Driven By Fate(51)

“Yes.” Her fingers grappled for purchase in his hair. “Oh god…harder. All of it. Please.”

“You’ll get it harder when you tell him who satisfies you. Who owns you.” The command was a near-shout, punctuated by a groaned curse when her inner muscles contracted around him. “Who comes while you ride him in your bedroom, wearing that innocent nightgown?” He dropped his head to whisper for her ears alone. “Who brings you gifts and earns your smiles? Tell him.”

“My lord.” Her voice shook. “My lord is the only one.”

Very subtly, his head inclined toward the gap left by the adjoining door. “In case you f*cking missed it, that’s me.” He let her leg drop from his shoulder, but kept it hooked around his waist. Frankie lifted her other leg to join it, leaving both thighs wrapped around his rolling hips. Using his shoulder for balance, she ground herself down on him, moaning when he reached behind to spank her backside. Once, twice. She tipped her face toward the ceiling, hair tumbling down her back, and simply reveled. In her femininity. In the feeling of sexual power that encompassed every part of her, cementing itself forever. Above everything, though, she was aware of Porter, of his unforgiving erection leaving her body and pounding back inside, sending her to the place she’d discovered through him.

Somewhere in the distance, she heard a door slam and then they were moving. Her back landed on a soft surface, Porter coming down on top of her. Still moving. Never stop moving.

“That’s enough of that, now. Just you and me, Francesca.” He buried his face against the side of her neck, jerking her legs higher. “Please. Just you and me.”

The force of his thrusts moved her up the bed until she could grip the headboard. A wave swelled inside her, gathering strength as it approached. Porter angled his body a new way that ripped a desperate whimper past her lips. It’s here. It’s here. She dug her heels into the small of his back, but the sweat coating his muscled skin made them slip off over and over again.

“I don’t like when someone looks at you and tries to see underneath.” His voice shook, his breath bathing her damp skin in heat. “When they want to see more. Want to see what I see. I don’t want them to see it, Francesca. I’m f*cking selfish over you.” His hands covered hers on the headboard. “Let me kiss you into coming. Let me do it even though I’m a bastard.”

She had no time to respond before his mouth crashed down on hers, tongue moving in time with the pleasure-giving thickness owning the flesh between her thighs. It was the final blast of lust she needed to let go. His mouth. His mouth. She had to turn her head to suck in deep, gulping breaths when the climax rippled through her with staggering intensity. Porter became the animal she now expected, needed, riding her with no mercy, shoving her legs wide, wedging himself deep and coming apart. His masculine moan of her name split the air as liquid flooded inside of her. Something about the sensation felt so new, but her mind was too occupied to decide what.

Her fingertips stroked down Porter’s sweaty back, as if it were muscle memory. Something she’d done hundreds of times. A niggling thought tried to break through the bliss, but she ignored it. Recover. She just needed to recover. She’d think when she could breathe again.

That comforting thought vanished when Porter’s body tensed on top of her.





Chapter Seventeen


No protection. I forgot protection.

A series of images blinded him. Francesca in her kitchen with the sticky-faced boy hanging on her back. Francesca making spaghetti for her makeshift family. Francesca in her white nightgown, the sound of raindrops in the background. The children hovering behind Neville in the dark hallway, waiting for Porter to wreck their lives with the delivery of a few words.

At once, the images fell into a dark pit that emitted no light. In one moment, he might have ruined it all for her. Everything. Taken away the choices she had every right to make for herself. He wasn’t the man to give her a happy life. Children. Jesus, was it even a possibility he could bury himself inside her that deeply and not get her pregnant? She would hate him. Would hate him for disregarding her dreams.

Oh, but while his brain registered disgust at himself, there was a primal beat inside him that grew loud enough to deafen him. Ruin her. Keep her. Make it so no other man can have her. God knew he was the furthest damn thing from a husband or father, but if she carried his child, none of that would matter. Would it? He’d have her to himself.

Self-loathing forced him off her beautiful, limp body. He didn’t deserve to touch her. As soon as she realized what he’d done, what she risked losing, her dreamy expression would change, would turn to panic. That panic would kill him. Kill him. It was already starting to transform now. She propped herself up on one elbow, her lips moving, but the sound didn’t penetrate his dread.

I’d fail her. Them. I’d fail a family.

That certainty wrestled with the idea of her with another man. A husband. It made the blood feel heavy in his veins, made his head throb. It scared him, angered him.

“A little overanxious to start that family, are you, Francesca? Did you forget who you were f*cking?” He moved to a sitting position at the edge of the bed, grateful she couldn’t see his face, the regret he could already feel there. It wasn’t her fault. Not his love for her, not his inability to be what she needed. When he couldn’t stand her uncharacteristic stillness anymore, he looked over his shoulder…and felt his world shatter.