Page 52 of Tamed

I didn’t have to look. I knew. I’d pushed her too hard, perhaps broken her. I’d certainly killed stone dead whatever relationship we’d had before tonight and that I’d never get back.

An unfamiliar ache tightened in my chest, but I ignored it.

That’s what I’d wanted right from the start, to kill her crush on me. To make it so she’d never look at me with hunger in her eyes again, and if that meant destroying what connection we did have, then so be it.

It was for her protection.

Sure, tell yourself it was all for her, that you didn’t take anything for yourself, you selfish prick.

I forced the thought away, then finally brought myself to move.

Isabel with trembling with the aftershocks and shivered violently as I pulled out of her swollen pussy, a soft gasp escaping her.

I dealt with the condom, tucked myself away, then got to my feet and moved over to the cupboard next to the drinks cabinet where I kept a few things for after-care situations. I took out some soft wipes and a blanket, then I carried them over to where Isabel was still lying sprawled on the carpet.

‘I’m not afraid of you’, she’d said. And she hadn’t been. Not once.

Something else shifted in my chest, but again, I refused to acknowledge it, busying myself instead with cleaning her up, wiping away the blood on her lip, and the tears, and running makeup.

Then I wrapped her up in the blanket and carried her back to the other armchair and sat down, holding her in my arms and letting my body heat warm her up. Gradually her shaking stopped and she relaxed against me.

It felt good to take care of her. Better than it should have.

“You know what this means, don’t you, Caleb?” Her voice was scratchy and husky, yet full of feminine satisfaction. “It means I’m yours now.”

Every muscle in my body tightened. I glanced down.

She had her head on my shoulder, her eyes full of triumph. Not at all the trembling, weeping girl she’d been not five minutes earlier.

So. Apparently, she wasnotbroken. Apparently, I’d underestimated her. Again. Jesus Christ.

“No, Isabel,” I said flatly. “No, it does not.”

“Yes, it does.” She sounded exceptionally pleased with herself. ‘You took my virginity that makes me yours.”

I did not like the direction this conversation was heading in one bit. “This isn’t the Middle Ages. I don’t give a shit about your virginity.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Hmmm. If you didn’t give a shit about my virginity, why did you ask me if I was a virgin then?”

“Isabel—”

“You’re a liar, Cal. You do give a shit. But that’s beside the point. I’ve decided that since you’re my first lover, I’m yours.” Her gaze was very direct, very clear. “It also means that you’re mine.”

That ache shifted in my chest once again. The only person who’d ever laid a claim on me was Old Nick. That day when Ten and I had been hauled before him, after I’d failed to pickpocket one of his men and Livia had saved us from a beating. That night he and a couple of his enforcers had found the alley Ten and I had been living in and had told me that he’d seen some potential in us and that there was a place with him if we wanted it. He’d known who I was, the son of a thief who’d once worked for him, but I’d had no idea about him, not then.

Ten had refused – he’d met Sir George by then – but I’d decided I was tired of being on the streets. Ten had his mentor — Sir George hadn’t wanted a bar of me, I was too far gone down the wrong path in his opinion, the darkness inside me too obvious for his liking — so I’d go with Old Nick.

I’d been his man from that day on, but no one else had ever told me I was theirs. Certainly not a young woman with more courage than sense.

She’d said it with such conviction, as if it was a foregone conclusion, but she was wrong. She couldn’t claim me. No one could.

I was no one’s but my own.

“Keep telling yourself that,” I said mildly, not wanting to get into an argument about it. “How are you feeling?”

Her head shifted on my shoulder and her eyelashes fluttered, her mouth curving in the most satiated, sensual smile I’d ever seen. “I’m feeling fucking fantastic, thanks for asking.”

“That’s the adrenaline high talking.” I brushed back some curls from her forehead, trying to ignore the way my dick hardened at the sight of that smile. “I’ll get you another scotch and then you can get dressed.”