Because We Belong (Because You Are Mine #3)(14)
“I’m so sorry to disturb you,” he said earnestly, his brows slanted in concern.
“It’s all right,” she said breathlessly. “Is something wrong?”
“No . . . I mean, I hope not.” He noticed her bewilderment. “I was getting ready for bed and my guilt over telling Mrs. Hanson to prepare this room for you overwhelmed me. I don’t mean to be insensitive,” he said, his mouth curving in wry apology, “but I often am, nevertheless. Or at least that’s what Joanna, my ex, used to say. I’m overly practical. This is the most luxurious suite, containing many of your personal belongings, and I felt like an intruder in it knowing you were going to stay here as well. I obviously missed the subtler issues at hand. Anne was quite irritated with me. I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t worry about it. I’m fine,” she assured, her hushed voice automatically matching his.
“You’re sure?” She was touched by his obvious concern. “I haven’t yet gotten into bed. We could still switch rooms easily enough.”
She shook her head and attempted a smile. She felt cracked open by these unique circumstances, the very meat of her exposed to his concerned gaze. “No, really. I’m fine.”
He nodded once. “If you’re sure. I’ll let you get some rest then.” Her eyebrows went up when he hesitated. “You’d let me know? If there was anything I could do to help? Anything at all?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. She’d thought her performance had been quite good, but Gerard had obviously seen right through it.
“Of course. But like I said, I’m fine.”
“Ian always said you were very strong,” he said, his gaze drifting across her features.
“He always said that you were there for him,” she returned. “I can see what he meant now.”
He had a nice smile—easy and unaffected . . . appealing. “I’d hoped to make your acquaintance under more ideal circumstances. But I can’t say that I’m sorry to have finally met you. You’re everything Ian praised. Good night.”
“Good night,” she said quietly, shutting the door on his retreating back.
* * *
He studied every detail of her face as she succumbed to pleasure, enraptured by her expression of agonized ecstasy, aroused to the brink by her whimpers and sharp cries. He hastened to focus the view tighter on her eyes, and then replaced his hand on his aching, swollen cock. His fist pounded ruthlessly on the shaft, the rigid squeeze as he thrust upward over the swollen head making him shudder and groan harshly. He struggled not to blink as he ejaculated, semen shooting heedlessly onto his hand, wrist, and belly.
He didn’t want to miss even a fraction of a second of Francesca’s surrender.
* * *
She fell limp on the mattress, her knees curling up in a fetal position, panting, her damp fingers clutching at the sheet. It came upon her in a rush, as she knew it would. It always did following climax by her own hand, now that Ian was gone. Tonight her disgust at her weakness was sharper than usual, lying in his bed, replaying memories she knew she should let go. Her misery choked at her throat, seeming to rattle her heart in her chest, pierce the very core of her bones.
How could he do this to me? She hated him for it.
He’d awakened nerve, flesh, and soul, made her feel more alive than she’d ever been in her life, only to leave her alone, a human conflagration cursed to burn incessantly, without purpose . . . without any hope of peace.
Chapter Two
Ian shoved aside a chifforobe, the action causing a leg to fall off the ancient piece of furniture. It heaved to the floor at an awkward angle. The back panel fell off with a subsequent crash. He coughed as he inhaled the dust that flew up from the floor like a miniature mushroom cloud.
Bloody attic was a menace, he thought furiously, blinking dirt out of his eyes. All of the attics were. They were six that he’d counted so far in the gothic Aurore Manor, each at the top of various towers and turrets. This place was a veritable warren of hidey-holes, of dust and forgotten things, of workshops filled with Gaines’s oddities and fascinating, patented inventions . . . of occasional perversities that screamed of Gaines’s depravity.
A house filled with secrets. Trevor Gaines’s lair. Gaines: wealthy aristocrat, brilliant inventor of quirky machines and timepieces, convicted rapist and serial reproductionist. A sick pervert who got his jollies out of having sex with and impregnating as many woman as he could, whether by manipulative seduction or rape.
Trevor Gaines, Ian’s father.
He knew from his research into Gaines’s history that the police had carted away relevant evidence during a search after Gaines had been arrested for the rape of a woman named Charity Holland some twenty years ago. That’s when they’d found two videos Gaines had secretly made of himself raping two women, one of them being Holland. The police hadn’t taken all the incriminating evidence, though. Ian was convinced they’d barely scratched the surface of the proof of Gaines’s crimes. It had been cleverly hidden from eyes less determined than Ian’s. Like the evidence he’d discovered yesterday, for instance.
In a hidden compartment in Gaines’s antique rolltop desk, Ian had unearthed neatly maintained journal calendars. Inside the leather-bound calendars, in Gaines’s neat, methodical handwriting, had been a list of women and dates that stretched from when Gaines was sixteen years of age to the last entry, when he was thirty-five. Hundreds of women’s names had been listed in that journal over the decades. As time went on, the entries became more and more concise and detailed. At first, Ian had thought the dates referred to times he’d seen or possibly had sex with the various women. It took him longer to decipher the markings on the calendars with X’s or circles. Eventually, he noticed the common rhythm and came to the sickening realization that Gaines was keeping track of each woman’s menstrual and ovulation cycles. Ian had discovered Gaines’s plan book for optimizing impregnation.