Page 117 of Black Sheep

“You didn’t say where we were going.”

His lips graze my temple. “I have a place in the Hamptons. And a chef on standby to feed us. I also have a pool where I intend to get you very naked and very wet after lunch.”

He keeps that promise an hour after the chef and staff are dismissed. In no time, my dress is discarded in one of the multiple rooms in the stunning three-story beach house that could easily feature in Architectural Digest. My hair falls down around my face as he scoops me up and strikes a steady path for the gleaming pool.

He allows me exactly one lap of swimming before he lays me out on the double-wide cabana-style lounger and proceeds to blow my mind. After three toe-curling orgasms, we doze in the shade.

I wake up first, a first in itself. Beside me, Axel’s chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, his face a little relaxed in sleep but no less ferociously dominant. My gaze drifts over his straight nose, sculpted cheekbones, the stubble on his jaw.

God, he’s beautiful. So beautiful it hurts my heart just to look at him. I stare until I can’t breathe. Until I have to tear my gaze away to stop myself from sobbing out the sorrow in my heart.

Shifting in his arms, I look beyond the pool to the private beach below. This time it isn’t the future that haunts me but the past.

A similar beach. A girl who dared to dream of forever.

Of fairy-tale weddings.

Of bare feet and fat bellies.

Of plump, happy babies who grow up in the image of their father.

Babies.

Babies…

Oh shit.

Chapter Thirty-One

IT BEATS. IT BLEEDS.

Axel

I should give her time.

I should keep my promise and let it be.

I should be thankful that my heart is beating again because of her.

That I get to cradle her in my arms every night.

But I see the terror in her eyes even when she’s letting me love her.

And Christ, it hurts.

My heart started beating again only to bleed to death.

She doesn’t love me.

I have to live with that.

But.

Fuck.

How?

Chapter Thirty-Two

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