Page 105 of On One Condition

I just don’t fucking know.

Is it enough to forgive him? No. But maybe it’s enough for me to try and put it in the past and not let it eat a hole in my gut every time Asher smiles at me.

And then there’s the woman lying against me. The one I brought with me tonight.

How her face lit up when she realized we were in Manhattan.

How I breathed easier knowing she still loves the city.

Because it will make it easier when . . . when I what? When I ask her to move there with me?

Is that what this was tonight?

A test? A trial run?

For her or for me?

I look over to find her inches from my face. Those dark eyelashes against her pale skin. Those lips that all but break me when they turn up in a smile.

I lean down to kiss her. She responds. Even in her sleep, she responds to me. But I know the minute awareness hits her. Where we are. That my hand is running up her thigh. That I’m kissing her.

It’s in her sigh.

In the way her hand reaches out and runs down my cheek.

In the soft utterance of my name.

“I need you, Asher. God, I need you.”

And without another word, and with our lips still teasing one another’s, Asher shifts, pulling her dress up over her hips so that she’s straddling me. Her body fitting on top of mine, my cock pushing into her, as if we were meant to be.

We kiss like that’s all there is left in the world. Her taste the only one I’ve ever craved. Her lips the only ones I want to feel.

We make love in gentle movements charged with emotion as she grinds her hips over mine in the engine-hummed cabin of the airplane.

We become one without words. Whatever needs to be said is done through soft sighs and measured actions.

A kiss to her collarbone. A shudder of pleasure. A grind of my hips. Her forehead against mine as she bites back her moan.

In the sky, on this plane, time doesn’t matter. It’s just her. It’s just me. It’s just us.

It’s when we land that the clock will start ticking again. It’s when we hit the runway that this dream will begin to dissipate.

I know this.

I despise this.

So I focus on her and fall under her spell. The scent of her skin. The demand in her touch. How her breath catches every time I bottom out inside of her. The way she grips her muscles around me as if she never wants us to be apart.

A sentiment—a desperation—I feel too. One that also scares the shit out of me.

And when she starts to climax, I thread my fingers through her hair so she’s forced to lean back and look at me as she does.

So I can watch what I do to her. So I can see the emotion in the depths of her eyes I think we both feel but haven’t spoken. So I can remember her forever, just like this.

As mine.

There is no greater pleasure for me than her.