The minute I fall backward into my apartment, I lose my hold on all reservations as well as my sanity. I’m doing this. I amsodoing this. Screw morals, screw what’s right. Go ahead and call me every name in the book for my deception, or bending of the truth, or whatever the hell you want to label it. Tonight, I’m going to be immoral as fuck. I’ll worry about the repercussions tomorrow.
Holding up a finger against his lips, I shake my head and take a deep breath. “One second.”
“What the hell for?”
My anxiety heightens as out of the corner of my eye, I see Shelby’s bedroom door standing wide open. Anatomy diagram posters and framed certificates and awards hang on the walls like a shining beacon to my lies. My gait falters as more lies tumble from my mouth.
“Didn’t clean. Shit everywhere. Be right back.” Running to Shelby’s door, I lock it from the inside, slam it closed, and give it a quick tug to ensure no one can get inside. I know for a fact that Shelby has a shift at the hospital until six a.m., so there’s no chance of her showing up and shitting all over my parade.
I barely turn around when Niall fists my hair and gives it a tug backward. His lips are on me before I can react and my mind blanks. It’s frantic. It’s hot. It’s about to happen right here against Shelby’s door if we don’t move.
“Bedroom,” I manage to mumble against his lips.
As soon as we stumble through the door into my room, Niall kicks it closed and our hands and mouths are everywhere. One minute I’m facing the door, and half a heartbeat later, he’s spinning me around and slamming me so hard against it, all the air rushes out of my lungs. Entwining our fingers, he lifts my arms over my head and pins them against the wood. He’s holding me immobile, and I pause, expecting my usual fight or flight instinct to rear its ugly head, causing widespread panic. Instead, all it does is amp up my already explosive desire and I press myself harder against his rigid body.
“Christ, Laken,” he mumbles against my lips. “I’m tasting every inch of you tonight.” Reaching behind him with one hand, he pulls his t-shirt over his head and tosses it aside.
I swallow hard as I roam my eyes down his body. His chest is hard. It’s defined. Hell, it’s beautiful, and I want it pressed against me in the worst way. Not waiting for a response, he dives his tongue deep between my lips again, tangling mercilessly with mine as we both fight for air.
I have no idea what I’m doing.
Okay, that’s a lie, I know exactly what I’m doing and I have no intention of stopping. What I don’t know is why that little voice inside me that normally stops me from being impulsive and irrational isn’t screaming at me in her usual shrill voice to start thinking with my head instead of my hormones.
I’m not used to casual sex. Hell, I’m not used to sex period. If I got laid on a regular basis, maybe I wouldn’t be pushed up against my bedroom door like a starving dog in heat and could think clearly.
Niall wraps his hands around my face and stares at me. My stomach flips and I feel a level of exposure that I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with, so I lower my gaze to the floor. He stops me as his grip on my cheeks tightens and he lifts my chin.
“What’s holding you back, Laken?”
“I don’t know. Before, it was…it was all pretend. Here, with you and me like this? This is real. You’re real. What we’re doing is real. We can’t uncross this line once it’s crossed, Niall.”
And there it is. What’s been bothering me since we left the bar. Once we have sex with this lie between us on the table, the game changes. It will no longer be as simple as handing the ring back to him and walking away at the end of the night.
What happens when the clock strikes twelve? Does Cinderella turn back into a pumpkin, left with only memories of one really amazing night? Or does she get the prince, the mice, the job, and the corner office?
Spreading his thumbs across my cheekbones, he runs his nose from my ear down the slope of my neck, his hot breath igniting an inferno that has been building all night. Placing a light kiss at the base of my throat, he brings my face against his until our noses are touching. “I want to cross every line with you, Laken. It’s time to drop all the bullshite. Just you and me and a question.”
“I’ve already said I’d fake marry you, what other question could you have?”
Niall lowers his hold and stares at me, his jaw twitching and heat glinting in his amber eyes. “Well, if we’re going to have a fake engagement, then I figure we should be able to bypass the fake marriage and get to the fake honeymoon.”
“I still don’t hear a question in there.”
“Oh, my mistake. Let’s make this official.” Tugging my hips hard against him, he grinds his thick erection into me as he whispers against my lips. “Do you, Laken Cavanaugh, want me to fuck you right here, to drive my cock so deep into you that you feel me for days afterward? To have and to fuck right here against this door so hard you won’t ever be able to walk through one again without screaming my name?”
Oh, hell yes, please. All that and more.
I whimper as he shoves a knee between my legs and pins me harder against the door. “I’m sorry, Miss Cavanaugh. Could you speak up? You seem to have lost that smart arse mouth of yours.”
“Yeah. I mean, I do. I will. Mmmhmm.”
And that is the exact opposite of hownotto talk dirty to your man. I promise you, in my head, all sorts of naughty phrases like, “give it to me,” or “my pussy aches for you,” roll through my mind. But me being me—what comes out instead? “Yeah” and “Mmmhmm.”
“Well,” he says, grabbing the back of my thigh and hitching my leg around his waist. “By the power vested in me by the fact that I’m two seconds away from ripping that tiny scrap of lace you call panties off, I now pronounce us about to fuck like wild animals. You may now kiss the man who’s about to make you come harder than you’ve ever come in your life.”
“I, uh—” I swallow the rest as Niall crushes his lips to mine.
Men, if you want to shut a woman up, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. Telling her to shut up? Wrong way. Absolute wrong way, and nine times out of ten, you should probably sleep with your hand over your dick. Quieting her with a passionate kiss that curls her toes and makes her forget her own name? That’s going to end with a happy ending for both of you. Trust me on this.
