Because We Belong

lubricated labia.

“We’re pretty much just like our sexes, don’t you think?” he asked, studying her face as he rubbed her slick, appreciative clit. “You’re delicate and tucked away. Deep and soft,” he muttered, pushing a thick finger into her pussy. “You’re an enigma—only giving your secrets away to the worthy.”

Her mouth had trembled in combined amusement and renewed arousal. “It’s no wonder I can’t keep any secrets from you then.”

He’d touched his small smile to hers and brushed his groin against her thigh. Despite his recent explosive orgasm, his cock was growing firm and full once again. “We men live much more on the surface.” He shifted his hips against her, making his re-arousal obvious. “No chance of hiding that, so why try? Can’t hide the single-minded, savage intent,” he said, his smile in his voice even though she couldn’t see it as he kissed her ear seductively and shivers coursed down her spine.

“Hmmm, hard to disguise the beast, no matter the finery,” she’d murmured with breathless humor as he kissed her cheeks and temple with increasing ardor. She squirmed beneath his hand, and as always, he firmly held her hips captive, stilling her. He slid another finger into her. She moaned and trembled as he took her mouth in a possessive kiss.

“You make disguising it a complete impossibility, Francesca,” he’d said against her lips a moment later. He’d rolled her onto her back and speared her with his cock in a movement that was both graceful and every bit as savage as he’d just suggested.

* * *

When she pulled herself out of the poignant, erotic memory, the book was spilled on the mattress, forgotten, her nightgown was up above her breasts and her hand was beneath her panties. She made a sound of ragged impatience and shoved the panties down her thighs.

It was no good. She burned, but her touch wasn’t adequate. It would make her come, but it wasn’t enough.

It was never enough.

Frustrated to the point of distraction, she rose from the now mussed bed and rushed to the dressing room, her cheeks hot and her nipples sensitive, the crests feeling abraded even by the soft silk of her gown. At the back of one of the drawers that Ian had designated as hers, she found what she wanted: a small, powerful vibrator. She’d hidden it amongst some of her lingerie before she’d vacated Ian’s residence.

Within a matter of seconds, she was back in bed, her thighs splayed wide, the vibrator humming as she pressed it to her clit.

Ian had used this very tool on her many times. Sometimes he used it on her while he spanked her over his knee, combining the sting of punishment with the pleasure of the vibrator to optimal effect. Oh God, she’d loved it when he bound her wrists and ordered her over his knee, how she was at his mercy as he caressed her naked body and swatted her ass until it burned. She could feel every nuance of the tension in his strong thighs and experience firsthand his arousal in that position—the leap of his cock when he landed a smack on the bottom curve of a buttock, the way he greedily squeezed her pinked ass and ground his erection against her.

And what he’d do to her when her punishment was finished and she was limp from wave after wave of orgasm . . .

He would make it clear she’d had more than her share of pleasure, and then it was time for his. He’d own her completely, fuck her until she had no choice but to explode again in the midst of his furious, white-hot possession.

It was too much to bear, this brutal, precise remembering, but she had to give in to it, just as she’d always eventually surrendered to him. She flipped the switch on the vibrator to a higher setting and felt the air licking at her wet pussy, her hips thrusting and circling greedily against the precise little instrument. She thrust a finger into her vagina and groaned wildly at the inadequacy of the penetration, wanting more, needing a thick, throbbing cock to fill her, agitate screaming nerves, force her soft flesh into total submission—

Needing Ian.

Damn him straight to hell.

She thrust another finger into the tight channel. Too long. It’d been too long since she’d been stretched and filled and possessed. She was so close . . . so close to relief. She withdrew her fingers to the tips and plunged back into the warm, clamping channel, rhythmically, imagining someone else pleasuring her.

You will come for me now, lovely.

So certain. So firm. She had no choice but to obey.

Knocking at the door shattered her fantasy.

She froze, gasping for air. Her pussy burned and throbbed with impending climax. Someone rapped firmly on the door to the suite once again. She arose from the bed rapidly, her legs feeling weak. She tossed the vibrator that glistened with her juices beneath the sheets and scurried toward the door.

“Who is it?” she asked, trying to disguise her breathless state. She pressed her hand against her pussy through the cloth of her gown and winced. She’d been on the very edge of climax. She ached for release.

“It’s Gerard. I’m sorry to bother you again. May I come in for a moment? I promise I won’t take long.”

She glanced down at her appearance in alarm.

“I’m sorry, I can’t right now, Gerard. I was getting ready for bed. I’m not dressed.”

“I can wait while you put something on,” he called through the door. “Please, Francesca. It’s important.”

She opened her mouth, but could think of no other protest. He’d shoved aside the only excuse her lust- impaired brain could supply.

“All right,” she said, flustered. “Give me a moment.”

A minute later, she opened the door and managed a weak smile.

“Come in,” she murmured, waving toward the seating area that took up half of the large main room of the suite.

“Thank you,” Gerard said, giving her an apologetic glance before he stepped over the threshold. Francesca closed the door, pausing to cinch the robe she wore tighter. She’d washed with soap and very cold water and waited for her breathing to even, but her skin still felt prickly and her cheeks warm. Was Gerard going to make interrupting her masturbation a habit?

It’s not his fault. It’s yours for being so stupid and relenting to your memories . . . to your need so easily.

She cleared her throat, banishing the thought, and followed Gerard to the seating area. She sat on a chair across from where he’d settled on the couch. He was dressed similarly as he had been last night, except tonight his pajama bottoms were black and his robe a deep blood red. He scraped his thick hair off his forehead with his fingers in an anxious gesture and studied her closely.

“Gerard? What is it? Is something wrong?”

“I’m fine. How are you doing?” he asked intently.

“Very well, thank you,” she said, laughing at his pressured, formal tone.

He smiled. “Considering the circumstances, I mean.”

“Yes. I know what you meant,” she conceded. Her polite, pointed glance told him she was ready to hear why he’d insisted upon talking to her.

“Again, forgive me for intruding. It’s just that’s it’s hard to talk to you with the others always there. Privately, I mean.” His gaze traveled over her face and ever so briefly lowered to the small patch of exposed skin at her chest above her closed robe.

Men know. Many of them anyway.

She shifted uneasily at the recollection of Ian’s words and the knowledge of what she’d been doing before Gerard arrived.

“Why do you need to speak to me alone?” she asked.

“It’s this proposed trip to Belford Hall, the painting commission—have you given Anne a certain answer about whether or not you agree to it?”

“Not entirely, no, even though she acts—”

“As if it’s a decided deal,” Gerard said with a dry smile. “Classic Anne, to operate as if her wishes were already reality. It works amazingly well for her. Usually.” She noticed a lock of waving hair had fallen appealingly