Page 203 of Theirs to Tempt: The Marriage Claim

The words are gruff and part promise, part threat all at once.

“We want you naked.”

My breath catches.

“Turn around.”

Yes. This is right, natural. Where I belong

He unzips my dress with unhurried care, and the teeth part down my spine. Cool air touches skin that has been waiting for them since the elevator.

Slowly he kisses the places the zipper bares, and the tenderness of it makes my knees uncertain.

“I missed this,” he murmurs against my back. “Not the right to undress you. The privilege of being allowed to.”

The dress slips to my waist.

Caleb shrugs out of his jacket, then his hands return to me.

He eases the dress over my hips and lets it pool around my heels.

I step out of it even as Lucian unhooks my bra. Then Caleb draws my panties down with both thumbs, kneeling to help me free them, and stays there a moment with his mouth against the inside of my knee, breathing me in like a man who has been starving.

With his hands, Lucian touches my waist, my breasts, feeling every tremor I cannot hide.

I’ve missed this so desperately.

Together they walk me backward only far enough to reach the sofa, and Lucian sits first, drawing me down to straddle his thighs so that I am facing him.

“Look at me while he touches you.”

Slowly I nod my obedience.

Caleb’s mouth finds my shoulder from behind. His hand slides between my legs to discover I’m already slick, already shameless, and he makes a low sound that vibrates through my ribs.

“That’s our girl.”

Lucian watches my face while Caleb works me with maddening patience—circling, parting, dipping inside just enough to make me chase him. I try to rock into it. Lucian’s hands on my hips still me.

“Not yet. Feel it. Feel how much of this is yours to want.”

I do. God help me, I do. The penthouse, the city beyond the glass, the fight that nearly ended us—none of it is in the room except as the reason this slowness matters. Every stroke says we get to keep this. Every kiss says we almost didn’t.

When I am shaking, Lucian leans in and takes my mouth. “Tell us what you need.”

“You.” It comes out wrecked. “Both of you. I don’t want to be careful with the wrong things anymore.”

Caleb’s forehead rests between my shoulder blades. “Then we go where we haven’t gone. Only if you want it. Only if you stay with us.”

I know what he means. The knowledge sends heat and nerves through me in the same pulse.

“Yes.”

Lucian’s thumb brushes my lower lip. “Words, Sophie.”

“I want your fingers everywhere. I want you to show me. I want the future that we’re creating.”

Reverence ghosts through his eyes.