Because You Are Mine (Because You Are Mine #1)(45)
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-Élysées, 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 jog? “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 f*ck 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 f*ck his f*cking shower and his f*cking 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? 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.