strained muscles. With a sure touch, he massaged away the stiffness.
She skimmed her fingertips down his chest. He still wore his shirt. “Mikal.”
“I’m sorry,” he answered, no longer disguising his voice.
“No. Don’t be.” Callista pushed up to sitting and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed his neck, tasting the salty flavor of his skin, and said, “I was going to call you when you…when you got here. I missed you.”
“You shouldn’t have.” In the dark, he found the hem of her camisole and tugged it back into place. “I’m sorry I used your keys to get in. I’m sorry I came after you like that. I wanted—”
“ I wanted,” she said, interrupting the low, pained flood of words. “I wanted you. I wanted this. I wanted you to trust me without the safety net of some legal documents. I wanted you to love me because I felt pretty damned stupid with my one-sided feelings.”
She tangled her hands in his hair and pulled him down to her. They both tumbled onto the bed. Callista shifted her weight to lie half on top of him, soaking up his heat and keeping him from running away. His chest rose and fell steadily but he didn’t say anything. Trying not to panic in the silence, she rolled to sit astride his hips. His cock lay between them, soft now and damp with their mingled arousal.
“Tell me you love me. Do it right this time.” She pushed his shirt up and spread her fingers across the hard plane of his stomach. “Ask me to marry you the right way. Let me call you ‘Master’ because I want to and because you deserve it, not because I signed papers agreeing to do so.”
“Callista.” He covered her hands. “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a fucking shrew? If I marry you, I’m going to have to beat you back into submission on a daily basis.”
“This is the twenty-first century. A woman has to spell out exactly what she wants and then go after it herself.”
“Fuck the twenty-first century. If you want something, I’ll buy it for you.”
“I want you to love me.” She evaded his grasp and took his cock in both hands, teasing him back to hardness. “Tell me and I’ll take it all the way.”
He chuckled, but peeled her fingers off him and pulled her down to sprawl atop his chest. “Callista Voorhees, I love you. Marry me and I’ll let you put my dick in your mouth.”
“I want that added as a codicil to our prenup,” she said, smiling.
“Fuck the prenup. You already have everything I’ve got to give.”
Sobering, she placed her hand over his heart and kissed him. “I’ll take good care of it, Sir. I promise.”
About the Author
Emily Ryan-Davis lives in Maryland with her loving husband and hateful guinea pig. On any given day, you can find her shopping (online or in stores), chatting/writing (the pair go hand in hand, can’t have one without the other), knitting (or buying yarn) or mocking her husband’s comic collection (while parenthetically wondering why comics haven’t upgraded to the ebook age; imagine all the extra space she’d have). Occasionally she picks up her mandolin, but mostly she just ignores it. You won’t find her paying attention to current events or the latest celebrity gossip because writing stories is her way of pretending it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t know how to use the television remote.
Emily’s favorite authors are Megan Hart, Terry Pratchett, JR Ward and Orson Scott Card. She loves sexy, magical, funny and intense stories, but especially enjoys immersing herself in the breathless intensity of a “with feeling” love scene. She can’t pick a genre (decision-making issues!) so writes in whatever setting calls to her at any given time: contemporary paranormal, historical western, medieval Europe, Gothic France—if she can imagine a strong emotional attraction existing in a particular place or time, chances are she’ll write the story.
Emily welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and