Surrender (14 page)

It didn’t matter, I told myself. If it had been horrible, I would’ve been traumatized for life. I was lucky. I had to appreciate that. I had expected to suffer.

There was no point in whining about the fact that I was going to suffer later instead of during, because this was more like heaven than hell, and I was going to feel as if I had fallen when I had to leave my Eden.

I was so deep in thought that I didn’t notice when Kaelen got up and crossed the room to join me. The brush of his hand along my bare shoulder sent a jolt through me. I tensed. Feeling it, he hesitated. After a lengthy pause, he stroked his hand down along my arm and laced his fingers through mine.

I felt the brush of his other hand along my shoulders as he very carefully smoothed my hair off my back and over one shoulder. Slipping that arm around me then, he cupped one breast and pulled me back against his body as he explored the bare skin above the top of the dress with a feather light brush of his parted lips. The moist heat of his breath made my skin tighten all over my body, made every nerve ending awaken.

Like microscopic radars, they mapped every point where our bodies touched and telegraphed pleasure into my brain until the sensors were smoking with overload. The light brush of his lips sent tingles through me. Heated moisture gathered low in my belly as he moved his focus upward and explored the back of my neck at the base of my skull and then the side of my neck and finally closed his mouth over my ear, sucking gently.

My knees went weak. A heated cloud of desire coiled around me as his scent SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 62

caressed my nostrils, invaded my lungs with each ragged breath I took and then my blood as my frantically beating heart pumped his essence through my bloodstream.

I began to tremble with the effort to hold myself up as the strength left the outer shell of my body and focused inwardly on the building tension at my core.

I was so relieved when the servant arrived to announce dinner and broke the spell I felt like screaming. Everything inside of me
was
screaming as Kaelen moved away from me and tugged at the hand he still held. I struggled to appear unaffected, but it took focus and concentration to cross the room without wilting to the floor.

I had recovered somewhat by the time we reached the dining room, but I was still shaken, hot, and breathless. Dinner seemed interminable. I had no idea what I ate, or how much. All I could think about was that I was alone in the house with Kaelen.

Tonight it would be only Kaelen.

And damn it to hell it sucked that I was in an embarrassing condition!

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It didn’t help that I knew I had gotten myself into this situation. Kaelen hadn’t doubted my word until I had asked him to go home. It was that that had made him question whether he could take my word or not, that that had made him believe I had lied to him.

I didn’t know if it was better or worse than I had lost the edge off my embarrassment. I was still uncomfortable about being intimate with him now, but I wanted him enough that I felt more shy than put upon or embarrassed.

And that made me uneasy.

I tried to dismiss it as I left the bathroom and crossed the room naked to join him in the bed, but couldn’t shake the sense that
this
was different. This wasn’t like sex for hire. This was the sort of intimacy two people only shared when they were bonded together.

My reasoning was insane, of course, predicated on my long marriage—because when two people lived together all the walls came tumbling down after a while. It might seem like that to me, but I knew from his perspective it wasn’t like that at all. From his view point he was simply demanding I shell out my services as agreed, determining just how much he could trust my word.

He gathered me into his arms when I had settled nervously beside him and drove all those thoughts from my mind as he strummed my body with his hands and, within moments, drew the melody from me that he had begun playing earlier, resurrected even the light notes I had scarcely been aware of for the thundering bass of my heart against my ears. The heady scent of his cologne, heated by his body, enveloped me in a dizzying cloud. Underlying that, though, was his own scent and that drove me wilder even than the cologne.

Naked now where before I had been confined by the bustier, I felt the contrast as never before of his hard muscles, silky skin, and the faint roughness of the dark hair on his chest and belly as his body surged against mine, rubbing from chest to lower belly.

He entwined his legs with mine, as well, stroking his hair roughened legs along the smooth skin of my legs until it seemed there wasn’t a spare inch of my skin not vividly aware of him. His arms and palms and fingers completed the circuit as he stroked them along my back and buttocks just as his legs caressed mine, and his chest and belly rubbed along my breasts and stomach, and his face stroked my face and neck.

Surrounded and enveloped by him, his touch and his scent, I lost the ability for conscious thought, lost all awareness of anything outside the fevered haze that swept over me. I wanted to crawl inside him, wanted him inside of me, wanted to be joined with him.

His breath was near as ragged as my own, but he seemed in no great rush for all that. We rolled restlessly from side to side as he shifted to caress my buttocks and back, and then my breasts and belly and then my back again. I was wet for him, aching to be filled before he had satisfied his need to touch and stroke and moved on to tasting. By SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 64

the time he had skimmed my body from throat to lower belly with his lips and lathed me with his tongue, I felt as if I was burning up with the fever of need.

I opened my legs eagerly as he shifted finally to wedge his hips between mine, lifted my hips to meet his thrust as he engaged our bodies and pushed to seat his cock head within my opening. A rush of stinging sensation washed over me as he delved deeper with each stroke until he had sheathed his engorged shaft to the hilt. I groaned his name like prayer.

Gripping my buttocks, he rolled onto his back. Gasping, I folded my legs beneath me and pushed upright. Dizzy, drunk with the sensations swirling inside my head, I struggled to keep my balance and ride him as he stroked his hands along my body, massaging my breasts. He sat up after a moment, stilling my awkward movements as he hunched down to suckle my nipples, sending fire pouring through me with each drag of his mouth.

He straightened in a moment, threading his fingers through my hair and dragging open mouthed kisses along my throat and cheeks. I wanted to feel his mouth on mine so badly it was scary. Swallowing against the urge, I tilted my face away, burrowed against his neck, and sucked a love bite at the juncture of his neck and shoulder as I lifted my hips and settled again. The movements, graceless as they were, allowed his cock to stroke me deeply, where I needed him most, and I grew more and more drunken with desire at the quakes that moved outward through me like shock waves with each stroke.

“Kaelen!” I gasped on a wail of need. “I have to cum! Please!” A shudder went through him. Uttering a sound of impatience, he tightened an arm around my buttocks, tipping me onto my back again. He slipped almost completely out of me with the movement, gathered himself, and drove into me again. My belly spasmed as he buried himself to the hilt inside of me, tightening around his cock almost painfully.

“Like that, baby, yes,” he growled as he scooped my shoulders beneath one arm and levered himself upward with his other arm to watch my face as he pumped his hips to stroke me deeply. “Cum for me.”

Uttering a low, animalistic groan, I let go of the thread of control I still held onto frantically and came in hard, shuddering quakes. He dropped his forehead to mine.

“Anna,” he breathed gustily as he thrust deeply, ground against me slowly and then shuddered, pumping his hips jerkily as his seed shot into me.

I let out a long sigh of relief as the tension left me. He lay draped limply over me, slowly growing heavier and heavier. I squirmed beneath him when he began to cut off my ability to breathe. Taking the hint, he shifted most of his weight to the bed, leaving only an arm and leg to pin me to the bed.

Thoroughly sated, I fell asleep. He roused me some time later, aroused me again to heated need and plowed into me until we both reached a surfeit of pleasure and climaxed.

I was alone in the bed when I woke up. I felt way too deliciously satisfied to want to get up. Slowly, though, reality set in, and finally I got out of bed and went into the bathroom to bathe. The bed sheets, I discovered with dismay, looked as if someone had been sacrificed on the altar the night before. Dragging them off, I carried them into the bathroom, washed the stains out, and left them in the tub while I went into the bedroom to dress.

SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 65

I supposed, feeling a mixture of amusement and embarrassment, Kaelen had his proof, not that his vacating during the night was an indication of that. He made sure he didn’t spend all night in my bed even if he did fall asleep.

There was no sign of him when I went downstairs, but I wasn’t surprised. He was usually in his office when I came down, and I had begun to suspect he was usually in his office by daybreak.

I jolted to a halt as I entered the kitchen and discovered him at the stove. The luscious smell of frying bacon had had my stomach gnawing at itself, but I had thought it was a lingering smell from earlier.

He glanced at me as he heard my entrance. “Hungry?” he asked, returning his attention to his task.

“Very,” I responded after a moment, my gaze wandering down his back to his nicely rounded buttocks. Pleased at the invitation to join him, I crossed the kitchen and watched him a moment before moving to the cabinets to gather plates and glasses for two. He didn’t seem either uncomfortable or embarrassed as he settled across from me at the eating counter. In fact, he looked surprisingly relaxed.

I had to wonder, after all, if he had noticed I hadn’t lied to him.

“We can go for a ride if you like,” he said when we had finished and gotten up to clean the counter and put the dishes in the sink.

I glanced at him in surprise. Doubt mingled with my pleasure, but I ignored the warning. “I’d like that, thank you.”

He nodded, flicking a glance over me. “You won’t need to change.” I lifted my brows at that but refrained from comment. It was just as well that what I was wearing was fine. I hadn’t packed a lot since I had been told I didn’t need to bring anything, and what I
had
packed was all casual like the jeans and t-shirt top I was wearing.

Settling a hand along the back of my waist, he led me from the kitchen through the outer door. A covered walkway joined the kitchen to the garage out back, forming a porte coucheàbout midway where cars could pass beneath to reach the long, long garage. I saw when we entered that it housed a half dozen cars, all shiny new, all expensive. He led me to a dark BMW, unlocked the door, and held it while I got in.

The car still smelled new, and I wondered if it was really that new or if it was cleaned with that cleaner that was ‘new’ car scent. It looked pristine enough to be new.

Fastening my seatbelt as he got in on the other side and started the engine, I settled back, feeling pleasure just at being out of the house. He had a driving style, I discovered, that unnerved me just a little, but not enough to make it impossible for me to enjoy the view as the car left the exclusive area and he began to weave through the heavy traffic of the main road. I didn’t ask where we were going. I didn’t think he had an actual destination in mind, and I didn’t particularly care.

I tensed, though, as I began to recognize landmarks and realized we were near home—my mother’s home. I didn’t have one anymore, hadn’t since the divorce when I had been forced to beg my mother for shelter for me and my daughters. I sat up straighter as he turned down the road that passed my mother’s house, hoping to catch a glimpse of the girls.

He slowed as we neared it and then turned into my mother’s driveway and killed the engine. I glanced at him wide eyed, hope making me breathless. A touch of doubt SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 66

flickered through me, though, when he got out and moved around the car to open my door.

Distracted by the sound of the front door opening as I unfastened my belt and climbed out, I glanced toward the sound and saw Ashley and Alexis tumble through the doorway like a couple of frisky puppies and then freeze uncertainly when they saw the strange man.

Happiness filled me, inflated me. Moving around Kaelen, I strode quickly toward the porch. Ashley, the baby, let out a high pitched, ear splitting squeal of delight and launched herself down the stairs. Chuckling, I bent down to scoop her up. Alexis had darted down right behind her, though. As they slammed into me, I lost my balance and sprawled on my butt in the yard, my arms full of giggling little girls.

I laughed with them, trying to fend them off and get up, abruptly keenly conscious of the fact that Kaelen was still behind me. I threw a glance in his direction as I struggled up and discovered he was leaning against the hood of his car, his legs crossed, his arms folded over his chest.

Ashley curled her arms around the top of my leg and buried her face in my crotch as I finally gained my feet. Reddening, I pushed her face away, untangled her arms, and hoisted her up onto my hip as Kaelen pushed away from the car and approached us.

Alexis was eyeing him with interest, but she had scooted behind me and was peering around at him. He looked down at her, frowning thoughtfully. “Ashley?” he guessed.

She giggled. “I’m Alexis.”

“This one’s Ashley,” I murmured, smiling at him as he lifted his head to look at me. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that he knew their names, but I was.

Ashley promptly went into shy mode, clutching my neck frantically and burying her face against my chest. She turned her face to peer at him, smiling coyly, though.

Obviously, my daughters were as taken with his dark good looks as I was, I thought wryly.