Page 161 of By His Vow

I’m not normally a jewelry kinda man, but even I can admit that it’s a beautiful ring. It called to me the day I went shopping. I’ve no idea how, but the second I saw it, I knew it was meant for her.

“I thought that once we’d done that, it would be out of my system and I’d be able to put it behind me and move on,” she says absently, as if she’s talking to herself.

“But now?” I ask, my deep voice startling her.

“I…” She sighs before finally looking up at me.

My breath catches at the honesty in her eyes.

“I want to do it again already,” she confesses.

I swallow thickly. My cock is already prepared for round two.

I thrust up, letting her feel just how much I agree with her before I lay my arms out on the bed at my sides.

“Use me, baby. Take everything you need from me.”

“King,” she whispers, dropping her gaze to my chest.

Reaching out, I tuck two fingers under her chin to force her eyes back to mine.

“What, baby?”

“We shouldn’t be doing this. It complicates things.”

“Does it, though? Because to me, right now,” I say, grinding myself against her again, “it feels like the simplest, most obvious thing in the world.”

I flip us again, finding my home between her thighs and sliding back inside her.

Both of us sigh with pleasure. A million and one things are dancing on the tip of her tongue, but I silence all of them with another earth-shattering kiss.

This time isn’t as frantic or as desperate as the first time.

We needed that to take the edge off.

This time is gentler, slower, but it’s no less full of passion and desire.

It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, and for now, I refuse to think too much about that, because the truth of what’s building between us is nothing but terrifying.

It’s a business deal, and this right here is one of the benefits.

And just like that, I manage to spend the rest of the night lying to myself as we reap the benefits of this arrangement over and over until we both pass out, exhausted and sated, knowing that we’ve got a whole year to worry about what’s really happening here.

Not that it really matters. Right now, we’re in a bubble. A bubble where the outside world doesn’t factor. But come Monday when we return to Chicago, everything is going to change all over again.

We won’t just be two people letting the world see our relationship developing. We’re going to be an engaged couple with a fast-approaching wedding.

She just doesn’t know that part yet.

40

TATUM

Iwake burning hot and pinned to the mattress—and not just by the massive diamond that’s weighing down my hand.

It takes a second for everything that happened last night to fully come back to me, and the moment it does, my temperature rises that little bit more.

Fuck.

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