When I'm with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(21)
But he was alone.
The image of Elise’s shining, sapphire eyes as she’d turned and reached for his pants earlier in his office rose to haunt him.
He paused, prickly and edgy with unsatisfied lust. His hand wasn’t what he wanted, but it was all he had. He would not jump into the flames with Elise immediately and wholesale. She would burn him to a husk.
He resumed jacking himself, groaning in undeniable pleasure. Masturbation, when all he wanted was to f*ck Elise without mercy until he felt her shudders of pleasure and submission vibrate into his flesh.
Damn those bright eyes, the pink lips, the tight, lush curves that fit his hand perfectly. She lit up a room when she walked into it. She was so small, but so perfect. Her * would fit him like a second skin. To restrain her would be so satisfying. He would punish her for weakening him and then take her relentlessly, spend himself . . . empty himself of this tight, ball-aching, plaguing desire.
Leap into her flame and gloriously burn.
He grunted gutturally as warm semen spurted onto his lower chest, his climax so sharp it verged on pain. He pumped without mercy, milking every drop, ruthless in ridding himself of this unbearable tension.
His body shuddered one final time, his fist slowing on the shaft of his pulsing cock. Still panting, he cracked open his eyelids. From the reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window, he saw that his chest and belly glistened from his abundant emissions.
He wished he could have given it all to her.
Impossibly, desire tickled at his balls and moist shaft.
“Damn you, Elise,” he muttered thickly, annoyed by his insatiable lust.
A heavy sense of the inevitable settled upon him as he used several tissues to mop himself dry. He stood next to the windows and stared out at the descending night.
It was not an option, for him to be at her mercy. She was too skilled at playing a man, too perfectly suited to Lucien’s lust. She was an unacceptable risk. An infuriating temptation. An undeniable delight.
No. He wouldn’t deny himself. Not this time.
The sun was just rising over the lake when Elise got off the bus on inner Lake Shore Drive and started walking west on Division Street. The slow ascent of the fiery orb seemed to match the inevitable rise of her anxiety as she neared State and Division . . . and Lucien. She’d seen little of him over the past few days as she was absorbed with her duties, and was nervous at the idea of spending one on one time with him. If only he’d suggested she go with Evan or Javier, she might have been able to disguise her relative ignorance on the topic of marketing. As things stood, she was bound to make a fool of herself in front of Lucien.
She sensed him watching her from where he stood beneath a storefront awning, sipping a cup of coffee.
“Good morning,” he said when she approached. His gray eyes looked especially light in the shadow of the awning. They lowered over her appreciatively.
“Hello,” she returned, feeling a little shy beneath his warm stare. He looked very sexy in a pair of well-fitted jeans and a dark red T-shirt that showed off a lean, muscular torso and powerful arms to eye-catching effect. The casual apparel had the effect of making him seem a tad more approachable but every bit as appealing, reminding Elise of a sexy rock star instead of his typical businessman persona.
His T-shirt was partially tucked in to his jeans in the front, revealing a thick black leather belt with silver buckle that rode low on his lean hips. She belatedly realized he was handing her a cup of coffee. Her cheeks heated. She’d been caught in the act of staring at his thighs and the way his jeans cupped his sex.
“Thank you,” she murmured, grateful for the coffee at such an early hour. She immediately took a drink. Her eyes widened in pleasure.
“Café crème,” she said, grinning. “You even remembered how I take it.”
His smile made something hitch in her chest. “I remembered that you took it practically with equal parts coffee, cream, and sugar as a girl. Do you really still like it that sweet?” he teased.
She took another sip, her sigh of satisfaction his answer. He chuckled and put his hand on her elbow, urging her to walk.
“Did the cab drop you off in the wrong place?” he asked as they made their way toward the bustling outdoor market.
“What? Oh, no,” she said, realizing he’d probably seen her walking toward him from blocks away. “I took the bus.”
He blinked. “The bus?”
She dug into the pocket of her small backpack and pulled out a card. “My CTA pass. Do you have any idea how convenient these things are? Between buses and the L, I can go anywhere in Chicago,” she said, the amazement in her voice genuine. Learning to navigate around had been an oddly liberating experience for her, invigorating, to jump onto a vehicle and blend anonymously with the vibrant flow of humanity, to become a single cell in the lifeblood of the city.
His eyes gleamed in amusement. “You hold it up like it’s a badge of honor.”
“It is.”
“Étoile would make quite the headline out of that,” he murmured, referring to the French tabloid she hated with a white-hot passion for sensationalizing her life and using it as fodder to sell papers. “Fair-Haired Heiress Caught Slumming It,” he quoted an imagined headline.
“Screw Étoile,” she said succinctly. She hitched her chin at the crowd of people bustling around them, intent on their marketing in the early morning light. “I’m willing to bet they don’t even know what Étoile is, and nor would they care. They could care less about who my father is. They’ve never gobbled up the slop about my supposed love life. Most of them wouldn’t remember my mother’s movies—”