From Enemy's Daughter to Expectant Bride (The Billionaires of Blackcastle 1)

All he could do was have her skin to skin, no barriers for the first time, exposing himself totally for her to take of his power, and for him to absorb her ordeal into himself.

As if he was succeeding, her enervated arms started to cling, her limp body to strain against him until he felt they’d merge. Then her feverish sobs started to make sense.

“My...my driver...was crushed. I—I tried to get him out...but I—I couldn’t...then I was facedown on the ground and they were taking me away.... And I only thought of you...had to reach you...but got only your voice mail...then my phone died...”

His body convulsed around hers, holding her tight as weeping overpowered her, his lips drinking her tears, pledging over and over, “I’m here now. I’ll never leave you again.”

Her hacking sobs became words again. “I—I lost my purse, had only my phone...gave it to the taxi driver as fare. But he said coming all the way here would take him another hour out of his way in the opposite direction, so he dropped me on the main road....”

And he finally found something he could put right. “I’m going to find that driver, and I’m going to make him regret every contemptible act he’s committed in his life.”

Her tears suddenly stopped, her eyes widening with dismay. “No, no...it doesn’t matter....”

“Don’t try to stay my hand, Eliana. This sorry excuse for a man not only took your phone—your only method of communication—in lieu of fare, instead of getting you a charger, but then he left you stranded miles away from your destination, injured and alone. He will pay.”

The next second he wanted to bludgeon himself at the way she seemed to shrivel at his aggression, even when it was on her behalf. She was so shaken, felt so fragile, as if she was...

Dread swept him all over again. What if she was hurt internally, something that would manifest gradually...?

“Deus, meu amor...I have to take you back to the hospital.”

She resisted when he scooped her up. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“You can’t know that. Some injuries, like concussions, become symptomatic later. You need to be monitored....”

“But nothing even came near me. The half of the car I was in was totally untouched.”

“But the scratches and bruises all over you...?”

“I got those as I tried to get my driver out.”

“But you said you found yourself facedown when they came to take you. You could have lost consciousness.”

“It was just a reaction to the horrific sight of my driver’s injuries, the flood of adrenaline as I tried to extricate him, then when...when he died right before my eyes.”

Helplessness pummeled him again because he knew that he couldn’t rewind those terrible moments, wipe away their memories.

But he could do something else. “Still, a couple of nights in hospital are a must.”

“They aren’t. Apart from my self-inflicted bruises, they gave me a clean bill of health. But even though I miraculously escaped without a scratch, I was just...distraught thinking how I could have died or worse.” Her eyes welled as she clung to him. “I needed to be where I can feel you. Then I found a damaged part of the wall around the estate and entered through it, as the gate was too far and I just had to get to your bed....”

Groaning with raw, gut-wrenching emotion, he pressed her to his heart. “I’m here now, preciosa. I found you and I’m never letting you out of my sight again. I’ll keep you safe from now on. Always.”

“You can’t stop fate.” Before he could swear he would, she went on, hands trembling over his burning flesh. “When that bridge was collapsing and I thought I’d die, I had only one regret...that I was never with you completely.”

The insupportable thought that her life could have been snuffed out in seconds, that he could have lost her, ravaged him again.

Then she sobbed. “You can’t stop fate, Rafael, but you can have now. Let me have you now, all of you. Take all of me and show me how alive you are. Show me how alive I am, meu amor.”

Meu amor. She’d called him my love.

And everything inside him snapped.

He bore down on her, felt her heart beat to the same insane rhythm beneath his, knew she couldn’t bear preliminaries or gentleness, needed him to reaffirm her life ferociously.

Hand bunching in her locks, tethering her head down to the mattress, his eyes captured her streaming ones as he rose between her splayed thighs and pressed his crown to her molten entrance. Then he lunged.

He felt her flesh trying to ward off his invasion, tearing around his advance. Her shriek boomed inside his head as he pummeled through her barrier. Her body bowed beneath him, a deep arch of agony, but her nod was frantic. She wanted him to give her a ravishing, a full possession. He’d give her everything he had.