Claiming His Secret Son

She exhaled in resignation. “So you orchestrated everything, got the result you desired, while even Fate indulged you and gave you the bonus of a mark to enjoy sexually, huh? That must have made your mission of patiently milking me for all I had more palatable.”

His shrug was indifference incarnate. “More or less.” His gaze shifted to an expression that seemed to sear her marrow. “With one amendment. It wasn’t palatable. It was phenomenal.”

“I—it was?”

“Along with a dozen superlative adjectives. Being with you was the only true and absolute pleasure I ever had.”

He’d already said he’d wanted her. But the way he’d spelled it out now... His words fell on her like a punch, jogging her brain in her skull.

It had been what had most mutilated her, had left her feeling desecrated. Thinking she’d wanted him with every fiber of her being while he’d only reviled her even as he’d used her in every way. Learning that he’d wanted her had just begun to ameliorate her humiliation. But now his claim that it had been as unprecedented to him... It felt genuine. If it was, then at least their intimacies, which had been so profound to her, among all the lies and exploitation, had been real. She could at least cleanse those intensely intimate memories and have them back.

“And that’s why I want you to say it, Isabella.”

The hunger in his voice and eyes had her heart ramming against her ribs as if unable to bear their confinement.

“I want you to say you’ve craved having again what we had all those years ago. That every time you closed your eyes, I was there, in your mind, on your tongue, all over you and inside you, giving you everything only I could ever give you.”

Every word he said, soaked in hunger, seething with demand, brought a wave of wet heat surging in her core, her body readying itself for its master doing all the things she’d never stopped yearning for.

She still had to resist. Because of what he’d done to her. Past and present. Because of what he thought of her. What he was. For every reason that existed, really.

“What if I don’t say it?”

Those incredible eyes crinkled, those lips that made her every inch ache with the memory of what they could do to her twisted.

“You want me to force you to take what you’re dying to take, so you’d have it, and the moral high ground, too? No, my exquisite siren. If I take you now, it will be because you’ll tell me in no uncertain terms that you want me to. That you’re burning for me to. It’s that...or you can go.”

And it turned out every reason under the sun to tell him to go to hell was nothing compared to the one reason she had to give him what he wanted.

That he was right.

Giving in, she reached out, wound his tie around her hand and yanked on it with all her strength.

Which didn’t say much right now. Her tug was trembling and weak like the rest of her. She was that aroused. He wouldn’t have moved if he hadn’t wanted to.

But her action was seemingly enough of an appeasement. He let her drag him down so his face was two inches from hers.

His virility-laden, madness-inducing breath flayed her lips, filled her lungs. “Now say it.”

Voice as unsteady as her legs, she did. “I want you.”

“Say it all, Isabella.”

That cruel bastard had to extract her very soul, didn’t he? Just as he had in the past.

Knowing she’d regret it when her body stopped clamoring, if it ever did—but she’d sooner stop her next breath—she gave him the full capitulation he demanded. “I wanted you with every single breath these past eight years.”

His satisfaction was so ferocious it seared her as his hand covered the one spastically pulling on his tie, untangling it in such unhurried smoothness. Then, like the serpent he was, he slinked away from her. Heartbeats shook her as she watched him sit on the huge couch facing the pool.

After sprawling back in utmost comfort, he beckoned.

“Show me.”

Not knowing whom to curse more viciously, him or herself, she walked toward him as if on the end of a hook.

Once her knees bumped his, she lost all coordination and slumped over him under the weight of eight years’ worth of craving. Barely slowing her collapse with shaking hands against his unyielding shoulders, her dress rode up thighs that opened to straddle his hips. His eyes burned into hers with gratification up until her lips crashed down on his.

He opened his mouth to her urgency, let her show him how much she needed everything he had as her hands roamed his formidable body, convulsed in his too-short-for-her-liking wealth of hair and her molten core rode the daunting rock of his manhood through their clothes.

“I want you, Richard...I’ve gone mad wanting you.”

At her feverish moan he took over, his lips stopping her uncoordinated efforts to posses them. Sighing raggedly, she luxuriated in his domination, what he’d so maddeningly interrupted before.

His hands roved her, melting clothes off her burning body with the same virtuosity that had always made her breathless. His every move was loaded with the precise ruthlessness of a starving predator unleashed on a prey long kept out of reach.

Breaking the kiss, he drew back, his pupils flaring, blackness engulfing the silvered steel as he spilled her breasts into his palms. His homage was brief but devastating before he swept her around, had her sitting on the couch and kneeled before her. After dragging her panties off in one sweep, he lunged, buried his lips in her flowing readiness. She shrieked at the long-yearned-for feel of his tongue and teeth, her thighs spreading wider to give him fuller access to her intimate flesh, which had always been his.

Hours ago she’d been going about her new life, certain she’d never see him again. Now he was here, pleasuring her as only he had ever done.

Was she dreaming all this?

He nipped her bud, and the slam of pleasure was too jarring to be anything but real. One more sweep or suckle or graze would finish her. And she didn’t want release.

She wanted him.

“Richard...you...” she gasped. “I need you...inside me...please...”

Growling, he heaved up, caught her plea in his savage mouth, letting her taste herself on his tongue as he rose, lifting her in his arms. Then the world moved in hurried thuds before it stopped abruptly with her steaming back against cool glass.

The idea that Richard was about to take her against a window overlooking the city almost made her come right then.

Plastering her to the glass with his bulk, he locked her feet around his buttocks, thrilling her with his effortless strength. Then he leaned back, freeing his erection.

The potency that had possessed her during so many long, hard rides had her mouth watering, her core gushing. And that was before the intimidating weight and length of it thudded against her swollen flesh, squeezing another plea from her depths. He only glided his incredible heat and hardness through the molten lips of her core, sending a million arrows of pleasure to her womb, until she writhed.

He didn’t penetrate her until she wailed, “Fill me.”

Only then did he ram inside her.

The savagery and abruptness of his invasion, the unbearable expansion around his too-thick girth, was a shock so acute the world flickered, darkened.

Her senses sparked again to him growling, “Too long...too damned long...” as his teeth sank into her shoulder like a lion tethering his mate for a jarring ride. Then he withdrew.

It felt as if he was dragging her life force out with him. Her arms tightened around his back, her hands clawing it, begging his return. He complied with a harder, deeper plunge, blacking out her senses again with the beyond-limits fullness. After a few thrusts forced her flesh to yield fully to him, he quickened his tempo.

Every withdrawal brought maddening loss, every plunge excruciating ecstasy. Her cries blurred and her muttered name on his lips became a litany, each thrust accentuated by the carnal sounds of their flesh slapping together. The scents of sex and abandon intensified, the glide and burn of his hard flesh inside her stoked her until she felt she’d combust.

She needed...needed... Please...please...please...