Because We Belong: A Because You Are Mine Novel (26 page)

“I like what you did today,” he said quietly, nodding at the page. She knew he was striving for a neutral subject, and was thankful.

“Thank you,” she said. She stepped toward him and looked down at her drawing. “Those are fruit trees at the edge of the forest, aren’t they?”

He nodded. “Apple and cherry.”

“They must look stunning when they bloom in the spring,” she said.

“They do,” he replied gruffly, still looking at the page and not her.

“I wasn’t satisfied with my earlier attempts. I’d rather paint Belford as if coming out of the woods, the viewpoint of someone returning after a journey, suddenly seeing not just a house or a landmark or an architectural prize, but a
home
and everything that implies,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ll have to run it by Anne and James, though. It would require me to put the woods closer to Belford Hall in order for me to get the house details. It would be inaccurate factually.”

“Not really. Only recently,” Ian said, puzzling her. He closed the sketchbook, set it aside and stood. “The gardens and yard area were only expanded in the past few decades. When I first came here as a boy, the forest was much closer to the house. I think my grandmother was worried about the woods being so close with a curious boy in residence. I also happen to know neither of my grandparents particularly cared for the clearing of the grounds. What you’re describing is what generations of Nobles would have seen upon returning home from one of the forest paths.”

He met her gaze soberly, and she knew he wasn’t thinking about her painting. “We can discuss the issue about security more tomorrow, after the press conference. I don’t want to fight with you right now,” he said quietly.

“I don’t want to fight with you, either. Not tonight,” she replied honestly. He put out his hand and she took it, following him out of the room and closing the door softly behind her. They walked together to his suite through the shadowed hallway, the silence seeming to billow with rising anticipation.

* * *

They entered his suite and he locked the door. He removed his jacket and draped it on a valet stand. Then she was in his arms and he was pulling her against him. His mouth was feverish on her neck and ear, his intensity making her eyes spring wide. His body felt hot, too . . . and
hard
, she realized with a thrill. Yes, she’d felt the increasing electrical excitement building between them, but
this
 . . .

He was liked a coiled spring. She’d sensed his palpable tension ever since the incident on the road earlier, but hadn’t expected his anxiety to transform so quickly to arousal once he touched her.

She whimpered in stunned lust when he fisted a bunch of loose hair at her neck and pulled, so that her throat was exposed. His lips burned a trail on her neck before he seized her mouth in a kiss. It aroused her to no end, that scorching, desperate kiss, but tears burned her eyelids as well.

“Ian, I’m all right,” she muttered raggedly a moment later against his mouth.

“No thanks to me. I shouldn’t have taken you with me, today,” he said grimly, backing away from her slightly, but keeping his groin pressed against her belly, the fullness there like a silent reminder of what was to come. She wanted it, too. Needed it. They’d both come very close to ending up in a fiery wreck earlier.

“I was the one who talked you into letting me go. Neither one of us would have guessed that man would come have come from Chicago to Britain.”

“I
guessed it,” Ian said harshly. He untied her robe roughly and jerked the sides over her shoulders. Beneath the robe she wore a simple, thigh-high ivory silk gown. She gasped when Ian cupped a breast, shaping it to his palm. He hissed something she couldn’t quite make out, then pressed his forearm to her back. When he leaned down over her, she instinctively arched against the brace of his arm. He sucked on the tip of her breast straight through the silk, his warm tongue rubbing the wet fabric erotically against the nipple, demanding that her flesh awaken to his call. Her sex tightened in answer. Francesca sensed the depth of his almost rabid need. He lifted his head a moment later when she moaned in rising pleasure. His eyes looked a little wild.

“I love you so much.”

“I know,” she replied. And she did. How could she deny it, when she saw the truth of what he said reflecting in his eyes like fiery words?

“I’m going to spank you and then I’m going to have you again and again, until we’re both too exhausted to move.” He opened his hand along her jaw. “I’m going to fill you up with me. I’m going to take my fill of you, Francesca. Not that it will work. It never does. I always want more,” he said grimly, bending to take her mouth again in another kiss.

Chapter Eleven

H
eat rushed through her at his incendiary, erotic words. His voice still echoed in her head when he finally sealed their kiss.

“Are you going to spank me because I talked you into taking me into town with you?” she asked shakily.

“Maybe a little bit. But mostly I’m going to do it because I’ll love it. And you will, too.” She felt his cock swell next to her belly. He felt delicious and full and heavy.

“All right,” she conceded, excitement starting to bubble inside her. Maybe it was the idea of danger hovering, maybe it was the knowledge—no matter how remote—that they could be separated at any moment. Ian might leave, true, but they were also only human. Life was cruel at times, and random . . . and so was death. But they were here together now, both of them teeming with life and lust and love. She would grab this moment with him, squeeze it for all it was worth.

“Come here,” Ian said, taking her hand. She looked over at him in confusion when he led her to a stretch of blank wall between an antique chest and an elaborate oil painting of a man on a white horse in sixteenth-century garb. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

She watched him go into his closet, just as he had last night to get the belt. The skin on her bottom seemed to prickle in anticipation. Her clit did the same. When he came out of the closet, however, he wasn’t carrying a belt, but instead a wooden paddle. Her eyes widened as he neared her.

“I thought you didn’t have any things like that here,” she said, eyes fixed on the paddle. At first glance, it looked like the paddles he had used on her in the past, but it wasn’t. It was flat on one side and slightly convex on the other, an elevated ridge running down the middle of it. The paddle portion was about a foot long and three or four inches wide, not including the handle with a leather carrying loop attached on the end.

“I was thinking about how to improvise,” Ian said with a small smile. Her breath stuck in her lungs when he removed a silver cuff link from his sleeve, slipped it into his pocket and began to roll back the sleeve on the arm that held the paddle. He flipped the paddle, holding it up for her inspection. “It’s a miniature cricket bat. In fact, it’s the first one Grandfather bought me when I came to Belford as a boy. I uncovered it in a cabinet in the billiards room earlier today. Well, in fact I was searching for it.”

“With no intention of playing cricket whatsoever,” she said, amusement mingling with her arousal.

“I played regularly in school,” Ian told her with a smoky look as he transferred the paddle to his other hand and fleetly removed his other cuff link. She licked her lower lip distractedly at the vision of him rolling back the white shirtsleeve and revealing another strong, hair-sprinkled forearm. She could see the outline of his cock quite well in his trousers. It’d been trapped by his boxer briefs in an upward slanted position pointing toward his left pocket, the fat, tapered head delineated even through the fabric. Her mouth watered with a sudden acute desire to feel him plunging in her mouth. “I’m quite good at it, you know, handling the bat,” he said, stepping toward her, the paddle now firmly in his right hand.

“I’m sure you are,” she said, looking at him with mounting lust spiked with just a hint of wariness. She lowered her gaze to the paddle. He held it up.

“It’s very light. They’re made of willow,” he said huskily. “Touch it.”

She swallowed thickly and ran her fingers over the tool he intended for her punishment. It was lightweight.

“It will sting.” She said her thought out loud, shakily.

“I believe it will, yes. I’ve never used it to this purpose. Be sure and keep me apprised of how it feels,” he said, his small grin a little wicked, walking behind her. She gasped in excitement when he pressed the paddle to her ass and circled it against her buttocks through her gown and underwear. For an erotic moment, she just stood there while he ran the paddle over her prickling flesh softly.

“Drop the gown,” he said thickly after a moment as he slid the paddle over the bottom curve of her cheeks and rubbed, now lasciviously.

She whisked the spaghetti straps of the gown over her shoulders and down over her breasts. The garment pooled around her waist. Ian continued to lewdly rub her ass with the paddle, but helped her, sending his fingers beneath the fabric from the back and pushing the gown over her hips. He lifted the paddle and the silk slipped down her legs, pooling at her ankles. He walked in front of her to the blank stretch of wall.

“Come over here,” he demanded quietly.

She stepped out of the gown and the slippers she’d been wearing and approached him clad only in a pair of sheer lace panties. His gaze was on her breasts, belly, and mons, making her nipples stiffen and her clit swell and ache.

“Put your hands above your head and lean against the wall,” he instructed, stepping aside to give her space, his arm bent, the rim of the paddle resting casually against his shoulder in what looked to be a familiar pose from his cricket days. A whole history of naughty references about Englishmen and spankings flashed through her brain, making her hide a smile. It aroused her, though, the idea of having her bottom smacked by the cricket bat . . . by the idea of having her ass spanked by the sexiest Englishman in existence.

That aroused her
very
much, she admitted, as she started to take the position, her head turned, gaze glued to Ian. He put his hand on the sensitive side of her ribs and she wondered if he felt the way her heart was pounding.

“No, lovely, don’t bend over yet. Just lean against the wall. Put your feet behind the rest of your body. There. Perfect,” he growled softly next to her ear. When she’d settled, her feet were about two feet away from the baseboard, her hands were above her head, her forearms bracing her weight, her breasts heaving six inches from the wall. She wasn’t bent at the waist, but instead in sort of a vertical slant against the wall.

Ian moved behind her. She couldn’t see him without straining around to look. She knew from experience he wouldn’t like it if she gave in to her curiosity. He always said her eyes undid him. Instead, she stared fixedly at the blank wall and forced air into her lungs.

He slid his fingers beneath the waistband of her underwear and lowered them down over her ass to midthigh. She started to move in order to assist him in removing the garment, but he stopped her.

“No. Spread your thighs wider.”

She did what he said, stopping when Ian said, “There.” When she’d opened her thighs, the lace panties had stretched tight between them. She heard Ian grunt softly in male satisfaction and thought he must have appreciated the image of her lowered panties remaining on her thighs.
Lech,
she thought, smiling to herself. In fact, the thought of arousing him from such a small thing pleased her inordinately.

She sensed him standing just behind and beside her, her breath hitching when he pressed the cricket paddle to her bare bottom. At the same moment, his other hand caressed the side of her body, skimming her hip, waist, ribs, and breast. She shivered, the power of his stroking hand amplified by the threat of the paddle against her ass. Waiting for the first stroke was always almost unbearably exciting for her.

“We can talk more about your safety in the next several days, but in the meantime,” he said, still caressing her, “promise me you’ll be excessively careful.”

“You were in the car, too. You promise
me
to be careful.”

He pressed the paddle tighter into her ass cheeks.

“Yes, I promise,” she said shakily.

“Then I promise, too,” he said. He lifted the paddle.
Smack.
She moaned at the quick flash of pain followed by the familiar burn and prickles of arousal.

“Too much?” he asked, rubbing her ass with his left hand.

“No.”

“It’s a whippy little thing,” Ian said. She bit her lip to cut off a whimper as he continued to soothe her bottom. She knew what he meant. The willow paddle
was
light and whippy, ideal for making the surface area of skin sting without causing any real harm.

He paddled her with it again. She whimpered at the burn.
Smack, Smack
. He paused to soothe her. “Yes, that’s warming you up nicely,” he said, palming a cheek and running his thick forefinger along her crack.

Liquid warmth trickled from her slit. She made a muffled sound of arousal in her throat when he suddenly inserted the paddle between her thighs and pressed it against her sex. Her eyes sprang wide.

“Oh!” she muttered in surprise.

“Good?” he murmured, subtly moving the paddle, stimulating her clit.

“Yes,”
she hissed, curling her hands in fists against the wall. She ground her teeth together, her hips shifting, grinding her sex down, riding the bat.

“Hmmm,” Ian growled next to her. She sensed his focus . . . his rising arousal. “I think I’ll just have to take this with me when I go. The ridge in the middle of the back of the bat fits nicely between your lips, doesn’t it?” he asked, referring to the slightly convex shape of the back of the paddle and how it burrowed ideally between her labia.

Her answer was an aroused moan. But then the paddle was gone and landing yet again, biting at the bottom curve of her ass cheeks, the sound of it striking flesh ringing sharply in her ears. He paused, letting her recover from the sting. This time instead of massaging her ass with his hand, he stroked her hip and belly, enlivening her nerves. She shut her eyes tight, her vagina contracting with a pang of lust, when he filled his hand with a breast. He stepped closer, bracketing her hip with his thighs, and pressed his cock against her. He placed the flat end of the paddle on her other hip and pressed, sandwiching her ass between it and his erection. She moaned in a rising fever as he gently pinched an aching nipple, turning it into a tight, hard, exquisitely sensitive point.

He lifted the paddle and spanked her with it several times. She felt his cock jump next to her hip every time he landed a blow.

“Do you remember the first time I paddled you?” he asked roughly, pressing the paddle into her ass cheeks. Her bottom was starting to burn in earnest. Her clit sizzled, plaguing her. She longed to stanch the ache with her hand.

“Yes,” she replied thickly. How could she forget it? She’d been stunned by what he’d said he wanted to do to her . . . shocked that she’d allowed him to do it . . .

Incredibly aroused by the idea of submitting to him sexually.

He finessed her nipple with his fingers, making her grit her teeth in sharp arousal.

“I wanted so much to just to fuck you raw. I nearly did it, too, you were beyond beautiful. I’d never had unprotected sex before that moment, and I nearly gave in. You submitted so sweetly. I couldn’t comprehend your trust in me. I still don’t.”

She clamped her eyes tighter, moved by his rough honesty.

“Some part of me understood you, even then, in the beginning,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “You used to make me so nervous, and yet . . . you
didn’t
. I knew I belonged with you. I knew
we
belonged. Being with you was like . . . finding home,” she added brokenly.

“Yes,” she heard him say after a pause. “And how I deserved it, I’ve never figured out.”

“You don’t have to figure it out, Ian. Just believe.”

He grunted softly, backing away from her and removing the paddle. She whimpered at the loss of his solid heat, but remained in position, fighting her emotional upheaval, not to mention her curiosity as to what he was doing. She bit her lip at the sound of his zipper lowering, stifling a shaky moan of anticipation. A moment later, she felt his legs brush the back of her calves.

“Brace yourself against the wall and bend over. I didn’t fuck you then, but I certainly will now. Because I can . . . and because you
are
mine, no matter what happens.”

She swallowed to ease the congestion in her throat at the sound of his stark dominance mixing with the hollow sound of the acceptance of his fate. It seemed ridiculous to deny what he said. Even if he left her for good, part of her would always reside in him, and he would forever be in her heart. Her blood. Her spirit.

She repositioned herself, her hands pressed against the wall, bending at the waist, her panties still stretched tightly between her spread thighs. She felt the hard, tapered head of his penis probe between her thighs, finding her slit. He firmed his hold on her hips.

She cried out when he entered her completely, slapping his pelvis against her ass. He still wore his clothing, having just unfastened his pants and lifted his cock free. She could feel part of his exposed, round testicles along with the fabric of underwear pressing against her outer sex. He paused at the sound of her cry, fully sheathed in her, throbbing at her core.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She gave a muffled assent. He transferred one hand to her clit, rubbing her firmly with the ridge of his forefinger. She glanced down between her legs and saw the cricket paddle suspended in the air. He’d looped the leather cord around his wrist. For some reason, the vision of the paddle swinging beneath her as Ian rubbed her clit sent a thrill of excitement through her. She mewled in pleasure and pulsed her hips.

“You’re still sore from last night, aren’t you?” he asked knowingly.

“A little,” she admitted, although what he was doing to her felt so good, she was quickly forgetting the slight discomfort of harboring his large, erect cock so deep, so suddenly. He stayed completely still for the next moment. It was she who began to bob her ass against him, burning against his circling, pressing finger, fucking his cock several inches back and forth and getting the delicious pressure she required. He said nothing, either, but she felt his tension mounting behind her as he caressed her ass with one hand and set her on fire with his other, and she pumped on his cock, her moans and whimpers and the occasional smack of her ass against his pelvis on a forceful backstroke interrupting the silence. When it became clear as day that she was no longer uncomfortable, but very aroused, he gripped her hips, immobilizing her. The paddle tapped gently against her thigh where it fell. His hand moved between them, readjusting his underwear beneath his balls.