When I'm With You: Part Eight: When We Are One Read online

  Elise inhaled the fresh breeze, praying for inspiration. Insight.

  There’s a difference between asking and begging. There is no desperation in asking—only courage.

  The words Lucien had once spoken to her on this very terrace beneath a midnight-blue, star-studded sky echoed around her brain. Was she perhaps being a coward by leaving? Was she giving up too early, without giving herself the opportunity to speak to Lucien . . . to ask for his forgiveness?

  Was she still being impulsive, even if she wasn’t being selfish?

  “You’re not leaving.”

  Elise jumped in alarm at the sound of the familiar quiet yet determined voice.

  She spun around, her eyes wide. He stood not ten feet away, wearing a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, his scarlet button-down shirt flapping slightly in the wind around his lean torso. Stubble surrounded his usually neat goatee, his cheekbones looked more prominent than usual, and there were shadows beneath his eyes.

  Yet he’d never looked more beautiful to her.

  “Lucien,” she mouthed.

  “Why are none of your things in the penthouse?” he asked, his face rigid, his eyes blazing as he stepped toward her.

  “Because they’ve been sent on to Denise’s. She’s said I could live with her while I finished with my stage. That is”—she licked her lower lip nervously—“if you allow me to finish my training at Fusion.”

  “Why wouldn’t I allow you to finish your training at Fusion?” he asked, his nostrils flaring slightly, his eyebrows slanting in a dangerous expression.

  Elise shrugged and gave a desperate, gasping laugh. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I betrayed your trust, and made you tell Ian Noble the truth before you were ready? Maybe because it blew up in not only my face but Ian’s and Francesca’s? Maybe because as usual, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and screwed everything up. Even if I never mean to harm, it seems I’m fated to do it inadvertently.”

  He gave her a long, searching look and shook his head slightly, casting a wild glance to the lake.

  “You didn’t do anything that isn’t in your character, Elise. It was me who shouldn’t have kept you in the dark. If I had opened up in the beginning about why I was in Chicago . . . well. Things would have been different.”

  A car horn beeped in the far distance. The wind rushed past her ears.

  “Why didn’t you?” she asked, not at all certain she wanted to know the answer. “Is it because you didn’t trust me with the truth? Did you think I was going to hold it over your head somehow or maybe . . . blurt it out the way I did?” she finished hopelessly. “You ended up being right about that.”

  “No,” he said scornfully. “That’s not it. At least that hasn’t been a concern for a long time now. And besides, you didn’t blurt anything out. You may have set the stage, but I was the one who decided to tell Ian the truth that night in his office. You didn’t force me into anything. It just seemed . . . fated or something, me telling him at that moment. I’m not the only one who has said so. Ian mentioned something about it as well.”

  “He must hate me, for bringing it all to the surface when he was so vulnerable.”

  Lucien shook his head. “He doesn’t. Not in the least. He told me that the whole experience had an uncanny feeling for him, as if he’d been waiting for a good part of his life for that moment. He dreaded it, but he longed to know the truth about his origins. About himself.”

  She just stared at him, speechless.

  “I thought you were angry. When I apologized and said I didn’t do it on purpose, you said, ‘Of course not. You never do.’”

  His brows slanted as if he tried to recall exactly what she meant. “I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

  “What?” she asked, bewildered.

  He closed his eyes briefly and exhaled. “I know I was distracted. Ian was a wreck and he wasn’t far away while we spoke. I only meant that while it’s in your nature to speak from the heart, I know you never intend to harm. You’re very kindhearted as a rule. I know you aren’t capricious. You’re never more yourself than when you speak the truth.”

  “Oh,” she said, eyes going wide and warmth flooding through her. She recalled Francesca saying something similar about her motivations. It seemed too good to be true that Lucien had felt similarly. “Capricious, no—foolish at times, perhaps.”

  He shook his head. “No. I felt it too that night. It happens sometimes in life, when you feel a moment unfolding and you see your path clearly, when you understand that the time has come. That’s how I felt that night when Ian got that phone call. As I said, Ian felt the same way.”

  She recalled the random thought she’d had that night that Ian seemed like a dream walker.

  “Is he all right?” she asked after a moment.

  Lucien shrugged, his expression bleak. “He says he is, but to be honest, I think he’s wretched. I wish I understood what’s going on in that brilliant brain of his. He shares very little of himself. You can imagine how surprised his grandparents and I were when he suddenly declared he was leaving for Germany on a matter of business.”

  “Francesca is worried sick,” Elise said.

  His hooded glance gave her a sinking feeling. Oh no. Francesca had a right to be worried.

  She studied every detail of his face. It seemed so amazing he was standing there when she’d just been longing for him with all her heart and soul that it was hard to think about anything else. For a moment, they just looked their fill of one another. She eventually swallowed thickly. “Lucien, if it’s true that you didn’t keep the truth from me because you didn’t trust me, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Again, he glanced out at the lake, his eyes looking brilliant from the muted light.

  “Don’t you know?”

  She shook her head. Elise sensed how uncomfortable he was . . . how much he was struggling.

  “I didn’t know until I stood there in Ian’s office how much I’ve been avoiding telling him because I didn’t want to share the pain. The burden. The shame,” he added after a pause.

  “Of what would you be ashamed? You never did anything,” she said heatedly. “Neither did Ian. It was that man . . . that Gaines. He’s the one at fault! Not you.”

  His eyes were bleak. “You don’t know what it’s like . . . to carry the knowledge of your father’s sickness. His depravity. You can’t escape it. It’s in your very blood. You can’t purge it.” He gave a harsh laugh. “You can imagine how stupid I felt, trying to find a place where I belonged . . . a family where I fit in . . . wanting to escape the shame of Adrien’s crimes and my mother’s self-involvement . . . only to discover my biological father’s sins were a thousand times more heinous than anything my adoptive parents could engineer.”

  “Lucien,” she whispered feelingly. “You are your own man.”

  A small smile pulled at his lips. “I know. Thanks to you, I have coached myself in that concept for years now. I think it’s been my saving grace. As terrible of a blow as it was for me to find out about Trevor Gaines, I think it might have been a thousand times worse for Ian, without the inoculation you and I had.” He gave her a soulful glance. “You and I had struggled on that path before. We both had to do battle with the idea that we chose our own destiny, that our parents didn’t determine who we are.”

  “There has never been another person I’ve ever met in my whole life who is as unique as you.”

  His jaw went tight. He stepped toward her at the same moment she stepped toward him, and then she was in his arms, her cheek pressed to his chest, inhaling his scent. It truly was a miracle, being in his embrace.

  “It really is like holding on to sunlight, hugging you,” he said gruffly near her ear. “You make the shadows fly.”

  “Why have you been so cold since you went away?” she asked in a muffled voice near his chest after she’d quieted the surge of emotion she experienced at his words.

  “When I called once I’d reached London, I was cautious. Uncertain. And
you sounded so distant. I wondered if I was correct, to worry about telling you.”

  “You worried about telling me about Gaines?”

  “Everything I said earlier about doubting myself in regard to telling Ian, I worried about a thousand times worse with you. I wanted to . . . but it seemed like such a toxic thing to spill. That secret along with my mission to find my mother has kept me from intimacy for years now. It never plagued me more than it did with you.”

  His naked pain flipped a switch in her. She hugged him tighter, like she thought her embrace truly could keep him safe from all the shadows in his life.

  “I’m sorry for not telling you the truth,” he said. “You must think I’m a hypocrite, for always encouraging you to be honest.”

  She shook her head against his chest. “No, I understand. You’d held on to that painful truth for so long. No . . . you’d contained it inside you. It’s natural that you would worry about loosing it onto the world, onto people you care about. And as for the other, you were right to encourage me to speak the truth. We both know it. I’d lived a life of lies and provocations and manipulations for too long. You gave me the limit I needed. You knew very well I would have done just about anything—risked anything—for you, including learning a little self-restraint and loads of self-respect,” she said in a strangled voice.

  She inhaled, trying to breathe past the constricting band around her chest, and looked into his face.

  “I love you. How’s that for honesty? How’s that for a risk?” she asked, laughing, a tear skittering down her cheek. “How’s that for trusting in myself?”

  His expression flattened; his nostrils flared. He abruptly seized her mouth with his own . . . and Elise was submerged in the truth, swimming in it, and she’d never felt so less afraid of drowning.

  “Do you mind?” he asked hoarsely a moment later when he bent and hooked the backs of her legs with his forearm, and he was carrying her toward the stairs, his gaze fiery.

  “I’d mind if you didn’t,” she whispered next to this throat.

  * * *

  Minutes later, they lay naked on the bed together, Lucien on top, their bellies heaving together. He’d pinned her wrists above her head, his gaze never leaving her face as he slid his cock into her, and they fused. She shuddered. The sensation was poignant . . . powerful . . . as sharp as a knife blade. He remained motionless, poised on the sharp edge of desire, relishing it, wanting it to end in crashing, delicious pleasure and wanting it to last forever.

  Wanting to stay one with her forever.

  “I love you,” he said, emotion and raw desire making his voice harsher than he intended. “I think I’ve always loved you. Not in the way I do now, but still . . . you have always been in my heart. You are the heart of me, Elise.”

  She stared up at him, rapt, and he was struck anew by her luminous spirit.

  “Tell me what you need.”

  “I need you,” she whispered.

  His cock throbbed unbearably in her clasping sheath. He tightened his hold on her wrists and moved. They both gasped at the sharp pleasure. He stilled again, determined to make the moment last. He opened his eyes and met her stare. He palmed her jaw, wondering yet again at the softness of her skin. He would draw this out . . . stay perched on this exquisite cliff of pleasure for hours, keeping them tied together for as long as God would allow a mere mortal man.

  She squeezed him with her vaginal muscles and he winced in pleasure, groaning and stroking her even though he hadn’t meant to. She tempted him so sorely . . .

  “I will never teach you discipline,” he rasped, fucking her with long, forceful strokes. “It was a losing battle from day one.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You are not. And neither am I. I wouldn’t have you any other way,” he managed before he took them higher, and all rational thought was forgotten.

  * * *

  Afterward, they lay as close as two people can get, their breath slowing together until it blended into a lazy, hypnotic synchrony, his penis still inside her. He felt her warm, soft body jump slightly beneath him and lifted his head to study her startled, perspiration-sheened features.

  “What of your mother? Francesca told me that Helen was able to give you her name before she passed away. I thought you’d leave immediately for Morocco to find her!”

  He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “A day or two isn’t going to make a difference after all this time. Besides, I had other family to attend to.”

  Her elegant throat convulsed. “Me?” she asked incredulously.

  He smiled down at her. “If there’s one thing that all of this has taught us, surely it’s that we choose our families. Blood doesn’t determine a family. Legal arrangement doesn’t either, not necessarily. We were loners apart, but together . . . yes, we’re a family, you and I. Or we can be.”

  “I had no idea you would ever feel that way,” she said, wonder tingeing her tone. When she noticed his upraised brows, she said in a rush, “Of course I want to be your family. And of course you’re mine. But . . . when did you realize?”

  “It’s been coming upon me slowly, but I think I even knew it, deep down, ever since that day you blazed into Fusion, insisting you were my new chef. I knew you were a risk to my mission here in Chicago, but I couldn’t resist,” he said, smiling wider at the memory. He shook his head. “What balls you have, for a tiny little woman.”

  “I’m not tiny,” she refuted. Her frown melted away. “What do you mean, you felt that way ever since that day?”

  He shrugged, his expression sobering as he looked down at her. “Just that I realized for the first time that I couldn’t walk away from you again, especially when you’d strutted back into my life, practically grinding the red flag up my nose. If you could risk it so flagrantly, then surely so could I.”

  “You made our relationship sound like it was going to be purely sexual . . . for the mutual gratification of needs,” she said, her scowl returning. But behind it, he sensed her dawning wonder.

  “Well, it’s certainly been that.”

  He laughed softly when he saw her wry expression. “It wasn’t always as clear to me as it is now. I’m speaking in retrospect. But I suspect part of me knew, even back then, because I took on the challenge of you, even knowing it might sacrifice my chance of other family. Ian and my biological mother,” he clarified when she gave him a puzzled look. “Besides, you didn’t trust me. I had to say something that would keep you tied to me.”

  “So you settled for tying me up in the sexual sense,” she said accusingly.

  He lightly kissed her mouth, and despite her pique, her lips caressed his back.

  “I really did need to teach you control, Elise. You would have burned me alive if I didn’t. You may still,” he admitted ruefully under his breath.

  She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes in pleasure when she scraped his scalp with her nails, and his cock quickened in her warm channel.

  “You were my own personal sac de nœuds,” he said, growling softly as she caressed him and his body tightened and hardened. Her hands stilled on his head. He opened his eyes.

  “You thought of me as a sack of knots?” she asked, sounding mildly offended.

  He flexed his hips, thrusting. She gasped.

  “Don’t worry, ma chère,” he rasped as he braced his upper body off her, withdrew, and stroked her again, deep and hard. He caught her soft moan with his skimming lips. “It’s a challenge I’m more than up to, and unfurling the mysteries of you will keep me busy—not to mention amply rewarded—for a lifetime.”

  You’ve met Lucien and Elise. Now meet Ian and Francesca in the sizzling

  Because You Are Mine . . .

  It’s at a cocktail party in her honour that she first meets him – and the attraction is immediate for graduate student Francesca Arno. It’s also bewildering. She’s not used to such a wholesale sexual response to a stranger. Enigmatic, darkly intense, with a commanding
presence, billionaire Ian Noble completely unnerves her. And she likes it.

  For Ian, Francesca is the kind of woman he can’t resist – one that comes all too rarely: a true innocent. But he can sense in her a desire to open up, to experiment, to give herself to the fantasies of a man in control. The first kiss, the first caress, the first challenge for a woman who craves what she’s never had – a man who gets what he wants . . .

  The full novel now available in paperback and ebook from Headline

  Wicked Burn

  Vic Savian knows what he wants when he sees it. And what he wants is his sexy neighbour, Niall Chandler. When he finds her in the hallway of their building being harassed by an aggressive suitor, Vic steps in – and finds himself greatly rewarded . . . Sleeping with her gorgeous neighbour – when she didn’t even know his last name – was the craziest thing Niall’s ever done. Now, she can’t seem to get enough of Vic, or what he stirs in her. Suddenly she’s exploring uninhibited pleasures she’s never known before. But when her past returns to haunt her, she and Vic are forced to venture beyond the pleasures of the flesh, and risk it all on something deeper, something found only in the heart.

  Available now from Headline Eternal Romance

  All it takes is . . . One Night of Passion . . .

  Have you read Beth Kery’s irresistibly sexy quartet?

  ADDICTED TO YOU

  Irish film director Rill Pierce fled to the tiny, backwoods town of Vulture’s Canyon, seeking sanctuary and solitude after a devastating tragedy. Katie Hughes, his best friend’s sister blazes into town determined to save him from himself. Instead, she finds herself unleashing years of pent-up passion. In a storm of hunger and need, Katie and Rill forget themselves and the world. But will Rill’s insatiable attraction to Katie heal his pain – or will it just feed the darkness within him?

  BOUND TO YOU

  John Corcoran loved the isolation of the Shawnee National Forest. Isolation is what movie star Jennifer Turner craved too, an escape that only a weekend away from Hollywood. Yesterday, they were strangers – until a fateful accident throws them together and plunges them into darkness. Now, as intimately close as a man and a woman can be, they find themselves alone. Only an unexpected passion will comfort them – a sensual experience from which neither is certain they want to be rescued.