Free One Week (HaleStorm) by Elisabeth Staab Page B

isn’t about missing my father and all the futures I’m responsible for. You said we’re good with the schedule, and I would fucking kill for one night to pretend things between us are different. But if you ask me to, I’ll leave.” Even as he promised her he’d go, his fingers tightened in her damp hair. He leaned closer, catching the fresh smell of soap, and his lungs burned. He wanted to inhale every bit of her.
    She shook her head as the robe dropped to the floor. “I can’t ask you to leave.”
    Michael’s mouth went dry and he wished he had another drink to throw back. His lips came down on hers. With one hand, he hurried to unbutton his shirt. His belt hit the floor a few seconds later with a clunk and his shoes and pants quickly followed.
    Hands roamed. Michael’s fingers pressed against the side of Elise’s face. He couldn’t bring himself to let go. He drew her tongue into his mouth over and over again, walking them both toward the bedroom door. “You’re fucking delicious,” he murmured.
    “You’re....” Elise shook her head. Her inhalation rattled like breathing was a struggle. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
    He kissed her again, hoping to silence her doubts. Hoping to drown out his own as they moved together toward the bed. “I can’t believe we didn’t do it before.”
    Her lips parted in apparent confusion. “What?”
    “I should have looked for you.” He wrapped his arms around her and groaned aloud at the warmth and softness of her skin against his. The rough texture of her nipples against his chest, the dampness of her hair on his shoulder. “Just touching you makes me crazy. My God, Elise. I should have known. Fuck, I did know, and I ignored it. I’m so goddamned stupid.”
    “You’re not stupid.”
    “I am stupid.” Michael gripped her hips—fucking luscious, curvy hips—and ran his hands up that amazing hourglass arc in her waist and over her shoulders, reveling in the magic of Elise’s hands giving him the same treatment. “I’m stupid because I thought I could push you away all those years ago and I’d forget and find someone else who turned me on as much as your hand bumping my knee under a cubicle desk. Christ, I tried to tell myself it was all innocent, but I lived for every second.”
    “Oh my God.” Elise’s eyes flew wide, her cheeks flushed in the low light of her bedroom. “I had no idea.”
    “You must have, if you gathered up the nerve to kiss me.” He bent her back, one hand braced between her shoulders, the other gripping her ass, trailing kisses along her jaw. Their only-for-tonight agreement be damned, already he didn’t want to let her go.
    “I hoped.” She gripped his shoulders, smiling. “If I’m being honest, all that accidentally bumping your knee wasn’t so much an accident.”
    Michael stood them both up straight, grinding his pelvis against hers. “I wish I’d kept tabs. Made sure you were okay. Jesus, I want you so fucking much.”
    He growled and pulled her onto the bed, loving the softness of her body against his. The glide of her nipples against his palm, the slide of her belly... the brush of those soft hairs between her thighs. He slid his hand over her abdomen and between her legs with a groan.
    “Point of no return time,” she whispered. “Are we sure about this?”
    He bent down to capture one nipple in his mouth. She gasped as it hardened and peaked against his tongue. Meanwhile, Michael circled his finger against the approximate location he figured she’d probably had that piercing once upon a time.
    More gasping. Moaning. A definite series of shivers and wiggles and the incoherent demand for more. A breathy, open-mouth pant there in the dim light with her head thrown back as he slipped one and then two fingers inside of her. “I’m not sure about anything, Elise. I just know that everything around me is collapsing, and you feel right . You feel good.  I need to feel good for one night. ” He bent his