Before I can speak, his mouth crashes on mine and his hands are at my waist, gripping like he needs to feel that I’m real. He lifts me with one swift motion and sets me down on the extra wide bench behind me. My thighs part to steady myself, and he steps between.
“Lord, your body, Roxanne,” he murmurs, his words vibrating through the air as his hand cups my breast, sending shivers across my skin. His lips trail fiery, electric kisses down my neck. I feel the powerful flex of his back muscles under my fingers.
His mouth trails lower, tasting the curve of my shoulder before following the line of my collarbone. Each breath he takes skims my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. His tongue teases my nipple, a tantalizing torment, and when he finally takes me fully into his mouth, a desperate whimper escapes meas an intense wave of pleasure pools deep and hot within my core.
My hands tangle in his hair, but he suddenly glances up and pulls away. “We have a problem.”
“The only problem here is that you’re stopping,” I say.
“We don’t happen to keep condoms in the sauna.”
“I’m on birth control and I’ve been tested.” I grab his face with both of my hands and kiss him.
He stops again. “I have too, but what about keeping things professional?”
“I will, I can,” I say in between kisses. “I need this,weneed this. We can’t go on with all this pent-up tension between us.”
I suck on his bottom lip before he gently pushes me back again, his eyes rolling back for a second. “Roxanne, I’m not exactlya use ’em and lose ’emkind of person.”
I barely hear what he’s saying. I feel drunk, high off all the pheromones coming off his body, which is shiny and hot. I know what he’s trying to do, but I’m done talking, done overthinking. Right now, I want him, need him to ruin me. “Are you going to kiss me or do you want to try a few more excuses?”
His wet lips curve into a smile. “I guess I’m fresh out.”
That’s when the barrier between us crumbles. What’s happening is not gentle. It’s not sweet. It’s frenzied and rough and that’s exactly the way I want it. The sauna’s not even on, but the room is already flush with steam and everything boiling over in us.
My hands concentrate on removing every piece of fabric from his body. I fling his shirt over his head and frantically work on his gym shorts, which he pushes down in one swift motion.
He’s so beautiful.
Not in that clean, magazine-cover way. He’s raw and carved. All power and muscle that look earned, not sculpted. His shoulders are built to carry things no one else would. His stomach tightens when he exhales, every ridge of him pulled taut underdamp skin. He moves over me like a man who knows what he wants and knows how to get it. There’s no more hesitation, just him on top of me, kissing and licking every inch of skin I have.
“I’ve been trying,” he rasps against my mouth. “Trying to stay away from you. Trying to do the right thing and give you space.”
“Maybe thisisthe right thing,” I pant.
“Then, you need to tell me, Roxanne,” he says, his fingers skimming the inside of my thigh. “I’m not going to move another inch until I hear it from you.”
I’m already gasping, dizzy with the steam and the way his hands are everywhere, firm and trembling at the same time.
“I …”
Every brush of his fingers winds me tighter, like I’m made of silk stretched across fire, and the closer I get, the more unbearable it is to be almost there, held, wanted, but not yettaken. He kisses me again and I moan, arching into him.
He hovers over me, one hand braced beside my head, the other still tormenting me with slow, deliberate pressure. “I need to know this isn’t just lust and pent-up frustration. I need to know this is you wanting me, wanting this.”
I reach up, thread my fingers into the damp hair at the nape of his neck, and pull him just close enough that our foreheads brush. “This is me, with you. I want this … I want you.”
I kiss him again and his groan vibrates everything in me.
“Then say it. Say you want me inside you.”
I pause, not because I’m unsure, but because I’ve never been this sure.
“I want you inside me, Duke. Right now.”
“I’m going to have a little fun first.”
He hooks a finger in my bikini bottoms, tugging just enough to make my breath catch before easing them down my legs. They hit the cedar floor with a soft plop, the steam curls around us likefog.
