Claimed (Diamond Tycoons 1)

Then he woke Isa, forcing himself to gently shake her shoulder until her chocolate-brown eyes looked up at him in confusion. “I’m sorry, baby. We’ve got to get dressed. We’re about to land and we need to take our seats.”

She blinked, rubbed her eyes. Then shoved her thick mass of red hair away from her face as she sat up slowly. He froze, watching as the sheet slipped down her torso to pool around her hips.

She looked like a goddess.

Like a vision.

Like the sexiest wet dream he’d ever had.

Eyes sleepy, lips swollen, cheeks warm and flushed. Yes, she looked like every fantasy he’d ever had—would ever have. Her hair was long and wild out of its braid, tumbling down around her shoulders and over her soft, full breasts. But he could still see the strawberry pink of her nipples, the pale curves of her breasts. He wanted to taste, wanted to bend his head and pull her nipple between his lips just to hear her make those broken, breathless sounds one more time.

He was actually leaning forward, mouth parted and eyes focused on the prize, when she slapped a hand on the center of his chest. “How long until we land?”

Her voice was low, husky. He grinned and grew hard yet again. The sound of her voice reminded him of what it had felt like to be in her mouth, in her throat. Of what it had felt like to slide between her wet, swollen lips as she took him deep.

“Oh, no,” she continued, scrambling out the other side of the bed. “Judging by the time, I’m pretty sure we can’t go another round.”

She was right, they didn’t have time. But that didn’t seem to matter to his insistent hard-on. If he was being honest, it didn’t matter much to the rest of him, either. Not when he ached to once again feel her skin, her softness—her sweetness—against every part of himself.

But there was something incredibly sexy about watching a well-satisfied woman shimmy into her clothes, her movements slow and languid as she stepped into her jeans or pulled her sweater over her head. He loved how pale her skin was, loved that her breasts and stomach and thighs bore small love bites and patches of whisker burn. Loved that she looked like she’d spent the past several hours being made love to by him. Loved even more that she looked like she belonged to him.

The thought pulled him up short, had him reaching for his own jeans and yanking them on a little harder than necessary. Because wanting Isa, enjoying making love to her, was one thing. Hell, he’d probably still want her when he was dead. But thinking about her belonging to him again—that was dangerous. Really dangerous, considering how much he liked the sound, the look, the feel of it.

“Here.” Isa’s voice pulled him back from his minor freak-out, and he realized she was holding his shirt out to him. She was also looking at him a little strangely, but he refused to let himself dwell on it. Not when his head was already filled with so many conflicting thoughts.

They finished dressing in silence, but when Isa opened the door and started back to their seats, he grabbed onto her waist, pulling her back to him. He didn’t know what to say—he couldn’t tell her that he loved her, but he didn’t want to leave her with a “wow, that was fun,” either. And so he let his actions speak for him, nuzzling his way up her neck and along her jaw.

She relaxed then, a tension he hadn’t even recognized leeching slowly out as she melted against him. The moment was broken when Justin’s voice came over the intercom, reminding them to take their seats.

They did just that, and this time when Isa reached for his hand it wasn’t because of turbulence. And for now, for this moment, that was enough.

* * *

An hour later, Isa waved as Marc pulled out of her driveway. She watched him go, hands shaky and with a lump in her throat as big as the entire Ekaori diamond mine.

What had she done? she asked herself as she closed her front door. What was she doing? More, what was she thinking?—if you could even call the choices she’d made the past few hours “thinking.” Which she wasn’t sure she could. Committing emotional suicide, probably. Being stupid, absolutely. But thinking? No, she hadn’t been thinking—was desperately afraid, in fact, that she’d left her brain somewhere over Northern Canada.

What else could it be? She’d left her house a little more than twenty-four hours ago, determined that Marc would never touch her again. Yet here she was, back home in the early hours of the morning, what was left of her mind preoccupied with Marc and her body pleasantly sore and well used.

So well used. She closed her eyes as images of Marc bombarded her. On top of her, beneath her, on his knees at her feet. His hands on her hips, on her breasts. His mouth skimming over her stomach, over her sex. Kissing her, taking her, loving her... No!

She slammed a mental door on those thoughts. Whatever crazy chemistry was between her and Marc, whatever disaster she was courting by being with him, she wouldn’t go that far. She wouldn’t call it love, not on his side and definitely not on hers. She didn’t know yet what she would call it, but she would not call it that.

Love was too painful—she’d learned that six years ago. She’d loved him then and all it had gotten her was heartbreak. This time she would be smarter. This time she wouldn’t let herself care, not like that. Not like her whole heart, her whole soul, depended on him.

Deep inside, a little voice whispered that it was too late. That she was already in way over her head. But she shut it down, refusing to listen. Not right now when she could still feel Marc moving over her, inside her. Not right now when she was too exhausted, too vulnerable, to know what the truth was, let alone face it.

Deciding to let it go for now so that she could maintain some semblance of sanity, Isa carried her overnight bag into her bedroom. She dropped it next to her dresser and then flopped face-first onto the bed.

She could barely breathe with her face buried in the mountain of pillows, but she didn’t have the energy to so much as turn her head. It was five thirty in the morning and she had an early lecture at eight—the first of two back-to-back classes that she normally loved since it meant getting done early on Mondays and Wednesdays. At the moment, though, it seemed like torture to expect her to be showered, dressed and out of the house by seven. Not when she had barely slept in the past three days.

She could lay that at Marc’s door, too, she told herself. Along with the soreness that came with using muscles long neglected and the love bites that kept popping up in new places, he was also responsible for Saturday’s sleepless night, staring at the cracked and stained hotel ceiling. And God knew, Friday and Sunday nights were definitely his fault. The forty-five minute nap she’d gotten after he’d made love to her for hours didn’t count as a good night’s sleep.

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket and, against her better judgment and the protests of her screaming muscles, she reached for it. Glanced at the text that had just come in. It was from him. Of course it was—who else would be texting her at five thirty on a Monday morning? On this very particular Monday morning.

Marc: Just wanted to say thank you again for making the trip to Canada.

That was it? Thank you for coming to Canada? She waited a few seconds, staring at the screen expectantly, hoping for another text to come in. Because surely that couldn’t be it, right? Surely, he hadn’t spent the better part of a six-hour plane trip taking her apart, orgasm by orgasm, only to send such a ridiculous text as follow-up?