Page 38 of Babies for the Big Shot

Sara: Come over.

He shows up at my apartment fifteen minutes later.

I barely have time to throw on a clean shirt and light a candle before there’s a knock at the door.

I open it, and there he is.

Nick Ashford stands in a dark coat, hair tousled by the wind, eyes fixed on me with a knowing intensity. His jaw tightens, fists clenched at his sides, and he looks…

Wrecked. Ravaged. Controlled only by the thinnest thread.

“Hi,” I breathe.

He doesn’t answer.

He steps inside, shuts the door with a solid thud, and pulls me into him with desperate hunger.

We barely make it past the entryway.

Clothes scatter. My shirt hits a lamp. His coat ends up God knows where. I think one of my shoes ends up in the kitchen sink, but I don’t care, I can’t care, because his mouth is on mine and nothing else exists.

It’s not soft. It’s not careful.

It’s need.

Hands clutching fabric. Teeth grinding. I’m slammed against the wall before I register it, legs curling around his waist, my body moving before my mind can catch up. He groans into my neck, raw and urgent, as if this restrained fire finally erupted.

“You don’t know,” he growls into my skin, lifting me effortlessly and carrying me toward the bedroom, “what you do to me.”

“Show me,” I gasp, fingers tugging at the hem of his shirt, nails dragging across his stomach.

He does.

Nick sets me down in the middle of my bed, his possession. His eyes roam over me slowly, not just looking but claiming. Hunger burns in them, tempered by restraint. He savors the anticipation, stretching the moment before unleashing everything we’ve been holding back.

His voice is dangerously low.

“Strip for me.”

The command punches the air out of my lungs. I blink up at him, throat dry, pulse thudding in places I didn’t know could throb. He doesn’t move. Just stands there, arms crossed, eyes dark and hooded, watching.

I should be nervous.

But I’m not.

I’mon fire.

I rise slowly to my knees on the bed and pull my T-shirt over my head. His expression tightens when he sees me bare beneath it. I roll my shorts and panties down in one smooth motion, sliding them past my hips and tossing them aside. Heat blooms in my chest as his eyes devour every inch, hungry enough to consume me whole.

“Lie back,” he says. “Arms above your head.”

My breath catches. But I do it.

Something about his voice, rough and low and wrapped in velvet sin, melts every coherent thought. I stretch back across the pillows, arms overhead, heart pounding so hard it rattles the bed.

His eyes trace every curve of my body, searching for the answer to a question he’s been silently asking for months.

Then he moves.