A Billionaire for Christmas

His fingers stroked down her side.

Usually, he possessed her, owning her body while he took her, penetrated her, and fucked her into submission and surrender.

This time, his hands soothed her, stroking her with a gentleness and kindness that he’d never shown before.

When he sank into her, moving inside her, Raji breathed with him as he studied her. His startling sea-green eyes softened, and he whispered her name.

It must just be the lack of a condom, she rationalized mistily. Guys didn’t get bareback sex very often. He must be surprised at how she felt.

Even as he moved inside her, he kissed her quietly, caressing her lips with his mouth. His body, golden skin and black scrolls of tattoos on his arms and chest, rose and fell above her. She pressed her hips up, answering him with her movement.

Peyton was bracing himself on his elbows around her head, first stroking her forehead with his thumbs, then tightening his fists around her hair on the bed.

His rhythm quickened, and Raji’s core tightened around him. She was panting, keening as she breathed, and he bowed his head near her shoulder and thrust into her.

Her whole body bowed under his strength, an instinctive response to seek friction on her clit and comfort in his arms. His breath heated her neck as he panted, grunts rough in his throat that sounded like her name.

She closed her eyes. The darkness squeezed her, her body straining, until a brightness burst and blew through her like a wave, tossing her away, and yet she was still safe in Peyton’s arms.

Raji caught her breath, gasping. It hadn’t been like usual, the submission of her personality to his and moments of bliss and relief from the crazy tension and stress that rolled through her life.

The softness in his teal eyes as he gazed at her was a shock, and the vulnerability in his deep voice when he had called her name had left her shaking.

His arms still twined around her, and his hard skin was slick and warm against hers.

Raji stroked his broad back.

Near her ear, Peyton whispered, “Will you marry me?”

Shock sparked through her.

“I can’t do this,” she gasped, her throat closing on the words so that they were choked and meaningless.

Peyton pushed himself up on his arms. “What did you say?”

“What did you say?” she countered. Surely, he wouldn’t repeat it. Surely it had just been a slip of the tongue during sex, pillow talk or dirty talk or something, and he wouldn’t say it again.

He looked back and forth between her eyes, searching. “It’s not because of the baby.”

“But what you said—”

“I asked you to marry me,” he said. “Let’s stay together instead of running away from each other after just a day or two. Let’s make it real.”

But Raji would finish her residency in another year, and then she would need to go to whatever hospital wanted to hire a cardiac surgeon, somewhere in the US or maybe even abroad.

She couldn’t have a kid and a husband in tow. Doing that would actively sabotage her career. She had gotten straight-A’s in high school to get into a good college and got straight-A’s there so she could get into medical school, where she ground down hard and got straight-A’s so she could get into a prestigious, integrated surgical and cardiothoracic residency (six years of post-medical school training instead of eight) rather than separate residencies. When her first residency hadn’t worked out after three years due to the New York hospital committing Medicare fraud, she leaped and had gotten into the California program and made sure that she received credit for all her years so she could finish on time.

Training to be a cardiothoracic surgeon was not a fucking whim.

Raji had hustled.

Raji was working her plan.

Only people who worked their plan survived in this field. Cardiothoracic surgeons were assholes and would shove her out of the way to get ahead if they sensed any weakness.

She had only survived by being a cold-blooded reptile and not deviating from the plan.

If she made it, people were going to live, thousands of them, because she was a damned talented surgeon who was working her ass off to give them another chance at life.

If she made it, she and her mother wouldn’t have to worry about goddamn pennies anymore.

One condom breaking and suddenly having a baby and a husband to accommodate were not parts of the plan.

The other residents and the faculty would murder her career.

She would not marry some guy who would just walk out on her one day, leaving her heartbroken, destitute, and helpless to care for her child. She would fucking not.

“I can’t!” Raji pushed at his shoulders, panicking. “Get off me, get off!”

Peyton rolled away from her, the weight and warmth of his muscle and skin suddenly gone.

Raji sprang away from him, leaping off the bed and stumbling for the wall. “I can’t do that. I can’t. I can’t. It’s just a lark to you, playing house. If it doesn’t work out, you can just walk away. If it doesn’t work for me, I’d have a baby or a small child and no one, no one will be there for me. I’m trying to build this career that I have sacrificed for, that I have gone half a million dollars in debt for, so I can save people’s lives. It’s not a game to me!”