Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Coffee, or something stronger?" Rufus offered Molly hours later when the two of them entered the sitting room in Rufus's house.

They had spent hours at the police station relating everything they and Linus knew so far. By the time they left, Serena Jenkins had been arrested for the abduction of Emily Wynter, with charges concerning other abducted children pending as they gathered more information. There would also be charges brought for the manslaughter of Elizabeth Wynter.

While Molly was being questioned, Rufus had called Mia and Darius from the police station and filled them in on what was happening. But he had once again refused the couple's offer to join them. They had baby Lilybeth to care for, and Molly had looked totally shell-shocked by the time they left the station. No doubt partly due to the fact she now knew her whole identity for the past twenty-seven years had been a lie.

"Whisky," Rufus decided firmly at her silence, taking out two glasses from a cabinet, and a bottle of his best scotch. He half-filled one of them before handing it to Molly and then poured another glass for himself.

"You didn't tell me whether or not Linus knows who my real parents are," she reminded after taking a tentative sip.

Because Rufus hadn't known the answer to that question earlier. But he had also spoken to Linus again while Molly was being questioned. "Your mother's name is Barbara Sinclair. Your father's name is William Chan."

"They weren't married?"

Rufus shook his head. "The police file Linus found on your disappearance twenty-seven years ago revealed the two had a relationship for their final two years at university. William then returned to live in China, completely unaware that Barbara was pregnant. When William returned to London on business a year later and called to see his previous lover, you were six months old and visibly recognizable as being his daughter. There was also a record of him wanting joint custody, which Barbara fought against, possibly because she was afraid he would immediately take you back to China with him and she would never see you again."

Rufus knew exactly how devastating having your child ripped away from you could be.

"When you were suddenly taken from the day nursery where Barbara had placed you while she worked as a chemist, she believed that's exactly what had happened," he continued. "The UK doesn't have an extradition agreement with China, and as there was no visible proof of you traveling to or being in China with William, the police were never able to make a reasonable request for him to be sent back to England to settle their inquiries into your disappearance. William has always denied being involved."

Her throat moved as she swallowed. "Where is my mother now?"

"She lives and works in Devon," Rufus revealed. "She fought for you, Molly. The records show that she spent five years after your disappearance trying to find you and have you returned from China. With no success, obviously. By the end of the first year of those extensive searches, the Chinese authorities knew exactly who she was and refused to allow her access into China to look for you herself. She's never married nor had any other children."

Molly gave an emotional sniff. "And my father?"

"Is still living in China. He married twenty-five years ago and has the permitted one child policy from that era. A boy."

"My half brother."

"Yes."

* * *

To someone who had believed herself to be completely alone for the past twenty-seven years, apart from the woman who had abandoned her when she was ten, it was more than a little strange to suddenly discover that she had a mother, a father, a stepmother, and a half sibling.

"I want to meet my birth mother," she stated firmly. "She deserves to know that the child she fought so hard to have returned to her is alive and well."

"I agree." Rufus nodded.

She swallowed again before asking her next question. "Do I have a name?"

"You do," he assured. "Your real name is Lily."

Her eyes widened. "Like Lily beth?"

"Exactly like Lilybeth."

"How strange…"

Rufus shook his head. "It's fate," he corrected, setting his glass on a side table before sitting beside her on the couch. He took her hands in both of his. "I'm one of those people who believe things happen for a reason. God knows it was the only way I could get through losing Beth and Emily all those years ago," he said bleakly. "I also believe that your coming back into Mia's life by working and living at the animal shelter was meant to be. That you and Mia were meant to meet again as adults and become friends. That you and I were meant to be friends too. It's more than friendship to me, Molly," he assured as she frowned. "Much more. But I don't want to take advantage of the situation and assume?—"

"No advantages or assumptions to be made." Molly's fingers tightened about his. "I'm falling in love with you," she now felt able to admit.

Rufus drew in a shaky breath. "I'm falling in love with you too. But?—"

"No buts," Molly told him firmly. "We're falling in love with each other. Let it remain exactly that for the moment. Right now, after the traumatic day we've both had, I would very much like you to take me to bed."

"I'm going to spank your arse first," he reminded.

She gave a tearful smile. "Okay. And in the morning, we'll go and collect Angus from the animal shelter, and you can bring him home."

" We can bring him home."

* * *

Rufus really liked the sound of that. Because he had no intention, once Molly was fully his, of ever letting her leave again, him or the home he was determined they would share from this moment on.

"But first, the spanking," he reminded her as he pulled her across his thighs to unfasten her jeans and pull down the back of them along with her panties.

Her cheeks glowed red when she raised her head to turn and look at him. "We're in the sitting room, and it's broad daylight."

"I don't want our bedroom to be a place you associate with being punished. Besides, there's no one else here to see us, and our lovemaking isn't going to be confined to the darkness of the night."

"You sound as if you expect us to be doing this a lot?"

"For your sake, not the spanking, but I do want to make love to you every night, every morning, and every day until the end of time." The words sounded like a vow. Because Rufus knew that's exactly what they were. "I'll never get enough of you, Molly. You've become my whole world, and I love you."

"I love you too," she told him shyly.

"That's probably as well," he noted with satisfaction before his hand cracked loudly on the exposed flesh of her bottom.

"Ow," she protested indignantly, her hands reaching down to grip his calves.

"This isn't meant to be love-play, Molly. This is your punishment for even daring to think of leaving me." He landed another resounding smack on the other cheek of her arse.

The thought of her disappearing into the darkness of the night, never to be found again, drove him to land smack after smack on the increasing redness of her bottom.

"Have you had enough?" he finally paused to ask her.

"Yes," she sobbed.

"Learned your lesson?"

"Oh yes."

"Which is?"

Molly hissed as he placed his hand heavily on her burning flesh. "Never to think of leaving you again."

"Good girl." He helped her to stand up before rising to his feet, lifting her in his arms, and carrying her from the room.

There was no awkwardness on Molly's part this time as the two of them undressed once they reached Rufus's bedroom. He took her in his arms again and captured her lips with his own.

He finally raised his head to look at her with lust-filled eyes. "I haven't been with anyone else in years, and you haven't been with anyone else at all. Do you want me to use a condom?"

She drew in a shaky breath before answering. "What if I become pregnant?"

"When you say yes, I'm going to marry you, Molly."

"You haven't asked."

"But I will."

Molly could hear the promise in his voice. "Then no, I don't need the protection of a condom." The thought of having Rufus's baby heated her from the inside out.

He nodded his satisfaction with that answer before lifting her once again and carrying her over to the bed, where he laid her down as if she were fragile on top of the dark blue duvet. He quickly followed, lying between her parted thighs to lower his head and suck one of her swollen nipples into his mouth.

Pleasure flowed like hot lava throughout her body, that pleasure increasing when he turned his attention to the other nipple while lightly pinching its twin in the same rhythm as he sucked.

Molly's climax was sudden and violent, her empty channel pulsing and throbbing with a need to be filled.

"We're going to take this slowly and carefully," Rufus promised as he positioned himself between her thighs, once she had recovered from the intensity of her climax, so that the tip of his cock was in place to breach the wet opening of her pussy. "Ready?" he prompted gruffly.

His ragged breathing and the lines about his eyes told Molly of the strain it was for Rufus to hold back from thrusting fiercely inside her. From claiming what he considered his.

That was his.

Because Molly knew she would always be his.

Rufus was the love of her life.

The only man she would ever want.

The man who had just told her she would be the only woman he wanted for the rest of his life.

His cock was so close to making that claim real.

So close.

But not close enough.

Grasping hold of Rufus's shoulders, Molly then used that leverage to tighten the muscles in her abdomen and thighs so that she lifted up and claimed him , the thrust of his cock ripping through her virginity and driving it deep inside her.

"Mine," she stated possessively.

"As you are mine," he told her with that same possessiveness.

He was all and everything Molly had ever, or would ever, want for her future.