Page 22 of Magnus
He nodded. “If you give me permission to do that on your behalf, then yes, I’ll do it.”
Sapphie gazed at him searchingly, but no matter how hard she looked, she could only see complete sincerity in those green eyes that steadily met hers. The same sincerity that had made her trust him enough to leave Edinburgh with him.
Her jaw tightened. “I can’t allow them to take Angel from me.”
“I’m not going to allow that to happen,” he rasped. “They already fucked up their son. I don’t intend to let them do the same to their granddaughter.”
Sapphie shook her head. “They won’t be happy accepting the same impasse we’ve had for the past two years,” she stated bleakly.
“They obviously never learned to share?—”
“I won’t allow them to take Angel for weekends either,” she snapped. “Once they had her, they would never give her back.” Sapphie was absolutely certain that would be the case.
“I was thinking more along the lines of supervised visits within your home, with either you or me or both of us also present.”
“You?”
“Have you given my marriage proposal any further thought?” Magnus prompted gruffly.
She gave a choked laugh. “No, and I’m not going to.”
He scowled. “Because you still suspect I might be in cahoots with the Carluccis.”
“No, I don’t think that anymore.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “Because if you were, then they or their representative would have been waiting for us at the airport when we arrived from Edinburgh, and Angel and I would already be on their private jet back to the US.”
“You now believe I truly want to help you, but you still won’t marry me?”
She winced. “No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I still can’t think of a single reason why you would want to tie yourself to a woman and a small child. One, moreover, who has serious and ongoing issues with her deceased husband’s parents.” She looked at the minimalistic decor in the sitting room. “You obviously enjoy living alone here and in New York, and going where you want and seeing who you want.”
“I did, yes.”
“Then why on earth would you want to give up any of that to involve yourself in the complication that is my life? And no, that wasn’t me being self-derogatory,” she quickly added when she saw the displeasure darken his expression and remembered his threat from earlier.
Although, that sudden warmth between her thighs from merely thinking of being put over Magnus’s muscular thighs and having her bottom spanked by him told her that certain parts of her weren’t averse to that outcome.
What waswrongwith her?
Her sex life with Marco had been enjoyable at the beginning of their relationship. Nothing earth-shattering, but he was her first lover and she had believed herself in love with him. But in the end, the thought of Marco’s frequent infidelities had made it impossible for Sapphie to want to share a bed or herself with him ever again.
She hadn’t so much as looked at another man in that way since.
Until Magnus.
She had a feeling, just from the intense kisses the two of them had already shared, that making love with Magnus would not only be deeply sensual but alsoworld-shattering as he focused all that intensity on her and on giving her pleasure.
Sapphie was trembling, aching, just from thinking about it.
“I wouldn’t be giving up anything that I don’t now consider superfluous to my life going forward,” Magnus reassured her.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Sapphie maintained stubbornly.
