Page 66 of Yours to Keep

My breath stalled at the admission. Sure, I’d felt the erection in question when he’d kissed me that very same day, but hearing him talk about it was different. “It gave me a pretty awesome view to appreciate, though.”

He chuckled. “Glad to have been of service.”

I hummed a noncommittal sound before running only the very tips of my fingers along the grooves on his abdomen. My gaze dropped down. Sullivan Crowne had been genetically blessed in every department, I’d learned, but seeing him now, naked and erect, his shaft curving proudly and almost angrily toward his navel, made me realize that he was perfect freaking everywhere.

So unfair but I wet my lips with my tongue and then bent over, taking him into my mouth without any warning whatsoever. His hips thrust up like he’d had no control over the movement. “Fuck, Bree.”

The words came out on a rough pant and I smiled around his tip, slowly lifting my gaze to his. His eyes were narrowed in a glare, his chest rising and falling fast. I slid a hand up to his sternum, then pushed down and he went with it, lying down. I wrapped my fist around the base of him.

It didn’t last long before he rolled us over, wrenching his cock out of my mouth and putting his head firmly between my legs just a few seconds later. My clothes disappeared like they’d never even been there to begin with. It only took all of about ten seconds after that before I was pulling at the thick strands of his hair, writhing against his face while he licked me like I was his last meal.

When he circled my entrance a few times before pushing just the tip of his finger into me, I screamed, my hips bucking. An orgasm was hovering just outside of touching distance and he drove me mad bringing me almost all the way to it, then easing off just for a beat.

“Sullivan,” I whimpered when it happened again, and the next thing I knew, he rose up on his knees, cursed when realized he needed a condom, and then disappeared.

His cock was glistening with wetness all his own when he marched back into the room and rolled the condom on like it’d offended the life out of him. Without a word, he climbed back on the bed with me, lay down on his back, and then pulled me on top of him.

“I’m all yours, Bree,” he murmured as he laced his fingers into my hair and guided my head down closer to his. “Take what you need. I’m right here.”

I sank down on him slowly, kissing him. I started rolling my hips once he’d slid home. He thrust into me from below, his skin dragging across everywhere I needed it inside and out, and I felt myself tumbling toward euphoria as soon as I finally felt him swell deep within my body.

After, the room was quiet in that soft, suspended way it only ever was in the blissful afterglow with him. The lamp on the nightstand was the only light on, casting everything in a warm, amber glow. We were still naked, tangled together under the sheets, my leg thrown over his and my cheek pressed to his chest.

His heart was steady beneath my ear, strong and annoyingly calming. Although something at the back of my mind was already telling me to move, I didn’t. For just a few minutes, I let myself stay right where I was, not thinking or analyzing. Just breathing him in, the scent of my soap, clean skin, and something that was distinctly him.

Right now, I could pretend this was simple. That we were just two people unwinding after a few long days spent apart, but my brain, traitor that it was, eventually kicked back on.

This can’t just be a fling.

The thought came fast. Before I could even think about stopping it, but that was probably because it had been lingering just beneath the surface all along.

I shifted slightly against him, my fingers tracing an idle line across his ribs. Immediately, his arm tightened around me. His hand slid up and down my back in slow, soothing strokes.

“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” he asked quietly.

“That I don’t want this to be a fling either,” I whispered, terrified, but not willing to lie to myself or to him any longer.

His fingers abruptly stopped stroking, but only for a beat before they started up again. “Okay?”

“What you said at the hotel about not wanting it to mean nothing? That’s true for me too.”

His thumb traced a lazy circle against my spine. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“I’m serious,” I said, lifting my head to look at him. “This does mean something, and that’s the problem.”

His gaze softened, that fight that was in him the other day when this came up not at all present now. “Because of work.”

“You’re my boss, Sullivan, and you’ve been a pretty darn harsh one. Hospital politics are already a minefield. Adding this?” I gestured vaguely between us. “That’d be like tossing a lit match into it.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m not pretending it’ll be simple, but if you feel the same way I do, there has to be a way to at least try. I’m not asking you to blow up your life, contrary to what you seemed to think the other day.”

I snorted softly. “How generous of you.”

“I mean it,” he said. “We can go slow, Bree. We’ll be careful, and if keeping it on the down-low is what you need, I can do that. I get that’s what it has to be. At least for now.”

I studied his face, looking for pressure or signs of his ego flaring up, but I didn’t see either. Instead, there was only stubborn sincerity. Somehow though, that was worse. Because it meant that he wanted this so much that he wouldn’t even let himself get in the way.

My heart rate sped up and my eyes slid shut as I thought back to that conversation I’d overheard today, the weight of how solidly screwed I would be if I agreed to this fully sinking in. At the same time though, being with him felt too good to ignore.