Because You Are Mine Part VI: Because You Torment Me (3 page)

“I feel bad about taking you away from your duties so much this week,” she said, gathering her purse. She was working a shift tonight at High Jinks, and Jacob had suggested she drive herself there as part of her lesson.

“My duties are whatever Ian tells me they are,” Jacob said, a sparkle of amusement in his eyes. “And he tells me my duty is to make sure you get your driver’s license . . . oh, and to keep you safe at all costs in the process.”

She lowered her head to hide her pleasure at his off-the-cuff comment. “He doesn’t ask much, does he?” Francesca asked, thinking about the handful of times she’d
just
missed hurtling the two of them into wrecks on Chicago streets this afternoon.

Jacob chuckled. “It’s been a nice break from my normal routine. Besides, Ian has been holed up in his office since we got back from Paris, hammering out the details for a deal going down this week. He hasn’t needed me.”

Francesca had been glad for this tidbit of news. She certainly hadn’t caught a glimpse or heard a peep from Ian since they’d returned to Chicago. His absence just made her anticipation for having dinner with him—of seeing
him
, period—on Thursday all that much sharper.

Unfortunately, he never called her to say the time he expected to see her for dinner. As a result, she did her best to focus on her painting Thursday afternoon and into the evening. Mrs. Hanson would tell him she was in the studio if he inquired. Slowly, as her work commenced, all of her fluttery, nervous excitement about spending time with Ian slipped away, and she entered the sublime zone of creative focus she craved as an artist.

When a shoulder cramp sliced through her concentration at about seven o’clock that evening, she was forced to lower her brush and consider what she’d wrought.

“It’s incredible.”

The hair on her arms and on the back of her neck stood up in awareness of the familiar quiet, hoarse voice. She spun around. He stood just inside the closed door, wearing an immaculately cut dark gray suit, white shirt, and pale blue tie. His hair was sexily mussed, as if he’d walked home from the office through a Lake Michigan breeze. Francesca walked over to a table in order to dry the excess paint off her brush, needing a moment to catch her breath at the sight of him.

“It’s coming along. I’m having some trouble getting the light just the way that I want it on the Noble Enterprises building. I need to go over and stand in the lobby of Noble Enterprises to check the light there, as well . . . see what it’ll look like once it’s hung.”

From the corner of her vision, she saw him walking toward her, his approach like that of a sleek, powerful animal’s. She placed her brush in a solvent and turned to face him. His blue eyes captured her stare and held tight.

Like always.

“The painting is amazing. I was referring to you, though. It’s incredible to watch you work. It’s a little like catching a goddess while she creates a small part of the world,” he said, reaching up to touch her cheek, a self-deprecating smile on his full lips at his whimsical turn of thought.

“Do you really like it? The painting?’ she asked, unable to pull her gaze off his mouth. He stood close enough that she caught his scent—English milled soap, the subtle fragrance of spicy aftershave, and just a hint of the fresh breeze he’d just been in. Her body responded immediately, perking up in sensual awareness.

“Yes. But that’s no surprise to me. I knew whatever you painted would be brilliant.”

“I don’t know how you could know that,” she said, glancing aside in embarrassment.

“Because
you
are,” he said, shifting his hand to cradle her jaw, tilting her face back up to his. He leaned down and kissed her with firm deliberation. No brushing, shaping lips this time. He almost immediately penetrated her mouth with his tongue, as if he’d craved her taste and could wait no longer. Heat and pleasure rushed through her sex when she registered his heat and flavor . . . when she acknowledged his complete dominance of her senses.

When he lifted his head a moment later, Francesca blinked open her eyelids sluggishly, still drunk from his potent kiss. At the touch of his fingers moving fleetly, unfastening the buttons of her blouse, her eyes went wide.

“Mrs. Hanson?”

“I locked the door when I came in,” he said.

Liquid heat surged from her sex at the sensation of his fingers moving in the sensitive valley between her breasts. He flicked his wrist, and the front clasp of her bra snapped open. He peeled the fabric back and stared, his nostrils flaring.

“Why am I so greedy when it comes to you?”

“Ian—” she began, moved by his intensity, but he cut her off, leaning down to take a prickling nipple into his warm, wet mouth. She gasped as pleasure rushed through her sex, her hand flying to his head. He agitated and whipped at the crest with a firm, sleek tongue, and then drew on her. She moaned, her fingers clawing in his hair. He massaged her other breast, pressing the nipple against his palm, and then pinching at it tenderly with his fingers. Her head fell back as she abandoned herself to rioting pleasure.

He raised his head after a moment and studied her bared, flushed breasts. “So beautiful. I don’t know why I haven’t spent at least an entire day worshipping them,” he murmured as if to himself, stimulating both beading nipples at once. “I want to spend a whole day worshipping each square inch of you, but there aren’t enough hours in a day. Besides,” he said, his mouth becoming hard. “I always lose control before I can.”

“It’s okay to lose control, Ian. Sometimes,” she said softly.

He looked up, his gaze piercing her as he continued to finesse a nipple with one hand. He began to unfasten her jeans, holding her stare all the while.

“I want to watch while you lose control. Right now,” he said. He didn’t shove her jeans down her thighs, just opened the button fly and slipped his long fingers beneath her panties.

“Oh!” she gasped when he burrowed between her labia and began to agitate her clit. He grunted in satisfaction.

“Creamy. Did you like having me suck on your beautiful breasts?” he muttered, his gaze roaming over her face, reading her reaction to his intimate touch.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Put your hands on your breasts. Squeeze them. It will please me,” he added when he noticed her hesitation.

It was all he needed to say. She gathered her breasts in her hands, massaging them, experiencing her own flesh in a whole new way because of Ian’s hot stare on her. He continued to rub her clit with expert precision. With his other hand, he cradled her jaw and caressed her tenderly with his thumb, the contrast between his demanding, intimate touch on her sex and his gentle stroking of her cheek driving her wild for some reason. His gaze flickered down to her chest. He watched as she played with her breasts for his pleasure . . . and, increasingly, her own.

“That’s right. Pinch the nipples,” he said, his voice growing rough, his movements between her thighs more forceful. “Now hold them up—present those pretty pink nipples to me.”

Francesca blinked through a haze of rising arousal. She lifted her breasts from below, unsure of what he expected. He swept down suddenly and treated first one nipple, then the other, to a sweet, hot suck. It was too much. When she felt the scrape of his teeth against a painfully erect nipple, she broke in delicious climax. Sharp, jagged pleasure tore through her.

When she came back to herself, his hand was still moving between her thighs, but he stood erect, watching her as she came. Slowly, his hand fell away from her sex.

“Forgive me. I thought I could wait until after dinner, but watching you paint is the most potent kind of aphrodisiac,” he said, his eyes gleaming with heat. She glanced down and saw him lowering his pants.

Chapter Twelve

When he withdrew his cock, she understood why he’d had to stretch the waistband so wide to free himself. He was huge and hard. Her clit twanged in arousal. When she saw the rigidness of his bold, handsome features, she immediately sunk to her knees. No handcuffs this time. No vibrator.

Just Ian’s naked need . . . and her own.

His fingers furrowed in her hair when she angled his penis with one hand. She was stunned at the weight of it, the pulsing warmth . . . the teeming life. She used her other hand to touch a thigh, which felt iron hard and was dusted with crisp dark hair. She couldn’t get enough of the sensation of him—so virile, so flagrantly male. He grunted when she brushed the flaring crown of his cock against her cheek and then her lips, experimenting with sensation. His testicles felt round and taut beneath her seeking fingers.

She sighed in pleasure and slipped him into her mouth, his girth stretching her lips.

He was letting her touch him for the first time, and she luxuriated in the experience. She slid her tongue around the delineated crown of the head, loving the way his fingers tightened in her hair, sucking him into her mouth, pulling on him hungrily.

She closed her eyes and was lost in the voluptuous, eternal moment. Her entire world narrowed down to the sensation of Ian’s hard, throbbing flesh—the very essence of him—thrusting between her sensitive, squeezing lips, the feeling of the thick staff sliding through her tight fist, his taste being pounded into her awareness until her craving for the distilled flavor of him overwhelmed her.

She took him into her throat, not because he wanted it but because she did. Her need was that absolute.

Distantly, she became aware of him saying her name, sounding desperate . . . a little lost. Her mouth and jaw hurt from squeezing him so hard, and her throat was being punished by his thrusts, but she sucked harder, wanting to alleviate his pain . . .

. . . if only for one bright, shattering moment.

Her eyes sprang wide, her thick, lust-induced spell shattered at the sensation of his cock swelling impossibly large in her mouth. He erupted while lodged deep, Francesca feeling both utterly at his mercy and completely in control, because she trusted him not to harm her. Sure enough, he withdrew with a guttural groan and continued to come on her tongue, his fingers fisted in her hair as he controlled the motions, moving her mouth back and forth over his length, stroking her shallowly. She sucked until the last sweet, musky drops of his semen spilled onto her tongue, his ragged pants echoing in her ears, his fingers loosening from a grip in her hair to a caress.

“Come here,” she heard him say harshly a moment later.

She reluctantly slid his cock out of her mouth, preferring to stay there and milk the softening but still formidable flesh, play with him . . . learn him. He helped her to her feet and immediately swept down to seize her lips in one of his patentable forceful yet tender kisses.

“You’re so sweet,” he said a moment later, his breathing still choppy against her puffy sore lips. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling full out. Something about his honest need and her ability to answer it had pleased her greatly. His head bent over her, he touched his thumb to her smile.

“You make me lose control, Francesca.”

Her smile faded slightly when she saw the shadow fall in his eyes. She had the distinct impression that he wasn’t entirely pleased about his greediness for her.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. Is there?”

He blinked, and the shadows dissipated.

“I suppose not. But we have a schedule,” he murmured, leaning down to rain kisses on her cheek and then her ear. She shivered, her sex heating again. “God you smell good,” he muttered, his warm lips now examining her neck.

“Ian? What schedule?” she managed with difficulty.

He lifted his head, and she wished she hadn’t asked.

“We have reservations for dinner at eight thirty.”

“We could be a little late, couldn’t we?” she coaxed, furrowing her fingers through his short, thick hair, relishing in the sensation. He so rarely let her touch him. She hated the idea of stopping because of a
schedule.

“Unfortunately, we can’t be,” he said regretfully, stepping away from her and refastening his pants. She did the same with her own. He grabbed her hand and started to lead her out of the studio. “We’re dining with the owner of a company that I’ve been maneuvering to buy. I have good reason to believe that tonight Xander LaGrange is going to stop playing his infuriating games of cat and mouse and sign on the dotted line. I think I’ve finally sweetened the deal sufficiently to something even that greedy prick can’t refuse,” he muttered under his breath as he led her down the silent plush hallways of his penthouse.

“Oh,” Francesca said, practically running to keep up with his long-legged stride. She was surprised he’d asked her to such an important business meeting.
Was it entirely wise on his part
, she wondered, as the nerve butterflies started to flicker around in her belly. Her parents would certainly have said it was a terrible decision on Ian’s part. “Where do we have reservations?”

“At Sixteen,” he said, pulling her into his bedroom suite and shutting the door after them.

She blinked. “Ian, that’s one of the nicest restaurants in the city,” she said, panic starting to encroach. “I haven’t got anything to wear to a dinner like that . . . in one hour!” she added, horrified by the realization. “Did you reserve another private room?”

“No.” He waved at her in a follow-me gesture. He opened the door and flipped on a light. She entered, staring around in wonder at the rows of perfectly hung suits. She’d thought it was a closet, but it was a dressing room. It was bigger than her bedroom, long and narrow. The scent of Ian’s aftershave clung in the air along with the smell of something pleasant and spicy. She noticed perfectly aligned cedar hangers and rows and rows of highly buffed shoes, and realized the hangers and cedar shoe trees were the origin of the scent.

Ian waved his hand in front of a rack, and she stared for a moment, not comprehending what she was seeing.

Why were there
dresses
in his closet? And women’s shoes and accessories?

Her throat suddenly seemed to swell closed. She stared at him, aghast.

“I’m not wearing other women’s clothes!” she said, stung to the core that he’d even suggest her putting on clothing that had once belonged to his former lovers.

He looked a little nonplussed by her reaction. “They aren’t
other women’s
clothes. They’re yours.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Margarite had them delivered yesterday. They’re off-the-rack,” he said almost apologetically, “but she had them tailored for you.”

“Margarite,” Francesca said slowly, as if pronouncing a foreign word for the first time. “Why would Margarite have done that?”

“Because I told her to, of course.”

For a moment, they just stared at each other in his still dressing room.

“Ian, I told you specifically I didn’t want clothing from you,” she said, anger rising.

“And I told you that there would be occasions I wanted you to attend with me where you couldn’t wear jeans, Francesca. Tonight is one of them. I also asked you to wear your new hairpins this evening,” he said so briskly it drove her off course. “Where are they?”

“
Wha
 . . . in my purse,” she sputtered. “In the studio.”

He nodded once. “I’ll go and get them for you. In the meantime, you can shower and get ready. You’ll find lingerie there,” he said, nodding in the direction of a small antique chest of drawers near where the dresses hung. He started to walk out of the room.

“Ian—”

He turned around, his stare like a flicking whip. “I won’t argue with you about this. Do you want to be with me tonight?” he asked quietly.

“I . . .
yes
, you know that I do.”

“Then get ready and choose one of the dresses. You can’t attend a dinner like this in jeans.”

He left her standing there, her mouth hanging open, her nerves tingling with anger. She tried to think of a way around it but couldn’t. It was true what he’d said. She couldn’t be escorted by Ian Noble to the main dining room of one of the nicest, most luxurious restaurants in the city dressed like this.

Looking like
her.

Her anger simmered at his heavy-handedness, though. For some reason, memories of her father’s impatience and vague disgust with her appearance when she’d occasionally been in social situations with his peers rose up and bit her, aggravating the sting from Ian’s imperious behavior.

For God’s sake, Francesca, if everything that spills out of that mouth of yours is going to be so stupid, why don’t you just keep it shut! And not by stuffing your face any more than you already have tonight.

She’d been twelve years old when her father had taken her aside in the kitchen and uttered those words. She reexperienced the flood of shame and insubordination she’d felt back then—a familiar brew of emotion. Francesca never gorged herself in public—it was just that her father’s critical eye seemed to be on her every time she took a bite of food. It’d always been that way.

If her father thought she was an unsightly blemish on the earth, then she’d make sure that’s precisely what she was.

Ian had willfully ignored her wishes about the clothing and gone right ahead with his own agenda. And all the while, Francesca had thought he’d understood her . . . sympathized with her, even.

She jerked open one of the dresser drawers and ran her fingers over exquisite silk panties, bras, and hosiery.

He’d said he wanted her to own her sexuality . . . feel empowered by it. Was this all part of his manipulations to get her to do so?

She withdrew a pair of sheer black thigh-high silk stockings. Well, if Ian wanted her to
flaunt
it, he better be prepared for the result.

* * *

He was in the process of tying a tie when she walked out of the bathroom fifty minutes later. Their eyes met in the reflection of the mirror he used, above a cherrywood dresser. His gaze slowly lowered over her, his body going rigid in abrupt male awareness.

She looked like she ought to be declared illegal, wearing a black V-neck bandage dress that hugged her willowy waist, the taut, lush curves of her hips and slender thighs like a lover. He realized, with a potent mixture of regret and possessive arousal, that her lush lips were still puffy from his forceful possession of her mouth earlier. Another experienced man would recognize the evidence for what it was, and he didn’t care for the idea of putting Francesca on display in that manner before a man like Xander LaGrange. Her gleaming strawberry-blonde hair had been affixed to her head with what he suspected were the diamond pins he’d bought her. She wore simple pearl earrings. He couldn’t take his eyes off the flawless ivory expanse of skin in the wide V-neck, revealing the majority of her chest and part of her alabaster shoulders. He couldn’t believe it was an off-the-rack dress. It looked like it’d been tailor-made for her alone.

She was tightly packaged sexual elegance.

“Choose another dress, please,” he said, forcing himself to look away from the shockingly alluring image of her to finish tying his tie.

“We’re going to be late as it is,” Francesca replied. He glanced back at her, wondering if she was avoiding his stare with those long-lashed nymph eyes of hers that always killed him. She checked the contents of the ebony lizard-skinned clutch in her hand. A flicker of suspicion went through him, even as he was once again captured by the vision of her.

She hadn’t chosen that ridiculously sexy dress to make him pay for buying her clothing, had she? The four-inch heels and the sheer stockings she wore made a vivid fantasy pop into his brain of having those long, gorgeous legs wrapped around him while he was riding her furiously into submission . . .

. . . into screaming bliss.

He scowled and stalked into his dressing room. Xander LaGrange was a lecher. He couldn’t stand the man, to be honest, and it’d been the worst kind of torture to cater to his ridiculous, narcissistic demands in order to make the final acquisition on Ian’s terms. He’d specifically asked Francesca to the ceremonial dinner tonight to seal the deal because he was worried he’d say something rude or sharp to the oily LaGrange, ruining his chances to acquire the other man’s company. With Francesca there, he’d be less focused on LaGrange’s smug belief that he’d bettered Ian with the deal.

It’d be easier for him to control his temper while Francesca was there. Her freshness softened him.

But he hadn’t expected to take a sex siren to a dinner where Xander LaGrange was present.

He returned to the bedroom, a lightweight cropped black sweater with a jeweled clasp in his hand. “If you must wear it, please put this on. It’ll cover all that—” he paused, his gaze on her exposed chest in the wide V-neck. Her breasts were decently under wraps, even if a large expanse of skin at her chest and shoulders was bare. The way the dress molded and shaped her breasts, however, equated to visual sex candy. The black fabric made her skin look exceptionally white and smooth by contrast . . . very naked.

“Skin,” he finished under his breath, willfully ignoring the eager lurch of his cock. “I’ll speak to Margarite. I asked her for sexy-discreet, not jaw-dropping and eye-popping.”

“I don’t see your jaw dropping,” she said lightly, turning so he could slip the cover-up over her shoulders. When he didn’t immediately put the sleeves next to her hand, she glanced back, catching him staring at her luscious ass encased in the clinging fabric.

“It’s dropping on the inside,” he mumbled before he slipped the sleeves over her hands and she shrugged on the cover-up. He grasped her shoulders and turned her toward him, examining her. “You didn’t wear this particular dress to make some sort of point, did you?”

“What point would that be?” she asked, her chin going up.

“A point of defiance.”

“You asked me to wear one of the dresses, and I am.”

“Take care, Francesca,” he said in a quiet, ominous tone, brushing his fingertip across the soft skin of her jaw and feeling her shiver. Heat rushed through his cock. She really was going to kill him before this was through.