“This makes me want you more, Melody,” he growls.
“Yeah … right.”
“Yeah,” he says fiercely, and then kisses me so passionately it’s like there’s a miniature sun in my chest even after he breaks it off. “Right.”
I gaze at him, lips tingling, part of me daring myself to believe him, the rest roaring not to be so stupidly naïve.
“So you don’t care that I’ll be next to useless in the bedroom, especially compared to your high society girls?”
“Melody,” he sighs, wrapping his arms around me, kissing my forehead with something akin to tenderness. “I haven’t made it clear, have I? I don’t just want to fuck you. Don’t get me wrong. I do need to fuck you. To taste you. To make your body mine. To feel your pussy go tight around my cock as I slide inside of you.”
My body is suddenly filled with a wave of pounding emotion, my skin tingling, and my womb pounding the walls of my consciousness as though trying to possess me. And I’ve got no doubt what she’d do if she had control of my body right now.
“But it’s not just that,” he whispers, smoothing hair from my forehead and tucking it behind my ear. “The second I laid eyes on you, I knew that you were it for me, Melody. I knew that I had to have you. I knew that you were the woman who would finally crack this beating thing in my chest I’m told is called a heart.”
He smirks and another wave of emotion crashes through me.
“I don’t just need to be with you, I need to put my seed in your belly. I need to be at your side as our children grow inside of you, and be with you every step of the way. I’m claiming you, Melody, your body and your soul. I’m claiming you for the rest of our goddamned lives. And that’s why I’m so damn happy to hear that you’re a virgin because that means I get you all to myself, truly.”
Tell him the truth. Tell him about your past. Now.
But the words won’t come. Shame jabs at me and taunts me and threatens to dethrone this moment and leave it lying in the dirt.
“After a few days?” I murmur.
He chuckles, leaning close and kissing me at the edge of my mouth.
“You need to work on your poker face,” he says. “You feel the same. You can’t explain it. You never expected it. But you feel just as inexplicably captivated as I do.”
My hands tense on his arms, which I didn’t even realize I was clutching onto until I feel the muscles pressing against my palms.
I squeeze harder and then stare at him wide-eyed.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I whisper. “But when I saw you in the Spark offices, well, I guess it’s fitting. Because there was a spark. But I thought I was just being silly. The silly girl with the silly dream of the CEO wanting anything to do with her. I feel it inside of me, Mason. I don’t know what it is. It’s this desire, this need, the way you described it. But I’ve never believed in fate before. I don’t understand.”
“Does it scare you?” he whispers.
“Y-yes,” I admit, voice breaking a little.
“Why?” he asks firmly.
Because if I told you the truth, you’d run for the hills.
Being close to me is dangerous.
“Because things like this don’t just happen,” I blurt, wrapping my arms around him and pushing my body right up against his, as though if I let go he’ll drift away and so will this revelation. “People don’t just know the second they see somebody. Maybe in the movies. But in real life? Come on, Mason, it just doesn’t happen.”
“No,” he says, his fingers making tantalizing patterns in my hair. “It doesn’t. Not usually. Except it did, it has. To us. Which makes us the luckiest people alive. I’m not going to pretend I know how to explain it, but the second I saw you, I just knew. I knew I’d lie in a vat of lava for you. I knew I’d fight off a bear. I knew I’d do anything, any fucked-up thing you can think of, to keep you and our future children safe. I knew I’d never let anything happen to you because you’re mine, I own you, now and always. Forever. Do you understand, my virgin sex goddess? You belong to me now.”
“Oh, God, that sounds good,” I whisper, pressing my face into his chest, smelling his musky cologne, the rain pattering lightly on the window. “Would you really sit in a tub of lava for me, huh?”
He laughs, leaning back and touching my chin, guiding my gaze to his.
“For as long as it took for you to realize you’re perfect,” he growls. “I can scent your womb, Melody. I can smell how badly your body wants to give me a child. But if you look me in the eye right now and tell me this isn’t what you want, then fine, I’ll do my best to drag myself out of here and I’ll never bother you again. It’ll be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’ll be like forcibly removing a part of myself. But I’ll try.”
“No,” I whisper fiercely, shocked by the sudden ferociousness in my voice. “I want it, Mason. I’m scared. I’ll admit that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want this as badly as you do.”
“Good,” he says, striding to the door.
“What are you doing?” I say, mouth dry, heart pounding with victory and excitement and anxiety.
“How long until Gertrude is back?”
“She’s gone all afternoon.”
“That gives me a chance to taste you, then,” he says, voice shaking. “It’s been driving me insane, Melody, imagining what your sweet pussy must taste like. The pussy that’s going to give birth to our children. And now that I know you’re a virgin, my seed has gotten all the more
