Page 43 of A Convenient Ring to Claim Her

A rough noise escaped him and he shifted slightly, gaining leverage to press inside her.

She tried to hold herself still for him, but she was shaking with arousal. Utterly boneless and weak with wanting.

Rising on his elbow behind her, he surged his hips against her backside. She arched, trying to accept more of his thick, hot presence within her. She wanted it fast and hard, but this position left all the power up to him.

“Softly,” he whispered against her cheek. “You know I’ll wait for you. Relax and let me make it good for you.”

He was talking about an orgasm, but his words went straight into her heart, past all her firmest defenses. Tears of yearning sprang to the backs of her eyes so she had to close them tight. It was her only way to hide, but there was no hiding from the exquisite sensation of his flesh dragging and resurging into her. He moved with gentle, lazy power, sending wave after wave of joy through her. He was generous and patient and determined to draw out their pleasure as much as possible.

“Micah!” She clenched her hand in the blanket, feeling as though he was breaking her apart, it was so unbearably good.

“You’re so perfect, Quinn,” he was crooning, hand playing across her stomach and thighs like a violin with a bow. “How do we ever walk away from this?”

She couldn’t answer. She was submerged in a sea of pleasure, rocked by his easy thrusts. His whole body was tense and shaking with the control he was exerting, but he held himself from crushing her as he held himself back from the wild tempo they usually sought.

He held them on the precipice of absolute perfection.

With no other way to express her tortured joy, she groaned out her pleasure.

“I need you,” she moaned. “I need you so much.” It hurt to say it. To know it was true. Tofeelit. If she wasn’t careful, she would give him every last shred of herself.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, and his touch moved to where she was clamping her slick flesh upon him. He caressed her and suddenly the climax that had been soaring and circling out of reach plunged down like a raptor, swooping and pulling a sharp cry from her lips.

As she tumbled off the cliff, awash in powerful contractions, he pinned his hips to her backside, set his teeth on her earlobe, and released the longest, sexiest groan in history.

CHAPTER TEN

MICAHHADALREADYmade up his mind to ask Quinn to marry him before they arrived in Berlin. Waking beside her every day for a week had only reinforced his decision, but he waited for the rings to be sized and catch up to them in Vienna.

This apartment was one of his smaller properties, but also one of his favorites. Built in the 1860s for an industrialist, the exterior melded with Vienna’s rich history. The handful of units within were spacious and updated for modern life while Old World touches remained, like parquet flooring and a wine-making operation beneath street level.

When his housekeeper pointed out the courier parcel that had been brought up first thing, he ordered bubbly from his private reserves in the cellar. It went into a bucket next to the breakfast table.

He could have waited until dinner, but twice this week, Quinn had been so caught up in research, she had stayed late. Other times, he heard her through the door between their offices, dictating notes and stumbling into the occasional trouble with them.

“Scratch that. Scratch that. Don’t typescratch thatyou idiotic—stop! End! Quit document you absolute—ahh!Stop.”

After a late night, however, they’d agreed to have a lazy start today. He was sipping his coffee, reading headlines on his tablet, when she came down the stairs.

She had managed to knot a scarf around the loose corkscrews of her hair and had dressed in wide-legged pants with one of the sleeveless wrap tops she seemed to find so convenient to put on and take off.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Don’t be smug.” She was still yawning and blinking, but gave him a smug smile of her own. She was feeling much better these days and last night had been a taste of their previous energetic and adventurous encounters.

“I damned well will be. For once, I left you sleeping. Come here.”

She wrinkled her nose at him, but bypassed her own chair to come give him a kiss that tasted of toothpaste.

He resisted the urge to pull her into his lap. Barely. Especially when his gaze found her modest cleavage before she straightened. Those freckles sprinkled across the upper swells of her breasts never ceased to mesmerize him.

“Where are we going today?” she asked as she moved to her chair.

“I thought we decided to walk in the park.” He deliberately didn’t rise to help her. She was already sinking into it and he was waiting for her to notice what was on her plate.

“Maybe we could visit the—” She cut herself off and stared at the green velvet box. It was open, showing a set of three rings. The two wedding bands were almost identical. His was a wider band of gold, but they both held a stripe of flush-mounted diamonds across the top. The engagement ring was similar, but it held a break where a large square-cut diamond floated, also flush with the rest of the setting so it wouldn’t catch easily.

It was clever and understated in its artistry, both beautiful and complex, if one took the time to notice. Like her.

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