When I'm With You: The Complete Novel (45 page)

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

WHEN I NEED YOU

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

InterMix eBook edition / April 2013

When I’m With You
copyright © 2013 by Beth Kery.

Excerpt from
Sweet Restraint
copyright © 2009 by Beth Kery.

Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.

Photo: Brandy in decanter and glasses © Image Source/GettyImages.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-1-101-61664-2

INTERMIX

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Chapter Thirteen

Lucien had told her he’d been burning alive with need for her, and he’d meant every word he said. As he spread her pale thighs and positioned himself to take her, he indeed felt as if a fire were burning beneath his skin, racing in his blood, hollowing out his insides until there was nothing left in him but pure, blazing, cutting desire. He propped himself up on one elbow, watching as he inserted the tip of his cock into the center of her glistening, pink slit, willing her to bloom for him . . . to accept his monstrous need.

They both gasped at the sensation of him stretching her delicate tissues and embedding his cockhead in her clamping, sultry embrace. He lowered his other arm, holding himself off her, and focused on her rapt face as he pushed his cock into her body. He’d been obsessed by the idea of her pussy for the last several days, haunted by the idea of being submersed in her again. It was a sweeter agony than he either recalled or imagined.

A moment later, he bumped his testicles against her damp tissues and caught her shaky cry with his lips. He immediately began to fuck her with short strokes, examining the way her face tightened every time he jabbed at her clit on his forceful downstroke. He groaned in ecstasy. She was too small and feminine for his big, masculine body. Yet she took him without complaint. In fact, if her sublime, rapturous expression was any indication, she liked the way he filled her. The sounds of the waves hitting the breakwater and the distant hum of the city were drowned out by the throb of his heartbeat in his ears. He matched his rhythm to it, so that the pounding in his ears fell into tempo with the slap of his pelvis and balls against Elise’s skin. He withdrew his cock farther and slammed into her harder, grimacing in pleasure. She whimpered and he felt her muscular walls convulse around him. He drove deeper, harder, faster, until a cry popped out of her throat and her nipple chain jumped with each intense thrust.

“Your pussy is perfect,” he grated out, rearing over and pounding his cock high inside her. “Tell me it’s mine. Say it.”

“My pussy is yours,” she said shakily.

Her eyes sprang wide and she keened when he rocketed into her.

“That’s right. Mine,” he uttered savagely, feeling the unbearable, untenable fire rising in him. Fucking Elise truly was like throwing himself wholesale in the flames. He rolled back her hips and came up on his knees. She cried out when he pressed her knees to within inches of her chest and plowed into her. His growl of primal satisfaction twined with her scream. He rode her like that for blissful moments, the flex of her hips providing the perfect counter-rhythm to his demanding strokes, the friction divine . . . too optimal for him to exist in this taut ecstasy for long.

When he felt his balls tingle with impending climax, he forced himself to still high inside her squeezing, hot channel. He gritted his teeth at the sensation of the back of her womb pressing against his cockhead. She squealed. He leaned down and inserted a nipple between his lips. They were swollen from the clamping loops, blood-flushed and red. He lashed at the tender flesh with his tongue, wincing at the delicious sensation of her shuddering around his cock as she came. When he bit tenderly at the sensitive morsel, adding the abrasion of his teeth to the clamp, she jerked her bound arms from over her head and scraped his scalp with her fingernails hard enough to draw blood.

Climax seized him at the sensation. He erupted while pressed deep inside her, pleasure blasting through him like a firebomb. When it relented slightly, he fucked her shuddering pussy with short, hard strokes, still coming, still burning alive, wondering how she could satisfy him so completely, and yet he already wanted more.

He slowed, gasping for air, still planted deep inside her. She quieted by degrees, until her fingers in his hair caressed instead of clawed. She looked sublimely beautiful when he met her stare.

“Don’t get too relaxed,” he said. “I plan to fuck you again in a moment.”

Her fingers paused. “Already?” she asked incredulously.

“I have been waiting for this for a long time,” he said, stroking her clamping channel with his satiated cock and feeling the embers of arousal flicker and smoke.

A small smile shaped her lush mouth. He was uncommonly fond of her curving lips, that sparkle of mischief and fun she got in her sapphire eyes . . . everything about her. He leaned down and touched his mouth to her smile at the same time he withdrew and thrust deep again. She moaned. “I hope you didn’t have any other plans this weekend, because I plan to spend as much time inside you as is humanly possible.”

“I’m here to please,” she murmured, looping her bound wrists behind his neck and squeezing his cock with her vaginal muscles. He gasped and began stroking her again. She spoke the absolute truth.

Did she ever.

* * *

Elise had thought he’d been speaking figuratively when he’d said he planned to spend as much time inside her as possible, but he spent a good portion of the entire night doing just that. When he wasn’t inside her, he was making love to her in other ways and making her scream in pleasure. He finally removed her nipple chain and jeweled cuffs, and they drifted off into an exhausted sleep an hour before dawn.

She awoke to the sensation of Lucien nuzzling her ear with his nose.

“The sun is up. It’s getting warm up here,” he murmured in her ear. “Let’s go downstairs and shower.”

Elise blinked sleepily and sat up in the luxurious bed. The sun was well above the shimmering blue great lake. It must be ten or eleven o’clock in the morning. She closed her eyes and absorbed the sun’s golden warmth. Memories from the magical night replayed in her mind’s eye. She turned to smile at Lucien. He reclined against the pillows naked, a decadently handsome sybarite, watching her through a narrowed gaze. He reached up and caressed her naked shoulder, trailing his finger over her skin.

“Every time I think you couldn’t look more beautiful, you make a liar of me,” he said.

She laughed. “I must look like a wreck.”

“You’re exquisite. You shine brighter than the sun itself.”

Her smile faded at his simple, stark declaration, once again bewildered by his intensity . . . his depths. She could tell he’d meant what he’d said, but he was thinking of something else, as well, something that didn’t match the gilded sunshine and their glorious night of lovemaking.

“Lucien? Is there something wrong?” she asked quietly.

He just stared at her a moment, blinked, and seemed to come to himself. “Of course not. Here, put on your gown,” he instructed, handing her the discarded garment and finding his pants, which he pulled on. He gathered up her jewelry and clambered off the bed. “Come on. Time to cool off in the shower.”

“But what about the bed? I think it’s supposed to rain this evening,” Elise mentioned dubiously as she followed him.

He nodded toward a locked ten-by-fifteen-foot structure in the center of the roof. “I’ll call someone from building maintenance and ask if they’ll break it down and store it in there. It’s an airtight enclosure. I think the bed will fit in there.”

“You’ve never stored it in there before?” she asked, studying his profile closely.

He gave a sideways glance and smiled knowingly. She blushed, suddenly certain he’d guessed at the reason for her question. “I just purchased that bed. For you.”

She grinned, unreasonably happy at the knowledge that he didn’t typically treat women to the decadent fantasy of being made love to by Lucien beneath the stars.

They showered together in the master bath, taking their time, washing each other with caressing fingertips, finding ticklish spots, laughing, and kissing each other’s smiles. Her nipples were still slightly swollen, flushed and sensitive from the nipple chain. Lucien played with them gently while they bathed, his gaze hot and admiring. She loved seeing Lucien like this, relished his unguarded manner, sultry stares, and fond teasing, and she treasured the knowledge that he’d loosened his self-restraint enough to show her more of his true self.

That required trust, didn’t it? she speculated hopefully.

When she noticed how full and firm his penis became as they showered, she reached to stroke him, but he halted her with a hand on her wrists.

“We’ll let it build,” he said, softly cupping an aching breast and tweaking a nipple before he released her. Something about his husky voice and steamy stare sent a thrill through her. At one time, she would have taken his response as a rebuff, but not anymore. He’d proven his desire for her exceeded her wildest dreams. His methods of restraint only served to mount the friction so that the final release was all that much more explosive.

“I’d like to take you somewhere,” he said as he dried her off with a towel a while later.

“Where?” she asked.

“You’ll see,” he replied quietly. “Dress in riding clothes. We’ll go see Jax and Kesara afterward and ride.”

Her curiosity piqued, she dressed in dark brown jodhpurs, boots, and a cream-colored short-sleeved blouse. As she buttoned up the shirt in the bathroom, she noticed that her nipples were still very sensitive, the material of her bra abrading them slightly. It was a pleasant, welcome sensation, a constant reminder of her night spent with Lucien. When she glanced at herself in the mirror, she saw that the peaks protruded from the fitted shirt, showing even through the light padding of her bra. She brushed her fingertips over a stiff nipple. Wincing, she pressed her hand between her thighs to staunch that sudden, sharp ache.

It was as if her body had sprung a billion more nerve endings beneath that starlit sky and Lucien’s touch.

She let her hair dry in natural waves, combed it, and pinned back her bangs with a white and yellow daisy clip. The decoration matched her sunny mood. They shared a smile when they rejoined in the bedroom after dressing, Lucien’s gaze running down over her appreciatively . . . possessively. He cradled her jaw and brushed his thumb over her cheek. He looked outrageously handsome in a pair of khaki-colored breeches, light blue cotton shirt, and scuffed, supple leather dark brown riding boots. What Lucien did to a pair of riding pants ought to be considered illegal, in her opinion. She was about to tease him by saying so but paused, her lips parted, when she saw the intent way his gray eyes ran over her face.

“You’ve bloomed overnight,” he murmured, kissing her so softly, so persuasively, she closed her eyes and lost herself for a moment. He finally lifted his head and took her hand, and they left the penthouse together. He said little once they’d gotten into his sedan, but Elise was divinely relaxed and happy as he maneuvered smoothly through the busy city streets. It was strange, this elevated feeling, this contentment. Her whole life she’d chafed a little inside her own skin, always longing, always striving for the electricity of the perfect moment, maneuvering and pushing herself without really understanding where she wanted to be, or precisely what she wanted to be doing.

So amazing, to realize that she’d arrived, that she was precisely where she wanted to be in that precious moment. She glanced at Lucien’s classic profile and told herself to savor every delicious second as it came . . . and not think about tomorrow.

Lucien pulled in front of a nineteenth-century redbrick building with beautiful, stone-carved ornamental decoration. It was about fifteen stories, built in the French-chateau style. The street on which they’d parked reminded her more of Paris than Chicago, with its brick townhomes and trees that created a canopy over the street. The way Lucien stared at the building to the left of them made her lean forward and gaze at the structure.

“It’s lovely. So is this entire area. Where are we?” she asked, never having seen this atmospheric neighborhood on the Near South Side of Chicago that spoke of another era.

“In the Prairie Avenue Historic District,” he said. He turned the keys in the ignition. “Do you want to see inside?”

She smiled as realization hit her. “Is this the building you bought for the new hotel?”

He nodded. She flipped open the door and sprung out of the vehicle. “Let’s go,” she said enthusiastically.

“You have
got
to be kidding,” she said, utterly stunned ten minutes later when they walked into the building’s kitchen. It was enormous, and even though it was ancient and had fallen into disrepair, all the hallmarks of the classic European great kitchen remained: the large alabaster-topped center island, the exquisite handmade cabinetry complete with intact lead-crystal panes, three large serviceable but still elegant copper chandeliers.

“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Lucien asked, looking around the interior. “It was the preferred hotel for guests visiting Chicago during the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds. After the district fell to manufacturing, it became an administrative building for a local hospital. This kitchen hasn’t been used for its original purpose in almost a hundred years.”

“It’s perfect,” she said, meaning it. It was every chef’s dream to revamp a classic kitchen like this one, stock it with all the new culinary accessories, and yet keep all the elegant nuances of days gone by.

Lucien turned. “Do you want it?”

It took a moment for her to absorb the meaning of his quiet question, but even then, she was confused.

“Want it?”

“Yes. With proper redevelopment and remodeling, will these premises suit your purpose for the restaurant you told me about?”

She blinked and looked around her stupidly.

“Of course they would. It’d be fantastic. But you bought it for your restaurant and hotel,” she exclaimed.

“I know. I’m offering you the position of co-manager of the establishment, if you’d like it . . . along with that of executive chef, of course.” When she just stared at him, speechless, he added, “I was very impressed by your idea, Elise. I had a market research firm do the statistics for me. This entire area is undergoing a massive redevelopment, but there aren’t enough restaurants and clubs to keep up with the growing population. There isn’t one boutique hotel within two square miles. Plus, there’s almost a dozen new upscale condo buildings within a half mile, not to mention a high-end workout facility patronized by members of the Board of Trade. The idea of healthy, fresh gourmet food without the temptation of alcohol will appeal for several reasons. I think it’d be a good opportunity for your concept. We might consider marketing lunch for an ‘in’, and using that hook to expand to dinner.”