Cross My Heart (A Contemporary Romance Novel)

me,” he said again, his thumb settling over her throbbing center as he slid two fingers inside her.
    She cried out, the sound muffled against his shoulder. His thumb was moving now in quick tight circles and the rising torrent seemed to lift her off her feet. She locked her arms around his neck as she raised her head, her body arching and twisting against his hand, and when she cried out again the sound was swallowed up as he kissed her, hard and fierce and sure, as her body spiraled tighter and tighter and higher and higher.
    He tore his mouth from hers. “You’re mine tonight. Say it.”
    “Yes,” she gasped, and then her head fell forward as her climax hit her, and she bit down on Michael’s shoulder to keep from screaming as the explosion shattered her into a thousand pieces.
    From far, far away she heard Michael murmuring her name. His lips were in her hair and his arms were tight around her as she came slowly back to earth.
    He was breathing hard, like he’d been running. “Inside,” he said, bending down to grab the key she’d dropped.
    He fitted it into the lock and pushed open the door, pulling her with him over the threshold. He was shaking, and something about that undid her. She tugged at him and he turned to her, and she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him. He groaned against her mouth as he pulled her close.
    “Upstairs,” he said, breaking the kiss. “Upstairs now, or I take you on the floor.”
    She kept her eyes on his as she stepped back, wriggling out of her jeans, kicking them away along with her shoes.
    His eyes darkened as he reached for her. “The floor it is,” he said, but she laughed and ran for the stairway.
    They made it somehow, stumbling up the stairs and down the hall into her bedroom, falling onto her unmade bed and into a kiss that made her dizzy. She fumbled with Michael’s clothes as he fumbled with hers, getting his jeans and boxers off while he slid her panties down her legs. Their tee shirts came off, and her bra, and suddenly the fumbling stopped as Michael rolled her onto her back and then rose up on his knees, looking down at her.
    For a second they were both still.
    His brown eyes were so serious. Something in his expression sent a wave of fear through her, because she was afraid the same thing was in her eyes.
    His face was becoming dear to her.
    He was becoming dear to her.
    She shook her head sharply. She couldn’t feel those things—she wouldn’t. She reached for him, impatient to drown out liking with lust, but he stopped her.
    “No,” he said, pinning her wrists above her head, on the pillow. “I’ve fantasized about you since the day I first saw you. If we go too fast I won’t believe it’s real.”
    Panic rose in her throat. “But it’s not real,” she said, struggling against his grip. “We’re not—this isn’t—”
    “I know,” he said, his voice suddenly harsh. “I get it. But for this one night, Jenna, you’re mine.”
    Her body arched towards him, suddenly and instinctively. Something inside her, something utterly primal, responded to his words and the look on his face as if she’d been waiting for this her entire life.
    The feeling should have terrified her. It went against everything she thought she knew about herself.
    But it was just one night. One night of fantasy, of make believe.
    One night to belong to him.
    She met his eyes in the moonlight that streamed through the windows, and she knew he could feel the change in her, the pliancy that made her whole body yearn towards him. “What do you want me to do?” she whispered.
    He smiled. Then he leaned in and kissed her, slowly and thoroughly.
    “Arch your head back,” he whispered when he finally pulled away.
    She’d never felt so safe and so vulnerable at the same time. The helplessness of having her hands pinned down, of exposing her throat...Michael caressed her neck with his lips, and then his teeth, and then his tongue, and the sensations made her shudder and writhe against him.
    Michael knew he’d never recover from this. Every second he was with Jenna, he could feel the marks she was leaving on him.
    “Leave your hands where they are,” he said, letting her wrists go and moving down her body to her breasts, stroking with his tongue, nipping with his teeth, teasing with his fingers.
    He’d never felt this way before. With Jenna, the most primitive part of him surged to the surface. Nothing was more important than the need to claim her, to make her