Page 36 of Bound in Matrimony
"I was thinking that I understand you better now," I say, reaching out to trace the strong line of his jaw. "Your need to possess. To claim. To keep what's yours."
Interest sharpens his gaze. "Oh?"
"I feel it too." The admission comes easier than I expected. "This…obsession. This need to have you completely. To know you're mine in every possible way."
Something flares in his eyes—recognition, satisfaction, desire. "Tell me more."
"I get possessive when other women look at you," I confess. "I want to mark you as mine, make sure everyone knows you're taken. I find myself thinking of you as belonging to me—not just as my husband, but as mine. My possession. My territory." I pause, searching his face. "Does that sound familiar?"
His smile is slow, predatory, yet somehow tender. "Intimately familiar."
"I used to think your obsession with me was…extreme." I lace my fingers with his across Claire's sleeping form. "Now I think it might have been restraint, considering what I'm feeling."
Knox's laugh is soft, mindful of our sleeping daughter. "Seraphina Vance, are you telling me you're obsessed with me?"
"Completely," I admit, the truth a relief to finally acknowledge. "Utterly. Absolutely."
He lifts our joined hands, pressing his lips to my knuckles. "Good," he says simply. "Because I've been waiting for you to catch up."
And as the Caribbean breeze washes over us—my husband, my daughter, my perfect world condensed to this moment on our private island—I realize that Knox has always known. He recognized this capacity in me long before I was ready to see it in myself. He's been patiently waiting for me to embrace the truth:that I am, and always have been, just as obsessed with him as he is with me.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Chapter Twenty-One
Knox
Her words echoin my mind, resonating like a perfect frequency that makes everything inside me vibrate with recognition. Obsessed. She's obsessed with me. The admission I've been waiting for since the moment I claimed her as mine. Seraphina sits across from me on the veranda of our island home, the setting sun painting her in shades of gold and amber, her confession still hanging in the air between us. Claire sleeps peacefully between us, unaware that her mother has just given me the one thing I've needed more than anything—confirmation that the consuming fire that burns in me for her is matched by an equal flame in her. I've built an empire on reading people, on sensing weakness, on knowing when I have the advantage. But in this moment, I'm stripped of all calculation, reduced to a single, primal response: need.
"Say it again," I demand, my voice barely recognizable.
Her eyes—those remarkable green eyes that have seen through me from the beginning—meet mine without hesitation."I'm obsessed with you, Knox. Completely. The way you've always been with me."
The words hit me with physical force, a blow to the center of my chest where her name is permanently etched into my skin. For a man who craves control in all things, the violence of my reaction should be concerning. Instead, it feels like the most natural response in the world—this surge of hunger, of possession, of absolute certainty.
She understands. Finally, completely, she understands what drives me. What has driven me since the moment I saw her in that gallery, coolly dissecting that hideous installation with the precision of a surgeon. She knows what it is to need someone with every cell of your being. To feel that they are an extension of yourself, essential to your continued existence.
Claire stirs between us, reminding me of her presence. The desire to claim Seraphina immediately wars with my protective instincts toward our daughter. Seraphina reads the conflict in my face—she always reads me perfectly—and rises from her seat with fluid grace.
"I'll put her down," she says, gathering Claire into her arms. "Her evening nap usually lasts an hour."
The look she gives me over her shoulder as she carries our daughter inside holds a promise that makes my blood surge hot in my veins. I give them five minutes—enough time for Seraphina to settle Claire in the nursery, for the baby monitor to be activated, for our daughter to be secure in her routine.
Five minutes exactly, and then I follow.
I find Seraphina in our bedroom, standing by the open doors that lead to our private section of beach. The sunset bathes her in fire, her honey-blonde hair aflame with golden light, her skin glowing. She's removed her cover-up, standing in just the white bikini she wore earlier. My wife. Mine.
"Claire?" I ask, though I already know the answer. I'd never proceed otherwise.
"Sleeping soundly." She turns to face me, and the look in her eyes is one I've seen in my own reflection countless times—hungry, possessive, certain. "The monitor's on. We'll hear if she needs us."
I cross the room in three long strides, eliminating the distance between us with the efficiency that defines all my important actions. My hands find her waist, feeling the warm silk of her skin beneath my palms. "Tell me what you feel."
She doesn't pretend to misunderstand. Her arms twine around my neck, her body pressing against mine with delicious intent. "I feel like I'll die if I don't have you. Like you're a part of me that I can't survive without. Like I need to mark you, claim you, make sure everyone knows you're mine." Her lips curve in a smile that's both self-aware and primal. "Sound familiar?"
The last thread of my control snaps. I lift her, her legs automatically wrapping around my waist, and carry her to our bed. The California king—specially designed and shipped to our island at obscene expense—receives us as I lay her down, covering her body with mine.
"Do you know," I say against her throat, feeling her pulse jump beneath my lips, "how long I've waited to hear you say those words? To know that what I feel for you isn't one-sided? That you need me the way I need you?"
