Chapter 44
“I don’t knowthe first thing about pharmaceuticals or my father’s company. How am I even qualified to have a seat on the board?” I asked as I got into the car.
“Your mother has a seat on the board. Is she qualified?”
“Point.”
“You’re your father’s daughter. You care about his legacy and his vision. You don’t have to know all the steps of how to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish—that’s why you have lawyers, scientists, and other experts. What is it you want?”
“I want to stop hiding my head in the sand because it’s been too painful to have anything to do with my father’s company. And now I’m worried that it’s too late.”
“It’s not too late. We’re getting married in a couple of days…we’re stopping Arnold in his tracks.”
“We’ll never be able to prove what he did, will we?” I asked quietly.
Bones didn’t reply.
“He won’t be there.” A tear slipped out of my eye and rolled down my cheek. “My dad, I mean. He won’t be at our wedding. My mom won’t be there. Charlie won’t be there. No one can know we’re doing this and that means we’ll be alone. We’re not evening having a real wedding.”
I burst into tears just as the prospects opened the gates to the clubhouse. Bones drove through and parked the car. He turned off the ignition, unlatched his seatbelt, and then moved to wrap me in his arms.
He let me cry all over him.
“I’m sorry.” I hiccoughed. “I’m just exhausted. And when I’m exhausted, I can’t think straight.”
“It’s okay,” he crooned, brushing his lips across my head. “Cry it out.”
I heaved out a sigh and attempted to burrow deeper into his neck.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said. “You want to have a real wedding with me in a top hat and coat tails, then I’ll do it.”
I grinned and lifted my head. “You really would, wouldn’t you?”
He brushed the tears from my cheeks. “Yeah, Duchess, I would.”
“Well, there’s no telling what will happen when my mom finds out we got married without her.”
“She’ll understand when we tell her why it had to be this way.”
“You don’t know my mother. My wedding was what she’s been training for her entire life.”
“She won’t care when you tell her we’re having kids.”
“Yeah, but that’s not for a while.”
When he didn’t reply, I cocked my head to the side. “Bones. Not for a while, right?”
“What’s a while?”
“I don’t know. A few years?”
“A few years? You really want to wait that long?”
I raised my brows. “Hold on, sir. When were you thinking we were going to have kids? Because we like, just got together, and now we’re already getting married. I was hoping we could settle into our relationship before bringing kids into the mix. You know, practice for a bit. Practice, practice, practice.”
“Why do you want to wait?”
“I just told you. Can’t we enjoy each other and the settling in phase before that all changes?”
“Changes that include a piece of you and a piece of me?”
“Stop,” I said, my insides melting.
“A piece of you and a piece of me with your attitude and my charm? Kid’ll be unstoppable.”
“Bones…”
“And when we can’t possibly think about shit getting any better, we’ll have another one.”
I sighed. “You’re holding my ovaries hostage with your words and it’s not fair.”
He cradled my face in his hands. “A year.”
“What?”
“We’ll wait a year, but I don’t want to wait too long. I’ve waited long enough and now that I’ve found you, I want to make a life with you. I want to make a home with you. I want to make a family with you. Okay, Duchess?”
“Okay.”
He leaned in close and brushed his lips against mine. “What were you saying about practice?”
I woke up to a dark room and a cold spot in the bed next to me. I reached out to touch his pillow, but the indent was long gone.
With a sigh, I rolled over onto my back. I stared at the ceiling though I couldn’t see. I didn’t need a clock to tell me it was the middle of the night. My throat was dry and the back of my neck felt hot.
I closed my eyes and prayed that I wouldn’t have one of my spells now. I couldn’t afford the time wasted when my body took me out of the world for several hours at a time.
“Please,” I begged the dark. “Not now.”
My feet hit the floor and I sat for a moment and then I finally switched on the bedside lamp. Bones’ pistol and phone were gone. I picked up my cell from the nightstand and glanced at the screen. Three thirty in the morning.
There was no way in hell I would be able to go back to sleep. My mind had kicked on, occupied with the several mountainous problems that had fallen into my lap.
I quietly crept from the room. As I passed closed bedroom doors, I heard the unmistakable sounds of shared pleasure.
My stocking-clad feet were quiet on the stairs as I descended. The lights were on in the living room and kitchen, but it was devoid of people.
I moved around the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. I texted Bones asking where he was, and when I got no immediate reply, I set my cell aside.
In a few days, I would be married.
In a few days, I would be standing in front of the board, my father’s legacy weighing heavily on my shoulders.
For the last couple of years, I hadn’t been ready to take charge, to take my rightful place within my father’s company as his heir. I relished in the fact that I wasn’t old enough yet and that I wasn’t married. Both those things had felt like protections from the weight of the burden I knew I’d soon have to carry. Now I feared it was the opposite—it would be my body that failed me. Perhaps I was more like my mother than I realized; we both collapsed under the weight of stress. Hers was a mental battle, mine physical.
My body rebelled against me. No matter how much I tried to cater to it. It was frustrating, not being able to rely on something that was supposed to function properly. No matter what I did, no matter what I fed it, even limiting the amount of stress in my life didn’t solve the problem.
It was unsolvable.
I finished off my tea and then laid down on the couch and spread a blanket over me. My eyes drifted shut of their own accord, and not even my overactive brain could go toe to toe with my body. I sank into oblivion.
I floated awake, encased in a warm cocoon. A heavy arm was slung across my waist and I smiled with my eyes closed and wiggled back against Bones.
His erection pressed against me.
“Duchess,” he growled.
His hand delved into my pajama pants and slid into my panties. His fingers explored and then they dipped into my body.
I gasped at the pleasure. The back of my neck crackled with heat and shivers danced down my spine.
“Open for me, Duchess,” he rasped against my ear.
I grabbed his wrist and gently urged him out of me, but only so that I could slide my clothes off.
A drawer opened and I heard the crinkle of a foil wrapper.
“No condom,” I murmured.
He stilled behind me. “That’s playing Russian roulette.”
“I know. But I don’t want anything between us.”
He paused for another moment. “You sure, Duchess? We do this, there’s no going back.”
“I’m sure.”
Bones grasped my thigh and pushed it higher toward my chest. “You want my cock.”
“Yes.” I gasped when I felt the crown of him teasing my swollen flesh.
“You want me buried deep.”
“Yes,” I all but begged.
He slid the tip of him inside me and stopped. “You want me to fuck you until you’re biting the pillow so you don’t scream.”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to come inside you. Fill you completely. Mark you as mine.”
“God, yes. Bones,” I nearly whined.
He slipped all the way inside me, stretching me wide, making me moan with pleasure. I felt him everywhere.
His hand came around to settle between my thighs. And while he ground into me, his fingers masterfully played with my clit until I was grabbing the pillow and biting into it, just like he said I would.
“I’m going to fuck you like this every day, Duchess,” he rasped against my ear. “I’m going to start my day by sliding into this pussy and owning it. I’m going to fill you with so much of me that it’ll be running down your leg. I’m going to fuck you so good and so hard you’ll feel me with every step. I’m going to remind you who you belong to. And when you’re pregnant with my baby, the world will know it too.”
His filthy words pushed me over the edge. I screamed around the pillow in my mouth as my orgasm blasted through my body.
“I want to see your face.” He pressed a kiss to the spot below my ear. “I want to see your face when I come inside you with nothing between us.”
He eased out of me and then he was rolling me onto my back. Bones spread my legs wide and then he was inching inside of me again. I quivered around him as I felt every hard ridge of him.
“You love my cock. Say it.”
His blue eyes were lit with fire as he watched me. I licked my lips. “I love your cock.”
He buried himself inside of me and slid his hand beneath my ass and changed the angle of my body. And then he fucked me like a man possessed, a man determined, a Viking with the need to spread his seed so his progeny could live on long after he was gone.
I took every inch of him.
I squeezed his shaft.
I welcomed him home.
With a curse and a guttural moan, Bones came with the force of a hurricane. But he didn’t stop until I was crying out again. He wrung every last bit of pleasure from me and only then did he nearly collapse on top of me.
He pressed his forehead to mine. “We might’ve just made a baby.”
“We might have, yeah.”
He shifted and I gasped.
“Does that scare you?” he asked.
“If it does it’s a little too late.” I smiled.
“Duchess…”
“Yeah, Bones. I’m scared, but it’s okay. I don’t want,” I swallowed, “I don’t want life to pass me by because I’m scared.”
He was propped up on his elbows, but then he lowered himself, covering my body with his. He rolled us to the side. We were still connected, and I wrapped a leg around him to keep him close.
“You don’t have to be scared anymore,” he said as he stared into my eyes. “I’m here.”