Page 148 of Under Arthur’s Protection

I raised the mug and fluttered my eyelashes at him. “You think everything I do is sexy.”

“Not when you reorganize my kitchen drawers and put the tongs where the spatulas go.”

I’d moved from New York into his house in Brenton two months ago. The decision had been made before we were halfway across the Atlantic. “That was a more logical arrangement.”

“It was chaos.” He kissed my cheek, a quick, easy part of our routine now. His lips moved to my ear, and he whispered, “You are wearing the earrings, though.”

“They’re beautiful.”

The police hadn’t found whoever broke into my hotel room or recovered anything stolen the day Arthur and I met. But last night, he’d given me a pair of diamond studs. He’d said they were supposed to be a Christmas gift, but he couldn’t wait two more weeks. He didn’t try to replace my grandmother’s pearls or the bracelet from my mother, because those were about the women in my life. But the earrings I’d bought myself? Those, he wanted to replace to give us a memory of our own.

I set the coffee down and slid my hands to the nape of his neck. His mouth was warm against my skin, and when his teeth grazed the base of my neck, my eyes closed. He reached beneath the collar of my bathrobe and cupped my breast. His thumb circled my nipple, and I arched into his palm.

“I was thinking,” I managed, “about the conversation we had last night.”

He paused mid-kiss against my neck. “The one before you eliminated Germany?”

“I’ve been on an IUD for years.” My fingers tightened in his hair. “We don’t need the condoms anymore.”

He lifted his head and smiled at me. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He kissed me. Not the cheek kiss, not the neck kiss. A real kiss, with his tongue probing my mouth and his thumb tracing my cheekbone—the spot where Rick had split my face open. Arthur always touched me there, and I’d never asked him to stop, because I understood what it meant. He was promising no one would ever hurt me again.

“We’ve got at least an hour before I need to leave,” I said against his mouth.

He picked me up off the chair and set me on the desk.

The map crumpled under me. I reached for his belt while he caught the tie of my bathrobe.

He loosened the knot, and the robe fell open. His palms traveled up my thighs.

I was going to be late. I had an hour, minus the time it would take to put on my makeup, do my hair, and get dressed.

It would be worth the rush.

I unzipped his jeans and pushed them down with his boxer briefs. He was rock hard. I gripped his cock and stroked him, and he let out a sharp breath. I braced my foot on the office chair behind him and tilted my hips toward him.

He pressed his forehead against mine and slid inside me.

No barrier. Just him.

We both sighed, and his mouth curved in a way I recognized so well now. Bliss. He pulled back and drove in, harder, sending a pencil rolling off the edge of the desk to the hardwood floor.

Then another.

The desk rattled against the wall with every thrust, and his travel mug crashed to the floor. His hands clamped around my hips, holding me in place as we destroyed my map. Who cares? I just held on.

He shifted his angle.

The new position made me drop my head back and moan, “Oh, yeah.”

“There?” he murmured against my neck.

“There. God, that’s it.”

He lifted my leg higher. The desk groaned louder than I did, and sheets of paper fluttered to the floor. I turned my head to check the mess and spotted my laptop heading for the edge. I pinned it to the desk before it went over.