He jerked and swelled inside her. He released one calf, reaching between her legs, his thumb finding her clit.
“Ooh,” she mewled, her eyes springing wide as he rubbed the burning piece of flesh. Her ass tightened around him and he snarled.
“Tell me,” he said.
“I love you,” she gasped, shuddering in orgasm. He grunted and his cock convulsed as he began to climax.
“Always,” he grated out, jerking his hips, fucking her even as he came.
Chapter Sixteen
Francesca laughed softly after they showered together, incredulous and touched at the fact that Ian was truly worried about her sleeping in the bed.
“Ian, it’ll be fine,” she insisted, capturing his hand in the motion of spreading more towels and even some of his clean shirts on the mattress.
He scowled. “This place is disgusting. I really don’t want to think about what might live in that mattress.”
“You lived here all the time you were gone, right?” she asked, crawling onto the large bed. When she settled, her cheek pressed against one of Ian’s casual shirts on the pillow. She inhaled the familiar scent of freshly laundered cotton. It was nice, even nicer when he crawled into bed next to her and flipped the sheet over them.
“Yeah,” he replied, laying down on his side and facing her.
“You never got bit by anything, did you?” she asked, smiling as her gaze ran over his face. Her heart seemed to swell in her breast. He was so beautiful to her.
“I might have. To be honest, I was so numb, I wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Are you going to grow a beard?” she asked, running her fingertips over his jaw.
“I don’t know.” He noticed her quirked eyebrows. “I never really think about things like grooming or bedbugs while I’m here.”
“You just thought about understanding Trevor Gaines better.”
She swallowed thickly when his gaze flashed up to meet hers. She sensed his caution.
“What will you do with all the information you gather about him?” Francesca asked.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled, catching her stroking hand and planting a kiss in the center of her palm. She wasn’t put off. She placed her hand back on his jaw. He glanced up at her, seeing the question remain in her eyes.
“I thought I could write it all down in some kind of organized way. Try to make sense of it all.”
“You mean, like write a book?”
“Not really. Just a compilation of facts,” he said, flipping onto his back and staring up at the canopy. She suspected she was making him uncomfortable, but sensed he wasn’t fully retreating from her. She waited patiently. “Not anything to be published. Just for me. And for . . .” He shrugged.
“What?”
“For anyone else who wanted to read it,” he rasped after a moment.
Her neck prickled with awareness. She propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at his face. “You mean like Trevor Gaines’s other children?” she asked quietly.
His gaze flickered over her. “Yes. Like Kam and Lucien, or whoever might turn up. It might help us all. To understand . . . even if the picture is ugly. It would be complete. As complete as it can be anyway.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. A full feeling grew in her chest.
“I think it’s a good idea,” she said after a moment.
“You do?” He looked surprised.
She nodded, holding his stare. “Will you promise me one thing?”
“I’ll try.”
“That you’ll do other things besides this? Work and spend time with your family and
His nostrils flared slightly. “Yes. All right.”
She heaved a sigh of relief and placed her cheek on his chest. His arm curled around her and he ran his fingers through her hair.
“And I’m going to help you,” she said, growing drowsy.
“Who says?”
“Me,” she whispered, turning her face and kissing his chest. “This isn’t just about you seeing Trevor Gaines more clearly so you can get him out of your system. It’s about throwing some light into the darkness, taking away some of the power of the ugly things that hide out in there. Finding out what you can and writing it all down will help you to do that. I see that now. And I’m going to help you.”
He grunted, but he didn’t argue. He just continued to move his fingers in her hair until she fell into a deep, contented sleep.
She awoke some time later to the sound of the bedroom door opening, the sound secretive. Eerie. The room was pitch-black. Ian had turned out the bedside lamp after she’d fallen asleep. She had the impression she’d been asleep for hours.
“Ian,” she whispered, running her hand over his chest, her neck prickling with anxiety. He stirred next to her, and panic took the place of her drowsy unease. Ian was definitely in bed next to her. So who had entered the room?
Suddenly the room was flooded with light from the overhead fixture. Francesca blinked in shock at what she saw. Gerard stood just inside the door wearing a dark overcoat and gloves. There was a leather briefcase hanging from his shoulder.
There was a gun in his hand.
“So sorry to interrupt your sleep,” he said, smiling. He came closer to the bed, the weapon trained on Ian.
Chapter Seventeen
Ian rose slowly in the bed, his arms bracing his upper body.
“Ah ah,” Gerard said, waving the gun in his direction. “Stay completely still, please. I’m afraid Mr. Lenault has sustained a serious head injury and is out cold. No one will help you if you try anything. I’m not afraid to use this on you, Ian. In fact,” he paused, his smile widening. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Gerard, what are you doing?” Francesca asked, still stunned at the vision of him in the bedroom at Aurore, and completely unable to compute the fact that he held a gun and had it pointed at Ian’s head.
Gerard gave her a sympathetic glance. When his gaze traveled down over her bare shoulders and the tops of her breasts, however, she shrank back, gathering the sheet at her throat and turning her body in the direction of Ian.
“I actually came for you, Francesca. There was something I discovered completely by accident recently. It alarmed me, especially after what I told you this morning about my concerns for Ian’s sanity,” he said, setting the briefcase on a chair side table. He kept the gun pointed at Ian even as he withdrew a slim computer from the case and flipped open the lid.
“What are you talking about?” Ian growled. Francesca slowly realized that he was drawn tight as a drumhead next to her. She glanced into his face as he stared at Gerard, tracking his movement. More shivers than she’d ever experienced in her life cascaded down her entire body, making her shudder. Ian was looking at Gerard with the type of loathing reserved only for mortal enemies.
“Just this,” Gerard said, tapping his finger on the keyboard, his gaze flickering back and forth rapidly
