Page 176 of Theirs to Tempt: The Marriage Claim

The question stops me.

I look at him.

“And then when she finds out?”

I don’t answer.

There is nothing to say.

The very skills I have always relied on are useless to me now.

Worse than useless.

They are dangerous.

I stare into the black coffee and finally say the one thing I have been avoiding since those elevator doors closed.

“I don’t know how to get her back without doing it again.”

Caleb is silent for a long moment.

Then he leans forward, forearms resting on the bar.

“Then we don’t get her back.”

I turn my head slowly. “What?”

“You heard me.”

The alcohol in my bloodstream does nothing to dull the surge of fury. “If you think I’m giving up on her⁠—”

“I didn’t say give up.”

“Then what the fuck are you saying?”

His gaze meets mine. “We have to stop trying to make her come back.”

The words settle between us.

My first instinct is rejection.

My second is to demand an alternative.

Caleb gives me one before I can ask.

“Pull your head out of your fucking ass, and let’s give her a reason to want to come back.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Sophie

Lucian’s hand circles my throat, not tightening until I arch beneath him and whisper the permission he is waiting for.

The pressure arrives slowly, his long fingers warm against my pulse, holding me still without stealing a single breath while his mouth moves over mine with the kind of ruthless possession I should hate and cannot. The room surrounding us is dark except for the muted gold spilling through the curtains, enough light to catch in his midnight-blue eyes when he lifts his head and studies my face as though every broken sound I make belongs to him.

“There you are,” he murmurs, satisfaction roughening the polished edges of his voice. “Stop thinking.”

I want to tell him that ordering my mind into silence has never worked, that analysis is not a switch he can turn off simply because he wants all of me focused on what his body is doing to mine, but Caleb’s hands close around my hips from behind and drag me back against the hard heat of him.