Page 77 of Theirs to Tempt: The Marriage Claim

Caleb tightens his arm around me, and Lucian leans back. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be happening.”

Covering myself with my hands, I sit up.

“You made your position about you going home with us or having cameras in your apartment.”

I scowl. “Put a camera outside. Give me access to it. Hire security for the building. I don’t care.”

Lucian’s midnight-blue eyes hold mine. “That’s insufficient.”

I sit up straighter, suddenly very aware that Caleb still has an arm around my waist.

Lucian regards me, unblinking. “The only option is for you to move in.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sophie

Unable to form words, I stare at him. Then I look at Caleb.

When I see cold resolve in his eyes, I swing back to Lucian. “No.” The warmth that had been humming through my body vanishes as if it never existed.

I push hard against Caleb’s arm, needing distance from both of them, from the heat of their bodies, from the terrible intimacy of what I just allowed to happen between us.

For a fraction of a second, his arm tightens around my waist.

The response is instinctive. I feel it in the sudden flex of muscle against my bare skin, the sheer strength that could keep me exactly where I am if he chose to use it. “Let me go.”

Immediately he releases me, and I scramble off the couch and away from them.

I snatch my shirt from the floor and drag it over my head, covering breasts that were in Caleb’s hands only moments ago. My panties are somewhere near the coffee table. I find them, then my leggings, dressing with my back partially turned because the vulnerability that felt frighteningly powerful a few minutes ago now feels entirely different.

Neither man speaks.

Neither tries to touch me again.

When I straighten, Lucian is still sitting at the other end of the sofa, forearms resting loosely on his thighs, watching me with the same unwavering concentration he brings to everything.

Caleb has moved a few feet away.

Giving me space.

Or allowing me the illusion of it.

“You told me I could go home.”

Lucian’s expression doesn’t change. “I told you that you could end anything physical between us. At any time.”

The precision of his answer slices more deeply than anger would have.

“Sophie—”

“No.” I lift a hand, stopping Caleb before he can continue. “I need to understand this.”

Yesterday, at the Retreat, they asked me for a word that could stop everything. They stood back while I panicked over a padded bench and waited for me to decide whether to put my hands on it again.

A few minutes ago, when I couldn’t reach an orgasm on my own, Lucian asked whether I wanted help.

I said yes, and I ended up begging him to touch me.