2. Jones
JONES
The taste of her hits me like a punch to the chest—sweet and warm and completely unexpected. She freezes for half a second, lips soft and still under mine, and then she melts into me with a small sound that goes straight to my gut.
This is what I've been telling myself I wouldn't do for an entire year.
Her hands find my shirt, fingers gripping the fabric like she needs something solid to hold onto, and I can feel the tremble in them.
The wedding flashes through my mind—seeing her for the first time, watching her laugh, the way she looked at me across the reception hall with those blue eyes that matched mine.
I decided that night that I wouldn't touch her.
Couldn't. She was twenty and my stepsister and sixteen years younger and off-limits in every way that mattered.
Right now, with her mouth moving against mine and her body pressed close enough that I can feel her heartbeat, every reason I had seems flimsy as paper.
She tastes like coffee and something sweeter underneath, and when I deepen the kiss, she responds with the kind of honesty that makes my chest tight. No hesitation, no games—just Anya kissing me back like she's been thinking about this as long as I have.
My hands settle on her waist, spanning it easily, and the feel of how small she is under my palms does something primitive to my brain. She barely reaches my chest.
I could lift her without thinking about it, could pin her against the wall or bend her over my desk or pick her up and carry her anywhere I wanted. The thoughts surface dark and wanting, and I don't push them away.
A year of discipline, of telling myself she was untouchable, and it's all coming apart because she rolled her eyes at me and lifted that stubborn chin and looked at me like I was someone she could challenge.
She breaks the kiss first, breathing hard, and when she looks up at me, her pupils are blown wide and her lips are swollen from my mouth.
The flush I've been watching all day has spread down her neck, disappearing under the collar of her shirt, and I want to follow it with my tongue.
"Jones." My name comes out breathless, uncertain, like she's not sure what comes next.
Neither am I, but I know what I want to come next.
I back her toward the desk, hands still on her waist, guiding her until the edge hits the back of her thighs. She doesn't resist, doesn't protest—just watches me with those wide blue eyes and waits to see what I'll do.
What I want to do is strip her out of every piece of clothing she's wearing and learn exactly what makes her make that sound again.
I want to spread her out on my desk and take my time mapping every inch of her skin.
I want to watch her face when I touch her, want to catalog every reaction and file it away for later use.
My hands slide up from her waist to her ribcage, thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts through her shirt, and she arches into the touch with a gasp that makes my blood run hot. Responsive.
Christ, she's responsive to everything I do, like her body was made to react to mine.
The thought that follows is darker, more primal. The knowledge of what I could do to her, what her body could do for me. How she would feel around me with nothing between us, how she would take what I gave her, how satisfying it would be to fill her completely and leave something of myself behind.
The wanting hits me low and hungry, and I lean down to kiss her neck instead of examining it too closely.
She tilts her head back, giving me access, and I can feel her pulse racing under my lips. Her hands are fisted in my shirt now, pulling me closer, and when I scrape my teeth along her throat, she makes that sound again—soft and involuntary and devastating.
I lift her onto the desk, stepping between her knees, and she wraps her legs around my hips like it's the most natural thing in the world.
The position puts us at a better height, brings her mouth level with mine, and when I kiss her again, she meets me with an eagerness that makes my control slip another notch.
My hands find the hem of her shirt, fingers brushing skin, and she shivers at the contact. I want more of that reaction. Want to map every place that makes her shiver, every spot that makes her gasp, every touch that makes her arch against me like she can't help herself.
The fabric slides up as my hands move higher, revealing the smooth expanse of her stomach, the curve of her waist. She's wearing a bra underneath—something simple and white that makes her look young and innocent and completely at odds with the way she's kissing me like she's starving for it.
I reach for the button of her jeans, fingers working it open with the kind of steady precision that's served me well in surgery and everywhere else.
This is happening. After a year of telling myself it couldn't, it is, and the relief of finally giving in is almost overwhelming.
Her hand closes over my wrist, stopping me cold.
The contact burns through me, but not in the way I want. There's something in her grip—urgency, maybe, or panic—that cuts through the haze of want clouding my brain.
"Jones." Her voice is shaky, uncertain. "I need to tell you something."
Every muscle in my body goes taut, waiting. The way she's looking at me—wide-eyed and flushed but suddenly serious—makes my stomach drop.
"I've never done this before."
The words hit me like cold water. Never done this before. Virgin. Twenty-one years old and untouched, and she was about to let me take her on my office desk between patient files and the remnants of today's coffee.
I go completely still. Hands, mouth, breath—everything stops as the information rewires every plan I had for the next thirty minutes.
She's a virgin. No one has touched her like this. No one has been inside her, has watched her come apart, has heard the sounds she makes when she's completely lost to sensation.
The primitive satisfaction of that knowledge wars with something else—the awareness that her first time cannot be here, like this, bent over office furniture in a building that smells like antiseptic and ambition.
I step back, creating distance between us, and immediately miss the heat of her body against mine. My breathing is ragged, harsh in the quiet of the office, and I don't bother trying to hide it.
The change in her expression is immediate and devastating. The flush fades from her cheeks, replaced by something that looks like the beginning of humiliation.
Her arms cross over her chest—a defensive gesture I recognize because I've seen it from her all day—and her chin lifts in that stubborn way that means she's about to say something sharp.
"Why are you stopping?" The words come out fast, almost frantic, like she's trying to get them out before her courage fails.
She thinks I'm rejecting her. The realization hits me with uncomfortable clarity. She told me she's a virgin, and I stepped back, and now she thinks it's because I don't want her.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I want her so much it's a physical ache, want her in ways that go past simple desire into something darker and more consuming. But her first time—Christ, her first time deserves better than this.
"I'm not taking your virginity on my damn office table."
The words come out rougher than I intended, but they're true.
She deserves candles and silk sheets and someone who will take hours learning her body.
She deserves careful and gentle and reverent, not quick and desperate on furniture that's seen a thousand mundane conversations about patient care and insurance claims.
She stares at me for a long moment, processing what I said. I can see the wheels turning behind those blue eyes, can watch her work through the implications. Not rejection. Standards. I have standards for how this happens, and apparently my desk doesn't meet them.
Then she does something I didn't expect.
She slides off the desk and starts taking her clothes off.
Not slowly, not seductively—with the same blunt efficiency she's brought to everything else today. Her shirt comes off first, pulled over her head and dropped to the floor without ceremony. The white bra follows, unhooked and discarded with the same matter-of-fact determination.
My brain short-circuits. The sight of her—bare from the waist up, skin pale and perfect in the office lighting—makes my mouth go dry.
She's smaller than I imagined, more delicate, but there's nothing fragile about the way she's looking at me.
Her breasts are perfect, high and round and exactly the right size for my hands, and when she reaches for the zipper of her jeans, I realize I've forgotten how to breathe properly.
The jeans hit the floor. Then her underwear—simple white cotton that she steps out of like it's nothing, like she strips naked in front of men in offices every day.
She straightens, completely bare, and looks at me with that familiar stubborn lift of her chin. Her skin is flushed pink from her chest to her hairline, and I can see her pulse jumping at the base of her throat. She's nervous—of course she's nervous—but she's not backing down.
That's Anya. Cornered and uncertain and absolutely refusing to show it.
The sight of her naked body does things to my brain that I'm not prepared for.
She's all curves and soft skin and long blonde hair falling over her shoulders.
The contrast between her size and mine is even more pronounced like this—she's tiny, delicate, and standing there like she could take on the world with her bare hands.
I want to touch every inch of her. Want to trace the curve of her waist with my tongue, want to learn the taste of her skin, want to watch her face when I put my mouth between her legs and make her fall apart.
The wanting is so intense it's almost painful, and the fact that no one else has ever seen her like this makes it worse.
"How about now?"