Page 92 of Ruthless Claim

“I need to tell you something.”

His hand stills. He turns his head toward me in the dark, and I feel him look at me even though I can barely see his face. “Is everything okay?” There’s a sharpness in his voice. “Is it the baby?”

“The baby’s fine,” I tell him, covering his hand with my own. “Everything’s fine.” I take a breath. I’ve been here before, on the edge of something, and I’ve folded it back up and pretended it wasn’t there. I’m not doing that tonight. “It’s just—” I stop and start again. “I love you.”

Cillian is completely still for a moment. My heart is hammering because I’ve said the thing I can’t take back and I’m waiting to find out what it does. I hold my breath, waiting.

“I love you too,” he says roughly. “I think I’ve loved you since you threw that wine glass at my head.”

I’m so overwhelmed with relief that he feels the same way that his words don’t really register until the last moment. A wet laugh bubbles out. “That’s a weird moment to fall in love.”

“You’re a weird woman.”

I gently punch him. “Takes one to know one.”

He turns toward me and kisses me, soft and slow.

His hand is still on my stomach, and this is the most gentle he’s ever been with me. He is everything, this man who I hated on sight and who has somehow, without either of our permission, become the person I most want to be in a room with.

When he pulls back, I can just make out the lines of his face in the city glow.

The sharp jaw.

The scar.

The blue eyes looking at me with everything down.

“We’re really doing this,” I say in wonderment. “Having a baby. Being married. Actually being in love.”

“Seems like it,” he replies.

“It’s insane.”

“Completely.”

“I wouldn’t change it for anything.” I mean every single syllable.

“Me neither.” He means it too. I know because I know his voice now, the whole register of it, every frequency, and there is not a single note of anything in this except the truth.

Cillian kisses me hard, his hand moving off my stomach and his thumbs slipping beneath my waistband. “God, I want you.”

“Then take me.” I shiver when his thumb traces a gentle line along my pelvis, ringing a sensitive nerve.

Cillian’s fingers still for a moment, his breathing ragged. Even in the dim light, I can see that his eyes have turned dark with lust.

“Take off your shirt,” he orders.

Softly laughing, I do as he orders, tossing my pajama shirt onto the ground. Cillian’s hands are immediately on my breasts, dragging his fingers to the nipples before pinching. I moan at the sensation, my nipples already so sensitive because of pregnancy. A bolt of pleasure shoots straight between my thighs.

Cillian repeats the motion with the other breast, fervently watching them bounce. “God, I’ll never get sick of seeing that,” he says in wonder before his hands dance down toward my pajama bottoms and yanks them off along with my underwear. Cool air encircles my body and my nipples harden again. I shiver.

Cillian shifts forward, about to straddle me when I plant a foot on his chest. “Not so fast.”

He raises a questioning brow, a hand curving over my foot. I sigh, feeling the warmth of his touch. “Take off your pants and underwear,” I tell him.

“Bossy,” Cillian murmurs, but does as he’s told, shirking off his clothes until he’s naked as well, palming his solid cock. I moan at the sight of him, desperate for friction as I squirm on the mattress.

“Now that we’ve established our feelings for each other, I want to make something perfectly clear,” Cillian says, his eyes never leaving mine as he strokes his cock. “There will never be another man for you. When I fuck you, that’s it. You are mine and I don’t share.”