He was a man hooked deeply through the heart by the siren’s song of a woman’s love, and he would not be swayed from it.
Not even to comfort his estranged longtime partner.
Now, it seemed, he had decided to take their short relationship to a new level by marrying Giselle.
The man bloody well moved quickly when he knew what he wanted.
“No, no, of course I think it’s a splendid idea! I’m just shocked that my friend Sinclair organized a surprise elopement in Mexico. I mean, who are you and what did you do with the man I once knew?” She paused with a smile on her face, her eyes sliding to me in the doorway, and that smile blooming even bigger. “Yeah, yeah, I think I know a little something about love changing you for the better.”
I raised a brow at her that had her winking at me.
“Of course, Xan and I will be there,” she said confidently even though I scowled. “We wouldn’t miss it for anything. Just text me the details, and we will make it work. And Sin? I can’t wait to see two of my beloved people have their happily ever after. Don’t let the pain and consequences of your journey to this moment taint the beauty of your future together. What you two have is something very few people ever get to experience. Cherish it.”
She said a few more words, laughing again as she hung up the phone. The moment she did, I was on her, hefting her off the body over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
She squawked, hitting her hands against my arse. “Xan! Che cavalo! What are you doing?”
I ignored her as I took her through the house, down the stairs, and out the back door. Salvatore and Dante were out in town and wouldn’t be back for at least an hour.
Just enough time for what I had planned.
Cosima had settled over my shoulder, tapping out a light beat against my arse cheeks while humming a song as if being slung over my back was normal and comfortable.
When we reached Salvatore’s small stables at the back of the property, though, she stilled, and the quality of her silence turned the air static. She said nothing as I righted her, standing her up beside the blazing hearth so that she would stay warm in the early spring air.
I’d prepared everything that morning while Cosima readied herself for the day, and she caught sight of it then, her eyes widening as she took in the branding iron lying beside the fire.
“Xan…” she said slowly. “You’ve already branded me once. Don’t you think twice is overkill?”
I nodded, keeping our eyes locked as I began to unbutton my shirt. “I’ll admit, that would be excessive. Though, it wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Cosima’s eyes burned brighter, twin noonday suns as she watched me unbutton and pull off my shirt. Her gaze raked over my abdominals before finding mine again. “What, what exactly did you have in mind then?”
“You are going to ride me while I sit on that stool,” I said with a wave of my hand to said stool. “And after you’ve made me come, you are going to brand me.” I stepped forward to take her hand and place it over my heart. “Right here.”
She squirmed, her eyes flashing light and dark as she warred with her instinctual deviant delight and learned shamed. “Xan, I really don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Well, I do,” I said in the tone that meant our conversation, as I knew it, was over.
She bit her plush lower lip and then released it, the reddened flesh beckoning me like a red cape to a bull. “Why?”
“I own you, I branded you, and I married you. As far as I am concerned, we are even on two accounts, but not the third. I meant what I said, bella. You own me as much as I own you. I want that to be known.”
She continued to prevaricate, looking at the branding iron and then back at the unmarred skin over my heart. “No one will see it unless you go to the beach or something.”
“No…but just as with you and your brand, I will know it is there, and I will also feel the ache of it. I want that with me always. Are you saying,” I asked with a cold quirked brow, “that you would rid yourself of yours if given the chance?”
“No,” she snapped immediately.
I opened my hands and shrugged. “Then there we have it.”
“It hurts,” she admitted.
“You can kiss it better,” I said drolly as I took off my pants. “Now, undress. I’m eager to come before we get started.”
My wife moved like a dancer even though she’d never had any training. She made the removal of her overlarge shirt and socks look like a Las Vegas burlesque show, and by the time her perfect form was bared to me in the golden firelight, I was hard as marble.