
Her question is innocent. She is innocent , my brain screams as if there’s any way to stop this train. I play with the little strip. “That you did this for someone else.”
“Oh.” She closes her eyes as I trace the shape of her lips in gentle strokes, over and over, up and down. I don’t remember ever delving through a woman’s folds to learn all her secrets. Of exploring her like this, of wanting to give her everything a lover could. Or of this intimacy wrapping us in our own bubble.
This, I know, isn’t sex. This is making love to a woman I want to please at any cost, that I want to mark with my fingertips. That I want to impress and protect and claim for my own.
“I did it for myself,” Ani whispers. “I’ve never had an orgasm with someone else, you see. I’m either too deep in my head or trying too hard to please them. And I wondered if I should put more effort into…”
“It’s not your fault,” I bite out, petting her velvety folds. My cock is like steel poking through my trousers.
“No, it’s not. But I didn’t know that, not until I saw you. Not until you kissed me, and I thought I might come just from that,” she says, lashes lifting and falling like snowflakes, hips following my hand in an instinctive dance. “But if you stop teasing me and dip your fingers lower…”
Spine bowing, she jerks as I plunge my thumb between her folds and circle her clit. “Oh, my God. That feels incredible,” she cries out as I increase the speed of my caresses.
Her nails dig into my shoulder painfully as I trail my finger down to her slit. A gush of wetness greets me. I bury my face in her hair and drag a kiss down to her temple. “Are you talking about this, Ani?”
She raises her head and arches her neck, obediently giving me access to more of her. It’s nearly addictive and a little scary how well our bodies and our eyes seem to communicate.
I score my teeth down her tender flesh, then nip her smooth shoulder. Her arousal drenches my finger to the knuckle. “Yes, all for you, Dr. Cross.”
“Put one foot on top of the dresser,” I say, pulling back to give her room.
Her head jerks up. “What? Why?”
“I want to taste you.”
Lust-hazed brown eyes widen as they find mine. “I’ll look indecent.”
“You wanted more, remember?”
She scowls. “You’re mean. And demanding. And… bossy.”
“Ah, now I see why those qualities weren’t good for you. You don’t like to be told what to do.”
“In life, no. In this parallel universe, where only you and I reside, I like it.” A look of wariness enters her eyes. “Is that bad, do you think?”
I lean forward and catch her mouth in a wild, biting kiss. We’re both panting when I pull back. “Nothing is wrong between us. As long as we both want it.”
“And you want me bared completely,” she says, as if she’s getting the gist of it.
“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, if I am too 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.
Our mouths cling to each other in a rabid frenzy while our chests rub, glide, and fall away, just to come together to experience that sensation again. Fuck, the press of her breasts against my chest is a direct shot to my adrenal glands.
Pushing her back against the wall, I pinch one stiff nipple between my fingers, and she arches off the wall. Her breasts are perfect in my palm, overflowing and soft. There are so many things I want to do to them, to her. The list will occupy me for at least thirty years. I squeeze and cup and knead the delicious weights, imagining my cock lodged between them, the broad head hitting her lips on every upward stroke.
“Please, I need more,” she says, running her teeth down my neck in pouty demand.
Chuckling, I move down, bend my torso, and lick up between her folds.
My first taste of her is deliciously tart. Her scent is rich musk, and it’s all for me.
Unfortunately, I have to let go of her and brace myself on the dresser. And brace my girl too, because she nearly falls into my face as I lick her up again.
Her moans are erotic, her cries soft, and her body is explosively responsive. I press the flat of my tongue against the swollen bundle of nerves and the tip of my thumb into her entrance.
I want to wreck her and then remake her so every inch of her knows me, needs me. It’s a madness in my blood, and I don’t fight it.
Her fingers tug at my hair, hard, and a sob breaks free of her lips. “Don’t stop. Just a little more.” Her tone is ragged, and her body is full-on trembling now, crawling toward the edge. The cabinet makes these tiny squeaks in rhythm with her hips. And outside, the storm is getting wilder, rougher.
But nothing beats the scent and sounds my girl’s making for me.
I stop after nipping at the tender flesh of her inner thigh.
She gasps, and more arousal dampens my digits. My heart feels like it will break apart at the seams at how she reacts to my every move. While my cock is leaking so much pre-cum that the front of my trousers is actually wet.
“Ethan,” I say, rubbing my nose against the pink bite mark on her brown flesh. She has a dark birthmark here, in the shape of a fluffy cloud. I lick around the edges of it, learning its shape. “It’s Ethan, Annika.”
She’s breathing so hard that her words come out broken. “I… okay, Ethan.” She licks her lips as if she wants to taste my name. “Ethan, will you please do that again so that I can come?” she asks prettily.
I bury my laughter in her pussy and suck her clit while I play with her entrance.
She comes like spring rain, falling apart in a flash of sudden, colorful thunder, screaming my name. Dancing her bottom to the edge of the dresser.
I drown in her scent, in her taste, in the sounds she makes. In her.
Grabbing her thighs, I pull myself up, thankful for the strict strength training regimen I follow. Or my back would have blown out like that.
For my girl, I have to stay limber and in shape. For already I know that she’s a sexual creature, a needy thing, and I never want to let her down.
Because this treasure of a girl is mine. All mine.
I come up for air, pull her shirt down, but keep her wet pussy snuggled up against my cock. My hips cant forward with a mind of their own. And I groan at the sensation of her softness.
But I’m not ready yet to be inside her. Because once I get in, I have a feeling I’ll not want to leave.
Annika opens her eyes, and there’s wonder in them. Her lashes cling together in wetness, and the tip of her nose is red. “I-I don’t have words for it.”
“Kiss me. Taste yourself on my lips.”
Eyes searching mine, she does so. Her moan as she finds herself on me is decadent, filthy, wicked.
All the things I want to do to this girl, and all the things I know she will enjoy with me. Once I get her out of the cage she seems to have locked herself in. And if I can’t get her out, I’ll have to crawl in. It’s a revelation how fully prepared I am for that too.
Her hands drift to my hips, then she grips my ass and pulls forward. “I feel like I owe you something after that.”
I laugh and tuck a damp strand behind her ear. “You don’t owe me anything. Getting you off is its own reward.”
She grips her lower lip between her teeth. “You don’t want to come?”
Her blush is adorable. “I need a shower.”
“Okay, yeah.”
“But if you really want to give me something in return—”
“I knew you were too cunning to just let it go.” She grips my shoulder, her gaze suddenly averted. “A blow job then?”
I chuckle and kiss the tip of her nose. “It should never be a transaction, Ani.”
She nods, seeming to realize that I’m serious. “Right. I know that.” She fiddles with the buttons on my shirt. “What did you want?”
“Tell me why you’re leaving your job with Mom.”
She looks up. Her eyes search mine. As if she isn’t sure if she should share it or not.
A sudden tightness fists my chest. I wait, while every cell in me urges I demand an answer. Meanwhile, my brain is spinning scenarios I don’t want to face.
Maybe she’s engaged to some young guy her family picked for her, and this is her last bid at freedom.
Maybe she’s moving to Antarctica for three years.
Maybe she’s…
“I got accepted into nursing school.”
“Where?”
“At UW. Seattle campus. I start in the summer.”
I simply stare at her, the words lodging deep in my chest.
UW. Seattle.
Shock and then relief flood me in a sweeping, disorienting flood. For a second, I nearly sway on my feet.
“Dr. Cross? Is something wrong?”
“No. That’s my alma mater,” I say.
“Wow, what a coincidence.”
Not coincidence, but fate. She has no idea how the threads of our lives are already entwined.
“Only this could drag me from Martha’s side,” she says, bringing my attention back to her.
I nod.
Her body’s vibrating with the joy of it but somehow, for some goddamned reason, she keeps it contained. Makes herself small, as if she doesn’t deserve to feel it. “It’s a huge thing for me. Like I can’t tell you how big.”
I take her hands in mine and kiss the knuckles. “Congratulations, Annika.” I make sure to meet her eyes when I say, “I can’t think of another person who would be a credit to that career.”
Her chest rises. And she seems to expand under my gaze, if that’s possible. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I flick the tip of her cute nose. “You should know I never say anything I don’t mean.”
She grabs my hand and presses her face into my palm. “Actually, I do know that.”
“Good,” I say, pulling my hand away and pretending not to see her wariness. “After the shower, maybe you can tell me why it’s so big that you got into nursing school. If you didn’t know this, I’m also—”
“You’re a good listener. And you’re a damn good head-giver.”
I chuckle, pull away from her hand, and walk to the bathroom.
This girl’s got me spinning in place, dizzy with joy, and my brain needs to catch up to all the dangerous plans my heart’s making.