Her tight pussy pulsing around my cock shoves me over the edge, and I press my face into her hair as I come hard inside her.
We stay there like that; I don’t know how long. Long enough for our breathing to level. Long enough for the sounds from outside the room to reassemble into something recognizable: voices, the sounds of movement, the low register of the string quartet.
She is still wrapped around me, her face in my neck, her fingers loosely gripping my jacket. Her hair is completely undone now,loose and flowing, and I stroke it back from her face with one hand while I hold her with the other.
“I’ve got you,” I say quietly. “I love you, Sophie.”
She goes absolutely still. Then she lifts her head from my neck and looks at me, her eyes wet.
“What did you say?”
I hold her gaze. “You heard me.”
Anger crosses her face.
“No.” Her voice goes sharp. She pulls back, her hands going to her dress, her hair. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t play these mind games with me, don’t use that when I’m—”
“It’s not a game.”
“—when I’m already—” She stops herself and shakes her head, jaw tightening. “You do not get to say that to me when— You do not get to make the rules, Vincenzo. You don’t call the shots here. I told you I was done and I meant it and you can’t just— FRIG.”
I stand, and she immediately slides off the table, barely able to get her footing, still shaking. She smooths her dress as best she can, and I tuck myself in and zip up, watching her.
She snatches her panties off the floor and shakes them at me. “Stay away from me.”
She suddenly goes pale, her gaze over my shoulder. I turn around. Gavin MacCuinn is standing in the doorway. I didn’t seethat fucker come in with the Ronan and the rest of the Irish. When the fuck did he get here?
He takes in the room: Sophie’s messy hair, my tie and pocket square on the floor, my wrinkled jacket where Sophie grabbed it.
I watch him decipher the scene, and I smirk, adjusting my jacket. That’s right, bitch. She’s not yours. She’s fucking mine.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.” His voice is even. “Everyone is wondering where you are, Vin. Just thought you should know.”
Sophie won’t look at me as she tries to step around me to get to the door, to get to Gavin. I block her path and grip her jaw with two fingers, turning her face up toward mine.
“You can be as mad as you want,” I say. “But this is happening, Sophia.”
“No, Vin, it’s really not.”
I kiss her. She jerks back and smacks me across the face. I don’t move. I don’t flinch. And then I grin.
Fury flashes in her eyes.
Gavin shifts in the doorway. “Um, maybe I should leave you two—”
“Yes,” I say.
“No.” Sophie smooths her hair back, squares her shoulders, and turns to him with a smile. “Gavin. Would you walk with me? I need some air.”
He holds out his arm, and she takes it.
She’s going to pay for that later.
Out in the pavilion, Tommy and Matti accost me but I blow them off. I’m too busy tracking Gavin and Sophie, arm in arm, walking across the landscaped gardens through the large wall of windows.
Sophie’s father is standing in front of one of those windows on the far side of the room, slightly apart from the groups around him. That’s the man I want to see.
He straightens when he sees me coming.
