Her head dropped back against the mirror as her lungs tightened, constricted with excitement.

Kia stared at Chase as he filled her, inch by slow inch, pressing into her, taking her, as she remembered the pleasure pain of being taken both ways at once, filled and driven insane with the wicked, forbidden pleasure of it.

“Only pleasure,” she moaned.

He paused, buried to the hilt inside her as she felt his hand cup her cheek.

She was lost in a haze of naked desire and conflicting lusts. And love. She loved him until she wasn’t certain what was right, what was wrong, or how to handle the emotions tearing through her.

“Not with us.” His look was intent, the icy green eyes darkening, flaming. “Never again with us, Kia. You’re mine.” He pulled back, and some hold he had on his control seemed to break.

Kia felt it like a shock of heated, blazing sensation. It struck inside her, like a volcano erupting, spilling over her.

Chase gripped her hips, plunged inside her. His expression twisted into a mask of need. Not just lust, of need.

Kia felt her nails biting into his biceps as each pounding thrust dragged a helpless cry from her lips. Each shock of penetration, each stroke across sensitive nerve endings threw her higher.

“Do you hear me, Kia?” he suddenly snarled, one hand burying in the back of her hair, dragging her lips to his. “Fucking mine.”

Kia shattered. The hard, forceful fucking of his cock inside her, his hand tugging at her hair and then his lips taking her kiss with the same determined arrogance that he took her body sent her riding a wave that crashed and exploded into a sensory veil that wrapped her in pleasure, in exquisite ecstasy as he buried his face against her neck and began to pump his silky, heated release inside her.

And this time, she was very much afraid she had whispered the words she fought so hard to hold back.

“Oh God, Chase, I love you!”

Chase felt his arms tighten around her, felt the words hovering on his lips, but they didn’t fall. His chest tightened until he wondered if his heart was going to explode within it, and all he could do was hold on to her.

Sweat poured from him, whether from the heat generated between them, or the emotions pushing, tearing inside him, he wasn’t certain.

He knew he couldn’t get enough of her. Even now, he could take her again, so easily. Pound inside her and know a pleasure unlike anything he had known before.

Instead, he released her. He stepped back, grimacing as his cock slid from her ultratight grip with a surfeit of additional pleasure.

“Where did that come from?” Kia moaned, still resting against the mirror as her eyes opened and she stared at him.

She had felt it, too, he thought. Whatever it was that poured from him, mat wrapped around them and had him fighting to make certain she understood, he would never let her go easily.

“I’m not allowed answers now?” she asked.

Chase almost grinned. Only Kia could look and sound so perfectly haughty while still shuddering with the aftershocks of her orgasm.

“It came from us.” He tried to shrug the question away.

Kia’s eyes narrowed, but she let it go. There was something in his expression that warned her quite forcibly that right now wasn’t a good time to push him. As she knew, there was no avoiding this party, and the clock was ticking. But the party would be over tonight, and tonight she would get her answers. Maybe.

As he helped her from the sink she realized that perhaps she didn’t want answers right now. She wanted just a while longer in his arms before her emotions pushed her into the questions she wasn’t certain she wanted answers to.

Could he ever love her? And what did belonging to him mean exactly? Mine. His voice had been rough, primal. It had been a declaration; it had been rife with possessiveness. Surely he wouldn’t feel those emotions without feeling others?

Shaking her head she let him pat the sweat from her body, then clean her with a curious attention to detail before drying the folds of her sex gently.

She almost shook her head at him as he straightened. Bending, she picked up her panties and drew them up over her legs.

“At least you didn’t tear them this time,” she told him with a light laugh.

As she adjusted them over her hips and restraightened her stockings, she caught the questioning look on his face.

“What?” she asked, almost uncomfortably.

“Are you going to shower again?” he asked her.

Kia ran her hand over her stomach, feeling the dampness of him and her mingling, a small spot he had missed. There were others, of course.

“No.” She stared back at him before swallowing nervously. “I like the feel of you on me.”

Chase had to clench his teeth to hold back some kind of primitive growl of ownership. He had expected her to shower but a part of him had been regretting the hell out of it.

Every woman he had ever lived with had insisted on showering after sex. As though they couldn’t sleep unless they washed the lust from their bodies.

He realized Kia had rarely showered afterward. The few nights he had slept with her, she had fallen asleep in his arms after their release, content with the ministrations he performed on her.

It was a small act, cleaning the sex from her, after the pleasure she gave him, the pleasures he needed from her. But it was one she was always content with, and always seemed faintly confused over.

“Why?” he asked her.

Her lips pressed together softly before a small, mysterious smile quirked at her lips. “You don’t answer my questions, Chase. When you can answer mine, perhaps I’ll answer yours.”

His lips pursed. She liked challenging him. That realization surprised him. Kia enjoyed pushing at his dominance. And he realized he liked the little surprises. She rarely did exactly what he expected her to do, no matter the situation.

Her tender emotions weren’t offended when he became moody. She met his passions, whether they were dark and forbidden or wicked and hungry. She would read a book while he worked, and he knew, in the future, she wouldn’t depend on him for her entertainment.

She was more content here, enjoying the peace and quiet the apartment afforded them, than at a party or social event. She fitted him. She completed him.

She was going to be stuck with him. With all of him. The dark needs, the sometimes prickly temper, but he had no doubt now that she could handle it.

“We need to talk soon,” he told her as she turned and with shaky hands began to try to repair her makeup.

She paused and glanced at him. “Will you answer questions then?”

He nodded slowly. “We’ll both answer questions then.”

Kia laid down the makeup applicator and watched him with the glimmer of hope that always warmed him.

“I could call my parents. I might feel a headache coming on.” There was also a hidden shadow of fear.

But she wasn’t stepping back. Kia hadn’t run two years ago; she had fooled everyone. She had let her wounds heal, and she had strengthened, and when she stepped back into society, she had stepped back as a fighter, a woman stronger inside than Chase suspected even she knew.

“Soon,” he stated. He had to rub his hand over his chest to ease the dull ache there. “If you miss this party, your dad will do more than just hurt me.”

Her lips quirked. “Daddy is fairly particular about this party.” She gave a small laugh. “Last year, he nearly drove me insane getting it ready.”

His eyes narrowed. “You weren’t there last year.”

She reapplied her eye shadow, checked it, and glanced over at him. “I’ve coordinated all the parties Rutherford’s has ever thrown since I was eighteen years old,” she told him. “Drew didn’t like it after we married, so I gave up the official job, just as I gave up my position in the company.” She shrugged and looked down before glancing at him again with wry amusement. “I was a bit immature when it came to my ideas of what a good wife should be, I guess.”