Page 49 of Heart of Stone (Dark Billionaires)

“Now, what do you say?”

“Thank you for fucking my mouth, Warren.” The words sent a spasm between her legs.

Warren’s nostrils flared, as though he knew exactly how wet sucking his cock had made her. “Get on the bed and spread your legs.” He followed her like a wolf on the hunt, his long legs eating up the space behind her—real and artificial—and a snarl ripped out of his throat when she finally lay back to expose her wetness.

Pleasure forced her eyes shut when Warren pounced on her, his mouth closing over her clit. She cried out at the sudden heat, whilst he curled his fingers inside her until she had been reduced to a mindless, panting wreck.

Her fingers dove into his hair, holding him in place despite the fact that he clearly had no intention of leaving. As if they had a mind of their own, her hips rolled against his face. His short beard was sharp against her intimate skin, but Kate loved it. A reminder of exactly whose tongue worshipped her.

He drove her higher and higher, forcing her spine to bend and her thighs to close around his head, until her restraints finally snapped. Kate came with a hedonistic cry, digging her nails into his scalp. Her hips undulated as her sensitivity grew, but he moved with her, his tongue never leaving her clit.

“Stop,” she choked eventually, and he rose up on his elbows with a masculine smirk that brimmed with possession, kissing a path up her body until he arrived at the sensitive skin under her ear.

“There isnothingbetter than you coming on my tongue, kitten.”

Kate’s lowered eyes narrowed. “I don’t know,” she smiled lazily. “That gulab jamun was pretty good.”

A laugh rumbled out of his chest, warming her to her core. “My kitten,” he whispered, playing with the wet strands of her hair. He kissed her, letting his forehead rest on hers. “I need you,” he admitted, blatant vulnerability in his eyes. “I’ve always needed you. Thank you for coming with me today.”

“I’m so sorry about Sarah, Warren.”

Jaw clenched, he looked away. “She’s going to die. Soon.”

Kate didn’t know what she could say to that. Her old neighbour had died of glioblastoma. Peter’s father, with their unruly escape artist staffies. The doctors had said he had six months to live, and he was dead in six weeks.

“I’ve only just found her,” he said, his expression desolate. “And now I’m going to lose her again. I wasted so much time. Prison wasted so much of my fucking life. It stolesomuch from me—and from Sarah.”

And her father was responsible for it. Kate just listened. There were no words that could comfort Warren now. No apologies. On their way home, Mattie had been furiously reading the chemotherapy leaflets the doctors had given them, but Warren had already accepted the cold hard truth.

She wouldn’t parrot pretty words at him. He was allowed to grieve for what he had lost. “I’ll be here for you every step of the way,” she promised him. “For you. For Mattie. And for Sarah.”

Warren rasped his knuckles over his facial hair. “You’re not a prisoner here anymore, Kate.”

“I know.” She hadn’t felt like a prisoner in weeks. Not truly.

“No,” he cradled her head with a tattooed arm. “I mean… I paid off your debt. I’ve transferred your father’s house into your name to do what you will with it. And if you want to leave, you can. I’ll give you the money you need to live a good life, and the security necessary to protect you.”

Kate took her first proper breath in years, as though a hundred tonnes had just been lifted off her chest. Air flooded into her lungs. “What?!”

“I don’t want you to feel trapped here. I don’t want you to feel as though you have to do…thiswith me.”

Whateverthiswas. She pushed him off her, barely hearing a word he was saying. “The debt’s gone?”

“It is.” Warren wiped his face into a guarded expression.

“Show me.”

Warren strolled into his walk-in wardrobe, fully unashamed of his nakedness. His shower prosthetic was still attached to one leg, a strange mesh creation that he’d told her had been 3D printed. Even through her panicked, grief-stricken haze, the sight of his thick thighs and muscled arse held her attention. He emerged with his phone, flicking the screen with his thumb before passing it over to her. Her gaze momentarily rested on the little kitten tattooed onto his chest.

So you would always be with me.

Her jaw dropped when she finally dragged her focus to the phone. Not just because he had access to her bank account details—becauseof coursehe did—but because for once she wasn’t deep in her overdraft. For once, she was very, very far away from her overdraft. “Half a million?” she asked faintly.

Kate barely saw Warren’s gentle nod, instead bowled over by the possibilities opening up to her. She’d been living below the poverty line for so long that half a million could last her thirty years with careful budgeting.

“And the house I grew up in is mine too, you said?”

Warren took the phone from her, opening up a document.Official copy of register of title, she read. “That’s the relevant information.” He pointed to a paragraph at the bottom.

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