CHAPTER 13

          A sense of triumph, along with a compressing sensation in his throat that felt suspiciously like the tightening of a noose, assaulted Maxim. It was necessary. It was the only thing that could be done. The only way for him to truly claim his child, make him his heir. And the only way to claim sweet, feisty Michaela.

          A heavy pulse throbbed in his groin at the thought of claiming Michaela in the most basic, elemental way. He wanted her with a kind of passionate ferocity that was so strange to him. Maxim would have wanted her no matter what would’ve desired her had he passed her when she was walking down the street.

          But the intense, bone-deep need to take her, to enter her sweet body and join himself to her… that had to be connected to the pregnancy because it was outside anything in his experience.

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