The Consequence (The Evolution of Sin 3)

I could have stayed exactly like that for eternity.

We had arrived at the Westin just after noon the day before and immediately proceeded to the very same suite Sinclair had stayed in all those months ago. There was champagne chilling on the bar, rose petals laid out over the huge canopied bed and acoustic Spanish music filtered through the room from hidden speakers. I only had a moment to take it all in before Sinclair had me pushed up against the wall, his hands all over every inch of my body. There was passion in his haste but also a need for reassurance. Christopher had tried to claim and my Sin seeking to eradicate even the notion of such a thing.

He didn’t have to work very hard to do it but I appreciated the effort to brand himself on me against the door, then again that evening on the couch and after a delicious room service meal of aguachile and chicken mole, on the padded lounge chairs on the balcony.

Now, the morning after, my mind was so saturated with pleasure, with such a deep seated contentment that I found the demons Christopher had plagued me with my entire life were laid eternally to rest.

“I have never been so happy,” I told Sin, because it was true and because it was all because of him.

Sin didn’t open his eyes but he hummed his approval and said, “Mission accomplished.”

I laughed. “You are awfully smug.”

He shrugged one shoulder in that French way of his and even though he was lying down, his big body spread inelegantly across the breadth of the bed, the movement was somehow graceful. “I am a successful business man with a gorgeous woman who is carrying my baby lying beside me after a pretty fucking amazing bout of sex. I think my smugness is justifiable.”

I smiled so wide that it cut into my cheeks. He opened his eyes as if he could sense my expression and they warmed until they were as blue and bright as the Pacific ocean outside our window.

“You have that glow of a pregnant woman,” he said, traveling his fingers through my hair until they brushed against my cheek. “Every time I look at you, I cannot believe that you are mine.”

“If you weren’t so dignified, I think you would have your name tattooed on my lower back so everyone would know it,” I joked.

His eyes darkened, his tone grew serious. “I do not have to do that for everyone to know that you belong to me. It is written in this tilt of your beautiful mouth,” his thumb pressed to the smiling corner of my mouth, “in the way your eyes turn to liquid silver when I’m near. It’s in how you turn yourself into my body whether you are standing beside me or across the room, like your body is a compass and I am your true north. And as you grow bigger,” his calloused fingers swept down my side until they came to rest over my slightly swollen abdomen, “they will see what belonging to me has done to you.”

Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. I didn’t think I would ever get used to the poeticism that lived inside my normally stoic and reticent Frenchman. Crying was a hazard of pregnancy, I knew, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment with tears so instead, I said, “What? That it makes me fat?”

His lips thinned in mock severity before he shifted, quick as a flash, to move fully on top of me, pressing my body, still pliant from his earlier caresses, into the bed. One hand plunged into the hair at the nape of my neck, holding me fast as he dipped down to speak against my lips.

“That it makes you wanton, incapable of keeping your legs closed against my virile charms.”

I laughed into his face but his lips closed over my smiling mouth, eating away the humor until I was writhing beneath him. I moaned in protest when he pulled away.

“I take my virility very seriously, Elle. It’s nothing to joke about.”

“No, of course not.” I nodded, my eyes wide with faux sincerity and my lips compressed against the monumental urge to laugh at him again.

His eyes narrowed further as he tried to read my solemnity but there was my favorite kind of smile in his eyes as he nodded and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose.

“I’m glad we’ve got that sorted. Now, get up and get moving,” he said as he rolled off me and walked into the bathroom.

I spoke loudly over the rush of the shower as he turned it on. “Can’t we just spend the rest of the day in bed?”

His head ducked back out of the bathroom, his face creased with boyish excitement. “I have a surprise for you. Now, be a good girl and get your gorgeous self in the shower before I loose control and take you again.”