When I'm With You: The Complete Novel
Page 46
She stared up at him, rapt, and he was struck anew by her luminous spirit.
“Tell me what you need.”
“I need you,” she whispered.
His cock throbbed unbearably in her clasping sheath. He tightened his hold on her wrists and moved. They both gasped at the sharp pleasure. He stilled again, determined to make the moment last. He opened his eyes and met her stare. He palmed her jaw, wondering yet again at the softness of her skin. He would draw this out . . . stay perched on this exquisite cliff of pleasure for hours, keeping them tied together for as long as God would allow a mere mortal man.
She squeezed him with her vaginal muscles and he winced in pleasure, groaning and stroking her even though he hadn’t meant to. She tempted him so sorely . . .
“I will never teach you discipline,” he rasped, fucking her with long, forceful strokes. “It was a losing battle from day one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You are not. And neither am I. I wouldn’t have you any other way,” he managed before he took them higher, and all rational thought was forgotten.
* * *
Afterward, they lay as close as two people can get, their breath slowing together until it blended into a lazy, hypnotic synchrony, his penis still inside her. He felt her warm, soft body jump slightly beneath him and lifted his head to study her startled, perspiration-sheened features.
“What of your mother? Francesca told me that Helen was able to give you her name before she passed away. I thought you’d leave immediately for Morocco to find her!”
He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “A day or two isn’t going to make a difference after all this time. Besides, I had other family to attend to.”
Her elegant throat convulsed. “Me?” she asked incredulously.
He smiled down at her. “If there’s one thing that all of this has taught us, surely it’s that we choose our families. Blood doesn’t determine a family. Legal arrangement doesn’t either, not necessarily. We were loners apart, but together . . . yes, we’re a family, you and I. Or we can be.”
“I had no idea you would ever feel that way,” she said, wonder tingeing her tone. When she noticed his upraised brows, she said in a rush, “Of course I want to be your family. And of course you’re mine. But . . . when did you realize?”
“It’s been coming upon me slowly, but I think I even knew it, deep down, ever since that day you blazed into Fusion, insisting you were my new chef. I knew you were a risk to my mission here in Chicago, but I couldn’t resist,” he said, smiling wider at the memory. He shook his head. “What balls you have, for a tiny little woman.”
“I’m not tiny,” she refuted. Her frown melted away. “What do you mean, you felt that way ever since that day?”
He shrugged, his expression sobering as he looked down at her. “Just that I realized for the first time that I couldn’t walk away from you again, especially when you’d strutted back into my life, practically grinding the red flag up my nose. If you could risk it so flagrantly, then surely so could I.”
“You made our relationship sound like it was going to be purely sexual . . . for the mutual gratification of needs,” she said, her scowl returning. But behind it, he sensed her dawning wonder.
“Well, it’s certainly been that.”
He laughed softly when he saw her wry expression. “It wasn’t always as clear to me as it is now. I’m speaking in retrospect. But I suspect part of me knew, even back then, because I took on the challenge of you, even knowing it might sacrifice my chance of other family. Ian and my biological mother,” he clarified when she gave him a puzzled look. “Besides, you didn’t trust me. I had to say something that would keep you tied to me.”
“So you settled for tying me up in the sexual sense,” she said accusingly.
He lightly kissed her mouth, and despite her pique, her lips caressed his back.
“I really did need to teach you control, Elise. You would have burned me alive if I didn’t. You may still,” he admitted ruefully under his breath.
She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes in pleasure when she scraped his scalp with her nails, and his cock quickened in her warm channel.
“You were my own personal sac de nœuds,” he said, growling softly as she caressed him and his body tightened and hardened. Her hands stilled on his head. He opened his eyes.
“You thought of me as a sack of knots?” she asked, sounding mildly offended.
He flexed his hips, thrusting. She gasped.
“Don’t worry, ma chère,” he rasped as he braced his upper body off her, withdrew, and stroked her again, deep and hard. He caught her soft moan with his skimming lips. “It’s a challenge I’m more than up to, and unfurling the mysteries of you will keep me busy—not to mention amply rewarded—for a lifetime.”
You’ve met Lucien and Elise. Now meet Ian and Francesca in the sizzling
Because You Are Mine . . .
It’s at a cocktail party in her honour that she first meets him – and the attraction is immediate for graduate student Francesca Arno. It’s also bewildering. She’s not used to such a wholesale sexual response to a stranger. Enigmatic, darkly intense, with a commanding presence, billionaire Ian Noble completely unnerves her. And she likes it.
For Ian, Francesca is the kind of woman he can’t resist – one that comes all too rarely: a true innocent. But he can sense in her a desire to open up, to experiment, to give herself to the fantasies of a man in control. The first kiss, the first caress, the first challenge for a woman who craves what she’s never had – a man who gets what he wants . . .
The full novel now available in paperback and ebook from Headline
Wicked Burn
Vic Savian knows what he wants when he sees it. And what he wants is his sexy neighbour, Niall Chandler. When he finds her in the hallway of their building being harassed by an aggressive suitor, Vic steps in – and finds himself greatly rewarded . . . Sleeping with her gorgeous neighbour – when she didn’t even know his last name – was the craziest thing Niall’s ever done. Now, she can’t seem to get enough of Vic, or what he stirs in her. Suddenly she’s exploring uninhibited pleasures she’s never known before. But when her past returns to haunt her, she and Vic are forced to venture beyond the pleasures of the flesh, and risk it all on something deeper, something found only in the heart.
Available now from Headline Eternal Romance
All it takes is . . . One Night of Passion . . .
Have you read Beth Kery’s irresistibly sexy quartet?
ADDICTED TO YOU
Irish film director Rill Pierce fled to the tiny, backwoods town of Vulture’s Canyon, seeking sanctuary and solitude after a devastating tragedy. Katie Hughes, his best friend’s sister blazes into town determined to save him from himself. Instead, she finds herself unleashing years of pent-up passion. In a storm of hunger and need, Katie and Rill forget themselves and the world. But will Rill’s insatiable attraction to Katie heal his pain – or will it just feed the darkness within him?
BOUND TO YOU
John Corcoran loved the isolation of the Shawnee National Forest. Isolation is what movie star Jennifer Turner craved too, an escape that only a weekend away from Hollywood. Yesterday, they were strangers – until a fateful accident throws them together and plunges them into darkness. Now, as intimately close as a man and a woman can be, they find themselves alone. Only an unexpected passion will comfort them – a sensual experience from which neither is certain they want to be rescued.
CAPTURED BY YOU
Aussie playboy and landscape photographer Chance Hathoway recognizes a miracle of nature when he sees it. Camera in hand, his instinct is to capture Sherona Legion. But he longs to possess more than her image . . . When Sherona discovers she’s being watched she’s surprised at her reaction. It’s not embarrassment. It’s pure, unabashed
arousal. Thrilled at having the exhibitionist in her awakened, she agrees to Chance’s offer to pose for a series of nude photographs. But how much is Sherona ready to give to a complete stranger? And how much more can Chance take?
EXPOSED TO YOU
It’s not often you’re hired to paint a body tattoo on a total stranger at a Hollywood film set and reserved art teacher Joy will never forget it. Certain she’ll never see him again, she gives herself completely in a moment of passionate desire. Little does she know the man is film star Everett Hughes. In the heat of an intoxicating affair, Everett endeavours to break down her barriers and gain her trust. But can Joy reveal to him the vulnerable woman who longs to be loved, wanted, and desired for ever?
All available now from Headline Eternal Romance