by Olivia Gates
Grinning so widely it hurt, she stabbed stinging fingers into the mane he’d let grow longer, as she loved it, which she’d been dying to do since he’d imposed the no-touching ban.
“You have,” she insisted. “You’ve given me passion and pleasure like I never dreamed possible. And you did something else no one could have—you freed me from Burton, opened up my life to new possibilities.”
“That was totally unintentional!” he protested.
She overrode his protest. “You did try to save me, and if I hadn’t been so busy protecting you, I would have come with you, or I would have at least sought you, and you would have protected me.” As he looked about to reject her qualifications, she tugged on his hair, stopping him. “But the greatest gift you gave me is Rico. And since your return, you’ve given me our own small family, and an extended one. Now you’re giving me your love, this incomparable gift you’ve never given another.”
Listening to her enumerate his countless contributions to her life, his expression softened with that tenderness she was already addicted to.
“I’m giving you everything I have and am. You already have it, will always have it. You can weed through the mess and extract only what you like. You can toss out the rest.” Just like that, he was the uncompromising Richard Graves again.
Laughing, her heart hurting with too much love and exultation, she stormed him with kisses again. “I’m hoarding every single thing about you. I love every gnarled shred of what makes you the man I worship.”
He only got more serious. “I mean it, Isabella. Just tell me everything on your mind the moment you think it, and whatever it is, it’s yours, it’s done or it’s gone.”
As he melted back to the bed, taking her with him, she luxuriated in his sculpted magnificence, her pleasure magnified unto infinity now that she knew this majestic being was hers as she was his and she’d always have the right to revel in him.
“As long as this is a two-way street and you tell me anything you want different.”
“You’re beyond perfect just the way you are.” He looked alarmed. “Never change!”
She chuckled, delirious with his new transparency. “I guess I’ll have to one day. I’ll grow older.”
“I already told you, you will only grow better.”
“It’s you who is growing so much better with age. There should be a law to curb your improvement.” She nipped his chin, caught his groan of pleasure in hungry lips. “I constantly want to devour you.”
Hunger blazing in his eyes, he pressed himself between her spreading thighs. “Devour away. I’m self-regenerating.” He suddenly groaned, grimaced. “I didn’t promise you the most important thing.”
She wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him back to her. “Nothing is more important than having you.”
“Yes, there is. Safety. Yours, Rico’s and that of everyone you love. I promise you my near-fatal slipup will never be repeated. If I feel I can’t be sure of that, I’ll scrap this identity and start from scratch.”
Terrified all over again, she clung to him. “Oh, God, Richard, how did it happen?”
He told her and she sank back in relief. “You don’t have other people who want to kill you, do you?”
“Actually, it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep me safe...so I can keep them safe.”
“If so, what’s with your security fetish?” At his rising eyebrows, she grinned. “Yes, I’ve noticed our security detail everywhere. I know if I’m being watched. Comes from my years in Colombia and then on the run.”
He groaned, the knowledge of her ordeals something she knew would hurt him forever. “It’s been a well-established paranoia since I escaped The Organization. Knowing what it would mean if they ever found out I defected, and who I am now, I’d rather always be safe than sorry.”
“But you are generally safer than anyone on earth, barring that aberrant situation, which could have happened to anyone.”
“It should have never happened to me.”
“And it won’t happen again, if I know anything about you. So we’re not in any danger by association. What are you worried about, then?”
His lips twisted, as if she’d asked him why he breathed. “I’ll always worry, because you and Rico are not inside my body, where I can monitor where you are at all times, and where I can keep you safe every second of every day for the rest of my life.”
After another ferocious hug, she pulled back, grinned up at him. “Welcome to love. And to parenthood.”
He squeezed his eyes, gritted his teeth. “It’s always that bad, isn’t it?”
“Far worse.”
His eyes opened, blasting her to her marrow with his adoration. “I love it. I love you. Darling...”
Her phone rang. They froze for a heartbeat before they both lunged for it.
It was Rico. Shaking, Isabella put him on speaker. He sounded sleepy, but exactly like their perfect little boy.
“Uncle Antonio told me who he is and what happened and that he didn’t expect me to wake up so soon, and that my head is as hard as my father’s. You’re my father, Richard, right?”
Richard covered his face with his hands for a second, dragged them down over it, his eyes filling again. “I am your father, Rico. And Father is what I want you to call me from now on. I’m sorry I left, but your mother and I are coming right now, and I’ll tell you everything as soon as you can handle long talks. But I want you to know one thing. I’m never leaving you again. Ever.”
Rico’s squeal of delight was cut short before he slurred for them to hurry up. Antonio came on and told them to come only if they were rested, as Rico was already asleep again.
With the call over, Richard looked at her, his eyes reddened, his expression disbelieving again. “This is too much, my love. Too many blessings.”
Overwhelmed by everything, too, Isabella clung to him. “Can you handle one more? You might have to make space inside yourself for one more person who’ll love you forever.” He pulled back, eyes wide in shock. She bit her lip, pulled at a patch of his chest hair. “I suspect we made another baby.”
“You suspect?” he rasped, looking shell-shocked.
“Want to find out for sure?”
He exploded from her side, cursing that he’d shredded his clothes, called Murdock, told him to get him intact ones and the helicopter.
She giggled at seeing him all over the place, flustered, no doubt, for the first time in his life. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to buy a pregnancy kit.”
“By helicopter?”
“That’s to go to Rico.”
“But we’re not in such a hurry anymore.” He looked as if this possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. “And there’s a kit in the top drawer of my bathroom cabinet.”
Before she finished talking, he hurtled to where she’d indicated, coming back with it in seconds.
Trembling, she rose, took it from him, her smile shaky. “I had to go to the bathroom anyway.”
“Why?” Then he groaned. “Bloody hell, yes, of course, by all means. I think my mind has been irreversibly scrambled.”
She planted a kiss on his chest as she passed him. “No way. But I love you even more because it’s scrambled now.”
Heart drumming madly, she ducked into the bathroom.
In minutes, she exited, the strip held tight in her hand.
“Tell me.” His voice was a ragged rumble.
She walked into his arms before she held up her fist. “I wanted to find out with you.”
“Do it.”
She opened her fist. The two pink lines were as clear as they had been when she’d found out she was pregnant with Rico.
On a triumphant growl, Richard crushed her to him.
Many hot tears and kisses later, Richard raised his head, scorched her to her soul with the power of his love. “I’ll always live with the regret that I wasn’t there for you when you were carrying Rico, that I lost the first seven years of his li
fe.” His finger on her lips silenced her protest. “But now fate has given me more than the everything it has already given me—another miracle, and a chance to fix all my mistakes. Now I get to share our new baby with you, and with Rico, from the first moment. I will be there for you, for all of you, every single second, for the rest of my life. This time, I’ll do everything right.”
Aching with thankfulness, she clung to him, the man she was fated for, the father of her son and of her unborn baby. “Just love me, just love us. You’re all I need. All our children will ever need. If we have you, everything will always be right with the world.”
Looking down at her, that god among men who loved her, he lavished hunger and tenderness and devotion on her, his every look and word a pledge. “I will live to love you. And you have me, all of me. I’m all yours, forever.”
* * * * *
If you loved this BILLIONAIRES OF BLACK CASTLE novel, read the other books in the series from
USA TODAY bestselling author Olivia Gates
FROM ENEMY’S DAUGHTER TO EXPECTANT BRIDE
SCANDALOUSLY EXPECTING HIS CHILD
PREGNANT BY THE SHEIKH
Available now from Harlequin Desire!
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SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM
Brady Finn’s mission is to take his company to the next level. Aine Donovan plans to stop him. But when searing attraction leads to a pregnancy shocker, they’ll both need to reevaluate just what it is they want from each other...
Read on for a sneak peek at
HAVING HER BOSS’S BABY
the first in Maureen Child’s Pregnant by the Boss trilogy!
The door opened and there she was. He’d been prepared for a spinsterish female, a librarian type.
This woman was a surprise.
She wore black slacks and a crimson blouse with a short black jacket over it. Her thick, dark-red hair fell in heavy waves around her shoulders. Her green eyes, not hidden behind the glasses she’d worn in her photo, were artfully enhanced and shone like sunlight in a forest. She was tall and curvy enough to make a man’s mouth water, and the steady, even stare she sent him told Brady that she also had strength. Nothing hotter than a gorgeous woman with a strong sense of self. Unexpectedly, he felt a punch of desire that hit him harder than anything he’d ever experienced before.
“Brady Finn?”
“That’s right. Ms. Donovan?” He stood up and waited as she crossed the room to him, her right hand outstretched. She moved with a slow, easy grace that made him think of silk sheets, moonlit nights and the soft slide of skin against skin. Damn.
“It’s Aine, please.”
“How was your flight?” He wanted to steer the conversation into the banal so his mind would have nothing else to torment him with.
“Lovely, thanks,” she said shortly and lifted her chin a notch. “Is that what we’re to talk about, then? My flight? My hotel? I wonder that you care what I think. Perhaps we could speak, instead, about the fact that twice now you’ve not showed the slightest interest in keeping your appointments with me.”
Brady sat back, surprised at her nerve. Not many employees would risk making their new boss angry. “Twice?”
“You sent a car for me at the airport and again at the hotel. I wonder why a man who takes the trouble to fly his hotel manager halfway around the world can’t be bothered to cross the street to meet her in person.”
When Brady had seen her photo, he’d thought efficient, cool, dispassionate. Now he had to revise those thoughts entirely. There was fire here, sparking in her eyes and practically humming in the air around her.
Damned if he didn’t like it.
It was more than simple desire he felt now—there was respect, as well. Which meant he was in more trouble here than he would have thought.
Need to find out just how this business venture goes?
Don’t miss HAVING HER BOSS’S BABY
by USA TODAY bestselling author Maureen Child
available August 2015.
www.Harlequin.com
Copyright © 2015 by Maureen Child
ISBN-13: 9781460384381
Claiming His Secret Son
Copyright © 2015 by Olivia Gates
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