Claimed (Diamond Tycoons 1)

hether she worried about it or not. So here, now, she wouldn’t worry about what came next. She would have this night, have Marc, and for once, let the future take care of itself.

Six

God, he’d missed her. Missed the taste of her skin. Missed the feel of her body against his. Missed the sound of her cries—broken and breathless—as she came for him. Even as he held her, even as he throbbed with the need for relief, he wanted to hear those sounds again. It wasn’t an admission that came easy to him, not with everything that lay between them. But it was the truth, one he’d tried to ignore for six long years.

One—like her—he was desperate to get out of his system, once and for all.

Pushing to his feet, he picked Isa up and held her against his chest. “Which way is your bedroom?”

She stared up at him with passion-dazed eyes, and even though he felt as though he would die if he didn’t get inside her in the next two minutes, he couldn’t help lowering his head and, once again, taking her mouth with his.

She responded to him like she always did—with warmth and fire and sweet, sweet surrender. He continued to kiss her as he headed down the hall, continued to kiss her as he lay her across the queen-size bed with the sexy red comforter. Continued to kiss her as he stripped down to the skin. And then he climbed onto the bed next to her and worshipped her the way he used to. The way he’d longed to for so, so long—with his hands and mouth and body touching, teasing, tasting every inch of her soft, sweet-smelling skin.

Isa moaned, her hands clutching at his hair, her body arching beneath him. His own need was sharp and violent inside him, but he wanted to see her come again. Wanted to steep himself in the sound and scent and feel of her as he gave her as much pleasure as she could take.

Fastening his mouth on her neck, he sucked a bruise into the sensitive skin. She shuddered, crying out his name as her fingernails raked down his back.

The quick, sharp pain loosed some wild thing in him he didn’t even know was buried there. His control slipped the iron grip he’d kept on it from the moment she’d let him kiss her on that balcony.

And then his lips and tongue skimmed over her torso, her breasts, her stomach, her hips, her sex. He wanted to explore all of her, needed to find each and every change to her body that the past six years had wrought. The extra-fullness of her breasts, the new freckles on the soft insides of her elbows, the three small scars near her belly button that weren’t there the last time he’d made love to her.

He traced his fingers over them, started to ask what had happened. But it wasn’t his business—she wasn’t his business—anymore, and he’d do well to remember that.

Except the words escaped of their own volition. “What happened here?”

“What? Where?” Her voice was husky, dazed with pleasure. Pleasure he had given her, he thought with grim satisfaction. Not that pansy-ass professor who couldn’t keep his hands off her at the cocktail party.

“Here.” He ran a finger over the scars again.

“Oh.” She sighed, her fingers sliding down his chest to toy with his nipples as she answered, “Emergency appendectomy.”

Her answer floated past him and pleasure coursed through him as she played with him. Her fingers squeezed and stroked and pinched as she pressed hot kisses to his neck and shoulders and chest.

“Isa.” It was a warning, more a growl than an actual word.

She didn’t pay any attention, though. Instead, she slid slowly down the bed as her mouth worked its way over his pecs, his stomach, his abdomen. He was still above her, but that fact wasn’t hampering her at all as her mouth trailed hot kisses over the sparse trail of hair that led from his belly button.

And then she took him in her mouth, sucking him deep even as her tongue licked hotly against the length of him. He bit off a curse, taking her ministrations for several long seconds, his arms trembling as they supported his weight above her.

But when she pulled him deep and he felt his release gathering at the base of his spine, he pulled away with a groan.

“What?” she asked, eyes dazed and mouth swollen as she reached for him. “I want to—”

“I want to be inside you when I come,” he told her. He didn’t know why it mattered—pleasure was pleasure, after all—but it did. He wanted the first time he came with Isa after their long separation to be when he was inside her.

Ignoring her moan of protest, he shifted off her for several long seconds as he retrieved his pants from the floor. He grabbed his wallet, pulled out a condom. Seconds later, he was back on the bed, his body covering hers.

Sliding a hand between her thighs to make sure she was ready for him, he relished the wet heat that told him she was as affected by him as he was by her.

“Marc, please,” she gasped, her hands sliding around to pull him more firmly against her.

“I’m right here, baby.” The endearment slipped out, as did the soft kisses he pressed to her flushed cheeks.

And then he was sliding inside her, sliding home, after far too long. Isa gasped, moaned, her body arching beneath his. Her arms wrapping around his shoulders. Her legs twining around his hips.

God, she felt good. Warm, wet, willing. Amazing.

He plunged into her again and again, relishing the way her body rose to meet his.