Page 125 of Sinful Blaze

But when she’s right on that edge, I stop.

“Wh-what?” Daphne looks so sweetly confused, her cheeks flushed and her lips swollen from my kisses. “What’s wrong?”

“Ewing,” I rasp. “He came to your workplace. He put his hands on you.”

The sudden rush of pink to her cheeks is not because I’m touching her.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I… I didn’t…” Daphne swallows hard. “I didn’t want to bother you. I didn’t think it mattered.”

I hold back the true depths of my anger. Didn’t think it mattered, as if what happens to her doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s not her I’m angry at—it’s whoever gave her the idea that she could ever be a bother when she needs help.

“Look at me, Daphne.”

She doesn’t. She’s too busy biting her lip and looking away in her shame and embarrassment.

“Do I look like the kind of man who’s okay with another man coming after my woman? Touching her, kissing her, forcing himself on her?”

Again, her brow furrows. “‘Your woman’?”

“Yes, Daphne. You’re my woman. That should be pretty fucking obvious.”

“How—”

“You sleep in my bed. You?—”

“That’s a technicality.” She clears her throat and finally meets my eye. “You own this apartment. You own the whole building, if I remember correctly. Every room is your room.”

I growl low in my chest. “You sleep in my bed. You wear my jewelry, and my mark. You wear my scent. You take my cock. You’re carrying my baby. Everything I have is yours. How are you not my woman?”

Unshed tears glisten on her lashes. “Isn’t that it, though? You only want me because I’m carrying your baby.”

I grab her face so there’s nowhere else she can look but right back at me. “I wanted you, Daphne. You. Long before either of us even knew about our baby.”

Her eyes fall low and she worries with her teeth at the inside of her cheek for a while. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wanted to, I just… I didn’t know if I could.”

That’s what I’ve been waiting for.

So when I slide into her, it feels like sliding into home. Warm, tight, safe.

Daphne clings to me as I hike her legs up around my waist and work myself deeper into her. I keep my hands clamped tight on her hips, unwilling to let her go anywhere else but where she belongs.

Right here. With me. On me.

She’s ready to come almost instantly, but she does so good, so fucking good, to bite my shoulder and wait for me to tell her she can go ahead and let it all out.

Cruel bastard that I am, though, I don’t. Instead, I slow the pace until I’m seated balls-deep inside her and just grind there. No pull, no thrusts, but every inch is filling her to the brim and making her feel just how badly I need her.

“Pasha, please…”

I hold her face in my hand and kiss her hard. “Show me you can listen to me,” I breathe in her ear. “Show me you can keep your word.”

A pitiful mewl emits from her throat, but she nods and buries her face in my neck. I can feel her kiss my skin, then suck it between her teeth, and a thrill like no other shoots from my head to my toes at the knowledge that my woman is marking me.

When her body feels calmer, I start back up again. This time, my thrusts are harder, longer strokes. Her toes curl. Her fingers dig into my shoulder blades.

“That’s a good girl. Come with me,” I grunt.

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