When You Defy Me (When I'm With You Part 2) (3 page)

He was as horny as a servicing bull. He’d been heavy and aching all afternoon—ever since he’d punished Elise. Pounding in
the saddle during the match had only magnified the tight, uncomfortable pressure in his balls. The memory of Elise bending
over his desk, of warming the satiny smooth skin of her bare ass with his slapping hand, plagued him.

He always got worked up after a match, granted. It’d become a tradition for him since he’d first started playing polo as
a teenager to have sex after time spent in the saddle. The aggressive, intense game had always primed him for play with a
woman.

But tonight was unprecedented in his experience. He was coiled tight with sexual energy, but for once he had nowhere to spend
his tension. He cupped his heavy balls through his pants and slid his hand along the rigid length of his shaft.

Lust rode him ruthlessly in that moment. The memory of Elise did. With an inevitable sense of resignation, he set down the
snifter and walked to his bedroom suite. His fingers moved fleetly over his shirt buttons. Instead of removing the garment
all the way, he merely opened the sides wide, baring his chest and belly. In the bedside drawer, he found a bottle of lubricant.
He unfastened and lowered his pants, scooping his erection out from the confines of his boxer briefs, shoving the elasticized
band beneath his heavy balls.

God
he ached.

Hastily, he poured some of the lubrication into his hand and rubbed the silky liquid onto his straining cock. He clamped
his eyelids closed at the friction against overly sensitive flesh. He let go of restraint, and the floodgates of fantasy opened.
Parting his legs and finding a stable stance, he gave in to primal lust, jacking his cock with a combination of precision
and forceful, savage abandon.

What would it be like, to see Elise’s dark pink, lush lips stretched around his girth, to see his straining cock plunging
into her tight, humid depths while she looked up at him, the rebellion in her eyes trumped by desire, her gaze giving him
permission to use and debauch her a little. Sweet, beautiful Elise . . .

Her eyes had always slain him.

He stood there before the floor-to-ceiling window and pounded the staff of his cock. His eyelids flickered open. The golden
glow from the lamp provided a blurry reflection of his image. His chest and abdomen muscles flexed tight and hard, his cock
looking enormous in his pumping hand.

But he was alone.

The image of Elise’s shining, sapphire eyes as she’d turned and reached for his pants earlier in his office rose to haunt
him.

He paused, prickly and edgy with unsatisfied lust. His hand wasn’t what he wanted, but it was all he had. He would not jump
into the flames with Elise immediately and wholesale. She would burn him to a husk.

He resumed jacking himself, groaning in undeniable pleasure. Masturbation, when all he wanted was to fuck Elise without mercy
until he felt her shudders of pleasure and submission vibrate into his flesh.

Damn those bright eyes, the pink lips, the tight, lush curves that fit his hand perfectly. She lit up a room when she walked
into it. She was so small, but so perfect. Her pussy would fit him like a second skin. To restrain her would be so satisfying.
He would punish her for weakening him and then take her relentlessly, spend himself . . . empty himself of this tight, ball-aching,
plaguing desire.

Leap into her flame and gloriously burn.

He grunted gutturally as warm semen spurted onto his lower chest, his climax so sharp it verged on pain. He pumped without
mercy, milking every drop, ruthless in ridding himself of this unbearable tension.

His body shuddered one final time, his fist slowing on the shaft of his pulsing cock. Still panting, he cracked open his
eyelids. From the reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window, he saw that his chest and belly glistened from his abundant emissions.

He wished he could have given it all to her.

Impossibly, desire tickled at his balls and moist shaft.

“Damn you, Elise,” he muttered thickly, annoyed by his insatiable lust.

A heavy sense of the inevitable settled upon him as he used several tissues to mop himself dry. He stood next to the windows
and stared out at the descending night.

It was not an option, for him to be at her mercy. She was too skilled at playing a man, too perfectly suited to Lucien’s
lust. She was an unacceptable risk. An infuriating temptation. An undeniable delight.

No. He wouldn’t deny himself. Not this time.

The sun was just rising over the lake when Elise got off the bus on inner Lake Shore Drive and started walking west on Division
Street. The slow ascent of the fiery orb seemed to match the inevitable rise of her anxiety as she neared State and Division
. . . and Lucien. She’d seen little of him over the past few days as she was absorbed with her duties, and was nervous at
the idea of spending one on one time with him. If only he’d suggested she go with Evan or Javier, she might have been able
to disguise her relative ignorance on the topic of marketing. As things stood, she was bound to make a fool of herself in
front of Lucien.

She sensed him watching her from where he stood beneath a storefront awning, sipping a cup of coffee.

“Good morning,” he said when she approached. His gray eyes looked especially light in the shadow of the awning. They lowered
over her appreciatively.

“Hello,” she returned, feeling a little shy beneath his warm stare. He looked very sexy in a pair of well-fitted jeans and
a dark red T-shirt that showed off a lean, muscular torso and powerful arms to eye-catching effect. The casual apparel had
the effect of making him seem a tad more approachable but every bit as appealing, reminding Elise of a sexy rock star instead
of his typical businessman persona.

His T-shirt was partially tucked in to his jeans in the front, revealing a thick black leather belt with silver buckle that
rode low on his lean hips. She belatedly realized he was handing her a cup of coffee. Her cheeks heated. She’d been caught
in the act of staring at his thighs and the way his jeans cupped his sex.

“Thank you,” she murmured, grateful for the coffee at such an early hour. She immediately took a drink. Her eyes widened
in pleasure.

“Café crème,” she said, grinning. “You even remembered how I take it.”

His smile made something hitch in her chest. “I remembered that you took it practically with equal parts coffee, cream, and
sugar as a girl. Do you really still like it that sweet?” he teased.

She took another sip, her sigh of satisfaction his answer. He chuckled and put his hand on her elbow, urging her to walk.

“Did the cab drop you off in the wrong place?” he asked as they made their way toward the bustling outdoor market.

“What? Oh, no,” she said, realizing he’d probably seen her walking toward him from blocks away. “I took the bus.”

He blinked. “The bus?”

She dug into the pocket of her small backpack and pulled out a card. “My CTA pass. Do you have any idea how convenient these
things are? Between buses and the L, I can go anywhere in Chicago,” she said, the amazement in her voice genuine. Learning
to navigate around had been an oddly liberating experience for her, invigorating, to jump onto a vehicle and blend anonymously
with the vibrant flow of humanity, to become a single cell in the lifeblood of the city.

His eyes gleamed in amusement. “You hold it up like it’s a badge of honor.”

“It is.”

“
Étoile
would make quite the headline out of that,” he murmured, referring to the French tabloid she hated with a white-hot passion
for sensationalizing her life and using it as fodder to sell papers.
“Fair-Haired Heiress Caught Slumming It,”
he quoted an imagined headline.

“Screw
Étoile
,” she said succinctly. She hitched her chin at the crowd of people bustling around them, intent on their marketing in the
early morning light. “I’m willing to bet
they
don’t even know what
Étoile
is, and nor would they care. They could care less about who my father is. They’ve never gobbled up the slop about my supposed
love life. Most of them wouldn’t remember my mother’s movies—”

“Or have ever heard of my father’s name, let alone his crimes.”

She came to a halt, startled that he’d mentioned his father. He paused as well and touched her cheek, as if to erase her
amazed expression. Her breath caught at the unexpected, tender caress. His fingertips lingered, warm and firm against her
skin.

“We are both fugitives here, I think,” he murmured.

“I prefer to think of myself as an adventurer,” she replied in a hushed tone. His flashing smile was like an injection of
adrenaline straight into one of her veins.

“You look beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze lowering over the floral sundress she’d donned for the warm summer day.

“Thank you, but I’d rather just look like a chef.”

“An adventuresome chef?” he asked, looking amused and . . . warm. She smiled, fully enthralled.

The delicate, charmed moment fractured when he begun to dig in his jeans pocket, the motion distracting her. He withdrew
a wad of bills and handed them to her. “Just get a receipt for whatever you purchase, please.”

She nodded, eyeing the money with an appreciation she hadn’t possessed for most of her life. It took not having something
to really get the value of it. She’d learned that much in the past year.

She tucked the money carefully away in her backpack and they continued walking, Elise staring with interest at the colorful
vegetables and fruits and smiling at the vendors, suddenly feeling like a kid in a candy store. The smell of wild onion entered
her nose, then a delectable, sweet fragrance that she inhaled deeply. A farmer had sliced one of his melons. Her mouth watered
as they passed his booth.

You can do this, she told herself.

She’d been marketing with her fellow students and an instructor while at school, hadn’t she? Of course this was different.
Lucien was affording her the status of chef. She was in charge, she thought with a thrill of excitement.

“Do you have your list?” he asked.

Her eyes widened in panic as she stared at some brilliantly green Granny Smith apples. She was the chef. She should have
made a list.

“I don’t need a list. I’ve memorized the menu,” she said honestly. “And I’ll pick whatever is nicest and freshest for the
special next week.”

“All right,” he said. She sighed in relief that he seemed to have accepted her reply. She wanted to convince him of her expertise
at all costs. “We usually buy from Jim Goddard over there.” He pointed to a booth with a thickset, gray-haired man sitting
behind a table. “He’s got a way with heirloom lettuce and arugula, and his peppers are usually good. If you trust me to do
it, I’ll pick up the avocado and snow peas from Mort Sanger over there. I’ll rent a cart and bring it over when I’m finished.”

Elise glanced to the booth where he pointed a quarter of the way down the block. She longed to see, touch, and taste the
lovely produce there as well, but she thought it best to handle her bartering without Lucien coolly observing.

Twenty minutes later, she’d forgotten about her anxiety—and even Lucien, momentarily—as she chatted with Jim Goddard and
sank her teeth into a fleshy San Marzano tomato.

“Délicieux,”
she exclaimed, eyes wide as the sweet, intense flavor flooded her mouth. She grinned widely at Jim. She took another bite
and wiped the juice off her chin with the back of her hand. “I don’t understand you Americans,” she chastised Jim teasingly
after she’d chewed and swallowed. “How can you put all that awful salad dressing on your salads when you have vegetables like
these
?”

“I don’t make the salads; I just grow the vegetables,” Jim said, looking a little dazed.

“And you do it extremely well. What’s your price for these delectable gems?” she queried, holding up another pepper-shaped
tomato near her mouth and eyeing it hungrily, all too aware of Jim watching her every move with stunned amazement.

Two minutes later, she had finalized the deal with Jim, and he walked away to pack up her order.

“You bargained for the tomatoes, but you were angling for a good price on the lettuce the whole time, you little minx,” a
deep, delicious voice murmured near her head, causing a tingling sensation to go down her neck. She twisted her chin and saw
Lucien standing closer than she’d expected. His gaze was fixed on the back of her neck like he was considering taking a bite
out of her there. Her nipples tightened against the tank top she wore beneath her sundress.

“How do you know that?” she asked innocently.

“Because I watched you eating one of those tomatoes a moment ago, just like Jim Goddard did.” She watched his ungodly sexy
lips move as if in a trance until she realized what she was doing and turned away. “After that display, the poor man probably
would have thrown his farm into the deal in order to make the sale on those tomatoes. What’s a few crates of lettuce to him,
when he gets to witness you turning his vegetables into certifiable sex fruit?”

“You shouldn’t complain. I saved you money,” she said breezily, still not turning because she loved the feeling of his warm
breath on her neck, the vibration of his deep voice in her ear.

“It’s just a little hard not to feel for the rest of the helpless men on the planet when I see them so easily seduced by
you.”

“Seduced? I didn’t do anything improper,” she insisted, turning to face him.

He shook his head. “You
breathe
improper, Elise. You could make taking out the garbage an X-rated affair.”

Her breath stuck and burned in her lungs when she saw the heat in his gray eyes.

Did she really know what she was doing, putting herself at risk with Lucien Sauvage?

She stilled, the question evaporating from her brain, when he reached up and carefully wiped juice off her chin.

They loaded all their purchases in the largest black pickup truck she’d ever seen. “These Americans do everything so
big
,” she muttered as she helped him close the tailgate. She could just imagine what she was going to look like trying to peer
over the dashboard of the enormous truck when she took over marketing next Saturday. The brutish truck hardly compared to
the Bugatti Veyron she used to fly around Paris in. Oh well. At least she’d earned the right to climb behind the wheel of
the behemoth vehicle. She’d never done any such thing for the cars her father gave her.