The Consequence He Must Claim

“You’re mine,” he growled, asserting himself with the full weight of his hips. “Say it.”

“You’re mine,” she said, scraping her nails on his butt.

He growled and kissed her, hard, thrusting with more purpose, one hand tangled in her hair so she couldn’t move her head without feeling a pull. They both made noises of struggle and exquisite agony, enjoying the build. She thrilled as he held her on the cusp of release, both of them tense and sweaty, barely able to breathe as they kissed and clashed their hips together and reveled in the pleasure they gave each other.

When the crisis hit, she gave herself up to it, to him.

He broke away to let out a jagged cry as he climaxed, big body racked as he tried not to crush her with his strength, hips locked to hers, pulsing deep inside her.

“Mine,” he said, head hanging so his damp forehead met her collarbone. “You’re mine.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE HAD HIS answer, Cesar thought dimly as he worked up the strength to roll off his wife, reach for a tissue and discard the condom.

Prior to his accident he had gone to Diega, if not to cancel his wedding, then to at least put it off. There was no way he’d left Sorcha because he had notched his bedpost and was done with her. Once was not enough. That, what he’d just had with her, was a type of insanity.

Granted he was a possessive man and her talk of leaving him and taking Enrique had provoked him when he was already in protective mode because of Diega’s actions. He’d set out to prove she was his tonight, but even if the first time had been only half as cataclysmic as this, it was still the best sex he’d ever experienced.

What had that day been like? It bothered him that she had memories of it and he didn’t. It felt as if she had a secret. He didn’t like it.

But if he had left while she was sleeping that day, it was because he wouldn’t have been able to wake her and still walk away.

The smoke alarm could go off right now—it should be ringing like a five-alarm fire as it was—and he would be loath to climb from this bed.

And when she was looking at him like that? Mouth swollen, eyelids puffy, the orgasm flush still pinking her cheeks and that quest for reassurance turning her expression so very solemn.

No man could resist rolling back against her. He cradled the side of her face and kissed her, an inexplicable urgency bunching the muscles of his back as he did. He wanted to take her again, now, maximize the time they had—

He lifted his head and looked down at her, startled by a thought and so pleased he couldn’t help but blanket her with his weight and tug her under him, asserting his ownership with the pinning of his thigh across hers, but with a foreign kind of tenderness rolling through him. Excitement that was not fleeting, but carried deep, long-term gratification.

“I always thought there would be an expiration date on our lovemaking,” he said, hearing the husky satisfaction that was warming him as the truth sank in. “I was okay with waiting to make love to you because I knew I’d have to give you up afterward, but I don’t. I can have you for the rest of our lives.”

“At least until you’re too old to get it up.”

“Learn to bite that tongue, preciosa,” he warned with a glint in his eye. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

* * *

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Octavia, I really don’t,” Sorcha told her friend over the tablet. She had always thought she’d done the hard part of organizing an event when she had sourced all the options, but making the final decisions was the more stressful task. “If I had to ask my mother-in-law for advice, she’d think me completely incompetent.”

“You’re not at all— Grazie,” Octavia said to someone off-screen, then showed Sorcha the cup of espresso she’d been handed. “I’m sending you some of these beans. One of Sandro’s contacts in South America got us onto it and they’re incredible.”

She was curled up in the corner of a settee and both of them were enjoying a rare conversation without at least one of them nursing or soothing a baby. Both boys had finally cut their bottom front teeth and were napping soundly.

“I thought the first time we entertained, it would be a few of Cesar’s business partners, not hundreds of strangers. His parents will be the only people I know. I wish you could come so I’d have one friend, at least!”

“Of course I can, if you want me to.”

“Are you serious? Yes, please! I would love that!”

She’d opened up to Octavia a lot since they’d met, but her friend had no real idea how out of her depth Sorcha was. She couldn’t talk to her mother about how insecure she felt as Señora Montero, either. It was like complaining about winning the lottery. And her mum wanted to believe Sorcha was living happily ever after.