The Buchanan's Redemption by Alexx Andria Page A

dinner conversation,” she stammered, reaching for her wine glass to wet her parched throat. She darted nervous glances around the room but found no one was paying attention to their tucked away alcove. More’s the pity. Vince’s gaze had turned decidedly feral and she was shaking all over at the promise in his eyes. She wouldn’t put it past him to push the flimsy table aside and do terribly naughty things to her right there in front of God and country. “This…I…you’re wrong,” she managed the lie, though barely. Her vocal cords were strangling her as if trying to prevent the words from burying herself. She pushed away an errant curl that had escaped from her updo and tried a confident smile but it was far too shaky to come off as anything but a front at hiding the turmoil in her body.
    “You’re lying,” he said quietly. “Perhaps we should’ve discussed the punishment for not being truthful.” Her eyes widened and his slow wicked smile stole whatever breath she had left. “It is far more tantalizing than a kiss,” he promised darkly.
    “I didn’t agree to that,” she said. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
    “Silly girl…the game was an illusion. There is no deal…only you and me…and the rest of the night.” She started to tremble but not from fear. God help her, she was tingling over her entire body and heat had liquefied her core until she knew with complete mortified certainty if he were to touch her, his fingers would come away wet with her juices. “Tonight I will show you what it’s like to be beneath a real man — one who doesn’t take orders but gives them —   and I’m going to twist you in knots as only a sexual deviant such as myself can.” He smirked as he lifted his wine glass to his lips. “But first…we eat. We will need our strength for what is to come.”
    As if he hadn’t just alternately scared her senseless and left her wanting for something she couldn’t even name, he ordered their dinner.
    Hands shaking beneath the tablecloth, Emma knew without a doubt, by the end of the night, Vince Buchanan was likely going to ruin her.
    And she was going to let him.

-9-
     
    Dillon ran his fingers lightly over his wife’s distended belly, loving the feel of the taut skin, knowing that his child was safe inside Penny’s womb. He was awed and a little bit —   okay, a lot —   terrified at the thought of being someone’s father. Was he truly ready to take on that responsibility and would he do a better job than his own father had?
    “If this baby doesn’t come soon, I quit,” Penny grumbled, shifting for a more comfortable spot on their bed. Dillon helped put a bolster behind her lower back to give her some more support and she sighed in relief. “My back is killing me.”
    “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked, hoping for a task or job that would make him feel less useless than he always ended up feeling when he saw Penny in pain. Penny shook her head and rubbed at her ribs where his child was presumably sticking a foot. “On second thought, you can distract me by telling me what’s going on with Vince. Shannon told me some distressing news about some girl he has holed up at the penthouse. Is it true?”
    He cursed silently. How could he have thought that the girls wouldn’t share information with one another? Now he had to come clean. “I hadn’t wanted to say anything because I didn’t want you upset,” he explained. “There’s a situation with a club that the twins own and we’re trying to get it figured out before it gets out of hand.”
    “If he has a beat up girl holed up somewhere, I’d say it’s already out of hand, don’t you think?” Penny said, wincing and blowing out a deliberate breath in an attempt to manage the pain. When he paused, more concerned about his wife than the problems with Malvagio, she gestured for him to continue, saying, “Believe it or not, it helps to focus on something other than how crappy I feel.