When I'm with You (Because You Are Mine 2)

He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “A day or two isn’t going to make a difference after all this time. Besides, I had other family to attend to.”

Her elegant throat convulsed. “Me?” she asked incredulously.

He smiled down at her. “If there’s one thing that all of this has taught us, surely it’s that we choose our families. Blood doesn’t determine a family. Legal arrangement doesn’t either, not necessarily. We were loners apart, but together . . . yes, we’re a family, you and I. Or we can be.”

“I had no idea you would ever feel that way,” she said, wonder tingeing her tone. When she noticed his upraised brows, she said in a rush, “Of course I want to be your family. And of course you’re mine. But . . . when did you realize?”

“It’s been coming upon me slowly, but I think I even knew it, deep down, ever since that day you blazed into Fusion, insisting you were my new chef. I knew you were a risk to my mission here in Chicago, but I couldn’t resist,” he said, smiling wider at the memory. He shook his head. “What balls you have, for a tiny little woman.”

“I’m not tiny,” she refuted. Her frown melted away. “What do you mean, you felt that way ever since that day?”

He shrugged, his expression sobering as he looked down at her. “Just that I realized for the first time that I couldn’t walk away from you again, especially when you’d strutted back into my life, practically grinding the red flag up my nose. If you could risk it so flagrantly, then surely so could I.”

“You made our relationship sound like it was going to be purely sexual . . . for the mutual gratification of needs,” she said, her scowl returning. But behind it, he sensed her dawning wonder.

“Well, it’s certainly been that.”

He laughed softly when he saw her wry expression. “It wasn’t always as clear to me as it is now. I’m speaking in retrospect. But I suspect part of me knew, even back then, because I took on the challenge of you, even knowing it might sacrifice my chance of other family. Ian and my biological mother,” he clarified when she gave him a puzzled look. “Besides, you didn’t trust me. I had to say something that would keep you tied to me.”

“So you settled for tying me up in the sexual sense,” she said accusingly.

He lightly kissed her mouth, and despite her pique, her lips caressed his back.

“I really did need to teach you control, Elise. You would have burned me alive if I didn’t. You may still,” he admitted ruefully under his breath.

She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes in pleasure when she scraped his scalp with her nails, and his cock quickened in her warm channel.

“You were my own personal sac de nœuds,” he said, growling softly as she caressed him and his body tightened and hardened. Her hands stilled on his head. He opened his eyes.

“You thought of me as a sack of knots?” she asked, sounding mildly offended.

He flexed his hips, thrusting. She gasped.

“Don’t worry, ma chère,” he rasped as he braced his upper body off her, withdrew, and stroked her again, deep and hard. He caught her soft moan with his skimming lips. “It’s a challenge I’m more than up to, and unfurling the mysteries of you will keep me busy—not to mention amply rewarded—for a lifetime.”