TWELVE
LUKE HADN’T EXPECTED THAT ANSWER, but he probably should have. Nothing was easy with this woman he loved, and he honestly wouldn’t want it any other way. He never picked the easy path. Ever.
Sitting back on his heels, the ring box still in his outstretched hand, he looked at Claire spread out like an erotic offering. She was fucking amazing. The way she’d responded to the belt and how he’d touched her, she was so honest, so available, so willing to let herself really feel things. He loved her with every fiber of his being. She was everything he’d ever wanted but didn’t know existed. He wasn’t about to give up before she was his and the whole world knew it.
“Why not?” he asked, more curious than hurt.
She’d be his. The question was, how hard was she going to make him work for her? He’d never shied away from a challenge, and he wasn’t about to start.
“A month ago, you couldn’t tell me you loved me,” she said, sitting up straight in the chair. Even naked, she still owned her power. “And now you’re asking me to marry you? I love you, Masters, and I’m having our baby, but when I get married, it’s going to be forever. Please don’t do this just because I’m pregnant.” She motioned to the ring with one hand while the other rested protectively on her stomach.
“Hell yes, because you’re pregnant. We’re having a baby. We’re going to be a family and I’m sorry it took me so long to come to my senses, but I’m here now. I didn’t think I’d ever have a family. Now it’s everything, and I can’t imagine my life any other way. I don’t want to imagine it.”
“I don’t want us to do this…” she started, but he interrupted her before she could finish.
“I want a family, Claire, this baby, and if we decide to, another, but that’s not why I’m asking you to marry me. I bought the ring weeks ago. I was going to ask you anyway; I just didn’t want to look like an overeager freak. I wantyou, Claire. For better or worse. For as long as I live.”
She looked at him, and he saw the turmoil in her eyes and knew she was really struggling. That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted his love to make things easier for her, not cause her more worry.
“I want to, really I do,” she said. He saw love and concern shining from her eyes. “But it’s all too fast. We moved in together and then the baby. Now this,” she motioned to the ring. “It’s too much. I feel like I’m being dragged behind my life with you. I need time to catch up.”
He hated it. He wanted to lock things down, close the deal, get the ring on her finger, but he could see it from her point of view. She’d been ready to give him everything. Hell, she’d given him everything and he’d wrecked it. Just because he knew he’d die before he let it happen again, didn’t mean that she was as sure. She loved him. She was having their baby. He’d make her his wife. It was going to happen. He could wait, if that’s what she needed from him.
What she’d needed earlier was to get out of her head and take a break from thinking and worrying. From the look of the crease in the center of her forehead, his proposal had shoved her out of the state of bliss he’d worked hard to get her to and right back into her head. That wasn’t going to work for him.
“I will wait as long as you need,” he said, cupping her face with his hand while he smoothed the wrinkle on her forehead with his thumb.
He snapped the box closed and took her wrist. Stretching open her hand, he set the box on her palm and curled her fingers around it. The fact that she didn’t try to fight him and took the ring reinforced his feeling that it was only a matter of time before she said yes.
“It’s a standing offer, Claire. I want you to be my wife, but I’m not going to push.” If she was feeling out of control, then the quickest way to get her to say yes was to give the control back to her. “When you’re ready, put the ring on, and I’ll ask you again.”
She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. He leaned in to kiss her and tasted the salt on her lips.
“Now sweetheart,” he said, taking extra care to nuzzle and nip at the side of her neck the way he knew she loved. “You need to stop thinking again. Stand up. Turn around and bend over. I’m going to fuck that pretty pussy until the only word you remember is my name.”
He felt her chest rise as she sucked in a breath and smiled to himself. He stood, peeling off his shirt, and by the time he started on the button on his slacks, she was bent over in front of him, her head and forearms resting on the seat. It was like looking at the promised land, her heart-shaped ass round and full in front of him, just begging for his hands. The slick lips of her sweet cunt still swollen from her climax beckoned to him, and he couldn’t wait another minute to sink his hard cock balls deep into her tight wet heat.
“That’s it, beautiful girl,” he said, stepping free of his pants and wrapping his fist around his cock. He gave himself a couple of strokes while he looked at the view of the gorgeous woman in front of him. Then he stepped toward her, ran the head of his cock along the slick seem of her sex and slid inside, fucking her up onto her toes.
“God, fuck yes, finally,” she said, panting as she stretched as tall as she could to accommodate him.
With her legs together, she was so fucking tight, and the position let him sink the whole way into her. He was so glad they’d seen the doctor. He’d still be careful, but fuck, he’d missed taking her this way, mastering her body even as she owned his.
“Still talking,” he said, wrapping her hair around his fist and tugging.
He heard the soft gasp escape her lips, and this time when he thrust into her, she rocked back to meet him. Gripping her hip with one hand and her hair in the other, he fucked her with long steady strokes. She met him, pressing back into him, arching her back to give him better access. He didn’t have to guess if what he was doing felt good; she showed him with her hungry, demanding body.
He was so fucking hard, so fucking ready. He wasn’t going to last but there was no way he was going over the edge without taking her with him. Letting go of her thick auburn mane, he slid his fingers to the point their bodies met, dragging some of her slick cream to the tight bud of her ass. Using the tip of his finger, he breached the tight ring of muscles, biting back a groan when she tightened around him. Burying his cock inside her so deep he felt his balls slap against her clit, he clamped his hand around her hip hard enough to leave fingerprints.
He froze, holding her in place when she tried to move. Slowly, deliberately he worked the tip of his finger in and out until she relaxed, and he could move easily. By the time he slid a second finger beside the first, she was pressing back to meet him in spite of his attempts to hold her still, and he was fighting hard to keep from coming.
“Luke,” she said. “Fuck, Luke.”
“Absolutely, sweetheart,” he said.
Relaxing his hold on her hip when he felt her body tighten around him, he fucked her with his fingers and his cock until his name fell from her lips in a steady stream.
“Touch yourself for me,” he said when he knew she was close.
