Because We Belong: A Because You Are Mine Novel (17 page)

An uneasy feeling went through her. She knew the intimate truth he shared with Lucien. They’d been talking together about their biological father, Trevor Gaines. What had Ian been doing all these months in regard to Gaines? And how in the world did he think it would help him discover who he was? She’d never hated anyone or anything more than she did that criminal. He was dead, but he was continuing to make Ian’s life a misery.

Her own.

She blinked when Gerard wrapped his hand around her upper arm and pulled her closer.

“Have you
asked
him why he left?” he asked in her in a pressured whisper.

“No,” she said, starting to become offended by his intensity.

“Don’t you think that would be the easiest solution?” Gerard asked.

“Excuse me.”

Francesca jumped at the unexpected hard voice. Ian stood there, his hands behind his back, staring at them coldly. Francesca stepped away from Gerard, realizing too late that her action made her look guilty. She lifted her chin and gave Ian an annoyed glance, feeling her pulse starting to throb at her throat. Gerard let his arms drop to his side and faced Ian rapidly, as if expecting a blow.

“Yes?” Gerard asked coolly.

“Grandfather is looking for you,” Ian said, his stare on Gerard like twin nails made of ice.

Gerard seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then he nodded briskly. “Francesca?” he said, holding out his hand for her. She paused, reluctant, but then reached for it as a last-ditch effort to escape the incipient explosion hinted at in Ian’s eyes. Ian halted her action by taking her hand in his before it ever reached Gerard.

“I need a word with Francesca,” Ian said to Gerard with a note of finality.

Gerard’s jaw tightened. “Very well,” he said coolly when Francesca didn’t protest. He turned and left them. Ian didn’t look at her, just stared toward the Great Hall. It took her a moment to realize he was waiting for Gerard’s footsteps to fade. She could hardly tell when they finally did disappear, because her heart had started to beat so loudly in her ears.

She knew what usually happened when Ian’s eyes became fire and ice at once. He firmed his hold on her hand and pulled her behind him into the hall. She could have refused to go with him.

She could have, but she didn’t.

Chapter Six

S
he followed him, struggling to keep up with his long-legged stride in her heels. He opened a paneled door that Francesca knew led to an area Anne had called the reception room when she’d given her the tour, a formal, gilded room that Anne said she rarely ever used anymore. She thought he’d pause in the empty room, but instead he continued walking purposefully straight through the room to another door.

“Ian,” she called from behind him, her breath coming erratically. But he didn’t turn, just opened the door and pulled her after him. They were in a short, dark corridor. She followed him down it. He opened another door and turned on a light, prompting Francesca to pass before him. This wasn’t a room Anne had shown her, Francesca realized. She had a brief impression of a long, narrow mudroom with locked gun racks on the wall, dozens of coats hung on hooks, a giant Chinese urn filled with umbrellas, assorted Wellington and snow boots lining the wall, and an oversized washer and dryer. Two worn upholstered chairs that had probably once adorned a great room faced each other, placed there for convenience, Francesca supposed, for people to sit and put on or take off boots before walking or hunting on the grounds.

She spun around when she heard Ian shut the door with a thud. Blood roared in her ears when she heard the snick of the lock.

“What are you doing?” she asked when he came toward her.

“You asked me this morning if I’d been with another since we’d been apart and I told you no. Can you say the same to me?” he demanded coldly.

“I don’t owe you any explanations for my behavior for the last six months, Ian,” she grated out, infuriated by his manner, but inexplicably excited as well.

“Are you sleeping with my cousin?” he shot out, stepping closer. She backed up until her bottom ran into the edge of the washer.

“No. But even if I was, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”

“Do you
want
to fuck him?” he asked crudely. “Because he obviously wants it. Rumor has it he’s a good lover. Do you figure he’d do the trick for you?”

She slapped his cheek. Hard. She’d never hit anybody before. It felt
fantastic . . .
and yet she’d never hated her loss of control more. Her flash of aggression barely seemed to penetrate Ian’s consciousness.

He opened his hand along her jaw and tilted up her face. “Francesca?” His voice was quieter this time, but it was still an order for her to respond. He pressed nearer still, until their fronts were plastered together, her breasts heaving against his jacket-covered ribs, the fullness behind his fly becoming increasingly more obvious against her belly. It felt so good, so elementally right, that for a moment she couldn’t focus on what he was asking her.

“Answer me.”

“No I don’t want to
fuck
Gerard, damn it,” she spat, so angry that it was true, furious that she couldn’t find some way to sever this throbbing cord of connection she felt to Ian. His gaze ran over her face hungrily. She found herself straining toward him, her teeth bared. Her feelings were so confused in that volatile moment, she honestly couldn’t say if she wanted to kiss him or bite at him like an animal and draw blood. His eyelids narrowed. He frightened her a little bit at that moment. She wasn’t the only one about to lose control.

“Go on,” he said.

She blinked at his low taunt and felt his erection swell against her. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.

“Take a bite, Francesca.”

He barely got out her name before she put her hand on the back of his head and pushed him to her, her mouth molding his roughly, her teeth scraping his lower lip as she sucked the captive flesh, her tongue licking and plunging and seeking. It was an angry consumption more than a kiss, and one he didn’t allow to be one-sided for long. Within seconds he leaned down over her, forcing her back to arch, the barrier of their clothing feeling both insubstantial against their mingling heat and pressing bodies, and also unbearably intrusive. God, she needed to feel his naked body against hers, needed to be filled by him . . . absolutely required him to prove he was there with her in that moment in the most primal way possible.

She lost all sense of time or place as he kissed her with a hunger that matched her own. His hand firmed on her jaw and he sealed the kiss, backing up a few inches when she craned toward him. She met his blazing stare.

“Do you want me to ask you permission to bend you over and fuck you hard, or do you just want me to do it?” he rasped. She whimpered when she realized he’d plunged his hand below her neckline and was extricating a breast from the confines of her demi-bra. He lifted it above the edge of the neckline. She felt his cock leap next to her belly as he stared down at the exposed flesh, the vulnerable, tender nipple. Before she could draw a full breath, he leaned down and sucked the nipple between his lips. She squealed at the abrupt, delicious sensation of him drawing on her greedily. Her hips thrashed against him, grinding against his erection. By the time her nipple popped out of his suctioning, hot mouth, it was hard and pebbled and reddened.

“I asked you a question,” he said, white teeth flashing before he bit and nibbled at her mouth and she felt her core go liquid with heat. She struggled to recall what he meant. “Tell me whether you want to give me permission or you want me just to take you,” he said roughly against her mouth, seeming to understand she required a reminder.

She closed her eyes in mortification even as she continued to shape his lips to hers. He’d never asked her permission before. If he was ready to take her, he just would, knowing very well she’d be prepared to meet his need. That’s how she wanted it . . . how she needed it.

“Don’t make me ask,” she said raggedly, her eyes remaining sealed tight.

“Fine. Then I’ll just fuck you,” he said, his nostrils flaring. His hand lowered, lifting her dress. He found her unerringly, shoving long fingers into her panties.

“Ah, that’s good. So sweet, so wet, so ready,” he hissed next to her swollen lips. She quaked as he rubbed her well-lubricated clit with the ridge of his finger, his actions neither gentle nor rough, but Ian-like. Perfect. She gritted her teeth and pushed her hips against him. He grunted, and the next thing she knew, he turned her and he was sliding her dress up over her ass and hips, bunching the material at her waist in a fist. She felt him press firmly at her lower back and she responded instinctively, leaning her upper body against the washing machine. He began to lower her panties as he stood next to her, his pelvis pressed against her hip, his erection feeling full and extremely arousing next to her skin. He backed up slightly to get her underwear between them and shoved them down her thighs. Her eyes sprang wide in painful anticipation in the ensuing seconds as he paused with her hip and buttock still pressed against his cock and ran his hand over her bare ass. She made a helpless sound in her throat as liquid warmth rushed through her, wetting her even more.

Then he was behind her and she was clutching her eyelids shut again in unbearable excitement at the sound of his zipper lowering. He put one opened hand on her inner thigh and she parted wider for him, her breath burning in her lungs. She bit her lip, the buildup killing her, as he widened her slit with his finger. She could just imagine him standing behind her, his cock in one hand, a determined, rigid look on his face as he looked down at her. He pushed the fleshy, tapered head of his cock into her, making the air fly out of her lungs.

“Hold steady,” he said tensely.

He firmed his hold on her hips and thrust. She bit off a scream. He stretched her wide, his cock pulsing high and hard in her. It burned deliciously.

“Try to keep quiet. I brought you as far from them as I could, but there might be staff around,” she heard him say through the roar in her ears before he started to fuck her with long, forceful strokes, popping her ass with his pelvis in a regular, driving rhythm. She stared blankly at the control mechanisms of the washer, her mouth hanging open, inundated—no, overwhelmed—by sensation. Her hips drove back on him instinctively, her arm muscles going rigid as she braced herself against his powerful possession. She knew she shouldn’t be allowing this to happen, but one didn’t rationalize about a hurricane or earthquake. What he did to her—what Ian
was
—was a force of nature, and all she could do was grit her teeth together and take the glory of him.

He grunted gutturally behind her, his pace never wavering, only growing stronger . . . faster. She didn’t protest when he wrapped his forearm around her waist to steady her and lifted one of her legs, forcing one knee onto the edge of the washer, opening her even more for him. He drove into her, their bodies smacking together, and this time she couldn’t prevent a small scream. He paused. Sweat popped on her upper lip at the sensation of him filling her while she was in such a vulnerable position, pried wide for him.

“Do you want something to muffle your screams?”

She nodded, panting. She was cresting at the sensation of him throbbing deep inside her, his balls pressed tightly against her wet, overly sensitized outer sex creating an indirect pressure on her clit. A towel fell before her face, and she realized he’d reached above her to a shelf. He immediately began to fuck her again, grunting as he slammed into her. Her eyes sprang wide. She’d never been penetrated more deeply, and he took her relentlessly. The washer began to move, rattling against the wall as he plunged into her. He cursed heatedly in response to the noise, but he didn’t slow. She could barely keep herself in place for his possession. He cupped a buttock as he fucked her, prying it back, exposing her even further to his plundering cock and ruthless gaze.

She crammed the towel against her mouth, muffling her scream as orgasm ripped through her.

“That’s right. God that feels good,” she heard him say roughly as if through a long tunnel. He continued to fuck her without pause as she shook in release. Just when her spasms of climax began to wane, she felt him jerk his cock out of her. He groaned loudly, and she knew the sensation had been as unpleasant for her as it was him. She turned her head.

“Ian?” she asked, disoriented.

“Give me the towel.”

She blinked at the sound of his terse command. She lowered her knee from the washer, feeling sluggish and dazed, and turned around. Her satiated fogginess vanished in an instant. The vision of him standing there scored her, his pants and underwear bunched around his strong thighs, pumping his fearsome, glistening erection with his fist.

“The towel,” he prompted again between clenched teeth. His face convulsed. His body jerked. She hurried to hand him the towel, but was too late. He began to ejaculate, ropy white streams erupting from his cock and splattering on the tile floor. He looked so beautiful in that moment, so strong, and yet so helpless in the clutches of desire it caused her heart to squeeze unbearably. She hurried to him, cupping him in the towel from below and folding the edge over the head, so that the material absorbed his semen. She made soothing sounds as she gently pumped him in her towel-covered hand, using the fingers of her other hand to stroke the rigid, warm, convulsing shaft from above. His groan as he clutched her shoulders told her it felt wonderful, and for that stolen moment, it was all the knowledge she required.

His grip on her shoulders softened. His shudders waned. Slowly, she looked up to meet his face. The color in his cheeks made his eyes look even more blue than usual.

“I knew we’d have to return to the others,” he said gruffly, his breath still coming erratically. “I didn’t want that,” he glanced at the semen-damp towel she still held between them, “to be making you uncomfortable.”

A flash of heat went through her at the idea of his essence filling her while she mingled with the others, his come spilling into her panties, wetting her thighs . . . While she found it arousing in theory, she knew he was right. It would have been uncomfortable, not to mention potentially embarrassing.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She moved the towel, folding it to dry him as best she could before she pulled it away and set it on the washer. She bent for her panties, pulling them up over her thigh-high hosiery and into place. The mundane mechanics of the aftermath of thundering passion brought it home to her, what had just happened. She lowered her dress. Acting on an impulse, she suddenly grabbed the offending towel and tossed it into the washer, setting the mechanism to its hottest temperature and turning the machine on. It was stupid, and immature, and she knew it—as if she
really
believed she could wash away what had just occurred.

She kept her head lowered, avoiding his stare. “Do we really have to go back to join the others?” she asked thinly. How long had they been absent? It probably couldn’t have been much more than fifteen minutes, as focused and distilled as the twist of fury and desire they’d both been caught in had been.

He paused in the process of pulling up his pants.

“Francesca.”

She looked around slowly.

“I’ll take you straight to my bed now, if that’s what you want. I said we’d go back to the others for your sake, not mine.”

In a sweeping instant, it all came back to her. It didn’t matter how tender she’d felt toward him as he shook in climax. It didn’t matter that she wanted to give herself to him again and again. He’d left her. He couldn’t promise her a future.

He
wouldn’t.

Where did you have to go that was so important that you left me without a word?

The question felt like it scalded the back of her throat, but she didn’t ask it. He obviously was not burning to tell her the answer . . . to give excuses. Her pride wouldn’t let her ask, especially when he clearly didn’t want to offer up the explanation.

“I want to go back with the others. Anne will worry if we don’t,” she said, her voice sounding hollow.

His eyebrows arched as he hastily began to refasten his trousers. “She’ll worry no matter what. But it’s your decision.”

She smoothed her dress and hair.

“I can go back in with the others first. I’ll tell them you went to the ladies’ room. You can go and freshen up before returning,” Ian said. He let his hands fall and she saw he looked as immaculate and gorgeous as ever, possibly more so than earlier, with the added color in his face.