Ian & Francesca/Lucien & Elise/When I'm With You Books in Order

This page covers the installment side of Beth Kery's connected Chicago erotic romances. The first run of serials follows Ian Noble and Francesca Arno across the eight parts from Because You Tempt Me to Because I Am Yours. The second follows Lucien Lenault and Elise Martin from When We Touch to When We Are One. Later, those arcs connect to the complete novels Because You Are Mine and When I'm With You.

The appeal here is the slow burn through short bursts. Each installment gives you one more push forward, another emotional complication, another shift in power, another piece of a secret. Ian and Francesca's story is darker and more obsession driven from the start. She is an artist drawn into the orbit of a very wealthy, very controlled man who wants her in ways that scare him almost as much as they fascinate her.

Lucien and Elise have a different energy.

Their serial leans into mystery, glamour, and a more openly volatile heroine. Elise arrives in Chicago determined to prove she is more than the reckless image people have of her. Lucien is one of those Kery men who seem unreadable until you realize the unreadability is the point. He is hiding too much, and Elise is curious enough to keep pushing.

Because both arcs unfold in parts, the pleasures are a little different from a standard novel. You get cliffhangers. You get sharper pauses. You get the sense of watching a relationship form one charged step at a time. That makes these books especially fun for readers who like sensual tension stretched over multiple installments instead of resolved in big chunks.

If you are deciding between the serials and the full novels, it mostly comes down to reading style. The content is closely linked, but the serials let you enjoy the original pacing, where each twist and revelation lands in its own space. They are a good choice if you want the most incremental version of these two connected romances.