When I'm With You: The Complete Novel

by BETH KERY

  She gasped when he pressed the thick, engorged head of his cock against her entrance. She could feel his heat penetrating into her. Oh. She’d never felt a man so rigid with need, so huge . . . so primed. Panic fractured her arousal. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t act her way through this. She wasn’t sure the mechanics of what he was trying to do were even conceivable.

  “I had planned to take you the first time in an exchange of pleasure you would remember forever, but a hard, rough ride here in the stables somehow seems more appropriate. Damn you for always getting your way, Elise,” he said grimly before he held her hip steady with one hand and flexed his hips forcefully, grunting when he went nowhere.

  “Spread your thighs,” he ordered tensely.

  She opened her legs wider, feeling the cool air of the stables lick at her damp, exposed tissues. The anticipation was unbearable. He widened her vagina with his fingers and pressed the thick, engorged head of his cock into her slit, stretching the delicate tissues. She whimpered.

  He held her hips with both hands and drove his cock into her.

  She cried out sharply at the abrupt invasion. Pain spiked through her. He froze. She panted for air, blinking the sweat out of her eyes. The pain segued to a burn. She moaned shakily.

  “Elise?” Lucien queried from behind her, sounding incredulous. Angry. But she was too distracted to consider his fury.

  No . . . it didn’t burn after all, she realized as she panted for air, struggling to assimilate the foreign sensation of Lucien’s flesh penetrating her own. The quick flash of pain had quickly cooled to a simmering sensation of fullness and pressure. He pried her wide. But was that his heartbeat pulsing along the shaft of his cock directly into her clamping flesh?

  Incredible.

  She tightened her vaginal muscles experimentally. His groan sounded harsh, disbelieving.

  “Elise?” He repeated, louder this time, sounding desperate. “Have you ever?”

  “No,” she managed between pants.

  “Merde. Why . . .” He trailed off, a hard edge to his voice. She couldn’t reply. The ability for speech had left her. He moved, sliding his cock in and out of her a scant inch. He leaned down over, until she felt his taut belly expanding and contracting against her back as he struggled for breath . . . for control. It felt so strange to hold him so intimately in her body, his rigid shaft pulsing high inside her, firing nerves she didn’t know she possessed. She clenched tighter around him, experimenting with sensation.

  He exhaled like his lungs had deflated in an instant.

  He tightened his hold on her and flexed his hips. She moaned. “I can’t stop it. You feel so fucking good,” he said brokenly.

  She gripped the railing and pushed her pussy along his shaft. “I don’t want you to stop,” she said, bobbing her bottom against him. “This is what I wanted all along.”

  “You’re going to get it, then.”

  He slid his arm beneath her belly, holding her to him, and began to fuck her.

  Her eyes sprang wide, but she saw nothing. Sensation ruled. He drove into her with short, powerful strokes, their skin slapping together in a sharp, staccato rhythm. At first, she experienced discomfort. But then his free hand found its way between her thighs. He rubbed her clit, pressing and circling as if it were a magic button he coaxed and tickled in order to gain full entrance. It worked. A slow, delicious burn grew in her, every pass of his hammering cock making it amplify. Every time he crashed into her, he finished with a tight, upward jab of his cock that increased the pressure on her clit. The sensation of his heavy balls smacking against her outer sex fired her excitement even further, until she bobbed her hips back for each stroke, increasing the pressure . . . taunting him to take more.

  * * *

  He popped her bottom as she struggled to ride him. Little hedonist. God, she was going to kill him. The sharp cracking sound of skin against skin cleared the fog of lust momentarily from his brain. He held her hips with both hands, stilling her, then bumped her ass with his pelvis, fully re-sheathing himself again with force in the paradise of her pussy. She squealed at the impact. The rush of heat around his cock informed him loud and clear, however, how much she liked the demanding stroke.

  He raised himself. His shirt stuck to the sweat that rose on his body as he stood there with his cock buried in her. “Hold still,” he insisted roughly when she whimpered and twitched her hips in his hands. He withdrew slightly, wincing as he looked down at his cock.

  She’d been a virgin. He’d never been with a virgin before, so he hadn’t previously known if virginity was a state a man could discern or not. It seemed blaringly obvious, however, or at least it had in Elise’s case. Then she’d confirmed it, and he’d been caught in the delicious, agonizing trap of Elise’s pussy. He couldn’t move forward.

  He sure as hell wasn’t going to back out.

  She’d been a fucking virgin. He told himself that again and again, but all he could focus on was her pussy squeezing his cock. She shrink-wrapped him—hot, wet, clamping. To make matters worse, he wasn’t used to being inside a woman raw. For some reason, it’d been imperative for the first time with Elise. He both relished and regretted that decision now. She had a pussy that could drive a man stark, raving mad.

  Again she bobbed her hips, trying to take control. He snarled and held her immobile, spanking her lightly.

  “Who will ride whom, Elise?” he muttered roughly, grasping for a thread of logic . . . straining as her heat emanated into him and her muscles clutched and rippled. He watched the beguiling sight of her slender rib cage’s movement as she panted for air and absorbed his question.

  “You will ride me,” she said in a breathy voice.

  His cock lurched in her tight sheath. “That’s right. Now hold still while I fuck you.” He groaned in rising agony and held her to him, flexing his hips, withdrawing and then sinking into the glory of her. She really was an inferno, and now he was submerged in her, hard and high.

  No going back now.

  He beat their flesh together, fucking her in hot, feverish bliss.

  He watched, spellbound, as he withdrew almost entirely and saw her abundant juices clinging beneath the rim of his cockhead before he plunged back into her.

  God, there was no going back ever.

  He slammed into her and they groaned in mutual pleasure. Snarling, he reached, pulling at the leather strap, releasing her wrists. He pulled her up, plastering her soft, supple body against his front, and resumed fucking her in a slightly bent-over, upright position. He clenched his teeth together at the delight of the taut new angle. He caught her scent and the haze once again began to crowd out his vision. He filled his hands with her luscious breasts, using his hold on her to pump her body back and forth on his cock. She joined in the frenzy, flexing her knees, bobbing up and down on him.

  “Ooh, that feels so good. More. Make me take it . . . hard. I’ve been so bad.”

  He saw red with lust. He gave her a swat on her ass. She was driving him berserk.

  “You’re going to pay for that dirty mouth,” he informed her. Hell yes, she was going to pay. But he was going to be the one to burn in torment, having her taunt him so perfectly.

  He plowed into her, forgetting everything but this vibrant, beautiful woman who was burning him from the inside out. He didn’t allow her much leeway, but she managed to bounce against him, straining at his hold, racing for the finish line. He firmed his hold on her, his palms sliding across the silk of her skin, his thumbs sinking into her buttocks. She tightened around him and keened as climax hit her. He growled at the feeling of heat rushing around his cock.

  He pushed her back down into a bent-over position. Her hands went out instinctively, bracing herself on the rail. Swamping pleasure eclipsed his consciousness as he took her with long, pounding strokes.

  All sounds
blended, creating a roar of lust in his ears: the sounds of Elise’s sexy whimpers and cries as he drove into her, the erotic slap of skin against skin, the blood pounding in his ears, Jax’s snort and whinny of excitement in the distance.

  He loosened his hold on her hips sufficiently to let her take part in their frantic mating. She immediately joined the frenzy, bobbing her ass in a smooth, taut roll, absorbing his forceful thrusts with her soft, strong body, taking him for the ride of a lifetime.

  Another rush of heat flowed over his cock, her muscles tightening. Her whine segued to a scream. Her vaginal walls convulsed around him. Ah God, she was coming again.

  He drove into her and held her ass tightly to him, roaring as pleasure ripped through him, feeling the shudders of Elise’s body quaking into his—both of them shaking and gasping from the same impact, burning in the same fire.

  He’d forbidden himself from leaping wholesale into her flame. He knew regret would come.

  But the first thought that penetrated his bliss as his climax waned was how right it felt, how inevitable . . .

  . . . how indescribably sweet.

  Read more of Elise and Lucien’s red-hot romance in

  Part V of WHEN I’M WITH YOU

  WHEN YOU SUBMIT

  Available from InterMix on April 2, 2013

  Keep reading for a taste of Beth Kery’s sexy and thrilling romance

  RELEASE

  Available now from Berkley Heat

  Genevieve ripped open the sealed envelope and withdrew the slip of paper. The security code to enter Sauren-Kennedy Solutions Inc. had been written in a bold, slanting hand. She recognized Sean’s writing. She clenched her eyelids.

  Slowly, the pain faded.

  It had just been the unexpectedness of seeing his handwriting. She was shaken up—who wouldn’t be after watching their house turn into a smoldering, blackened husk? Practically everything she owned had been destroyed tonight. She didn’t have the energy to worry about what it meant to return to the penthouse after so many years.

  Besides, Genevieve was in excellent practice at shoving any memory of the penthouse into the corners of her consciousness like a dirty, shameful secret.

  She held up the paper and keyed in the numbers written in the familiar scrawl with a shaking hand. Sean had forwarded the updated security information through her lawyer about a year and a half ago. She’d never even opened the envelope, figuring she’d never use the contents. Thankfully she’d kept the code in the small safe at her boutique.

  The code entry activated a retinal scan. The flash of light in her eye made a memory leap into her consciousness in breathtaking detail.

  He’d taught her how to keep score at Cubs games. Sunlit gold strands of dark blond hair mixed with light brown as Sean leaned over and wrote on the program perched on his thigh. The bold, succinct strokes he made with the pencil contrasted so markedly with the instructions uttered in his mellow, New Orleans–accented voice—

  The lock snicked open softly and Genevieve plunged into the office, acting as if she could run from her memories. It was the trauma of the night that was making her remember with such graphic detail. That’s all.

  The deep-pile carpeting muted her footsteps as she entered the posh reception area. Genevieve set down the bag she’d hastily packed at her Oak Street boutique and reentered the code, securing the doors once again.

  Sean had made Sauren-Kennedy Solutions the most sought-after private intelligence firm in the country. These premises were nothing if not secure. Her husband, the former owner, might have been as knowledgeable and clever as any client could hope for when it came to intelligence work, but it was Sean who’d earned the trust that mattered. She knew from her lawyer that Sean had procured several lucrative government contracts over the past few years.

  All was silent in the offices at two a.m. She looked around, feeling like an interloper instead of part-owner of the business. She took in the receptionist’s circular mahogany desk and wondered if Carol still worked for them. She wouldn’t know. All of Sauren-Kennedy business affairs were managed by her attorney. The offices had been redecorated since she’d last been there, but that wasn’t too surprising. She hadn’t set a foot on the premises for more than three years.

  Her husband had been killed five days after Genevieve had last stood here.

  For a few seconds, she wavered on her feet.

  She shook off her doubts and marched toward the elevators. Why shouldn’t she stay here? She owned the place, didn’t she? Her step sounded more brisk and confident than she felt when her heels hit the polished granite tile.

  The penthouse was on the top floor of the building where Sauren-Kennedy housed its offices. Max had insisted they buy a huge house on a wooded estate in the suburbs when they married, but he hadn’t been completely immune to Genevieve’s disappointment about moving out of downtown Chicago. She’d been such a city girl ever since she’d moved downtown during her college years. It’d been where she’d discovered what she was capable of as a clothing designer and entrepreneur; where she’d first found success. The penthouse renovation on the top floor of the high-rise where Max’s company was housed had been for her—their city place, the weekend getaway.

  Her phone began to ring as she stepped off the elevator. She drew her cell out of her purse and groaned softly when she saw the caller. Instead of ignoring the call from the man she’d been dating for eight weeks now—which is precisely what she felt like doing— she forced herself to answer.

  “Hi, Jeff.”

  “Genevieve? A friend of mine who reports on the northern suburbs just called me about the fire. Are you all right?”

  Genevieve lingered in the foyer, the phone pressed to her ear and her leather carryall clutched against her chest. “Yeah, it’s been a hell of a night. And yes, I’m fine. Everything is going to be fine. Please, don’t worry,” she finished emphatically.

  Jeff was a respected sports writer for the Chicago Tribune. He traveled a lot, and Genevieve knew he was in New York at the moment, covering the NBA All-Star Game this weekend. It didn’t surprise her that one of his fellow reporters had called him about the fire. Given the fact that Genevieve and he were so far apart, she knew he would worry all that much more. They hadn’t been seeing each other for long, but Jeff seemed pretty damn interested.

  Genevieve had yet to decide how she felt about that.

  “My friend said your house was . . .”

  “It was completely destroyed,” Genevieve finished evenly when Jeff trailed off.

  “God. What happened?”

  She slowly started to make her way toward the penthouse front door. “I don’t know for sure. The fire chief said he’d get a report to me by tomorrow. Well . . . today, actually,” she added when she recalled it was nearly two a.m.

  “I’ll catch a plane back in the morning.”

  “No.” Genevieve made an effort to soften her voice when she realized how harsh she’d sounded. She didn’t want to be rude, but she had enough on her plate at the moment without having to worry about Jeff hovering around and worrying about her. “You have the game to report on this weekend. Besides, you’ve heard we’re supposed to be getting the snowstorm of the century starting tomorrow? I seriously doubt any flights will be getting into O’Hare for the rest of the weekend. And like I said, I’m fine. Things could have been much worse. No one was hurt. There’s nothing in that house that can’t be replaced.” She sighed heavily and placed her forehead against the penthouse’s wooden door. “To be honest with you, it would have been a lot harder on me if my boutique had burned down.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right? Where are you going to stay?”

  “I’m staying at a penthouse I own downtown.”

  There was a short pause.

  “You never mentioned owning a penthouse downtown.”

 
Genevieve straightened and began wearily searching in her purse for her keys. “We haven’t really known each other for that long, Jeff. It’s on the top floor of the building where Sauren-Kennedy is located.” She found her keys and looked for the least used one on the keychain. “Listen, I’m going to go. I’m here, safe and sound, and I’m exhausted.”

  “Sure. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, all right?”

  She gave a small smile. He really was a nice guy. Good looking. Great job. Funny. She couldn’t imagine why she was so . . . uninspired by him.

  Of course, she hadn’t been inspired by much of anything for years now. Not in the romance arena, anyway. She’d been hoping Jeff Winton was the one who would pull her out of the doldrums, but it seemed unlikely.

  Not that it was much of a surprise that she wasn’t feeling romantic at the moment, Genevieve thought wryly.

  They said their good-byes and Genevieve inserted the key. The lock turned smoothly. She stepped into the dim, marble-tiled foyer. Without bothering to turn on the light, she removed her coat, her gaze never leaving the magnificent, luminous sight before her. She’d forgotten the stunning first impact of the penthouse view. She walked past the galley kitchen on the left and into the silent living room.

  A different world existed outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. You became a denizen of the clouds when you came through that door, leaving behind the noisy, bustling world of sidewalks and traffic-filled streets. She stood next to the couch and the patio doors and looked down onto a different universe. She was like a bird perched on the top branches of a dense, metal-and-glass orchard of skyscrapers. That ground-world seemed so far away up here . . . so distant and muted.

  The spires on the Sears Tower were partially obliterated by fast-moving, dark gray wisps. They were predicting a blizzard over the weekend. Genevieve had sensed the impending storm earlier in the heavy, oppressive air as she’d stood watching her house burn from a safe distance.