When I’m with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(40)
Author: Beth Kery

She vanquished her frown. “I accept.”

“Good. Just give me a moment to get things set for you.”

She murmured with pleasure a few minutes later when he led her into a large bedroom suite decorated with toasty brown shining antiques, beige walls, and decadently soft-looking ivory bed coverings and furniture. Silk and fine wool curtains draped elegantly from the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“It’s a far cry from the Cedar Home Hotel,” she murmured teasingly as she tossed her purse on the luxurious four-poster bed.

“I should hope so.” She glanced up curiously when he paused a few feet away from her. What would he do now?

“There are fresh towels in the bathroom. My maid comes on Saturdays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. If you have any special requests for food or other products, just leave her a note on the board in the kitchen. She shops on Tuesdays.”

“Okay,” Elise said uncertainly.

“I’ll say good night. It’s been a long day. I’d imagine you’re tired.”

“Lucien?” she called when he started to walk out of the room.

He turned.

“Thank you. I’ll . . . I’ll pay you back for this. Someday.”

“You’ll pay me back by being good.”

But I want to be bad.

For a panicked moment when he narrowed his gaze on her, she wondered if he was practicing his mind-reading tricks again.

A few hours later, Elise cautiously turned on the light in the sleek, modern kitchen and padded silently across the white alabaster marble floor.

“Yes,” she whispered triumphantly a moment later when she spied a pitcher of iced tea in the refrigerator.

After Lucien had left, she’d showered, read, and turned on the television in her suite and flipped distractedly through channels. Then—once she suspected Lucien slept—she had made a quick reconnaissance of the penthouse. It was larger than she’d thought, including a good-sized office, an elegant dining room, and a cozy, windowed breakfast area off the kitchen. She’d even discovered behind a closed door some stairs that led to a stunning private terrace on the roof of the building. The only room she didn’t peer into was Lucien’s, of course. She assumed his quarters were behind a closed, carved wood door at the end of the hallway. The door reminded her a little of the one that led to his office at Fusion.

So like Lucien, to possess so many thick, elaborate closed doors in his life, she mused as she found a glass and began to pour herself some tea. The better to keep his secrets.

“What are you doing?”

She splashed some tea on her wrist when she jerked her chin around. She stared, her mouth gaping open. He stood at the entrance to the kitchen, wearing a scowl, a pair of ivory drawstring pants that hung low on his hips, and nothing else.

Very clearly nothing else.

“I . . . I was just getting some tea,” she said, flustered by his unexpected appearance . . . by his appearance in general—the gleaming caramel-colored skin tightly gloving bulging muscle and cut, ridged abdomen. The ivory pajama bottoms set off his coloring to perfection. His chest was smooth, but there was a thin path of dark hair that began at his navel and disappeared beneath the waistband of his pajama bottoms. If she’d had to describe his physique with one word, she couldn’t decide if she’d say lean or muscular because he was both—all sleek, coiled, primal male power.

“It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”

“I know. I’m a night owl. I had trouble sleeping—I always have,” she admitted when he just studied her with an incisive stare and didn’t comment for several seconds. “Lucien?” she prompted.

“You used to have problems sleeping, even when you were a child,” he said, as though he’d just remembered. “Your parents never gave you a bedtime. You were a law unto yourself in the nighttime hours, if I recall correctly.”

She smiled and continued pouring her tea. “You used to be surprised that I would wait for you to come home.”

“I’d come home from a night at the casinos in Monte Carlo in the early morning hours and find you curled up with a book in the parlor.”

“I was just making sure you got home all right,” she said, putting the pitcher back into the refrigerator. “I was quite jealous, you know. Of Monte.”

“Of my gambling?”

“No,” she said, picking up her glass. “Of the women who got to accompany you.” She gasped in surprise when he approached her in two long strides and took the glass of tea from her hand. She watched in amazement as he matter-of-factly poured it down the sink. He glanced back and noticed her dumbfounded expression. He took her into his arms and she just looked up at him in amazement.

“It’s not decaffeinated.”

“What’s that got to do with anything? I never drink decaffeinated tea.”

He smiled as he looked down at her face. “It’s time you started then, isn’t it?” he asked gently. “Do you want some water?” he offered politely. She shook her head, too confused to speak. He took her hand and pulled her out of the kitchen.

“Lucien? What are you doing?” she asked when he led her into the room he’d designated as hers.

He paused next to her bed, her hand still held fast in his.

“Take off your clothes and get into bed, belly down.”

She swallowed at the sound of his low, sexy voice. “Why?”

“I’m going to help you sleep. I can do it a fair bit better than that caffeinated iced tea would have.”

He just stared at her following this disconcerting comment. She didn’t know how to respond.

“You said you’d accept my rules. This is the chance to prove it,” he said, his voice a quiet challenge. “Now, take off your clothes.”

“All of them? Even the panties?” she asked a moment later as she peeled off her T-shirt.

“Yes.”

For the second time that evening, she stripped in front of him, highly conscious of his stare on her.

“Are you going to spank me?” she asked shrilly as she drew her yoga pants down her thighs.

“No. I told you. I’m putting you to bed, in a very adult way.”

She stood before him, naked and self-conscious, but he was busy drawing down the comforter and sheets. He waved at the bed. “Belly down, your hands above your head,” he said. “Lie in the middle,” he prompted when she sat at the edge of the bed. When she lay prone with her face in the pillow, he grasped one of her wrists. She jerked her head up and yelped in surprise when she felt him loop something over her hand. It was a thick black cloth cuff. He tightened it around her wrist. She pulled slightly and realized it was attached to a strap that appeared to be affixed somehow to the corner post.