He studied her for a minute. Shit. How was he going to play this so as to not scare her off? Right, straightforward it was.
“You’re right.”
“I…I am? I mean, of course I am.” She looked so disappointed it broke his heart. He was right on calling her bullshit earlier. He needed to take fear out of the equation so she would give them a chance. So she would surrender to him, fall in love with him. So she would want to bond with him, as much as he wanted to with her.
“Yes, sleeping together after sex does complicate casual.”
She looked embarrassed, but tried to play it off. “Right. It does. So, ah…I guess I’ll see you in the morning then.”
She tried lifting off his lap, but he clamped the hands around her hips even tighter. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Oh, you’ll be seeing me in the morning, all right. After I spend the night making love to you and sleeping in your bed.” He kissed her long and deep. “After I wake you up in the middle of the night with my cock buried deep inside you.”
He peppered kisses at the corners of her mouth.
“You’re anything but casual, Kate. I want you and I always get what I want.”
He lay back down, assuming their earlier position with her draped over his body. His arm wrapped around her possessively, tightly, letting her know in no uncertain terms, he was not letting her go. Not tonight. Not ever.
He kissed the top of her head gently. “Now, go to sleep, my love.”
She gifted him with a small smile and obediently snuggled into his side, quickly drifting off. He might have won this round, but he had no doubt the battle to win Kate’s heart was far from over.
Damn stubborn woman.
Chapter 26
Dev
Dev extricated himself from Kate’s limbs as quietly as he could. He didn’t want to leave her, but the other Lords were arriving within the half hour. His plan was a fast strategy session, returning to her as quickly as possible. He was serious about being buried balls deep in her hot, wet pussy in the middle of the night. And she would wake up in his arms.
He needed this meeting over with quickly before she woke. If that happened and she found he wasn’t there, he knew her mind would immediately think the worst and he’d have much more ground to make up. She was going to make him earn every inch of it too. For some reason, she thought herself unworthy of him and if anything it was completely the opposite. He in no way deserved someone like her. She was sweet, innocent, loving. Everything he was not. He genuinely feared once she learned of his true nature, he would lose her forever. He simply couldn’t let that happen.
As he rose from the bed she moaned and turned over but remained asleep. He returned to his room, showered, dressed quickly and made his way to his office to gather a few things.
“Leo, gather everyone in the boardroom downstairs. Ten minutes. Usher our guests there when they arrive.”
“Yes, sire.”
There was a whole command center in the lower levels of his home. He’d conveniently left that out of Kate’s tour. He would show her eventually, but he’d have some explaining to do if she stumbled upon it and he wasn’t quite sure how to do that without being honest with her. He had to do that and very, very soon. How to reveal his true self had been weighing heavily on his soul. He’d figure it out tonight, while he held her in his arms.
Dev grabbed his laptop and papers and headed to the boardroom. When he arrived, Ren and Giselle were already there. “Where are the others?”
“On their way,” Giselle answered. “Dickhead and Rom will be here any minute.”
Dev glared at Giselle. “Let it go, Elle. Please.” That got her attention. He never asked anything of anyone. He certainly didn’t say please. He demanded.
“O-Okay. For you, my lord.”
“Thank you.” She simply gaped at him. Yeah, Dev didn’t say ‘thank you’ much either.
Manny and Thane breezed in.
“You guys feed?”
“And then some,” quipped Manny, his eyebrows wagging up and down. Thane simply nodded. Man of a thousand words.
“Your guests have arrived, sire. I’ll show them down.”
A couple minutes later Damian, Romaric and several others strode into the room.
“Gentlemen, thanks for coming.” Dev said. As usual, Giselle was the only female in the room. And she avoided Damian like the plague. Giselle would never tell Dev what happened between them, but it’d caused some pretty bad blood between the two. Well, mostly on her part, it appeared.
Dev whistled to quiet them down. “All right, let’s get down to business. Here’s what we know so far. We have a total of twenty eight—”