AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She hadn’t been honest with him. Perhaps now was the time to start.
‘I didn’t think so,’ he said.
Grasping both her thighs, he hoisted her up and impaled her on his straining erection in one solid thrust. She sobbed, the brutal pleasure shocking in its intensity as she stretched to receive him.
He moved, thrusting deep, forcing her to take all of him. She groaned, clinging on to his shoulders, the pleasure raw and rough and unstoppable.
Capturing one straining nipple with his mouth, he suckled hard through lace and silk. Arrows of sensation joined the ruthless conflagration and combined with the wellspring of emotion she no longer had any control over, bombarding her, battering her. She cried out as she crashed over, her body disintegrating into a million tiny, insignificant pieces, her will no longer her own.
* * *
It felt like an eternity but could only have been a few moments before Lukas could force his fingers to release their grip on Bronte’s thighs.
You weren’t going to touch her.
Recriminations seared his brain as he lifted her off him. She flinched and an agonising feeling of regret flooded through him.
Shut it down. Ignore it. She lied to you. She doesn’t give a damn about you.
He waited for her to find her feet before letting go of her arm to zip his fly. Seeing the tattered remains of her panties, he bent to pick them up. And handed them to her.
He shouldn’t have touched her, but now he had it only made him more determined to set the plan he’d been working on during the afternoon into motion. The physical chemistry between them hadn’t dimmed. Maybe he’d been sidetracked, tricked by his own libido into thinking for a few dumb moments that what they had could be more. That he wanted it to be more. But it didn’t need to be more.
‘Lukas?’ she asked, searching his face as she stuffed the ragged lace into her purse with trembling fingers. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘You could say that,’ he snapped, leading with anger. He had a right to be furious, dammit. ‘When were you p
lanning to tell me about the pregnancy?’
A guilty flush rose to her hairline. But the flags of colour blazing on her cheeks and the shocked confusion shadowing her eyes only made her look more beautiful.
‘How do you know?’ she managed at last.
‘You were spotted leaving an abortion clinic this morning—by a photographer.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The shots hit the Internet about an hour ago.’ He wondered why she didn’t know about it already—Garvey had called twice, desperate to get him to issue some sort of official statement.
‘I see,’ she said, guilt lighting up her face now. ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner,’ she said.
No kidding.
‘I should tell you now—I’m not going to have an abortion,’ she added, her voice clear and determined. The confirmation had a strange effect on the hollow ache in his stomach.
He’d never wanted to be a father. Had always known it wasn’t something he was cut out for. And he’d already started to figure out ways to manage his involvement with this child. But, even so, the pregnancy didn’t terrify him the way he might have expected. No. That would be her, and the way she made him feel. And the fear that he might already be in too deep to pull out.
‘I know you’re not,’ he said. ‘Which is why we’re getting married. As soon as possible.’
He’d put the wheels in motion this afternoon, and had been ready to present her with the deal as soon as she’d arrived. They’d gotten distracted, sure. But making her his wife instead of his mistress was necessary now. She’d chosen to have the child. But it was his child too, and he was never going to be left out of the decision-making again.
He planned to support it and give it his name—and his protection.
He didn’t let people get too close. But somehow she’d gotten close enough to him in the last six weeks to make him forget that if you did people hurt you, they betrayed you. So from now on their relationship was going to be on his terms, not hers.
‘What...?’ She looked stunned by the offer. He supposed he should be glad she hadn’t planned this pregnancy to trick him into marriage—just one of the reasons for her subterfuge that he’d considered in the last four hours. But he didn’t feel glad; he just felt numb.
‘You heard me,’ he said. ‘I’ll need you to sign a pre-nup. But I think you’ll be impressed with the generosity of the contract.’
‘The contract,’ she said, looking appalled as well as stunned. ‘That sounds more like a business arrangement than a marriage.’
‘Because that’s exactly what it will be.’
