Chapter Nineteen
Sixtine
Turning away from my desk, I blow out a breath and stand. Anticipation tickles my spine with cold fingers so I roll my shoulders to try and shake it out of me. I anxiously smooth down the front of my black Valentino dress and make my way to the bay of windows. Crossing my arms, I stare down at the city below from the twentieth floor of our office building.
Over the years, Sinclair Royal has grown into the largest firm in the U.K and one of the largest in the world. In addition to handling all external legal affairs for massive Fortune 500 companies such as Blackdown and CKI, our thousand employees represent over two hundred other clients.
Our success is due in part to the range of services and types of cases we take on, but also because of how much of a shark my husband is. The word “lose” isn’t one that’s ever factored into his vocabulary.
There isn’t a part of the world where we can’t provide legal assistance — and other not-so-legal services depending on what’s needed — if reached out to.
Bellamy, Phoenix and I built it all together and I’m endlessly proud of that.
But now, it’s time for me to face my husband.
I gather my hair and drop it down the slope of my back, then roll my shoulders once more for confidence. With a final glance out of the window, I turn on my heels and walk out of my office.
Our offices are equal in size and situated on opposite corners of the floor. We used to share a wall, but Phoenix would burst in every day and have his way with me, regardless of any meetings he or I needed to attend.
We got absolutely nothing done and eventually made the executive — and very hard — decision to add some physical distance between us, if only so we could actually get some work done. I’d originally suggested that one of us move down to the nineteenth, but he wouldn’t have it. This was as much separation as he would allow.
I make my way across the floor, waving distractedly at some people along the way, but not stopping for conversation. My thoughts are elsewhere. The sooner Phoenix and I resolve what happened earlier this afternoon, the better.
When I get to his office, I blow out a final breath for good luck, knock once, and walk right in without waiting for an answer.
He already knows it’s me.
I have no doubt he’s been expecting me.
My heart hammers in my chest and echoes loudly in my ears. Its thundering beat is absolutely deafening.
Anticipation pounds in my bloodstream.
What mood am I going to find him in?
I expect him to be at his desk, but he’s not.
He’s standing behind it, facing the large bay windows and looking down at the magnificent view of London. It’s the very same view I’d just been admiring, except where I felt awe, he stares at it like he owns the entire city.
I wonder if he too is thinking about our accomplishments. We’ve always been connected in that way, able to almost sense each other’s thoughts. Secrets are impossible between us and I’m thankful for it.
His hands are jammed into his pockets and his suit follows the lines of his body closely.
Hugo Boss.
Black. Expensive. Tailored.
An arrow of lust pierces my lower belly, leaving a throbbing ache in its place.
It’s criminal to be this attractive.
He turns his head degrees to the side when he hears the door open. His eyes slant over his shoulder and connect slowly with mine.
They’re pitch black.
Moody. Angry.
He licks his lips slowly.
Hungry .
“Close the door behind you.”
My heart jolts into my throat, excitement burning like gasoline in my veins at the way he issues orders, and I swallow thickly.
The door shuts behind me with a soft click.
“Lock it.”
I’m shaking with exhilarated nerves at his tone of voice. It promises retribution.
He doesn’t immediately turn around, so I walk deeper into the room until I’m standing in front of his desk.
The silence stretches. Taut, suffocating, tension pulls thickly between us and grabs me by the throat.
Finally, he turns to face me.
His dark gaze rakes roughly down my body and slowly back up. I can’t stifle the shiver that courses down my spine in response to his intense scrutiny.
It doesn’t go unnoticed by him, his eyes flaring in arousal.
“Nix, I…”
He doesn’t interrupt me but my voice trails off nonetheless. I can’t think with his stare pinned on me this way. His eyes are all consuming. A mix of anger and something else, something much more primitive and dangerous, swirls in his black irises.
Possessiveness.
No, ownership .
“Go on.”
His voice is rough like gravel and it courses over my skin as menacingly as a hand wrapping around the back of my neck and squeezing.
“Have you calmed down yet?”
He lifts his chin slightly, his jaw twitching as he stares back at me. His unbroken stare makes my hands clammy. The intensity in his gaze is potent enough to start a wildfire with only his eyes as an accelerant.
“Does it look like I have?”
The sound of his words spat out through clenched teeth answers the question for me.
Earlier, we had a meeting with a prospective new client. Phoenix and I like to take those meetings together if we think there’s a chance for full scope representation, inclusive of both corporate and familial assets.
Edward Chambers is a married, devoted father of three young children, and the head of a large oil and gas company based in London. As a client, he stood to bring us millions in annual revenue if we landed him, so we’d been excited and well prepared for the meeting.
We held it in our largest conference room, with Phoenix and I sitting on one side of the table while he sat on the other.
The meeting had gone well, so well in fact that we’d discussed not wasting any time and moving directly to the contract stage.
Phoenix had walked out to get the necessary paperwork and I’d headed over to the smaller table along the far wall of the room where we’d laid out some refreshments and pastries, continuing to speak animatedly to Edward as I did so.
I was pouring him a cup of coffee he’d asked for when I felt a hand come down on my hip and move slowly around to my lower back. Shock rooted me to the spot when I looked up, startled, and found Edward leaning over me. I hadn’t heard or felt him move to follow me.
He grinned luridly down at me, and when our eyes met his lips touched my ear and he whispered, “Is extra sugar available?”
Disgust roiled in my stomach, followed quickly by fear crawling down my spine. Based on the boldness of his touch and the ease of his smile, I could tell he expected me to be included as a signing gift in our contract, regardless of whether I was personally inclined to it or not. The audacity of his actions shocked me.
When I turned around to tell him to take his hands off me and fuck off, my gaze slammed into my husband’s.
Phoenix stood frozen in the doorway, one hand fisting the handle of the door, knuckles turning white, the other clutching a manila folder at his side, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and disbelief.
My immediate reaction was relief. Phoenix wouldn’t let anything happen to me, I was safe.
Then his eyes dragged slowly down to where Chambers’s hand still touched me and I watched the light in them shutter in real time. His pupils expanded, his irises turning as deadly black as a shark’s.
When his gaze flicked back up to mine, all the humanity had gone from his eyes. Murder etched itself on every single feature of his handsome face, and my original relief was quickly replaced by trepidation at what would happen next.
The folder crashed to the ground with a resounding, ominous thud .
Phoenix stormed towards me, closing the distance between us in three furious steps. He never took his eyes off mine as he grabbed Chambers and wrenched him off me, ripping his shoulder clean out of his socket in one clinical, emotionless move.
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t look capable of it, letting his obvious fury speak for him instead.
Chambers howled in agony; howling that only grew louder and more acute as Phoenix dragged him across the floor and out of the conference room by his torn shoulder.
The second he was gone, I sagged against the table, grabbing onto the edges as I caught my breath and leveled out my racing heart rate.
I waited for my husband to come back, knowing that he would be beyond furious and agitated. Knowing that, like a caged animal, he would need the freedom to let his aggression out in some way.
But he never did.
Time ticked by and I eventually made my way back to my office and attempted to do some work.
I hadn’t heard from him since. The only thing I knew for sure was that Chambers wouldn’t be in any state to require future legal assistance after Phoenix was finished with him, except potentially of the estate management kind.
Unfortunately, that’s one of the only services we don’t currently offer at Sinclair Royal.
Even now as I finally face my husband, I can feel the rage coming off of him in waves.
I round the desk and walk up to Phoenix. When I’m standing before him, dwarfed by his height and daunted by the intensity of his gaze, I set a hand on his chest right over his heart. Its furious beat is evidence of the tumultuous emotions still crashing through him.
His hand comes to rest on top of mine, clamping my palm tightly over his heart.
I look up at him from beneath my lashes.
“Are you mad at me?”
A dangerous sounding rumble rolls loudly in his chest. His jaw twitches murderously.
“No.”
I run my fingers up his torso and to his nape, imploring him softly, “Then stop glaring at me like that, please. It’s not my fault he touched me.”
Rough hands grab my hips and lift me. A small cry falls from my lips as he turns us both and drops me on his desk.
“Phoenix—”
He shoves my dress up my thighs and bunches it at my waist. With his stare still pinned on mine and his face still twisted in a scowl, he reaches between my legs and rips off my panties.
I’m already soaked. I always am when I’m around Phoenix, but it’s especially true when he’s being violently possessive like he is now. My body titters with excitement as I wait for him to act.
My arms go around his neck to pull him into me. I expect his fingers to dip between my folds, but I’m wrong.
Instead, I feel his thumb abrade the skin just above my pussy. The soft circles he’s caressing on the area are in stark contrast to the aggression rolling off of him in waves.
His eyes drop to fixate on the spot he’s touching.
The very same spot where he tattooed his name on me ten years ago in a not too dissimilar fit of jealousy and possessiveness.
Seeing his name branded on me reassures and calms him down, soothing him like a fidget toy might manage other people’s anxiety.
He stares at it unwaveringly.
Unblinkingly, even.
“Who do you belong to?” he demands quietly.
I reach for his chin and tilt his face up so his gaze meets mine. With my other hand, I run my nails through his short hair. He still keeps it buzzed, his rough and dangerous appearance in complete opposition to the corporate man he pretends to be.
He shivers at my touch, his eyes fluttering momentarily shut.
“My husband.”
They reopen, shining with arrogant satisfaction.
He rubs the tattoo again, then bends and licks the marked skin with a rough swipe of his tongue. “What’s his name?”
“Nix,” I whimper.
Another swipe of his tongue, designed to make me lose all my senses.
“Full name, wild girl,” he orders.
His other hand slips beneath my dress to dance up my stomach towards my breasts. My eyes shut and I moan as he tweaks my nipple over my bra.
He insists that I wear padded coverage to hide the piercing at work. He won’t let me take it out, but he also refuses to let anyone know of its existence.
Even through the thick material, my nipple responds to his touch. It hardens until the bud is so tight it’s painful.
I gasp when he pinches it in a silent command to answer his question.
“Phoenix Sinclair.”
He growls. “And what’s your name?”
“Sixtine Sinclair,” I breathe, arching into his touch.
“That’s fucking right ,” he seethes, leaning over me.
With one swift thrust, he pushes two fingers inside me. He cups my nape with his other hand and tugs me forward. My eyes fly open to find him inches from my face, his gaze fixed heatedly on mine as he starts to thrust in tandem with his words.
“You bear my name, you wear my rings, you’ve had my baby, you sit right next to me in a building that has a twenty-foot sign that also has our last name on it, you’re my wife— my . fucking . wife —and yet men still think they can touch you the second I turn my back,” he snarls. “Why the fuck is that?”
Those black eyes of his hypnotize me. I lift my head ever so slightly and lick the underside of his jaw. He groans, his fingers driving ruthlessly into me. I try to clamp my legs closed around his hand but he shoves my thighs open, forcing me to take it.
“What is it going to take for them to understand that you’re mine ? What more do I have to do?”
I nip at his chin, my legs beginning to quake in response to his savage claiming.
“There will always be men in this world who think they’re entitled to me just because they want me. Regardless of the fact that I don’t want them, that they repulse me.”
Phoenix slams his palm on the desk next to me, making me jump.
“How do I protect you from them?” he demands angrily. “It took less than two fucking minutes for him to put his hands on you. What about me says, “go ahead and touch my wife”? What is it, Six? Tell me if you can see it, because I’ll cut it out of me right fucking now.”
I’m breathing and panting heavily, my body twisting as I search for his touch and try to avoid it in equal measure, my orgasm like a looming shadow just out of reach.
He drives inside me with a vengeance that shows his anger. Every thrust of his fingers sends me to a higher plane until stars are shooting behind my eyes and I’m clutching desperately at him.
I nip his jaw and then his lips. I taste blood from where I bit him, as unhinged for him as he is for me.
There’s nothing else to say except,
“I love you,” I vow, clasping his face.
A rumble rolls up his chest and falls from his mouth. “And I love you. I obsess over you. I wake up and go to sleep and live and breathe solely for you .”
His eyes close, his arm wraps around my waist, and his fingers curl inside me. I yelp when he rubs against the sensitive spot that makes me fall apart every single time.
“Sometimes I hate how much I love you, because I can’t stand it , watching another man touch you,” he murmurs. “I haven’t been able to get any work done at all. Every time I close my eyes, the only thing I can see is his hand where mine usually is, so dangerously close to your ass that the visual of it imprinted into the backs of my eyelids might still give me a fucking aneurysm.”
His grip tightens painfully on my waist like he’s replaying those images in his mind.
“Erase his touch,” I whisper. “I don’t want him on me. You’re the only man I want. Make us both forget he ever touched me.”
I moan discontentedly when his fingers pull out of me, yanking me back from the brink of a climax and leaving me frustrated.
He rips his shirt off, revealing the tattooed torso beneath it. Over the years, the patchwork has evolved until not a single inch of free space remains.
“I made sure he’ll never touch you again, wild girl. The last thing he’ll ever feel against his skin is the cold, damp soil of the shallow hole his mangled body is being dumped into as we speak.”
He shoves his trousers down past his hips, wraps a hand around his cock and presses the head against my entrance. He grabs my thighs and yanks me forward until my ass hangs off the desk. Then he drives into me with one thrust.
I gulp at the sudden intrusion, at the complete and utter stretch. My head falls back between my shoulder blades as a violent shudder rips through my body.
“Nix,” I gasp.
He groans loudly and scoops me up into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist. I’m impaled impossibly deep as my back hits the bay windows and a hand closes tightly around my throat.
“Tell me no one touches you.”
He drives into me savagely, pinning me against the glass with every jealous thrust.
“No one touches me.”
A satisfied noise rumbles deep in his chest. He bends his head and buries it into the crook of my neck. His teeth sink into the open skin there and then he’s sucking it into his mouth. He holds me up easily with one hand on my ass as the other rubs my clit in tandem with his thrusts.
“I’m going to mark you,” he announces hoarsely, barely lifting his mouth from my throat. “Right along the column of this pretty neck so no one misses it.”
“You can’t,” I pant. “My clients—”
“I don’t give a fuck,” he grunts. “I won’t have a repeat of today. You’ll be marked and you’ll wear it proudly so every man who looks at you understands exactly who you belong to. And if this still doesn’t send the message, then next time I’ll tattoo my name right on your throat so they can’t miss it.” His mouth moves up to breathe his next words against the shell of my ear. “They’re lucky enough that I let them look. That’s a kindness I’m extending only because I can’t blame those poor fuckers for staring when you’re the most beautiful woman in the whole fucking world. They should get to look, to appreciate how rare your beauty is. But that’s it,” he growls. “If another man touches you again Six, I'll filet him alive. I’ll make every last minute of his remaining existence as painful as humanly possible and then I’ll bury his body with the others.”
He punctuates the final words of his sentence with deep thrusts that send my pussy into overdrive. Before I know it, I’m clawing at his back, my nails digging into his flesh as I come. My muscles clamp down on him, spasming violently as pleasure takes me over the cliff.
Phoenix pulls out only long enough to set me down and turn me to face the windows. He pins me by the neck against the glass and pushes lazily back into me, drawing out every second of my orgasm. I’m so sensitive from my climax that his reentry makes my legs shake in agonized pleasure.
“Good girl,” he purrs into my hair. He looms over me. I can see our reflection in the glass, see how he stands a full head taller than me as his hands wrap around my waist and he tugs my hips back. “Look out at the city. It belongs to us. And you belong to me.”
It’s madness, the way he makes me feel. The way he controls my body like a switchboard, tossing me around and doing whatever he wants to me, making me hear colors and pray to new deities.
His hands come around my front to palm my breasts and tweak my nipples. I drop my head back against his chest as ragged breath after ragged breath rips from my lips.
My eyes open to find him staring down at me with a stare so full of desire and demented possessiveness, it steals the oxygen from my lungs.
He keeps staring as he pinches my clit and watches my chin tilt up, my mouth part, and my eyes roll back into my head as I come with a scream so explosive I’m sure the rest of the floor hears us.
Phoenix doesn’t let it stop him. He continues thrusting madly inside my tight pussy, kissing my mouth, and grabbing at every part of my body with greedy hands, until his own face screws up and I feel his hot cum spill inside me.
He slumps forward, trapping me against the wall. I feel his heart beating manically on my back, feel the warmth of his skin on mine.
I’m so delirious with love for this man that being pressed up against each other isn’t enough.
I want to be able to crawl under his skin and into his body and make myself at home there for the rest of my life.
Gentle hands pull my dress down over my ass, but not before he slaps it once sharply, simply because he can never resist doing so. He turns me around and his hands come down next to my face.
He bends and claims my mouth, sucking my bottom lip between his as he groans erotically.
When he pulls away, his gaze falls to what I know will be a large red mark on my neck, and his eyes darken with fresh lust.
I get up on my toes and close my mouth around the flesh at the base of his neck. I suckle it deeply, feeling his hands come to my ass. For long seconds, I suck at his throat like a vampire and he lets me, doing nothing except panting and moaning carnally at the contact.
Finally, I release him and come down to my feet, staring smugly up at the matching mark I’ve left on him.
“You’re mine,” I tell him.
He nods without hesitation, the words having barely left my mouth before he agrees.
“Yes.” His throat works as he licks his lips. “Yes, I am. I always have been.”
***