But Renee was already a part of his family. She had been for years.
“Am I your mistress?” she went on and he heard an edge to her voice, one that made him want to weep with joy.
She was fighting back.
“No,” he ground out when she gave him an extra-firm squeeze. Not that he wanted to think about her cheating, lying ex right now, but he realized on a fundamental level that she had to make sure. “Not a mistress. Not a... Oh, God,” he groaned as she stroked him. “Not a girlfriend, either.” That wasn’t a strong enough word for what she meant to him.
“Then what am I?” Her voice was quiet but there was no mistaking it—she had him in the palm of her hand. Literally.
When she reached back with her other hand, Oliver’s restraint cracked. He grabbed her by the wrists. “I can’t wait,” he growled as he pushed her hands against the mirror. “Don’t move.”
He grabbed the condom from his pants and frantically ripped it open. He nudged her legs apart and then slid into her warmth with one long thrust. They both moaned.
Mine. It was all he could think as he grabbed Renee by the hips and buried himself in her over and over again. It wasn’t slow or sweet or tender. The way he took her was raw and hard and heaven help him, he loved it.
She loved it. Her hands on the mirror, she bent forward at the waist and thrust her backside up and out, just enough that she could see his face unobstructed in the mirror. And holding her gaze while he furiously pumped into her body was the singularly most erotic thing he’d experienced in his life.
She moaned and then shouted, “Oh, God—Oliver!”
“Renee,” he growled, digging his fingers into her skin, fighting the urge to mark her as his.
She pushed back into his thrusts and cried out, her muscles clenching him so tightly that he couldn’t hold anything back. Not with her. She would always push him past the point of reason, past the cold grip of logic.
He needed to do something. Something romantic, like whisper sweet words of promise in her ear. Something practical, like take care of the condom. Something, for God’s sake.
“You destroy me, Renee” was what he came up with. “You simply destroy me.”
Because Renee Preston-Willoughby had walked into his office and thrown everything ordered and planned about his life right out the window. His organized days of meetings? Gone. His long-term plans to grow Lawrence Energies—including the damned rodeo? Cast aside. His careful management of his family? Forgotten. His promise to his mother that he’d keep the family together? A distant memory.
All that was left was this fierce need to be with Renee and protect her—and her unborn child.
The destruction was complete.
Because she was his, by God. And he was not letting her go.
Ten
Renee focused on keeping her breath steady and even. Okay, it was a little heavy because sex with Oliver was proving to be so much more than she was used to.
That man had scandalously stood her in front of a mirror and made her believe—really believe—that she was pretty and desirable and worth the risk. He was worried about her and he wanted and needed her and he couldn’t keep his hands off her and it was perfect.
Or it had been, right until he’d ruined it.
Oh, she knew he hadn’t meant it as an insult or even a warning. But there was no mistaking that “you destroy me” for what it was—the truth.
Because she would. Sooner or later, she would ruin him. Not on purpose. Never on purpose. But it was inevitable, wasn’t it? Either she was going to do something accidental, like set fire to one or more of his homes, or word would get out about their connection and his reputation would be dragged through the mud.
Knowing her luck, probably both. He thought he understood her messed-up family. But even if things went perfectly from here on out—the press left her alone or her baby’s delivery was textbook or Oliver continued to be wonderful?
Her family would go on trial or her mother would find some way to ruin everything all the way from France because there was no way Rebecca Preston would approve of what Renee was doing. Preparing food? Doing the menial work of washing dishes? Doing something unladylike like pushing a friend into a pond and laughing out loud?
She hoped no one from that fire department went to the press. If her mother could find a way to ruin the little bit of peace Renee was struggling to hold on to, she would. Just out of spite.
She and Oliver were fogging the mirror up with their breaths. She didn’t want to move. She wanted to pretend like everything was fine.
But she was tired of that, too. She’d spent years pretending and she wasn’t going to anymore. At least, she was going to try to not do it as much. She might have to ease into this whole total-honesty thing.
But she definitely wasn’t going to let thoughts of her mother into this room. Rebecca Preston had abandoned Renee long before she’d decamped to Paris. It was high time Renee returned the favor.
She pushed against the mirror and thankfully, Oliver backed up. She shivered from the loss of his body covering hers.
She turned to go to the bathroom just in case she fell apart, but Oliver caught her hand.
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
The smart thing to do would be to say no. He had a guest room. She was a guest.
But then he added, “It’s whatever you want,” and her resolve buckled because honestly, she wanted to spend the night curled in his arms. Whatever this was, it would end badly for all parties involved—she didn’t have any doubt about that.
But the fact was it was going to end badly no matter
