Page 75 of Blind Devotion

Because you’ll go with him and leave me behind.

Because he never stopped looking for you while I abandoned you, shot you, then repeatedly threatened your life.

Because you deserve better than me, and I’m afraid you’ll realize it.

“I want you to myself right now. There’s no one else in this bed but us. Ever.”

“We’ve been here a whole day already.”

“Not good enough. I want more.” I drew her in closer.

“You can’t keep me locked up anymore, Adrien.”

“I can and will if I have to.”

“Not if you want this to happen again.”

“You think you can take your body away from me?” I grabbed her chin and turned her face up toward mine.

“What, you can dish but you can’t take?”

“Only from you,ma rescapée. Only you.”

She kissed me gently.

“I’m not going to let this go. I need to talk to them. They deserve to know how I’m doing.”

“You chose to stay. Now I’m not letting you go.” I held her tighter, already addicted to the feel of her. With my hand against her heart, I told her, “Ça, c’est à moi.” This belongs to me.

“Always,” she whispered.

I cupped her breasts and wrapped my lips around one puckered nipple before licking around the next. “Les miens.” Mine. My hand slid down her belly and over her pussy lips. A finger tapped her clit. On a moan, she arched into me, and I thrust a finger inside her. “Ça m’appartient aussi. Tous ce que tu es, tout ce que tu seras, est à moi.”This is mine also. Everything you are, everything you will be, belongs to me.

“Yes,” she keened, her hips riding my finger.

I needed to be inside her. To own her. To possess her so that she never forgot where she began and I ended. This, us, was just the beginning. We were a story with no end, and I’d prove that every day for the rest of our lives.

My cock nudged her entrance, and with one quick thrust, I was swallowed up again by her tight heat. I pounded into her from behind like an animal.

“Marry me.”

“Adrien,” she whimpered.

My hand wrapped around her throat. “Marry me.” Thrust. “Be my wife.” Thrust. “My end and my beginning. My butterfly to your lion. I’ll be your protector. Your man, the demon everyone sees but you.”

Her loud moan as I went particularly deep filled the room. That was a noise I was going to hear every single day from now on. She clung to the hand that pinned her hips to me with every assault of my cock. Her whimpers grew, higher, stronger, butstill she gave me nothing. There was no world where she didn’t say yes.

“Marry me, Tessa. Don’t make us waste another day.”

Chapter 31

Anawfulmechanicalmooingaccompanied my entrance into my office. Erel sat in his dedicated chair, fiddling with the toy cow box I kept on my desk. The very same one Tessa gifted me nine years ago on one of her trips to France.

She thought my cringed face looked hilarious when the box mooed after being flipped upside down and back upright. So much so, she fell into a fit of laughter that I ended up joining in on. Little ten-and-a-half-year-old Persy told me, “You should never stop laughing” as she gave it to me. While everything else we exchanged over the years was tucked away on a shelf, this I kept close. It was gaudy in its design with the bright, colorful picture of a cow wrapped around the green plastic. It clashed with every piece of thick cherrywood furniture in my office, but she was right. It brightened my mood every time I saw it, or perhaps that was because of the way visitors fidgeted at the sight and sound of the mismatched item.

I shut the door behind me with an audible click. He tossed the trinket back on my desk, then gripped his armrests.

“You finally showing your face after making me wait an entire fucking day and a half?”