I'll take it. For now, acceptance is enough to build on.
"Fourth." Her voice is softer now, and a flush creeps up her neck, spreading pink across skin I want to taste again. The shift from fury to embarrassment is fascinating to watch, and I file it away for later examination.
She holds up a fourth finger. "I choose when andifwe share a bed. You may have blackmailed me into this marriage, but you don't get to blackmail me into sex. My body is my own. I decide who touches it and when."
Heat coils low in my belly, dark and possessive. The memory of her beneath me rises unbidden, vivid and visceral. The way she gasped when I entered her for the first time, her body stretching to accommodate mine. The sounds she made when I brought her to the edge, desperate and beautiful and completely uninhibited. The feel of her clenching around me as she fell apart in my arms, her nails raking down my back, her voice breaking as she gasped and moaned.
My body responds to the memory with embarrassing speed, blood rushing to my cock, and I make no move to hide the visible evidence of exactly how much I want her.
Her eyes drop and the pretty flush on her cheeks deepens when she catches sight of my arousal.
"I would never force you." The words come out rougher than I intend, edged with an intensity I can't hide. My voice dips with the need burning in my veins, a heat that belongs in bedrooms rather than boardrooms, and I watch her pupils dilate in response. "But youwillbe in my bed."
Her eyes flash, defiance sparking like flint against steel. "I just said?—"
"I heard what you said." I push off from the desk and close the distance between us, each step deliberate, giving her time to retreat if she chooses. She doesn't. She holds her ground, chin lifted, pulse jumping visibly in her throat. I stop only when I'm near enough to see the flecks of gold in her eyes, to smell the jasmine and rain that clings to her skin, to feel the heat radiating from her body. "You choose when we have sex. I accept that completely. But you will sleep beside me every night. In my arms. Where I can protect you."
"That's not?—"
"I won't force you to do anything." I let my smile sharpen, let her see the hunger I've been banking since she walked through my door. Let her understand exactly what she's dealing with. "I won't have to."
The flush on her neck spreads to her cheeks, blooming like roses beneath her skin. I watch her throat work as she swallows, watch her chest rise and fall with quickened breaths that press herbreasts against the silk of her blouse. Her body sways toward mine almost imperceptibly, drawn by the same magnetic pull that's been dragging us toward each other since the night we met.
She wants me. Despite everything. Despite the blackmail and the lies and the fury still burning in her eyes.
Something dark in me smiles.
"Your arrogance," she says slowly, each word precise as a blade drawn across skin, "is about to get a rude lesson in what it means to be denied."
The threat lands between us like a gauntlet thrown. She thinks she can resist this pull. Thinks she can climb into my bed every night and keep herself separate, untouched, untouchable.
Oh, baby. She's dead wrong. And I'm going to enjoy proving it.
I smile, letting the expression carry all the dark promises I'm not putting into words. Her breath catches and her eyes darken. I watch the war play out across her features as her body and her pride fight for dominance.
"Whatever you say, jungle flower."
Her jaw tightens at the endearment, but she doesn't correct me this time. Doesn't tell me I've lost the right to call her that. A small victory, but I'll take every inch she gives me.
Progress.
"Those are my conditions." She steps back, putting distance between us, and I let her go. For now. Her retreat is strategic rather than fearful, a tactical withdrawal rather than a rout.She's not running from me. She's just catching her breath. "Take them or leave them."
"I accept." I move to my desk, pulling a document from the top drawer. The marriage contract. I had it drawn up Saturday night, hours after those photos landed on my phone. Hours after I learned the woman I'd been dreaming about for eight weeks was pregnant with my child and running from the same man I've been building a case against for months.
The universe has a sick sense of humor. Or fate is playing a longer game than I can see.
Either way, I'm not fool enough to question a gift this profound.
"Sign this, and we'll be married tomorrow morning."
She stares at the document like it might bite her, her eyes scanning the legal language with the wariness of someone who's seen too many contracts wielded as weapons. "Tomorrow?"
"Your father is already looking for you. The sooner you're under Valentina protection, the safer you'll be." I set a pen beside the contract and meet her eyes. "Unless you'd prefer to wait and give Enzo more time to find you?"
The mention of her father does what nothing else has. Her shoulders tense. Her expression shutters. Fear flickers behind the defiance, quickly hidden but not quickly enough. I watch her swallow, watch her hands curl into fists, watch the brave mask slip just enough to show the terrified woman beneath.
She's spent her whole life afraid of that man. And for good reason.
