With an aggravated sigh, he ran his fingers through his hair and cocked his head enough to look at me. "Satisfied?"
"Not in the slightest." I rested one hand on his shoulder, and it tensed under my palm. Frowning at that, I continued. "I don't expect you to spend every waking second with me, but you vowed to try harder than your father and not be an absent parent. Now, I forgave you for taking a business trip five minutes after Finn was born and then staying away for almost a month, but I don't understand what you're doing right now. You're in the same house but you might as well be on another planet."
"You’re right; you don't understand." Pushing back from the desk, Burke stood and looked down at me. "There are plenty of things you don't understand, and I'm trying to keep it that way."
Insulted by the increasing volume of his voice, I propped my hands on my hips and craned my neck back to search his eyes. "Why do you insist on shutting me out?"
"Do you want to know what has my attention right now?” He shoved his hands through his hair once more, and I could see how it had become so disheveled. “An honest answer, and not just the broad stroke of a description I gave you?"
"Yes, that's what I'm asking."
"The White Family is fucking pissed that I married you. Thanks to my father, there was an unwritten agreement that I would marry the daughter of the boss. The fact that I didn't honor the arrangement he made on my behalf has our alliance balancing on a thin thread. Don’t you see? I was never supposed to get involved with you, Kinsley, much less knock you up and marry you."
Stunned at his admission, I gripped my shirt over my heart as it beat entirely too painfully in my chest. As though I hadn’t already known I wasn’t good enough for him, now there was this painful truth thrown in my face. "Why did you, then?"
"Because I was stupid." Despite my flinch at that well-aimed barb, he continued. "I wanted something for myself, and I took it. I knew better, but I thought we'd go our separate ways and I'd be stuck with the woman the Whites wanted to tie me down with."
I backed up, tears rolling down my face and dripping onto my shirt. "Then why didn't you just do it? Why didn't you leave me be, come back here, and marry that woman?"
Advancing on me, Burke grabbed me by the shoulders. Insulted, I tried to turn away from him, but he held me steady. "Because you are fucking mine."
He lifted me, pressing his mouth to mine in a bruising kiss. I couldn't decide if I wanted to smack him for being so rude or melt into his embrace. I'd known he was rapacious, but he'd never been so blunt before. As he plunged his tongue into my mouth, gripping my arms to keep me at his height, I could barely hold on to my sanity by a thread.
"Dammit, kiss me back."
Burke’s face hovered half an inch from mine, so close his features blurred. Or maybe it was due to the tears still leaking from my eyes. It felt as though I was a wrecked ship about to go under the water for the third time with no way to rescue myself from drowning. There was no air for my lungs; he used up all the oxygen in the room.
It was hardly a movement at all, but I pressed forward to slant my lips along his. Opening my mouth and slipping out my tongue, I stroked it along his and moaned at the sensation of him dominating me. Burke's hold on my shoulders gentled, and he smoothed his hands down my hair to cup my ass and bring me tight against him.
I gasped, looking up into hungry eyes. He was hard between my legs, needy and practically begging.
"Mine," he repeated, using his thumb to push my chin higher.
Threading my hands into his hair, I pulled him down for another kiss. It was no surprise when he slipped his hands down the waistband of my leggings and dragged them to my knees along with my underwear. When he ran his fingers through my slick folds, I let out a whimper, and he took me by the waist to set me on his desk, right on top of the papers he'd scribbled on.
At the same time he worked open his zipper, he bit along the side of my neck. Without a doubt, he would leave feverish red marks where his stubble and teeth had been. Moans turned to loud cries when he slid inside me, widening my legs and throwing them over his arms so he could watch the place where he disappeared into my body.
"You’re my little fuck toy, baby, and you know it."
If his actions were dirty, his words were dirtier. Watching his face, I thought I had never seen someone as beautiful before in my life. He'd been blessed with hair black as sin, eyes brighter than the summer sky, and a powerful jaw. And his expression changed to something bigger than the both of us when he focused on me; when he lost himself inside me. Bringing his fingers to my clit, he massaged in rhythm with his hips. Though I braced my hands on the desk, I thought for sure I wouldn't remain upright for long. My limbs weakened the more he grunted, thrusting in and out, in and out. It seemed he wouldn't last long, given the way his lids slipped closed and his hips faltered. I felt myself tighten around him, almost as if I milked his release, but I knew I wouldn't come before he did.
"Holy fucking shit," he groaned.
Burke stopped, and I stared up at him. It was a little hard to believe I'd let him get carried away and have sex in his office with the others mere feet away. I started to rise, but he didn't pull out of me. Instead, he looked down with a dead-sexy smirk.
"Something’s not right."
Perplexed, I said, "I'm fine."
"No, you're overthinking, and you didn't come."
My cheeks heated. "It's not a deficiency or something."
Burke chuckled, looking every bit the devil incarnate. "No, but I'm not letting you up until you come."
"What—oh."
He simply had a way about him, I knew that. Experience or willingness to put forth effort, it didn't matter. One of his hands on my breast and one back to my clit was all it took for me to find myself breathing heavily. With a moan, I lay back on the desk and tried to let myself just feel. I couldn't help but squeeze my legs together when he slipped out of my body, and then I almost shot up off the desk when he moved my shirt and bra out of the way to suck a nipple into his mouth.
