Page 64 of Nine Months to Bear

I’m still trembling, gasping as I come down, when Stefan lifts his head. He rises, gazes down at me, and says, “Now, we can start.”

“I’m not ready to start,” I protest. “I’m finished.”

Stefan laughs and tilts my chin up toward him. My legs wrap around his waist like it’s second nature. As if we’ve done this before, countless times. I loop my arms around his neck and fall against his mouth, kissing him with my eyes closed.

We’re up and moving, I think, though I’m sort of losing track of time and space. I just hear doors opening and closing, things shifting, and I’m vaguely aware of Stefan’s heat and solidity carrying me from one room to another.

It’s only when my back hits the mattress that I blink my eyes open. Stefan looms above me. He’s half-shaded, half-lit, fully beautiful.

“You’re unreal,” I breathe. Then I wish I hadn’t said that out loud, because it’s extremely embarrassing.

It’s not wrong, though. This entire night is unreal. How are we here? Why am I doing this? Who am I? Who is he?

Then Stefan leans back and pulls his sweater over his head in one fluid motion, andthat’swhy I’m doing this. His tanned skin is a canvas of ink and scars. Twisting, turning, faded, stark. I could spend days touching every inch of him.

He gives me a few seconds to trace the lines of a tattoo that curls around his collarbone and over his shoulder before he brushes my hand away and tugs at the belt of my robe.

“You have too many clothes on,” he scolds.

I lift an eyebrow. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“Pretty sure we passed that exit a few miles back.” His fingers brush along my neck as he teases the robe off of my shoulders. “Face it, Olivia: We’ve been heading here since day one.”

And he’s right. This has been inevitable since that first night at the gala. Maybe even before that—as if all the choices I’ve ever made were really just roads leading me here, to this man, to this bed.

To what’s about to happen.

His hands are everywhere. When he touches me—reallytouches me—I close my eyes and let the sensations swallow me whole. His lips trace paths of fire down my neck, across my breasts, over the sensitive skin of my stomach.

Every kiss is like I’m signing away my life all over again. Which contract is this one, hm?

He kisses between my breasts—that’s a deal for me to carry his child.

He sucks one nipple into his mouth while he toys with the other—that’s my promise that I’ll bear his baby and never tell anyone how this happened.

I start to feel that familiar nervous tingle, the voice in my head screaming at me,What are you doing, you lunatic? Don’t you know what this will cost you? Don’t you know he’ll throw you aside as soon as he’s done with you? Don’t you?—

“You’re thinking too much,” he murmurs against my hip bone.

I hate the way he can read my mind.

Or at least, Ididhate that.

Until he does exactly what I’m hoping he’ll do and kisses my pussy. A soft, bearded kiss that sends goosebumps surging up and down my body.

My fingers tighten in his hair as his teeth graze the soft flesh of my inner thigh. “Professional hazard.”

“Then let me help you focus, Dr. Aster,” he says, “in the most unprofessional way imaginable.”

He lowers himself down on top of me, sandwiching me against the mattress. His mouth falls over mine, soft and firm and dizzying. I’m so lost in the ease of tasting him, of exploring his tongue with mine, that I don’t feel his hands slip lower or his body settling between my thighs until he’s right there.

I don’t know where his pants went, but they’re gone now, and I couldn’t be more glad. Because it means his hardness is so fucking close to filling me, to giving me the thing I need more than anything else in this world.

He strokes himself over my center. I groan and whimper, but he doesn’t relent. Again and again, he teases me. The dragging of his tip against my clit.

I feel his smile as I whine against his lips, pleading. “Please, Stefan. Please, please, pl?—”

When he finally enters me, I almost scream.