Because You Are Mine Part IV: Because You Must Learn (3 page)

“Would you like me to order breakfast for you?” he asked, his hushed, deep voice striking her like a caress in the luxury-draped, still room. “You could have it out on the terrace? It’s a beautiful day.”

“I’ll order it. You don’t have to,” she said, her voice rough from drowsiness.

He merely nodded and stepped back as if to go. He hesitated, and suddenly swooped down, kissing her hard on the mouth.

There was no doubt about it. Ian’s kisses were just more . . .
sexual
than anyone else’s. Not that she had much experience, but still. How could that swift kiss immediately make her recall what it’d been like to have his mouth on her nether lips, worshipful . . . demanding?

She watched him walk away a moment later, looking so tall and commanding in his dark suit, feeling a strange mixture of joy and regret. After he was gone, she showered and washed her hair, letting it dry as she sat out on the sunny terrace that overlooked the Paris skyline and the famous art deco fountain of the Three Graces. She ordered room service and ate her breakfast outside, as Ian had suggested, the whole experience in the lap of luxury striking her again as incredible.

Afterward, she contacted Davie. Mostly, she tried to assure her friend that she was safe and happy to be in Paris with Ian. Davie seemed less than thrilled by her little adventure. In fact, his concern highlighted some of the things that’d been easy for her to forget when Ian was next to her, making love to her, making her forget everything but her desire for him.

She remembered how Ian had paid her in full for the painting, knowing full well she’d never refuse to finish it. She recalled in detail how he’d shut down the bar and said he wanted to possess her sexually in order to get her out of his system.

She thought of how he’d persuaded her to start taking the pill later that day.

Wait . . .
when
had she made a coherent decision about such an important choice about her body? It’d just happened, somehow, while Ian had been kissing her and coaxing her and making her scream in pleasure.

A lead weight sank in her belly.

No. It hadn’t been like that.

Had it?

Fortunately, she had the excuse of the long-distance price tag to cut her call short with Davie. Toward the end of their conversation, she began to worry her friend would start to hear the anxiety seeping into her voice.

Feeling restless, she pulled out her jogging clothes, pausing when she realized Ian hadn’t given her a key to the suite. She called down to the front desk, relieved to find an attendant that spoke English. The woman assured her that her name was down as a guest and she may pick up a card key at the front desk if she showed her identification.

She changed and took to the streets of Paris, running the narrow back roads for miles and then along the tourist- and shopper-crowded Champs-Elysées, past the Arc de Triomphe. By the time she returned to the hotel, she’d pounded out a lot of her anxiety and worries on the pavement. Jogging always did calm her.

Of course
Ian hadn’t been manipulating her about the birth control. She wanted to be risk free in regard to pregnancy as much as he did. Why had she thought otherwise?

She was feeling easygoing and peaceful until she opened the door to the suite and saw Ian pacing tensely in front of the marble fireplace, the energy pouring off him, reminding her of a caged tiger. He had his phone pressed to his ear. He paused and looked back at her.

“Never mind,” he said, his mouth pressed into a hard line as his gaze ran over her. “She just walked in.” He tapped his finger on the phone panel and set it on the mantel.

“Where have you been?” he asked. Her spine stiffened at his accusatory tone. He walked toward her, his eyes gleaming like banked flames.

“Jogging,” she said, glancing down at her shorts, T-shirt, and running shoes as if to say,
Hello, isn’t it obvious?

“I was worried. You didn’t even leave a note.”

Her mouth fell open. “I didn’t think you’d be back before I was,” she exclaimed, stunned by his restrained fury. “What’s
wrong
with you?”

His facial muscles tightened. “I’m the one who brought you to Paris. I’m responsible for you. I’d prefer it if you didn’t just run off like that,” he snapped, turning and stalking away from her.

“I’m responsible for
myself.
I’ve been doing a pretty good job of it for the past twenty-three years, thank you very much,” she replied irritably.

“You’re here with me,” he said, whipping around.

“Ian, that’s ridiculous,” she cried. She couldn’t believe he was being so irrational. What was behind his anger? Was he so controlled, so fastidious about his plans, that he couldn’t allow for a spontaneous decision, like her morning run? “You can’t actually be
mad
at me for going jogging.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek. Behind the glint of anger in his eyes, she saw a shadow of helpless concern. God, he really
had
been worried about her.
Why?
Despite her irritation at him, her heart went out to him. He walked toward her. She resisted an urge to step back, he looked so intense.

“I’m angry because you left without leaving word where you were. If you’d brought it up earlier, it might have been different, although I would have said that I preferred you didn’t go traipsing around a strange city by yourself. This isn’t Chicago. You barely speak the language.”

“I lived in Paris for several months!”

“I don’t like it when someone I’m responsible for suddenly disappears,” he said through a stiff jaw.

His gaze dropped over her, and she suddenly felt self-conscious of the clothing she wore—a jogging bra, a tight T-shirt, and shorts. Her nipples pulled tight when his stare lingered on her breasts.

“Go and shower,” he said, turning and walking toward the fireplace.

“Why?”

He rested a forearm on the mantel and glanced back at her. “Because you have a lot to learn, Francesca,” he said, his tone more subdued. She swallowed thickly.

“Are you going to . . . to punish me?”

“I was very worried when I came back to an empty hotel suite. I expected you’d be here waiting for me. So the answer is
yes
. I am going to punish you, and then I’m going to fuck you for my pleasure alone. If you haven’t learned the lesson after that, then maybe I will punish you again. However long it takes for you to learn that I don’t like it when you’re impulsive.”

Her nipples pulled even tighter against the tight fabric of her jogging bra even as her ire rose. Her sex flushed with heat.

“You can punish me if you want, but I’m not letting you do it because I went jogging. That’s just stupid.”

“Believe whatever you like. But you
will
go and shower and put on a robe. Nothing else. Wait for me in the bedroom,” he said, turning away and picking up his phone again. He punched out a number and greeted someone briskly in French before he began making several queries. She’d been dismissed.

She faltered where she stood, burning to tell him to go and
fuck
his fucking shower and his fucking robe and his godforsaken high-handedness.

Another part felt bad for having unintentionally caused that shadow of fear in his eyes.

Another part still was excited by what he’d said. She’d thought incessantly of the time that he’d paddled and spanked her, and each time regretted that things had come to an unnatural halt.

She
wanted
to see how Ian culminated such arousing proceedings. She
wanted
to please him.

But at what cost?
she wondered anxiously as she walked to the bedroom, resigned to the fact that she would do his bidding.

Why
must
he be such a puzzle?

Why must he turn
her
into one . . . even to herself?

Chapter Eight

After her shower, she sat nervously on the plush sofa in the sitting area of the bedroom suite, her anger mounting. How dare he make her wait like this? Wasn’t it just like him to yank her strings in this way?

He was yanking her strings in more ways than one. She had an urge to run to the bathroom and lock the door and another one to grind her sex against the cushion of the sofa. The waiting was pissing her off, but for some damnable reason she couldn’t comprehend, it was making her aroused as well . . . the anticipation . . . the excitement mixed with a potent dose of anxiety about what he planned to do to her.

She jumped when the door to the bedroom suite opened abruptly and Ian walked into the room. He glanced at her where she sat before he walked over to the valet stand and hung up his suit jacket. He opened the doors to a highly glossed antique cherry wardrobe and bent as if reaching for something. She strained, trying to see what he was doing, but the door blocked her view. When he started to straighten, she turned, not wanting him to know how focused she was on his every move.

So she was shocked when he walked around the couch a moment later and set a black crop on the coffee table. She stared wide-eyed at the two-inch-by-four-inch supple leather slapper at the end of the long, thin rod, her heart starting to pound against her breastbone.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly.

She looked at him. “But it looks like it will hurt.”

“I’ve punished you before. Did it hurt?”

“A little,” she admitted, her gaze dropping to one of his hands, which held what appeared to be a pair of cuffs, the hand straps made of soft-looking black leather.

Oh no.

“Well, it wouldn’t be much of a punishment if it didn’t sting a bit, now would it?” She stared up at his handsome face, mesmerized by the sound of his low voice . . . compelled. “Stand up and take off the robe.”

She didn’t break his stare as she stood, somehow taking courage from some unspoken message in his eyes. She dropped the discarded robe onto the cushion. His gaze dropped over her, his nostrils flaring slightly. She shivered.

“Would you like me to turn on the fire?” he asked, referring to the gas fireplace.

“No,” she said, thrown off emotionally by the combination of his polite query and his intention to punish her. She walked to the mantel.

“Keep your back to me,” he ordered when she started to turn to face him. She longed to twist her chin over her shoulder to see what he was doing behind her, her anxiety and excitement mounting, but she restrained herself with effort. Was that because she once again didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing she was curious, or because she somehow sensed he wouldn’t want her to gawk over her shoulder?

She started when he wrapped his hands around one of her wrists.

“Easy, lovely,” he murmured. “You know I’d never really harm you. You must trust me.”

She said nothing, her mind racing as he buckled one of the cuffs snuggly around her right wrist. “Now you may face me,” he said.

She turned, her nipples pulling tight when she realized how close he stood. He must notice. There was no way she could hide her arousal as he fastened her other wrist into the cuff, his lowered head just inches from the tingling, prickling crests. The position of her arms as he cuffed her wrists together plumped her breasts. When he’d finished, her hands were bound together in front of her mons. He stepped back. Her nipples pinched even tighter when she noticed his gaze glued to them.

“Now lift your wrists and place them behind your head,” he instructed. He watched her while she complied. “Push back your elbows and arch your back a little. I want your muscles stretched tight.” She strove to do as he asked, thrusting her breasts forward and her elbows back, noticing the slight snarl shape of his mouth when she did so. The position left her feeling extremely naked and exposed. Then he turned away. “It will amplify the sensation,” he explained, his back to her as he walked over to the coffee table.

“Of pain?” she asked, her voice shaking from a potent brew of anxiety and anticipation as she watched him walk over to the coffee table. Was he getting that scary-looking crop?

He was coming toward her again, but she didn’t see the crop. Her heart knocked on her stretched rib cage like it was asking to get out when she saw the familiar little white jar. He unscrewed it and dipped a thick forefinger into the cream.

“I told you before that I would prefer if you didn’t fear me,” he said.

She gasped loudly, shuddering when he immediately plunged his finger between her labia and began to coat her clit with the emollient that she knew would soon make her tingle and burn . . . and want.

She bit her lip to prevent from crying out and noticed he watched her with a tight focus.

“But I want to emphasize, this is a punishment nevertheless,” he stated firmly.

“
I
want to emphasize that while I give you permission to punish me,” she said before air puffed out of her throat as his finger rubbed the cream with bull’s-eye accuracy. “I’ll still go jogging—or do anything else I damn well please—without asking for your permission.”

He dropped his hand and walked away. She stifled a cry of deprivation. He turned and came toward her again, now carrying the crop. She couldn’t take her eyes off the wicked-looking device gripped in his large, masculine-looking hand. It looked as if it would hurt more than the paddle or Ian’s hand.

“Spread your thighs . . .
if you damn well please
,” he added softly.

She blinked at his words, her gaze zooming up incredulously to meet his stare. Heat rushed through her sex when she saw the glimmer of amusement and the heat of arousal in his eyes . . . when she absorbed the edge of a dare to his tone.

If she agreed to what he’d demanded, it would be because
she
wanted it. And her impulsive statement of defiance just now was proof of that. Frustration went through her when she recognized how he’d tricked her into compliance and revealed her own desire in one fell swoop.

She widened her stance, glaring at him all the while.

“Your anger tautens your muscles as greatly as the position. It doesn’t displease me, strangely enough,” he murmured, the tilt of his mouth indicating he was laughing silently, not only at her but at himself. He lifted the crop, and all of her irritation was crowded out by stark anticipation. Wasn’t he going to slap her bottom with it, like he had with the paddle? Her abdomen muscles jumped in excitement when he ran the leather slapper over her belly. An erotic sensation swooped through her sex when he rubbed it sensually over her hip. He lifted the crop.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

She gasped, feeling the sting of the slapper lingering on her hip. It quickly faded to a tingling sensation of heat.

“Too much?” he murmured, his gaze running over her face and then her breasts. He smoothed the leather across her ribs over the globe of her right breast. She moaned uncontrollably when he pressed the slapper against her nipple and rubbed. “Your pretty nipples are telling me all is well.” He lifted the slapper and popped the side of her breast, then the bottom curve, and then the puckered nipple, his actions quick, firm, and concise.

Something ignited inside her. Liquid heat rushed between her thighs, the strength of her reaction shocking her nearly as much as the fact that he’d just spanked her breast. Her eyes clamped tight as shame struck her. What sort of a deviate was she, to have such an overwhelming reaction to something so sick?

“Francesca?”

She opened her eyes at the sound of his taut tone.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she told him, her mouth quivering uncontrollably. The clit stimulant seemed to be doing its job with even more vigor than when Ian had paddled her, making her clit sizzle with excitement.

“Bad or good?” he demanded roughly.

“I . . .
bad
,” she whispered, shame and arousal vying for control of her mind and body. His expression stiffened. “And
good
. So good.”

“Damn it,” he muttered, his eyes blazing, although she had the distinct impression he liked her answer instead of being angered by it. He brought down the crop again, popping the underside of her other breast, making the globe jiggle slightly. She bit her lip, but her moan vibrated in her throat. “I’m going to turn your ass red for that, you little . . .”

She never learned what sort of a “little” she was, because he popped a nipple again and again, his actions gentle, but firm enough to cause a burning sting that made Francesca grit her teeth and clench her eyes shut. Without thinking, she thrust her breasts forward.

“That’s right, present yourself to me,” she heard him mutter as he popped the underside and side of her breast several times. “Now . . . tell me what you damn well please at this moment?” he murmured, sliding the crop sensually across both of her breasts. Her eyes still clamped shut, she was exquisitely attuned to the sensation. God, her clit was screaming for attention between her thighs.

“Francesca?” he asked sharply.

Oh, no. He wasn’t going to make her say it. He slid the leather slapper across a nipple and made a twitching movement, stimulating her all the way to her core. She gasped.

“It would please me if you . . .”

He twitched the slapper on her nipple again, and she trembled.

“Just say it. There’s no shame in it,” he said, his voice sounding hard and soft at once.

Her jaw tightened, torn between speaking the truth and swallowing it. He massaged her nipple briskly with the leather.

“It would please me if you slapped me . . . between my thighs.”

She opened her eyes warily when he lifted the nipple and didn’t speak. “
What?
” she asked after a moment, unable to read his rigid expression.

He shook his head slowly, and she realized he was stunned. His nostrils flared, and he suddenly looked fierce. Her heart sank. It suddenly struck her that he hadn’t been expecting her to say that.

“I . . . well, anywhere . . . I . . . I’m sorry. Ian?” she asked, bewildered by his reaction, not sure what she was supposed to say.

“Don’t ever apologize for being beautiful,” he said, before he stepped forward and placed his hand along the side of her jaw. He seized her mouth with his own, pillaging it with his shaping, firm lips and plunging tongue. His taste—his forceful possession—had just started to make her intoxicated, when he lifted his head. “You tempt me beyond reason.” Francesca panted against his lips. His tone had sounded like an accusation, but it began to dawn on her that in this situation, at least, it definitely indicated he was pleased.

Heat flooded her sex, his pleasure somehow her own.

“But I won’t be sidetracked.”

“I wasn’t trying to sidetrack you—”

“I
will
finish this punishment,” he said as if steeling himself, ignoring her outburst. He kissed her once softly on the mouth. “Now bend over and present your bottom. You may keep your thighs together since your hands are restrained. I’m going to have to make your sweet ass burn for making me worry like that.”

Something in his tone made her think he was going to punish her harder than he had that first time. She lowered her arms, bending and placing her restrained hands on her knees. He immediately began to rub the leather slapper over her ass cheeks in a sliding caress. She recalled how Ian had told her to arch her back slightly. Her sex clenched tight; her supersensitive nipples prickled as she thrust them forward.

He paused in his caressing of her bottom with the slapper. She glanced sideways at him anxiously.

He muttered a blistering curse. She watched in mounting arousal as he began to unfasten his pants hastily. Instead of drawing them down his thighs, he left them around his hips, merely reaching inside the open fly to draw out his rigid erection with what appeared to be considerable effort. He let the heavy weight of it fall once it was free, the bunched boxer briefs and fabric from his pants keeping it suspended at a horizontal angle from his body.

She stared at his cock in amazement. She’d never seen it this close before. He’d never really let her. It stunned her how beautiful it was. How did he walk around with something so obvious, so
large
, between his legs all the time? Granted, he usually wasn’t this hard . . . but still. It seemed incomprehensible to her, the sheer flagrancy of his sex. She stared, spellbound, at the thick, lengthy staff with several swollen veins running along it, feeding his arousal; the tapered, succulent head that made her mouth water; the shaved, full testicles.

“I should have blindfolded you,” he muttered dryly. “Look down at the floor, lovely.” She did so, having trouble catching her breath. He rubbed the crop against her bottom. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she squeaked.
Was she
?

He popped her ass with the slapper, and she squealed. Perhaps he was learning to differentiate her sounds of excitement versus her sounds of pain, because he continued to smack her, landing the popper on different patches of skin each time, heating her entire ass. Once he’d spanked both buttocks entirely, he began again. The slapping of her already spanked skin
did
sting. She gritted her teeth, the unbearable sizzle of her clit helping her endure the slight burn of discomfort. Why did the slapper seem to be stimulating her nipples at such a distance? And why in the world did even the soles of her feet start to burn as he continued to punish her bottom?

“
Oooh
,” she moaned when he landed a blow that particularly smarted.

“Bend all the way over and put your hands on top of your feet.”

He’d spoken so sharply, she couldn’t help but turn to look at him. She moaned shakily when she saw he fisted his cock in his hand and was stroking himself as he continued to spank her. Even though his gaze remained on his task, he must have noticed that she looked.

“Head down,” he rasped.

She bent farther, stretching her hamstrings, staring blindly at her hands when she lay them flat on top of her feet. Did his low grunt sound pleased? Her thoughts suddenly scattered when he used his large hand to pull back her ass cheeks, exposing her wet outer sex to the cool air.