Surrender (10 page)

I fully expected Kaelen to move to the bed then and realized I had been waiting for him with more than a little anticipation. Instead, he shoved away from the wall and moved around the bed to the bathroom. I heard the water running.

Apparently Chance did, as well, and decided it was his cue to depart. He struggled out of the bed and headed to the pile of clothes he had left near the door. He didn’t bother to put them on, however. He merely gathered them into a ball and let himself out.

Kaelen returned after a few moments and climbed onto the bed. Instead of initiating sex, however, he urged me onto my belly, and I felt his hands moving down the back of the bustier. It went slack. Slipping an arm beneath my hips, he lifted them upward until I was on my knees, unfastened the restraint in the back. The bustier fell off me as he released it and reached to remove the plug from my rectum. I gasped as I felt it slip out, shuddering.

He moved away for a moment and came back. Scooping me into his arms, he hefted me against his chest and carried me into the bathroom, mounting the steps to the tub and finally settling in the hot, swirling water with me on his lap.

The hot, swirling water relaxed me almost to the point of sleep. I felt pampered in a way I couldn’t even remember ever being before, babied as he soaped a cloth and bathed me with measured strokes.

When he had finished washing me, he used his hands to rinse the soap away, stroking me long after he had removed the last speck of soap. Finally, he lifted me away from his lap and got out. I watched through half closed eyes as he dried himself briskly with a towel and finally reached down to turn off the whirlpool and release the water from the tub.

Catching my arm, he slipped his hand along it until he was grasping my wrist and tugged at me, urging me up. Sighing with reluctance at having to leave the nice, warm pool of water, I got up with an effort, wobbling slightly as I lifted my leg to climb out.

He caught me around the waist, swung me out and settled me on the rug beside him.

Grabbing a towel, he rubbed me down briskly, tossed it aside and caught my hand, tugging me back into the bedroom.

He stopped me before I could crawl into the bed, grabbing the edge of the comforter and flipping it back. Still naked and more than a little damp, beginning to shiver from the cool air, I climbed between the sheets and the comforter and settled with a deep sigh of bliss.

SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 45

Kaelen climbed in, as well. Settling on his side against me when he had adjusted the cover, he propped his head in his hand, studying my face. I stared back him, wondering at his mood and his intentions as he lifted his free hand and splayed it lightly along my cheek. His palm was large, his fingers long and tapered. His hand covered the entire side of my face from ear to chin. For a long, long blink, we merely stared at one another. Finally, he transferred his gaze to my lips, watching almost as if transfixed as he lightly brushed his thumb back and forth across my lower lip.

Uttering a sound that seemed equal parts irritation and frustration, he moved his hand and rolled over me, shoving one arm beneath my shoulders. His mouth grazed my cheek lightly and moved to my ear. Shivers skated through me as he opened his mouth over it, sucking at the shell and then delving inside, tracing the intricate swirls with the tip of his tongue. I sucked in a sharp breath as the heat of his mouth and tongue invaded me, coursing along my veins like fire following a trail of gasoline and then bleeding outward through my pores and nerve endings. He moved along my cheek to my jaw, nipping at the bone beneath the surface with the edge of his teeth and then dipping below that hard line to explore my throat and the side of my neck.

With the tip of his tongue, he traced the hollow at the base of my throat and then my collar bone. I lifted my hands, splaying them along his shoulder blades, digging the tips into his flesh a little frantically as he wound his way downward with an odd mixture of fervor and indolence, seemingly in no great hurry to make much progress, and yet prodded by a hunger that compelled him to suck and lathe a trail of tingling love bites on every inch of my skin. Again and again, he moved from the top of my breasts, up to my ear, along my cheek to the corner of my mouth and then beneath my chin and along my throat until I was drunk with the heat fogging my mind, uncertain of which of us was shaking more.

By the time he moved to my breasts, I was near desperate to feel his mouth on me. He leaned slightly away from me, skating a hand down to cup and massage one as he caught the tip of the other breast between his teeth. I gasped sharply as he nipped at it, raked his teeth along the turgid peak as it flooded with blood. He suckled it as he ceased to massage my other breast and ran his hand down my body. Catching one thigh, he lifted it, insinuating a leg between mine, and then slipped his hand upwards to cup one buttock as he curled his hips, pressing his swollen member against my cleft.

Warm currents of desire swirled and eddied through me, pierced with shafts of exquisite heat each time he pressed against my clit or plucked at one of my nipples. I was long past any ability for thought by the time he reached between us and guided his cock along my cleft to the mouth of my sex, surging upward to engage our bodies. I arched to meet him, foiled by the awkwardness of our positions. He drew my thigh higher, shifted down and thrust upward again, sinking a little deeper.

Frustration filled me, hunger. I wanted to engulf him completely, to feel him deep inside of me. He taunted me, stroking me shallowly, inching a little deeper, but never reaching the spot where I needed to feel him. I moved restlessly against him, arching to meet him with every stroke, clutching at him, digging my fingers into his flesh.

Abruptly, he rolled with me until I was on my back, thrusting hard, claiming me completely. I gasped as quakes moved along my channel, my muscles clamping around his flesh frantically. “Anna,” he breathed hoarsely against my neck as I lifted my legs and wrapped them tightly around his waist, using the leverage to engulf him even deeper SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 46

inside of me. “Jesus, baby, you’re so tight, so hot and wet for me.” The absurdity of being called baby by a man easily five years my junior was lost on me. The caress in his voice as he said it was all that registered beyond the need in his voice and even that was burned away from conscious thought as he set a rhythm that stoked the fire inside me higher and higher until I felt like I was on fire, burning from the inside out.

Dropping my feet to the bed, I curled my hips to receive his pounding thrusts, goose bumps erupting all over me as the new position angled his thrusts to strike me in just the right place to drive me toward release. He left off sucking at my neck and came up on his elbows, staring down at my face. “Cum for me, Anna. That’s my baby,” he murmured encouragingly as I let out a desperate gasp. As if my body was his to command, the moment he demanded it, my muscles seized and began to convulse with such exquisite pleasure it drew hoarse, ragged cries from my throat.

He changed the tempo of his pace as the convulsions subsided, but his thrusts were all deep, stroking that one spot with such pointed focus that my body seized again, harder than before. I screamed at the sheer magnitude of it, my fingers curling into claws, digging into him. He shuddered, missed a beat, and ground against me as he was caught up in his own release, uttering a long, low growl as his body convulsed, pumping his seed from him.

I floated downward as the paroxysms eased, dropping into complete oblivion. I only stirred once and that was when, sometime during the night, Kaelen moved away from me and left the bed. Rolling onto the warm spot where he had lain, I gathered a pillow to my chest and sought unconsciousness again.

Kaelen was heavy eyed when he came in and woke me the following morning.

Barely conscious myself, I studied his expression dully, mildly disturbed by the heavy scowl he wore but completely unable to gather my wits enough to try to figure out why he might be angry.

When he went into the bathroom to run a bath, I collapsed face first on the bed again and was drifting toward sleep when he jerked the covers back and smacked me soundly on the ass. It stung, but it was the loud smacking sound that jerked me wide awake. I scrambled up, blinking at him owl eyed in an effort to focus my eyes. He jerked his head toward the bathroom.

Biting my lip to keep from groaning as my muscles protested, I clambered out of the bed and staggered into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. I sat on the toilet with my eyes closed as I relieved myself and finally got up and climbed the stairs into the bath. A jolt went through me the moment I stepped in. The water was cold enough to snatch my breath from my lungs as I skidded and sat with a hard splash. I let out a yelp and shot upward just as Kaelen slammed the door open so hard it hit the wall and bounced back, his blood shot eyes rounded with alarm.

“C..c …cold,” I gasped through chattering teeth, wrapping my arms around myself.

He gave me a deadly look, stomped over to the faucet and turned the hot tap wide open, then turned on his heel and stalked out again, slamming the door harder than I had inadvertently slammed it. I stared at the vibrating door blankly for several moments and finally waded across the tub to squat in front of the tap where the water was marginally warmer. Soaping the cloth from the night before, I scrubbed myself off quickly, focusing SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 47

mostly on washing my sex, which I discovered was uncomfortably tender after all the pounding the night before.

By the time I had washed my face and brushed my teeth, I was slightly more alert, but still felt far too fragile to summon more than a flicker of resentment over the fact that Kaelen seemed pissed off with me and I had no idea why.

Even that flicker died, though, as I left the bathroom and faced the lion in my den.

He had already fastened the restraints between my legs before he remembered the plug. I had remembered it, but I nursed a hope he wouldn’t and kept my mouth shut.

He sent me an accusing glare as glanced at the bedside table and spotted it.

Unfastening the restraints he had just fastened, he stalked over to the bedside table and snatched the thing up, slathering lube on it. Biting my lip, I leaned over the bed as he headed toward me with it.

I supposed, reluctantly, that I must be getting used to it. It wasn’t as uncomfortable when he thrust it inside me as it had been the first few times. I didn’t especially
want
to get used to it, but I seemed to be.

Studying him as he knelt to fasten the restraints again, I decided that, maybe, he was just cranky because he wasn’t a morning person. Either that, or he had just not gotten much sleep because he had kept me up half the night fucking, which the dark circles beneath his eyes seemed to suggest.

“You have two rest times,” he said coolly as he finished and straightened.

“Eleven to twelve, and three to five—in your room. If you choose
not
to return to your room, it will be assumed that you feel no need to rest. You’ll serve luncheon as you did yesterday—the servants won’t be in until late in the afternoon to prepare dinner—but I had the chef prepare the food so that all you’ll need to do is warm it. Unless you’re entertaining, you may do whatever you like with your time.” His gaze flickered over me assessingly. “You are not allowed to cum today.” When he had left, I simply stared at the door for a time, frowning as I tried to puzzle through his behavior. He was not exactly a warm, open sort of man anyway from my short acquaintance, but he hadn’t seemed prone to temper either. He had seemed more … aloof, I decided, neither warm nor cold, just withdrawn. It still seemed odd to me that he appeared to be in a foul mood. I had been more thoroughly satisfied than I had ever been before in my life. I still felt that special glow … except now it had dulled just a bit in the face of his grouchiness.

Dismissing it finally, I glanced down at myself. He had only helped me into a fresh bustier and left. I wanted breakfast. I was starving, but I wasn’t so sure I should sit down at the breakfast table as I was.

On the other hand, Kaelen was pretty damned bossy, a man obviously accustomed to having his way. If he had wanted me to wear anything else, he would have chosen it.

Expelling an irritated breath, I left the room as I was, reflecting that I had at least satisfied the whole gang—twice—the day before and that it should hold them a while.

Contrary to that blithe assumption, I discovered that what I had done only seemed to be like pouring gasoline on a fire. All of them were awake. All of them were downstairs, and it seemed that all of them had their ears pricked for my appearance. The moment I stepped off the last stair and my heels clicked against the marble tile, Chance, Dev, and Cameron appeared in the doorway to the parlor. Gareth brushed past them, grabbed my wrist, and, after glancing at the three men now glaring at him, tugged me SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 48

down the hallway toward the kitchen. The moment we cleared the door, he caught me around the waist and hoisted me onto the island counter.

Cold shot through my buttocks as my bare ass settled on the icy surface and heat shot from my breast downward to collide in a minor explosion in my belly as Gareth squeezed both of my breasts in his hands and caught one of my nipples between his teeth as if he meant to eat me alive.

I groaned as a tidal wave of desire washed over me, and Kaelen’s last order flashed through my mind. I had been relegated again to teeth gritted endurance, except that now my body was much more reluctant to obey me than it had been the day before.

Luckily for me, Gareth was already wound up. As if coming in my mouth the night before had only teased him, he released my breasts almost at once and reached down to unfasten his pants and unzip them. His pants promptly slipped down his hips, but he scarcely seemed to notice. Catching my other breast in one hand, he teased that nipple as he had the first, reaching down to flick his finger over my clit and then delved my cleft and shoving a finger inside of me.