When I'm with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(16)

Suddenly he was lifting her by the shoulders and she was in his arms. She pressed her hot, wet cheek against his silk tie and shook with feeling.

“I hate you. I hate you,” she muttered, not even sure what she was saying in her tumult.

“No you don’t,” he said quietly, his fingers moving gently in her hair, soothing her. “We are alike, you and I. Both alone. Both misfits. I struggled to escape the golden cage, too, ma chère. I’m trying to help you, if you’ll only listen.”

“Lucien,” she whispered, so much feeling infused into that one word, so much longing. She rubbed her cheek against his tie, drying unwanted tears. His clean, spicy, citrusy scent permeated her misery. So did the sensation of his hard body.

He was clearly, awesomely aroused.

She stilled at the realization, her misery fading. The inexplicable ache at her core amplified.

What would happen now?

His long fingers skimmed against her skin and he lifted her chin. She stared up at him, defiant even in her utter confusion. “I’m going to give you what you need.”

“I don’t understand you,” she whispered.

“Such a beautiful, wild thing, such a pure, strong flame,” he murmured, his gaze traveling over her face as he caressed the line of her jaw. “But you will burn yourself to ashes if left unchecked. You’ve been grasping for an outer limit to your world for years now, something to contain you. Now you’ve run into it. And I’m not turning away this time,” he said simply, skimming her cheek with his fingertips.

She stared up at him mutely. He leaned down and kissed her lips, his mouth so tender and so cherishing that she felt as if she were dreaming.

“Now bend back over the desk so that we can finish.”

She arched against him. She’d rather just skip the spanking, hot as it was making her, and possess what she’d desired for half her life. Who knew that she’d respond so strongly to a bit of kink? She wasn’t the only one responding. What she felt of Lucien—his size and hardness—made her fevered. She’d love to stroke and suck the awesome cock she felt pressing against his trousers.

“Do as I say,” he said, avoiding the come hither gyration of her hips, his gray eyes flashing, his tone hard. “Don’t try and grab control of this, Elise. Don’t test me. You’ll lose.”

She gasped at the realization that he understood precisely what she’d been doing with her seduction. She let him turn her in his arms, despite her sharp disappointment. He pressed gently at her lower back, prompting her to bend over. His hand moved up her spine, massaging, molding, working the muscles.

“So much tension in your muscles . . . so much pain,” he said quietly. He didn’t seem to be expecting a response, which was fine with her. She was too overwhelmed by his touch to speak. His hand brushed against her prickling, hot ass. Her clit pinched in arousal, the sharpness of her response shocking her. The anticipation was killing her.

“But why? Why are you doing this?” burst out of her throat, her voice going high in panic.

“Because I care,” he said. Her eyes sprang wide when he pressed his hand to her buttocks. Then it was gone, and she knew he was drawing his hand back in preparation to strike. Her sex clenched tight in anxious excitement. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t, Elise. And you wouldn’t be letting me if you didn’t know that.”

Part II: When You Defy Me

Chapter Three

His hand struck the lower curve of her ass cheeks, causing a burst of sensation.

“Ouch.”

“Je suis désolé,” she heard Lucien apologize huskily behind her. He touched her buttocks, his palm warmed from her spankings. Her breath hitched. “It will take me a time or two to learn what you can tolerate . . . what you need.”

Her clenched eyelids sprang open. “What I need is for you to stop torturing me this way.”

His hand disappeared. Smack.

“Wrong. You need a consequence for your actions.”

The nerves on the surface of her bottom stung and burned. There was an inexplicable link between those nerves and her sizzling clit. She bit her lip, experiencing an almost overwhelming desire to touch herself . . . to staunch the ache growing between her thighs.

“Brace yourself,” Lucien warned, his voice a low, sexual purr that washed over her exposed, flaming ass and tickled at her damp *. She firmed her hold, following his order instinctively, and clenched her teeth. His hand landed again and again, the brisk cracking sound of skin against skin creating a strangely erotic contrast to the rich yet highly controlled notes of the symphonic music filling her ears.

The tail of her smock flipped down over a buttock. She inhaled shakily when he paused and took a moment to carefully replace the edge of her smock at her waist, once again revealing her ass. She could just imagine how pink it must look to him. The breath burned in her lungs when he spread his hand over the crack between her buttocks, his fingers spread, his fingertips below his palm.

“So beautiful,” he murmured.

She whimpered softly at the hint of awe in his tone. He was so large that he encompassed her. He rubbed, and her vagina clenched tight. She moaned feverishly, wanting . . . needing his touch on her sex. He was only inches away from her *. She gyrated her hips slightly, rubbing him back in an open invitation.

Smack. She gasped at the unexpected, sharp pain of his hand cracking against her ass.