Page 43 of The Collector's Temptation

He’d painted me smiling. Glowing with joy.

I stared, stunned and emotional, my throat tight.

“Why the heck did you paint me like that?” I finally asked, even though I already knew the answer.

Aston rose slowly and stepped between my knees, placing both hands gently over my very rounded belly.

His voice was hoarse and reverent as he murmured, “Because you’ve never been more beautiful than you are right now.”

My breath caught as his palms slid down, possessive and warm. “Because I want the whole damn world to know you’re mine. That no one else gets to touch you. That I did this to you.”

He leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth. The edge of my jaw. Then lower, brushing his lips along the side of my throat as his hands cupped the underside of my belly.

“You’re carrying my child, Kerrigan. I’ve never wanted to claim anything more in my life. Every man who looks at you will see this and know—I’ve marked you from the inside out.”

My pulse skittered, his effect on me only stronger now that I had pregnancy hormones coursing through my veins. “You’re really leaning into this caveman era, aren’t you?”

He nipped at my neck. “You love it.”

I tried to hide my grin and failed. “I do.”

Twining my arms around his shoulders, I tugged him closer until our foreheads touched. “I’m already wearing a giant ring on my finger. You don’t think that gets the message across?”

Aston glanced down at the huge diamond in an antique setting on my hand and shrugged, totally unrepentant. “It can’t hurt to have extra reminders that you’re off-limits.”

I rolled my eyes. “I won’t always be pregnant, you know.”

His grin was devilish. “We’ll see.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “That sounds like a threat.”

“It’s a promise,ma petite miette,” he murmured, dragging his lips down my collarbone. “One I’m very happy to keep.”

“I’m starting to think you just like knocking me up,” I teased, breath catching as he kissed a trail across the tops of my breasts.

“Not true,” he murmured against my skin. “I like owning you. Watching you grow round with my baby is just a very satisfying bonus.”

“Possessive much?”

“Entirely.”

I laughed, but my heart was so full it felt as though it might burst. Eight months ago, I couldn’t have imagined this life. I never thought I’d end up in a world where beauty and danger lived side by side. Where trust had been earned in hard-fought pieces. Where I had become Aston’s voice in the light, while he worked his magic in the shadows.

We were partners now. In every sense of the word. And no matter what came next, I knew one thing for certain.

I would never walk away from Aston Couillens.

Not in this lifetime. Or any that followed.

EPILOGUE

ASTON

Tipping my head back and squinting, I heaved a deep sigh. There was paint on the ceiling. Not because I’d put it there. No matter how wild my romps with my wife had gotten in here, that had never happened. But my five-year-old daughter stood below with a suspiciously empty brush and an expression of triumph that told me she was definitely her mother’s child.

“Kallie,” I said slowly, kneeling in front of her. “How did the paint get up there?”

She blinked those big green eyes at me, the same ones Kerrigan had given her and pointed at her older brother. “Dion did it.”

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