Loan Shark Love

I want her so much it hurts, but I know what she needs right now is sleep.

“You might not feel tired anymore,” I tell her, cupping her warm cheek in my hand. “But you need to get some sleep. Your body needs time to recuperate.”

For a moment, she looks at me desperately.

“Grey, no,” Rose cries, wrapping her fingers around my arm. She pushes her body against mine. “I don’t want to sleep. Don’t make me go to sleep.”

I let out a gentle laugh. “I’m not going to make you do anything, Rosie.”

I pull her fingers gently off of my lower arm, and then I wrap my hand around hers, bringing it up to kiss the center of her palm.

She looks up at me, hazy-eyed.

“I feel like if I go to sleep, if I close my eyes, you might be gone when I wake up,” Rose admits, her bottom lip trembling.

I can understand that because I feel the same way about her. Rose feels like a dream to me, and I can’t imagine a life without her around me now.

“Hey,” I murmur, tipping her pretty face up with my other hand. I let my grip on her hand go and bury my fingers in the thick hair at the nape of her neck. “I’m not leaving you, Rosie. I’m not going anywhere, but I know that you need to get some sleep. You want to be wide awake with me, don’t you?”

I want her to be fully happy and wide awake when we come together because that’s what this is leading up to. That’s what Rose is saying. She wants to be entangled with me as much as I do with her.

She needs sleep, and she needs to feel safe.

“Don’t go anywhere, okay?” Rose begs, pressing herself against me.

“I’ll be right here waiting when you wake up,” I tell her, resting my chin on her head. “We can go right up to my room and sleep, warm in my bed together.”

I’m not thinking about sleep, but I push the thoughts from my head.

“I want you,” Rose whispers, and her breath rushes across the hollow of my throat.

I feel my throbbing length twitch in my pants, pushing against the seams. It takes all I have in me not to groan at her admission.

I have to be patient.

I have to wait.

“You have no idea how much I want you, Rosie,” I whisper, clenching my jaw against the need that surges like a hot fire within my body.

I have never felt for a woman the way I do for Rosie. It feels like she’s what I’ve been missing for the many lonely years of my life, this young beauty that needs me just as badly as I need her.

I crave her soft touch, and I know that when we meet, skin to skin, I won’t be able to get enough of her. Rose is a fire burning deep within me, yet she is also the only one who would be able to put it out.

Rose slides her hand down my abs and cups my length, squeezing gently as if she’s used to me now and this is normal for us.

I let out a quiet groan, squeezing my fingers at the nape of her neck.

“Showers usually fit two people,” Rose says as she walks away, looking over her shoulder at me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rose

Grey Kingston is like some sort of drug that I can’t ever get enough of.

He, only by existing, has taken me by the hand and carried me to a world where I’ve never been, told me the secrets that everyone else has made him bury, and made me believe that, in his eyes, I am everything to him, and the absolutely only one….

All before even lifting a single finger to touch me.

And when he finally did touch me, lit by candlelight and tucked into a leather booth, it was like electricity.

He lights me up from the inside out.

I now understand how some people in this world become addicted to something. I’m addicted to the smell of his cologne, or maybe it’s his aftershave? I don’t think I could live without that fragrance around more, mesmerizing me, making me want Grey even more than I already do. He’s so fatally close to my cheek, and my mouth has to be the height of ecstasy I’m sure I’ve never experienced before.

Is he real? Is this really me with a man like him?

I really can’t believe that Grey wants me like he seems to. Am I myself, or am I just who he sees me to be? Either way, I find myself craving him and needing him now like I never have anyone else.

I know it’s because he seems to think I’m some sort of salvation, and in his eyes, I’m what he needs. But I know myself to be just a woman, and Grey is just a man, and, oh, what a man he is…but he’s still a man nonetheless.