Pregnant By The Maverick Millionaire. Joss Wood

so much easier to slide on the surface of life. She didn’t like feeling this way. It felt too much like she was...

      Well, living. Living meant anticipation, excitement, lust, passion. She wasn’t good at any of it anymore and she didn’t deserve to feel all that, not when her entire family, practically everyone she had ever loved, was no longer around to do the same.

      Why didn’t I get hurt?

      Why did I live when other people died?

      Survivor’s guilt. She was the poster child for the condition. Brodie walked across her living room, hands on her hips, her brow furrowed. She’d seen the psychologists, read the literature. She knew guilt was common and part of the healing process. Her healing process was taking a damn long time. She knew she isolated herself. Living a half life wasn’t healthy—it certainly couldn’t bring her loved ones back. But she couldn’t stop thinking she didn’t deserve to be happy.

      Love was impossible.

      The sound of her intercom buzzing broke into her thoughts. Brodie pushed back her hair, frowning. She wasn’t expecting anybody—her great-aunt Poppy, who lived on the floor below, was out of town—so she couldn’t imagine who could be leaning on her doorbell.

      Brodie walked to her front door and pressed the switch. “Can I help you?”

      “I have ninety minutes, can I come up?”

      Kade. Holy freakin’... Because her mouth was instantly bone-dry, she found it difficult to form words.

      “C’mon, babe, don’t make me beg,” Kade cajoled.

      This was madness. This was crazy. She should tell him to leave, tell him that she didn’t want him to come up. But that would be a big, fat lie... She did want to see him, preferably naked.

      So Brodie pressed the button to open the door downstairs and wrenched open her apartment door to watch him run up. He was still dressed in his suit from earlier. His tie was pulled down and he carried a small gym bag and a tuxedo covered in plastic over his shoulder.

      Hunky, sexy, determined man, Brodie thought, leaning against the door frame. Kade reached her and flashed a quick smile but didn’t say a word. He just grabbed her hand, yanked her inside, kicked her door closed and threw his stuff on the nearest chair. Then two strong hands gripped her hips and swept her up and into him, her feet leaving the floor. Then his mouth was on hers, warm and demanding, and his tongue swept inside, allowing her to taste his frustration-coated passion.

      Whoo-boy!

      After a minute had passed—or a millennium, who could tell?—Kade gently lowered Brodie to her feet, but he kept his lips on hers, his tongue delving and dancing. She responded, awed by the pent-up longing she felt in the intensity of his kiss. Her response must have seemed just as demanding, as urgent. Brodie moved her hands to his shirt, tugging it out of his pants. Desperate to feel his skin on hers, she moaned her frustration and then resented the brief separation from Kade’s body as he stepped away to unbutton and remove his shirt.

      Brodie moved forward and ran her lips across his bare chest, stopping to flicker her tongue over his nipple, to rub her cheek on his chest hair. He was such a man. From the hardness of his muscles to the slightly rough texture of his skin and the smell that called to her senses, he awakened every cell in her body. She could no more stop this than she could stop a freight train. Neither did she want to, she realized.

      She needed him, right now. She had to have him—in her, around her, sharing this with her.

      “Bed,” Kade muttered against her jawline.

      “Too far.” Brodie managed to lift a hand and wave to the right. “Desk, over there.”

      “That’ll work.”

      Running his hands over her bottom, Kade lifted Brodie onto the edge of the desk and pushed the files and papers off the table. They slid and tumbled to the floor. She didn’t care. Part of her knew this was a mistake, but she didn’t care about that, either. Nothing mattered but having him in her arms, allowing him to make indescribably delicious love to her.

      Kade quickly stripped her of her clothing, while Brodie watched him through heavy, half-closed eyes. Keeping one hand on her breast, he reached into his suit pants and yanked his wallet out of a pocket. Scattering cards and cash, he found a condom and ripped it open with his teeth. He shed the rest of his clothes, and slipped the condom on. Brodie was not shocked when Kade grabbed the flimsy material of her panties and ripped them off her. His erection was hard and proud as he rubbed himself against her most secret places, seeking her permission to enter.

      His lips followed his erection, and Brodie thought she would turn to liquid. Just when she could tolerate no more, Kade lifted his head to worship her breasts with his mouth, tongue and lips. Brodie closed her fingers around him and relished the sound of his breathing, heavy in the quiet of the early evening. Brown eyes met green as she tugged him toward her. Kade’s one hand slid under her hip and the other cradled her head, both encouraging her to ride with him.

      The desk felt like a soft bed. The cold coffee she’d left there earlier could have been the finest champagne, the mixed-up papers rose petals. They were locked together. Finally. Kade moved within her and Brodie followed. Kade demanded and she replied. Deeper, longer, higher, faster. She met him stroke for stroke, matching his passion, uninhibited, free.

      On that thought Brodie fractured on a yell and a sob. Then Kade bucked and arched and collapsed against her, his body hot.

      “Brodie?” he muttered against her shoulder. “You alive?”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Desk survived?”

      Brodie’s mouth curved into a smile. She patted the wood next to her hip. “Looks like it. You?”

      Kade kissed her neck before reluctantly pulling out of her. He straightened and turned away. “Yeah, I’m fine—”

      Brodie sat up and frowned at his stream of curses. “What on earth...?”

      Kade grimaced at the condom in his hand and then back to her. “The condom split. Dammit, it was brand-new.”