More Than Crave You Read online

  But I can’t stop myself, not when Nia’s every move seemingly goads me toward her.

  As the music comes to a bumping, grinding halt, she turns one last time, hips rolling as she spins slowly, treating me to a final glimpse of her world-class ass before she strikes a pose. The music stops. The theater falls dark.

  The entire place erupts in applause.

  That’s my cue. I stand.

  “You going to find her?” I hear Bas over the thunder of her ovation.

  “You’re fucking right I am.”

  As the house lights come up, he slides his keys across the table with a smile. “Take these. I’ll catch an Uber home.”

  I scoop them up, then hesitate. “Am I making a mistake?”

  “How can you be? Whatever happens next is far better than you sitting at home, drowning in guilt over a woman who’s long gone. And I’ve never seen you want something as much as you seem to crave Nia right now.”

  It’s ugly, but he’s right.

  Fuck it. I’m about to make emotional decision number six. And I don’t care.

  Jaw clenched, I slip through a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY and hang in the shadows, acting as if I belong. No one calls me out or questions why I’m here. The scene is crowded and chaotic. Dancers surround me, half-dressed in their costumes or emerging from little rooms on either side of the narrow hall in street clothes.

  Beside me, the German barmaid looks surprisingly girl-next-door now that she’s in a pair of jeans and a pink T-shirt with a kitten ironed on the front.

  I turn to her. “Where’s Nia?”

  The blonde looks surprised that I know Precious Noire’s real name. And she probably she sees my agitation. “Last door on the right.”

  I don’t have the composure to speak words of thanks. Instead, I nod and charge down the hall toward what might be the stupidest mistake of my life.

  I move through the sea of bodies, shrugging past the Latina dancer, a few of the French maids, then bump into my assistant’s handsy dance partner. I stare him down. He looks at me blankly. One thing I realize instantly? My gaydar is absolutely silent. He’s every bit as straight as I am.

  As he hovers protectively around Nia’s dressing room, I snarl and shoulder my way past him.

  He grabs my arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To see Nia. Let go.”

  His eyes narrow. “Is she expecting you?”

  No. In fact, I’m about to shock the hell out of her. I don’t know if I’ll be unwelcome, but I’m going to test Bas’s theory that she wants me. If he’s right…this could get messy really fast.

  I shake him off, barrel inside the room, and shut the door. Behind me, I immediately hear the asshole jimmying the knob. I throw my weight against the portal to keep him out and lock it behind me.

  Nia whirls to the sound of my intrusion, dressed in an inch of stage makeup, a silky white robe—and nothing else.

  The moment she recognizes me, her mouth drops open. Shock spreads across her face. “E-Evan?”

  “Nia.” I can’t find more words. I can’t do anything except stare and put one foot in front of the other. I certainly can’t defuse the anger and possessiveness I know I have no right to feel.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “That’s my question for you,” I growl. “Why the fuck are you taking your clothes off for strangers?”

  She rears back and blinks at me. I don’t think she’s ever heard me curse. I keep the office professional, totally aboveboard. But I can’t manage decorum now when she’s breathing hard and her nipples are poking her thin robe.

  She raises her chin and glares at me. Everything about her demeanor is like waving a red cape in front of a bull.

  “It’s burlesque, not stripping,” she snaps. “I don’t do this for money. I do it because I enjoy dancing.”

  “Yeah? You enjoy that asshole’s hands all over you, too?” Even though the logical side of my brain tells me I’m way out of line, I point at the door behind me and stalk closer to her. “You enjoy sex standing up with him?”

  Her nostrils flare. Her mouth presses into a firm line. “Last time I checked, boss, I don’t have to justify my personal life to you.”

  The fact she’s right only pisses me off more. “You do when your behavior reflects badly on Stratus Solutions.”

  She shoots me a quelling glare. “You’ll have to do better than that. No one in the audience knows who I am. I never take off my mask and I never use my real name. Nothing I do on stage can taint your reputation.” Arms crossed over her chest, she saunters closer. “Why don’t you be honest and tell me what’s really bothering you? I know you’re not this mad simply because I was dressed a little risqué and gyrated on stage with Kyle?”

  I debate the wisdom of blurting the truth. The rational part of my brain tells me to shut up, leave, and act on Monday like nothing happened tonight. Every other part of me knows that ship has sailed. My cock is especially eager to lay my cards on the table, grab Nia in my arms…and not worry about what happens next.

  “You’re right. I’m mad because I think you’ve fucked him.”

  She jerks as if I’ve slapped her. “Not that it’s any of your business, but we haven’t been together in almost two years. Thanks for letting me know you think I’m a whore.”

  Hearing I was right royally pisses me off. Having her put words in my mouth kills what’s left of my patience, stripping away anything resembling professional civility.

  I try not to squeeze her arms as I drag her close. “I never said that. Or thought it. I’m telling you that I can’t stand knowing he’s touched you. I don’t like the fact you still have anything to do with him. I don’t even understand why I’m here yelling and angry. I’m just…”

  How the hell do I put the storm raging inside me into words? No clue, but I need to get it all out somehow or I’m going to explode.

  “Jealous?” Soft surprise crosses her face.

  Something about her confusion rips the confession from me. “Yes.”

  “Because you…want me?”

  I grit my teeth and try again to think through the wisdom of spilling all this to her. But I can’t keep it in. The softness of warm silk and hot woman under my palms almost undoes me. “Yes. I know I shouldn’t. I’ve spent forty-eight hours telling myself what I’m feeling is ridiculous and I can’t allow this—whatever it is—into our perfectly comfortable, efficient working relationship. But I can’t turn it off. I can’t fight it. I can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.”

  “Is that what you’d rather do? Bury your head in the sand and not feel it?” She looks hurt.

  Her expression makes me feel like an asshole. Nia always asks insightful questions. Why should now be different?

  I shake my head. “For the first time in months—maybe years—I feel alive.”

  Nia stares at me in silence, her gaze fused to mine. I swear I see a hundred thoughts whip through her head. For once, I can’t read a single one.

  “Say something.” If she doesn’t soon, I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t even know if I can be responsible for what happens next.

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “Not enough to drown out how much I want you.”

  “In spite of your opinion about my sexual past? And what about our working relationship?”

  She’s not wrong, but they’re barbed questions. I have to maneuver around them carefully. “Nothing matters to me except touching you right now.”

  Before Nia can chew on my answer and remember all the reasons she should say no, I pull her against me. She gasps. The instant her soft body makes contact with my hard, aching cock, I groan and hold her tighter, cupping her face and lowering my mouth to her parted lips.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Beneath my hands, Nia freezes.

  I stop, realizing I didn’t ask the most important question of all. “Do you want me, too?”

  My ragged breaths punctuate the air as she scans my face, seemi
ngly searching for something. I don’t know what.

  Suddenly, she lunges for me, tosses her arms around me, then plants her mouth across mine.

  The moment our lips meet is a shock of unbridled thrill. Desire floods my system, saturating my senses and shutting down my brain. I groan as I push my way past her soft lips and thrust my tongue against hers. Her moan of acceptance and her fingers clutching at my shirt are all the confirmation I need.

  Without hesitation, I wrap my arms around her and fill my palms with her succulent ass, then lift her against me. I spare a brief moment of thanks for my logic that a daily gym habit makes for a healthier human. Holding her against my throbbing shaft so I can grind her against me is easy. And so sweet it sends a shudder of arousal through my entire body.

  Nia opens wider to me with a throaty groan and rolls her hips in sync with mine. The friction staggers me. My knees nearly buckle. The heat between us…it’s going to consume me. But if I don’t get inside her in the next thirty seconds, I’ll spontaneously combust.

  I tear my mouth from Nia’s. We breathe hard together as I scan the room. “Bed?”

  “Futon.” She points to an area behind a dressing screen at the back.

  I nod and take her mouth again, along with five ground-eating steps to the comfortably rumpled gray surface.

  As I lay her down, I grab the sash securing her robe in my fist. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me inside you?”

  She gives me a jerky nod. “Now.”

  God, is this actually happening? Three days ago, Nia was the ideal assistant. Right now, she’s my ultimate fantasy.

  Breath sawing, I rip her robe open. She’s completely bare. I appreciate the generous curves and shadowed valleys of her body while I tackle my zipper. The instant my cock springs free, I take myself in hand and align my aching crest against her silky, slick opening. “Last chance. Or I’m going to fuck you.”

  Nia wraps her thighs around me and presses kisses up my neck. “Hurry.”

  Normally, I’d debate the wisdom of this decision long and hard. I’d make a pro-and-con list, study my options from every angle, then choose the most logical conclusion for the desired outcome. Tonight, the primal part of me has stripped my brain down to its base functions. I don’t care anymore if this isn’t smart, if I’m being irrational, or if I’ll regret the hell out of this.

  I need Nia Wright now.

  I grip her hips in my fevered hands, seize her lips, then thrust into her like I’ll die if I don’t feel her around me. Because I will.

  And as I submerge myself inside her, Nia takes every inch. I let out a long, tortured groan, straining to surge as deep as I can. My eyes nearly roll back in my head as pleasure bombards me. How the fuck did I not realize until this moment how perfect she would feel, all soft and welcoming around me?

  Then I’m not thinking anything because Nia arches and cries out, breaking our kiss to gasp and toss her head back. Her nails dig into my shoulders as her pussy clamps down.

  “You’re tight,” I growl.

  “You’re filling and stretching me. It burns. Oh, damn. Yes…”

  Under me, she gyrates and sways, her hips rocking back, sliding the tight paradise of her pussy up my sizzling length until only the head of my cock is bathed in her heat.

  I clench my jaw, bare my teeth. Anything less than buried balls deep is unacceptable.

  “Don’t,” I warn, shoving my hands under her, digging my fingers in her ass, and spreading her wider for me.

  “What?” The way she pants the word screws with my brain and plays tricks on my overloaded libido.

  “Don’t try to get away from me. It’s too late for that.”

  Then I pull her closer with all my strength and I drive inside her, thrusting deeper than before. I barge into a spot far inside her depths, and she keens again. Her nails dig harder.

  “That’s so good,” she pants in my ear. “Hell, yes.”

  Her words encourage me, but her body shifts away from me once more, until she’s almost dislodged me from her tight clasp. In some corner of my brain, I realize she’s prodding me to move with her, to thrust in and out and generate friction between us until we reach a cataclysmic end. But the primal urges of my body are telling me to plunge as deep as possible, hold tight, and stay there until the end of time.

  I take her mouth again, biting her bottom lip as I squeeze her derrière and push my way back inside her. The nip leads to a press of lips. Her taste lures me deeper, so I force my way into her mouth. Not that she fights me. No, she welcomes me with more animal sounds and a seductive swirl of her tongue.

  I think we’ve come to a mutually satisfying position when she starts wriggling in my grasp again, trying to put distance between us.

  “Goddamn it,” I hiss.

  “Move with me, Evan. Slide in and out. I want to feel every amazing inch of you against me.”

  When she puts it like that, I want that. I want it right now. And don’t I want to see her come? Yes. I have to see her face, feel her grip, hear her cries—and know I made her unravel for me.

  At the thought, something savage inside me comes off its chain. My heart lurches into high gear. My body revs, every muscle tense. My stare penetrates her unblinking gaze, just as my cock does to her sex. She looks breathless, full of anticipation, and so damn aroused it’s making me dizzy and crazy and unhinged.

  “Fuck, yes.”

  I barely see delight fill her face before I rear back and begin to pound into her. Deep, long, rapid-fire strokes that are an all-out assault on whatever barriers she has between the sensations we’re sharing and the orgasm I intend to wring from her body.

  As I plow into her over and over, sweat beads my brow. My fingers go numb. My head is completely silent except for the roaring heartbeat thrashing between my ears. Pleasure deluges me.

  Nia begins to tense. Her encouraging moans pick up speed and octave until she’s delivering them against my skin as she’s sucking at my neck and crossing her ankles behind me as if she never intends to let go.

  My lungs work like a bellows as I inhale ragged breaths and exhale with rough grunts. Pressure builds. My senses expand until all I can comprehend is Nia. Her skin is like velvet under my fingertips. Her lips against mine are unexpectedly sweet. Her scent around me is intoxicating as hell.

  She’s everything I’ve been seeking for longer than I care to admit.

  Under me, she scratches and strains, crying out and writhing. I’m seconds from bursting in a devastating explosion of ecstasy beyond anything I’ve ever felt. I want it. I need it. I crave it—and her—so badly I don’t think I can take another breath without giving into the towering pleasure about to crumble me under it.

  But the way Nia is moving, desperate and wailing, she’s climbing…but not yet on the edge.

  There’s no fucking way I’m going over without her.

  I don’t even know who I am or where this insistence is coming from. I feel compelled to thrust my hand in her hair and tug until our eyes meet as I rise upright and change the angle of my thrust. Then I set my hand on her hip—and my thumb over her clit.

  I rub the sensitive nub. “You’re going to come for me, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes half close with a sob of yearning and a bending of her spine. “Yes.”

  “What? Say it louder,” I demand so I can hear her moan for me again.

  “Yes!”

  Her pleading arouses me like nothing else. I have to have more of it. I’m greedy for more of her passion, her supplication.

  “Tell me again. Say it now.”

  “I’m going to come for you…”

  And she is. Her bud swells and hardens under my thumb. In this position, I see the rush of blood making the undertone of her rich, umber skin even darker. Her throat works. Her lips part. Her nipples bead to perfect points as her chest rises and falls. A glance down the long line of her torso keys me up more, especially when my stare settles on h
er swollen pussy, so pretty and plump and perfectly bare.

  “Do it,” I bark in desperation. “Fucking now!”

  She reaches out futilely to grab the futon and arches, her spine twisting. I shove in again, feel her squeeze me so tight it’s hard to push deeper. But I grit my teeth and persevere. I’m going to watch her come apart for me, then I’m going to follow her into the abyss of pleasure and climax like I never have. I already know it, feel it.

  “Yes.” She nods frantically as she grabs on to my arms and grips hard. “Yes! That’s it. It’s so good… I’m there. Evan!”

  She screams. Under my touch, her clit turns to stone. Her body bucks as her pussy rhythmically clamps and squeezes me. Ecstasy sharpens her face, and I already know I’ll never forget the way it transforms her mouth to an O and her body to soft putty in my hands.

  My stare is still fused to her, watching the most beautifully mind-blowing sight I’ve ever seen when rapture overtakes me. I want to watch her through every moment of her peak, but my own crushes me. I’m forced to close my eyes as I erupt and ride the relentless, stunning agony ripping away my breath and ruining my sanity.

  This night and this moment—hell, this woman—have destroyed me.

  As I struggle to catch my breath, she huffs and gasps. I open my eyes and find her staring. The jolt of our connection whacks me. Then a thousand thoughts hit me at once. Not only did I have sex with my secretary, but for the first time ever, I had intercourse with someone other than my wife.

  “Oh, god,” I spit out, my face tightening. “What just happened?”

  She cups my cheek in her soft palm. “Don’t do this, Evan. Don’t ruin the moment.”

  It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. My logical brain knows that. Guilt screams at me. Becca never liked Nia; she would have disapproved. Plus, we work together. What happened tonight will make everything damn awkward from now on.

  Despite all that, I can’t bring myself to wish it hadn’t happened.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  Nia frowns. “Do you think I’m made of glass? Would I have been screaming for more if you had?” She caresses her way up my arms and wraps hers around my neck, bringing me closer. “It was amazing.”