Page 59 of Claimed By the Silver Fox

And that last mention of his name is all that it takes to finally get him to give me exactly what I want. He strokes into me in one long motion, and I tip my head back, my body responding to him in an instant. He feels perfect, fits inside me like he’s made for me. Every time we’re together like this, it blows my mind a little how well we match, and I know that I will never find someone who makes me feel like this again as long as I live.

Good thing I’ve already made this one my husband…

He wraps his arms around me, catching my earlobe between his teeth and tugging on it lightly to coax a moan from between my lips. I shiver, running my nails down his back. The tension that has built between us this last week finally seems to shatter and break now that he’s inside of me, and I want nothing more than to let it roll through every inch of me.

“God, you feel perfect,” he grunts in my ear, and I pull him closer, my thighs tensing on either side of him as I draw him in deeper and deeper. He tilts me back on the desk slightly so that he can push down and into me, his body pressed against my clit with every thrust, and he catches my chin and guides my face up to his.

I can see his eyes blazing with need for me, practically scorching me with their intensity, and I slip my hands around him and pull him closer, closer, closer, ankles digging into the small of his back. I feel as though I’ll never have him close enough, not as long as I live, but this connection between us is the closest I will get, and I will savor every inch of it that I can.

He slows his pace, stroking deep into me, almost stirring his hips against me to apply pressure to my clit with every movement. I gasp, nails digging in to the nape of his neck, and he presses his forehead to mine, our lips not quite touching, but the air between them mingling as our breath passes back and forth, back and forth, drinking each other in.

“I want to feel you come for me,” he tells me, that slightly cocky smile of his turning up the corners of his lips.

And fuck, I don’t have it in me to deny him, not now, not ever. I brush my lips over his, feel the barest graze of his stubble on my skin, and he stills himself within me, pushing me to the edge of my breaking point as he keeps the pressure on my clit and spreading through my pussy.

I pant, catching my breath, lingering helplessly on the edge—and then, finally, I give in, crashing down over the other side of it the way a wave crashes onto the beach, something inevitable, endless, surging through me until there’s nothing left but the point where our bodies meet.

He draws back and strokes one last time inside of me, and that seems to be all it takes to push him over the edge and into his own release. My pussy clenches and tugs at him as he comes, like my body is taking matters into its own hands, drawing every drop of his seed from his body to mine, taking what I can, claiming it the way he has claimed me so many times now I’ve lost count. This is how we made our child, and the thought of something so sweet rising from a pleasure so intense makes me smile.

He keeps his forehead pressed to mine for a long moment, breathing hard, and I press my hand into his chest so I can feel the steady thud of his heartbeat under his shirt. I love the way it feels beneath my fingertips, how alive he is here with me in this moment. Not lost to guilt or grief or anything else—just here, present, our bodies still intertwined, as he holds me tight like I’m the only thing on earth he cares about.

He eases himself back from me, but stays leaning there between my legs, his expression shifting to one that I haven’t seen before. For a moment, I think the darkness is back—but then he reaches up to push my hair back from my face, and he says it.

“I love you.”

I press my lips together, the shock of those words almost more than I can wrap my head around. Not because I don’t feel it too, but because I do. And I never expected to hear it like this, coming so easily from him. But he speaks the words as though they’re obvious, as if I’d be crazy not to see it coming, and it’s hard not to feel my heart melt a little at his confession.

“I love you too,” I whisper back, and I kiss him again. A sweeter, softer kiss, one meant to seal this moment, a confirmation of what we’ve just said to one another. He holds me there, just breathing me in, like he doesn’t want this to end quite yet.

“You know,” I murmur, a teasing edge to my voice. “I’m pretty sure you’re meant to say that before you get married.”

He chuckles, brushing his nose against mine. “In case you hadn’t noticed,” he replies. “I don’t exactly do things the way I’m meant to.”

And as he sinks his mouth to mine once more, a swell of certainty rushes through me. When I’m here in his arms, I am where I belong. With my husband, the father of my child, my future—all of it wrapped up in this one man who I don’t think I will ever be able to get enough of.

And I know there’s nowhere else in the world I would rather be.

31

ANTONIO

I pause outside the gates of the cemetery, staring up at the black wrought iron against the gray sky above. I could still turn around, leave, make like I never came down here in the first place.

But I came here for a reason. And I know I need to put this to rest, once and for all, if I’m going to be able to move forward.

I push open the gates, and they creak loudly as I step inside. Before me are rows of granite and marble, gravestones of all the people who have been laid to rest here. Among them, somewhere, is my son.

I know it’s strange to some of my men that I chose to lay my boy to rest somewhere I could visit him. After how he betrayed me—and the fact that I was the one to pull the trigger on him—most of them likely thought I wanted to be done with this whole thing, to forget he even existed, condemn him to cremation and to sit on the shelf of some funeral home until it changed hands or burned down or something.

But I didn’t. Once the apartment was cleared, I made sure his body was interred up here. Even when my anger at him was so overwhelming I could barely make sense of it, there was still a part of me, deep down, that knew I should make sure I didn’t make any choices I wasn’t sure I could stand behind.

I didn’t attend the burial, didn’t bother with holding any kind of funeral. Of the friends that he had, none of them seemed to have noticed that he was gone—no doubt they had only been hanging around him in the first place because they wanted his money or power, not because they actually cared about him. From everything Julia has told me about the way Andreo was, it doesn’t come as a surprise.

I make my way between the gravestones, a heavy, damp scent hanging in the air, as though the rain is just waiting to break. Julia offered to come with me today, but I insisted I wanted to go alone. There’s a lot I have to say, and I’m not sure I want her to hear any of it. This is between Andreo and me, and I want to get it off my chest before I embrace the new child who’s about to come into my life.

His gravestone is at the far end of a long row, simple, no sweet words added, just his name and the dates of his birth and death. I stoop down in front of it, placing my hand on the cool stone, and stare at it for a long moment.

A father should never have to bury his son.