Page 20 of Staking His Claim

Her fiery blush deepened and she covered her face with her hands. “Oh no, I’m so ashamed.”

Laughing, I captured them, drew them away so I could look into her eyes. “Are you really?”

She paused for a moment. Bit her lip. Then shook her head. “No. I wanted a piece of you with me and sure, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing to take the shirt, but I don’t regret it.”

“Good, then I hope you’ll bear that in mind with what I’m about to show you too,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“You wanted more evidence, baby, and I can provide it. But I’m also okay with holding back if you want a breather?”

She blinked, then shook her head. As I suspected she would.

My heart lurched, wondering if this might not be the best idea. Too fast too soon and I risked spooking and losing her.

But wasn’t it better she knew this early that I had very few boundaries when it came to her, so we could get to working on possible disagreements if necessary?

“Come with me.” I linked my fingers with her and tugged her out of the bedroom, past my study to the door at the farthest end of the hallway. I entered the code and when it whispered open, I pushed it wide.

Positioning her in front of me, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, sent a prayer just in case God was in a listening mood, and flipped on the light.

Her shocked gasp followed her tensing. Then her gaze whipped around the room, struggling to catalog what she was seeing. “Oh…my God. You…I…”

“Yes,” I responded simply. There was no point hiding how far gone I was for her.

To be fair though, this was a lot.

I couldn’t even pretend to know how she was feeling because to me, this had been as inevitable as breathing the second she walked into my life.

And the evidence was right there.

Dozens of pictures of Emily, splayed on the walls on three sides of the room, carefully spotlit so none were in shadow or hidden from my rabid attention. So that from the specially commissioned armchair positioned in the middle of the room, I could gaze at her celluloid representations, revel in my obsession.

She took a step forward and I moved with her as she went closer to get a better look at the smaller items pinned to some of the pictures. Her breathing stuttered. “Oh! You have receipts from…”

“Every takeout you’ve ordered, every movie stub, every birth control prescription you’ve filled since you came to Chicago.”

I watched her face carefully as I recited every deep, perhaps unhinged, thing I’d done. I registered her shock, of course, because seriously, who would do this if they didn’t have something pathologically incorrect with them?

But beneath that shock, I spotted something else. Something that made my heart jump and my blood rush a little faster.

That glitter in her blue eyes.

She…likedit. This singular fixation I possessed.

Emily Hartley came from a good family, with no history of aberrant behavior anywhere on her family tree. She was the middle child of three and got on well with her siblings. Her parents seemed, on paper at least, like decent folks.

And yet, my sexy little paralegal who’d taken me down her throat like a slutty vixen, was positively vibrating with undisguised delight as her eyes tracked my walls, taking in the extent of my depraved interest.

Glancing down, I saw her nipples had peaked into hard nubs and her breathing was growing choppier by the second.

She was hopelessly, beautifully turned on.

And I was utterly thrilled as hell because I knew I would be able to pinpoint to our grandkids the second I fell in love with Emily Hartley.

It would be a heavily embellished, PG version, of course.

Sucking in an ecstatic breath but deciding not to show how utterly pleased I was…yet,I slid a hand over her belly to her pussy.

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