Page 14 of Savage Claim

Isabella took in a deep, sobbing breath. “I’m going to—!” She yanked on my hair hard as she came, sending a bolt of lightning down my spine. I drew my own hips away from where I had been rubbing against the bed. I wasnotgoing to come in my pants like a fucking teenager. Instead, I put all of my focus on Isabella as she rode out her orgasm.

When I leaned back, chin wet from her, I smiled at the thoroughly fucked look on her face. “Gentle enough?”

She carded her fingers through my hair. “What about you?”

For as hard as I was, I shook my head. I could wait. “Rest,” I told her. “Then, take a shower. I want to take you out tonight.”

Isabella stared at me for a long while, like she was trying to figure out some kind of puzzle before nodding in agreement. “Okay.”

CHAPTER 10

Isabella

There was a dress laid out on the bed, deep blue andverypretty, and when I reached out to touch it, the fabric was the softest thing I’d ever felt. When I picked it up, I noticed that the price tag was still attached.

This wasn’t one of Sienna’s dresses. Lorenzo had bought it specifically for me.

My eyes began to burn slightly, and I wiped at them gruffly. I wouldnotget choked up over him buying me a dress instead of dressing me in his dead wife’s clothes. That wasn’t sweet. It was the bare minimum.

I put on the dress; the bodice flared out and gently covered my baby bump, and I twirled this way and that in the mirror before I styled my hair so that it lay across my shoulders in a heavy curtain. I went minimal on the makeup. Looking in the mirror, I frowned at the spider webbing of scars across my cheek, but I had learned that the more I tried to cover it up, the more prominent it looked.

I expected Lorenzo to be waiting for me in the foyer, but instead, I saw Damian standing by the door, twirling a set of keys on his finger. He caught them in his palm when he saw me coming down the stairs. “Lorenzo’s not here.” It wasn’t a question.

Something about seeing Damian waiting for me just pissed me off. It was something about the way that he was the first to see me wearing this dress. Lorenzo should have been here, but instead, he foisted this moment off on someone else.

“I’m driving you to him,” Damian said.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “What if I said no?”

Damian gave me a tired look. “Please don’t,” he said. “He’ll only get pissed at the both of us.”

I was being childish, and I knew it. It didn’t make my mood any brighter. “Fine. I’ll go.”

He let out a breath. “Thank you.”

I followed Damian out to the waiting SUV, and I tried not to be huffy when he held the door open for me…but I wasn’t going on a date with Damian.Hedidn’t buy me a dress and laid it out for me to wear. So, why was it suddenly so important that Lorenzo rushed ahead to wherever we were going?

Damian drove into the city as I watched out the window. When we turned into the parking garage for the Palazzo, I glanced at him. “Is this another work thing that I’m being included in?” I asked, thinking back to the singular time Lorenzo had brought me to the casino before Artem blew it sky high.

Damian shook his head. “No, and that’s all I’m going to tell you, so don’t ask.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “Spoilsport.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lorenzo wants to surprise you, so just let him.” When I didn’t say anything, he added, “For my sake?”

Damnit. “Fine.”

Damian parked and rushed around to the passenger side to open my door. It was all very showy, very formal, as if he was afraid that Lorenzo was watching.Hell, he probably is. Damian escorted me to the elevator, and after I stepped inside, he reached in and pressed the button for the penthouse. He saluted me as the doors slid closed.

The elevator carried me up to the top floor of the building. It stopped with a littleding!and the doors opened to Lorenzo waiting for me, bouquet of roses in hand. He was wearing a suit that had been tailored to fit his broad body perfectly. He smiled, and my knees quivered.Fuck, but the man had such a deadly smile.

“Are you planning to step off the elevator,dolcezza?”

With legs shakier than a baby deer, I stepped into the landing of the penthouse. Lorenzo handed me the bouquet; it was a weighty thing in my arms. “I was mad that you weren’t at the house to pick me up.”

Lorenzo nodded. “I know,” he said. “Damian texted me.”

Of course, he did. “I almost didn’t come.”

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