When I'm With You: The Complete Novel

by BETH KERY

  “You’re so hot,” he grated out, and she gloried at the thick lust in his tone. He withdrew almost entirely, only the bulbous head of his cock submerged in her, and flicked the side of her ass with the crop.

  “Ooh,” she squealed, and bucked her hips, sinking her pussy down over his rigid length and bobbing eagerly. He popped her ass harder for that with the leather slapper and gripped her hips in his powerful hold.

  “I ride you,” he reminded her, his tone a strange mixture of harsh arousal and fond amusement.

  “Yes. Yes, all right,” she conceded in a muffled voice.

  This time, he gathered the reins in one hand. It was shockingly exciting, to have him control her movements with the taut reins as he fucked her, pulling back on her body until it smacked against his pelvis in a heady, naughty rhythm she loved and responded to wholeheartedly. Her nipples throbbed as her breasts bounced from his forceful thrusts. Her ass tightened around the plug, sending a dark thrill through her. As his pace increased, he popped her bottom with the crop, urging her on . . .

  Oh yes. She was made to ride free . . . but she was also made to submit to this man. This man.

  She heard Lucien’s blistering curse a moment later as she shuddered in orgasm. She howled in protest when he jerked his cock out of her body.

  “Irrepressible,” he muttered thickly as he pulled the butt plug out of her and she yelped at the interruption of her orgasm. She squeaked in surprise when he landed the crop several times on her ass and thighs. “I didn’t give you permission to come,” he said starkly.

  “I couldn’t help it,” she moaned as he continued to swat her bottom and upper thighs, making her skin sting and smart.

  He tossed the crop onto the bed. Her eyes widened when she felt him spread back her ass cheeks and present his lubricated, hard-as-steel cock to her ass a moment later. “How would you feel if I was continually telling you I couldn’t control it, that I couldn’t help myself?” he asked her darkly.

  “I . . . I wouldn’t mind,” she replied defiantly. “I could take it.”

  He pushed his cock into her ass and she squealed.

  “You’re such a little fool if you think that,” he said before he firmed his hold on her hips and slowly penetrated her.

  * * *

  It was the purest, most distilled version of sexual torture he could ever imagine, let alone endure. Her ass was on fire, magnifying the burn in his blood and brain and balls, making him feel like he’d melt like candle wax from unadulterated lust.

  It was difficult going. Even with all the preparation he’d given her, her ass resisted him. He spanked her bottom gently, but his tone was rough with arousal.

  “Push back on me. It will help,” he demanded.

  She did it, and of course, being Elise, she didn’t do it halfway. She plunged her bottom backward, making both of them groan in agony. Lucien knew enough, however, to recognize that her moan was not of the sexual variety.

  “Are you all right?” he grated out. Holding still with half his cock submerged in her clamping channel was like telling himself not to draw air with deflated lungs.

  “Yes,” he heard her moan. “It hurt for a moment, but no more.”

  “Stay still this time, then.”

  He slowly began to pump back and forth a scarce inch in and out of her while she moaned. When she began to bob her ass against him, he swatted her ass.

  “Stay still, you little minx.” He reached around her and found her clit, rubbing the slick flesh strenuously. With his other hand, he kept her hip immobile and pushed his cock farther into her.

  “Ohhh,” she cried out, sounding aghast. This time, Lucien could tell she experienced excitement, not pain. He growled savagely as he entered her to the hilt and his balls pressed tight against her buttocks. He rubbed her clit hard and felt her buckle. Catching her weight, he stood there holding her against him, his cock buried in her ass while she shuddered in orgasm.

  She was going to kill him. No doubt about it.

  When he could endure no more, he tightened the reins on her leather corset and spread his hand over a hip. “You have had your pleasure many times over. I will have mine now. Take me for a ride, little filly.”

  He began to fuck her, using his hold on the reins and on her ass to control her completely.

  “That’s right. Now you are submitting to me, aren’t you? And it feels so good,” he muttered through a snarl as he pounded into her.

  Even though he mastered the movements, she still took him for the ride of a lifetime. She bounced her ass in perfect rhythm to his demanding strokes, her sharp cries of excitement every time his pelvis and balls slapped against her ass mounting his lust until he finally could take no more. He lifted her lower body, utterly controlling her, serving her to his cock again and again, ruthless in his possession. She shouted, but he couldn’t tell if her cry was from arousal, surprise, or discomfort. He was too busy peaking over the crest into nirvana.

  He dove into it.

  A roar erupted from his throat. He began to ejaculate deep inside her, howling as the sharp talons of pleasure ripped through him mercilessly.

  Pain brought him back to himself. His biceps had locked in a rigid flexed position as he held Elise to him and climaxed. He hissed in discomfort as he released her, carefully setting her feet back down on the shoe-polish box. He remained bent over her for a moment, panting, trying desperately to get control of himself.

  He was surprised that orgasm hadn’t ripped his head clean off him it had been so powerful.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her. Yes, he’d told her he would take his pleasure of her and that she must accept it, but he hadn’t really planned on his need growing to the cataclysmic level that it had.

  “Yes,” she murmured. She sounded okay—worn out . . . satiated. Had she come again, there at the end? He’d been too tied up in the twist of his own pleasure to tell. She moaned shakily when he withdrew his cock. He quickly unzipped the corset and encouraged her to stand. He took her weight, lifting her off the shoe-polish box and brushing his mouth against hers, his kiss every bit as tender as his earlier possession had been demanding. She trembled in his arms, feeling so warm, so feminine. It stunned him, that he could want to cherish her so much, soothe her, and yet still desired her to the point of near savagery.

  He carried her to the bathroom where he set her down and removed her bracelets. She flipped off her heels.

  Then he turned on the shower and pulled her in next to him. He gently washed her, as if he thought he could clean away the residue of his blazing, raw hunger, all along knowing it was a helpless cause. He would want her again soon enough, and all he could do—all he could ever do—was tame the savagery, regulate the taint inside him as best he could.

  It was a daily mission. Elise made it an hourly one, a battle he fought minute by minute. But because it was her—because he cherished her—the fight was not only worthy, it was sanctifying to his spirit.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, they lay in bed, their limbs entwined, Elise’s head on his chest.

  “Are you sure you are well?” he murmured, stroking her upper arm.

  “I am so good,” she answered groggily. “But hungry.”

  “Hungry?”

  “I hardly ate anything at dinner. Emile will think I’m so unappreciative. If he thinks poorly of me, it’s all your fault,” she told him, pressing a small smile to his skin.

  “I hardly think Emile and Richard are ones to judge the idiosyncrasies of two people . . . so involved with each other.”

  Her warm breath seemed to cease at his pause.

  “Lucien?”

  “Yes,” he said, stroking her back now and once again wondering at her softness.

  Another pause.

  “Have you ever been in love?”
/>   His caressing hand slowed.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. I mean . . . I wouldn’t know for sure if I was.”

  “I’m no expert on the matter,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “But I do believe a person knows it, deep down, if they are. It’s just a matter of trusting that feeling, isn’t it?”

  For the next minute, he couldn’t be sure if she slept or was thinking. She didn’t move as he caressed her, and her breathing was warm and even on his chest.

  “Who was the man who died?” she asked suddenly, her clear voice startling him from his private ruminations about her earlier question.

  “What?” he asked, bewildered.

  “I heard Herr Shroeder tell you that someone was dead last night. He implied he’d been in prison, and you called him a sick fuck,” she mumbled, sounding very sleepy. “I just remembered that I wanted to ask you about it. I’d forgotten with everything you told me about your mother, and the terrace . . . and the restaurant,” she added lamely.

  Her ear was pressed against his chest. He hoped she didn’t feel his increased heart rate.

  “Remember I told you that a very important witness had informed Herr Shroeder that Helen Noble likely knew details about my mother’s identity and possible whereabouts?”

  “Yes.”

  “The man who died was that witness.”

  “And he was in prison?” she asked, sounding a little less sleepy now.

  “Yes.”

  “What for?”

  When he didn’t immediately respond, she lifted her head from his chest. “Lucien?”

  “Rape.” He expelled the word bitterly. “Worse than rape.”

  He felt her mounting concern swelling in the silence.

  “Did that man . . . rape your biological mother?” she whispered.

  He winced. He put his hand on the back of her head and guided her back down to his chest. He’d tried to prepare himself for it. But when he heard the thick dread in Elise’s voice just now, he knew he was a fool for thinking he could accustom himself to such an ugly truth.

  “I’ll never know for certain, until I find her . . . or until I speak with Helen Noble.”

  “Oh, Lucien—”

  “Not now, Elise. Please,” he whispered hoarsely when she tried to lift her head again. “Let me enjoy this moment with you. Let’s not ruin it.”

  He felt her open her lips, but perhaps she registered a hint of his pain, because her lips closed again next to his skin. He hugged her tighter, and she reciprocated. Something swelled inside him, thick and hot, when he felt how she squeezed him with an almost desperate strength.

  “I want to help,” he heard her say in a strangled voice.

  “You are,” he assured her gruffly, trailing his hand along her spine, pressing her to him even more tightly. “Your being here with me is all the help in the world.”

  Read the conclusion of Elise and Lucien’s red-hot romance in

  Part VIII of WHEN I’M WITH YOU

  WHEN WE ARE ONE

  Available from InterMix on April 23, 2013

  Keep reading for a taste of Beth Kery’s sexy romance

  SWEET RESTRAINT

  Available now from Berkley Heat

  The man sitting in the driver’s seat of the car parked in an abandoned parking lot near the Cal-Sag Channel was a keg of dynamite about to blow. In fact Randall Moody had come here on this cold January Chicago night to ensure that he did. He wanted to be the one to toss the igniting match in his own good time, however, and he didn’t want to be anywhere near the explosion when it occurred.

  He cautiously tapped twice on the car window.

  “What the hell? How’d you find me?” Huey Mays asked after he’d peered through the window and unlocked the car door. Moody got into the passenger seat. His nose wrinkled in distaste.

  “Smells like a distillery in here.” He glared repressively at Mays when he saw the other man had drawn his gun when he heard the knocking on the window, but didn’t tell him to put it away. He planned on Huey using that gun sometime soon, after all. Huey’d need it handy.

  Moody shivered uncontrollably for a moment, cursing his aching joints and aging body. Dammit, Huey Mays’s life was about to come to an end. What he wouldn’t give to have his younger, more virile body, even though Mays had wasted much of his health on alcohol, drugs, and multiple daily doses of rich, fatty foods. Moody was pushing sixty but he worked out at his health club vigilantly and was fastidious about what he drank and ate. He considered aging a weakness, but what he despised even more was Huey’s lack of discipline and tendency to wallow in his carnal nature.

  “One of the patrolmen saw your car out here,” Moody replied, his tone smooth and warm, carrying no hint of the bitter resentment he felt. There was no reason to elaborate further. Mays knew as well as anyone Moody had one of the best information networks in the city. If something significant was going down in Chicago, chances are Randall Moody knew about it. Thirty-five years in the Chicago Police Department and carefully established contacts in both government and the underworld had seen to that.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Huey muttered. His hands moved nervously along his thighs as he wiped the sweat off his palms, but Moody was glad to see he merely placed his gun in his lap instead of putting it away. “You’ve gotta help me get out of this mess. The feds are breathing down my back to name names, you know.”

  “I told you they would. I also told you why it wouldn’t be in your best interest to do so,” Moody said calmly.

  “They say it’ll reduce my sentence to almost nothing.”

  “Almost nothing? Your best scenario—best, mind you—would be five years in federal lockup. Might as well say an eternity when it comes to you, Huey. Have you thought about what that’d be like? No cocktail available every time you get nervous. No cocaine to give you a nice jolt.” Moody slowly removed his leather gloves and stacked them neatly on his black cashmere overcoat. He inspected his well-manicured nails. “And, of course . . . you’ll be on the receiving end instead of the instigator in the type of sex you prefer—”

  “There’s not a chance in hell!” Huey shouted. His eyes looked bloodshot and wild. Moody was pleased to see he looked like a man who stood right on the edge.

  “And the fact of the matter remains, Huey. Any benefit you receive from pointing fingers will be very short-lived. It’s time you took responsibility for your own actions.”

  “Nothing?” Huey entreated gruffly. “There’s nothing you can do for me?”

  “Your fate is in your own hands, I’m afraid,” Moody said, his gaze flickering down to the gun in Huey’s lap.

  “I should have gotten rid of Shane Dominic years ago.”

  “When the time is right, Dominic will be taken care of, I assure you of that.”

  “Or better yet, we should have just whacked her back then.”

  “Your wife is a lovely woman. We aren’t such monsters that we kill something so delicate and rare,” Moody remonstrated.

  “Better you would have married the bitch, then.” Huey’s smile resembled a snarl as he stared blankly out the front window, obviously picturing something much more pleasant in his mind than the black winter’s night. “I got her good, though. Both her and that asshole Dominic.”

  Moody shook his head sadly and reached for the handle on the passenger door. “This is your chance, Huey, to show your wife she married a strong man, a disciplined man. Do yourself a favor and take advantage of the opportunity while you still possess not only your freedom and your honor, but your manhood. Don’t let Shane Dominic take that away from you as well.”

  Moody patted Huey’s knee in a gesture of paternal encouragement before he exited the car.

  ***

  Shane Dominic noticed Clarissa’s sh
arp brown eyes on him in the reflection of the mirror on the antique armoire and coat tree. He dropped his hand from where he’d been pressing his fingertips to his scalding eyelids and caught her in his arms as she spun around.

  “You know how horny this dress makes me,” he murmured next to her neck. “You wore it to the City Club dinner last fall. I could barely string two words together during my speech because I kept thinking about getting you into bed and stripping you out of it.”

  Clarissa’s laughter vibrated into his lips as he pressed them to her throat.

  “That was last fall, Dom. What about tonight?”

  His fingers found the zipper on the sexy burgundy cocktail dress and lowered it. “Tonight I can’t wait for bed. I’m going to have to take you right here in the hallway, I think.”

  He smiled when he felt her shiver beneath his marauding mouth. Her fingers delved into his hair, urging him down to the breast that he’d just revealed by sweeping aside the clinging fabric of her bra. He paused, however, and grabbed her wrist. When he pushed it behind her it forced her back into an arch. She moaned as he inspected her small, pink-tipped breast. He blew on it softly.

  “You’re such a tease, Dom,” she mumbled. But she arched higher for him, pushing her nipple closer to his mouth.

  He chuckled before he licked her nipple lightly. “You’re the one who teased me all night by wearing this dress. Now you’re going to have to pay for it.”

  “I can’t wait,” she whispered.

  He glanced up at her. His eyes chose that unfortunate moment to burn and water. He clenched his eyelids shut for a brief second to get relief.

  “Do you want to know what I think?” Clarissa asked.