Because We Belong: A Because You Are Mine Novel (13 page)

“May I?” he asked quietly.

The split second it took her to decide seemed to drag on forever. Without verbally acquiescing, she just went into his arms, her posture stiff. She hardly heard the music over her pounding heart. For several seconds, neither of them spoke as she told herself not to focus on the sensation of being in his arms, and did nothing but.

“How long do you plan to stay?” she asked without looking at him and tried not to breathe too deeply, lest she inhale his scent.

“I haven’t decided.”

She dared to look into his face. His blue eyes drew her like a magnet. “Will you be going back to wherever you were before?”

“Eventually. I still have unfinished business there.”

His hand moved ever so slightly at her waist, skimming the bare skin of her back.

“You look incredibly beautiful,” he said.

“If you still have unfinished business,” she said crisply, ignoring his compliment—or trying to, “I’m surprised you came at all.”

“An emergency called me away.”

Her pulse began to throb at her throat as she stared blankly at his chest. Had he just pulled her closer, or had she moved toward him? His body brushed only lightly against her, but it was difficult to pull her mind off the sensation, especially when the tips of her breasts were tickled by his lapel. How did he do it, awaken every nerve in her body so effortlessly?

“You consider your grandparents’ anniversary an emergency?”

“I didn’t come for the anniversary, although I’m very glad to be here for it. The emergency was you.”

Her mouth trembled as she looked up at his steadfast reply, betraying her. She looked over his shoulder, seeing Gerard twirling an ecstatic-looking Clarisse just feet away but not really absorbing anything but the feeling of being in Ian’s arms.

“Your breaking off things between us wasn’t easy, Ian, but you need hardly consider me an emergency. I’ve been doing fine.”

“I know that. And I didn’t break things off between us.”

“You disappeared for half a year without so much as a text message,” she said with dripping sarcasm.

“I thought it’d be best. A clean break. While I tried to figure things out.”

“Well it worked,” she told him with fake airiness. “The clean break,” she clarified, rising anger making it possible to meet his stare again. It was a mistake. His gaze blazed down at her face, the emotion in his eyes palpable, but also completely indecipherable, like trying to read the meaning in a raging inferno.

“I didn’t want to hurt you. It wasn’t my intention,” he said.

“Intended or not, you did.”

His mouth went hard. His nostrils flared. Why didn’t he at least apologize? He owed her that, didn’t he? He was the most infuriating man she’d ever known. His hand shifted on her waist so that his entire palm was on bare skin. His heat poured into her. He pressed, as if he wanted to detail the sensation of her backbone. For a moment, she forgot what they’d been discussing as her belly brushed his pelvis. Her core contracted, the immediate sharp ache shocking her.

“Francesca, I think you might be in danger.”

She blinked, totally disoriented by what had just occurred. It was as if her body had a mind all its own, straining toward him, aching for him against her will.

“What?” she asked, sure she’d misunderstood him.

“Someone tried to kidnap you in Chicago.”

She made an incredulous sound. “Kidnap? What are you talking about? You mean that man who tried to rob Davie and me?”

“I read the police report,” he said coldly. “That wasn’t an attempted robbery. Why everybody else seems to be ignoring the obvious is beyond me.”

“You read . . .” She faded off, scolding herself for her initial surprise. Ian had stunned her many times with his ability to get almost any information he desired, even highly confidential information. This was yet another example of his power, not to mention something that bordered on paranoia.

“Have you been spying on me?” she accused.

“No. But I’ve been keeping tabs. Just to make sure you were all right.”

“Well your concern was misguided,” she said sharply. “Both in the case of that attempted robbery incident and in general.” She stepped back as the music came to an end. He dropped his arms slowly to his sides. “I’ve been doing just fine without you, Ian.”

“You’re lying,” she heard him say quietly.

“Why would you assume that?” she asked under her breath as chatting people started to move past them as they left the dance floor.

“You’re the other half of me. I feel like something has been ripped out of my chest not being with you. I think it’s the same for you.”

Her mouth dropped open at his quiet audacity. Her eyes burned at his stark declaration of pain.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have been the one to rip it apart,” she hissed, knowing her naked heart was fully exposed in that moment, but not caring.

She turned and headed for the doors.

* * *

He sat alone in the sitting room, slouching on the velvet couch, his collar unbuttoned, his tie hanging loose around his neck. The fire was dying. It must be five in the morning. The huge house was utterly quiet around him following the clamor of the ball, making him feel like he was in the belly of a sleeping beast. He knew he wouldn’t rest, so he hadn’t even bothered going to bed.

Surely Francesca was safe here . . . in his grandparents’ home. He knew how secure his grandfather kept the house, with its ancient and priceless treasures. He was grateful she was there versus in Chicago, seeing as how she refused to stay at his penthouse, which was also extremely secure.

Then maybe you shouldn’t have been the one to rip it apart.

His eyelids closed at the memory of her saying that as she looked up at him, her expression utterly shattered. He’d done that; forced her into feeling as much pain as he experienced. What else could he do, though, but travel this alternative road, and pray that their paths met again? He couldn’t have stayed with her and pretended he didn’t doubt his place at her side.

He still couldn’t. But he couldn’t stay away, either. Not in these circumstances. Not until he at least understood the direction of the threat.

He thought of his first vision of her tonight, of a beauty that seemed to both warm him like a friendly fire and strike like lightning to the very heart of him. Desire stabbed through him, lancing and precise, a result of knowing Francesca lay within walking distance from him, soft and pliable in sleep. He winced and put his hand on his cock through his trousers, a purely instinctive gesture to stanch the ache. When that gave him no relief, he took a large swig of the brandy he held in his hand.

He’d always dreaded the idea of hurting her, guessing he probably would. Not intentionally. Never that. Just as a result of who he was.

Who he wasn’t.

But it was stupid to dwell on things he couldn’t control now. He was worried about that incident in Chicago. He couldn’t believe no one else was as alarmed. Clearly, no one else had bothered to read between the lines about what had occurred on that busy Chicago street. A sick feeling swept through him. What if he’d somehow made her a target by leaving her so much power in his company? He should have realized that it might make her vulnerable. He’d had his fair share of potential threats over the years, both toward his company and his person. Usually, it was just a matter of crackpots shooting off their mouth. But there had been a few cases in which if it hadn’t been for his special attention to security, he might have run into some real trouble. He’d never told Francesca about those incidents, not wanting her to worry, so it was no real surprise to him that she was doubtful about a potential threat.

His concern about that attack made him want to immediately take back control of Noble Enterprises. But would that action diminish the threat to Francesca? Or possibly just mask it?

His research into Trevor Gaines’s sordid past would just have to be put on hold for the time being. Francesca didn’t want him near her, but he’d have to contrive a way to manage it until his fear was calmed.

Again, her image rose to taunt him, the remembered sensation of holding her slender body while they danced, of touching the silk of her skin, a torture he eagerly sought. She looked more beautiful to him than she ever had, but he didn’t kid himself that she hadn’t also shown the signs of suffering. Her muscles had felt rigid with tension beneath his hand while they danced. Her face looked drawn and there were pale purple shadows beneath her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping. He wasn’t surprised, but seeing her pain firsthand was yet another festering wound.

A muted sound penetrated his thoughts and he opened his eyes.

Francesca walked toward him, her loose, long, rose-gold hair glowing subtly like dying embers against the ivory robe she wore. Had his desire been so sharp he’d called her to him? For a spellbound moment as she drew nearer, he didn’t know if he slept or dreamed. Was he more intoxicated than he’d realized? She stopped in front of his bent knees, her face sublimely lovely, her expression inscrutable. He didn’t move a muscle, frightened he’d shatter the spell. He caught a whiff of her scent, of her hair. Her body.
No, she’s not a dream.

“I see you couldn’t sleep, either,” she said.

“I never even tried.”

His fingers unfurled when she put her hand on the snifter he held. She set it on the table.

“I’m not doing this because I forgive you,” she said, her large doe eyes gleaming in the firelight, her voice a smoky caress against his roughened skin.

“I never expected forgiveness.”

“Maybe that’s why you haven’t apologized.”

He watched, enthralled as she shrugged off the robe and let it drop heedlessly to the floor. She was naked beneath it, her skin a pale gold in the firelight. For a moment, she just stood there, studying his face as he worshipped her beauty.

“Have you been with others? Since you left me?”

He looked up at her question, meeting her stare full on without reluctance.

“No.”

For a moment, her gaze moved over his face. Then she straddled him and settled, her weight in his lap making his lungs burn. He inhaled sharply, realizing he’d been holding his breath, and her scent fully pervaded his awareness: the achingly familiar scent of her perfume, her skin . . . her arousal.

He closed his eyes when she encircled his neck with her arms, buried her face against his neck and shoulder, pressed her lips to his neck and ground her pussy against his cock, her actions single-minded . . . electrical. Need clawed at him from inside, the pain of it impossible to control. His hands absorbed the softness of her skin. For a second, he just sat there, rigid, an animal straining silently—furiously—at fraying bonds. She shifted. Desire ripped through flesh and bone, exploding to the surface. His fingers furrowed in the hair at her nape. He clutched and pulled, forcing her head back, exposing her white throat and lush, parted lips.

He kissed her. It was like going from cruel impoverishment to indecent wealth in five seconds flat.

For an indeterminable length of time, he ravished her, unable to get enough of her singular taste and soft moans, becoming fevered by the fire he felt rising beneath the surface of her skin and penetrating from her pussy to his cock. He molded her curving hips to his palms, the once familiar, erotic fit maddening him. He used his hold to ground her down in his lap, their harsh moans mingling in their fused mouths.

“No,” she said harshly when he began to move her off his lap in order to lay her on the couch. He was consumed by the idea of taking her, fusing with her, perhaps afraid that if he waited too long, this unlikely moment would pass. He saw the glint of determination in her firelit, dewy eyes. “I will stay on top.”

For a moment, he didn’t move, absorbing her meaning. His nostrils flared as a flash of . . . not anger, precisely, but frustration went through him. They had made love countless times, but never with Francesca in the position of control. But still . . . he understood her point.

He had lost her trust. She would fight against surrendering control again. He must tread carefully, or she would flee.

“All right,” he said quietly.

There was a trace of defiance in her expression as she held his stare and scooted back on his thighs. They both unfastened his pants, their movements increasingly frantic. Ian grew hastier when she left the mechanics to him and cupped her hand around his cock through the fabric of his pants, making jacking motions up and down the shaft.

He hissed at the sensation of her hand enclosing the naked skin a moment later. She rose over him. The sensation of her wet, clinging flesh gloving the tip of his cock was divine, the feeling of burrowing into her warm, tight body sacred. Once she sat in his lap, and he struggled to reaccustom himself to the nirvana of being buried in her, she cupped his head in her hands, her thumbs caressing his face.

“You still want me.”

He blinked, shock penetrating his lust at her fiercely uttered words.

“Do you think I ever stopped?” he demanded through a clenched jaw incredulously. “Do you think I ever
could
?”

She shook her head and he saw a tear glistening on her cheek. “I don’t know what I think, except I hate you for making me do this.” He felt her shudder all the way at the core of her body where he was lodged. “I hate you for making me need you so much that I’d lower myself to this.”

“You have never once lowered yourself,” he rasped, grabbing her hips, his fingers sinking into firm buttocks, moving her. She gasped and clamped her eyes closed. “Look at me,” he said harshly. She reluctantly opened her eyes. “You have only raised me. I know I don’t deserve you, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t burn for you. That I didn’t. Every minute of every day.”

She moaned and placed her hands on his shoulders. Despite meeting his stare for a moment, she kept her eyes closed as she began to fuck him, the tight, fluid roll of her hips leaving him gasping. She hopped in his lap, breasts bouncing, clearly needing the frantic joining he also craved. Their flesh beat together quicker and quicker. He studied her face in the firelight, sensing her wild desperation.