Surrender (18 page)

The jolt that went through me at that wasn’t pleasant. In point of fact, a wave of nausea swept through me. I pulled away to look at his face, my shock slowly becoming hurt and anger.

He swallowed thickly. “Don’t look at me like that, Anna. I just want to kiss you when we make love.”

I swallowed against the hard knot that had formed in my throat. “This is sex, not lovemaking,” I said, my voice cold with the hurt anger that had tightened in my chest.

For a split second, his face reflected the hurt on my own. His expression hardened, though, even as he looked away from me. Burrowing his face against the bed above my shoulder, he began to thrust into me in hard, deep strokes, moving faster and faster. I had lost my ‘hard on’, but I didn’t think it would’ve mattered if I hadn’t. He drove into me like a pile driver, culminating within minutes with a husky groan as he came.

For several moments afterward, he lay heavily against me before he reared up to glare at me. “That was fucking,” he growled. “When I give you as much pleasure as I take, it’s making love.”

He rolled away from me even as he spat that out at me in a hard, clipped voice.

Climbing off the bed, he snatched up the pile of clothes he had left by the bed and stalked to the door. Snatching it open, he strode through it stark naked and slammed the door behind him.

I had pushed myself up on my elbows to watch his grand exit, my own anger evaporating in the face of his. In fact, shock gripped me, making my mind perfectly blank for many moments.

They had all become the next thing to obsessed about kissing me, Kaelen, Gareth, and Cameron mostly, Chance and Dev to a lesser degree. I had thought it was just a dislike of being denied anything. I thought it had become a sort of challenge to them, that they were trying to break through my resistance because they felt like it would be some sort of triumph for them.

When Gareth had given me that hurt look, I had thought it no more than another bid to get his way, playacting.

Would he have gotten so furious, though, if he hadn’t really been hurt?

Or was I falling for his ploy? Was the anger just from not getting his way?

I didn’t know, but I felt a sense of guilt creep over me as I stared at the door. I felt the urge to cry, not just because he had hurt my feelings, but because I thought I might have hurt his. The rev of an engine behind the house broke the spell. I don’t know why I leapt from the bed and raced to look out of the window, but I did.

I couldn’t see the driver of the car that tore out of the garage backwards, but I knew it must be Gareth. The car slammed into the stone wall that surrounded the backyard with a crunch of metal. It had barely stopped rocking, though, when the driver threw it into drive and shot down the driveway with a screech of burning rubber.

SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 81

I raced from the room and pounded down the stairs, fully expecting to discover he had wrapped the car around one of the concrete columns that edged the porte couchè.

As I reached the ground floor, Kaelen and Cameron emerged into the main hallway, their expressions as alarmed as I was certain mine was. Some relief went through me as I heard the car shoot down the drive out front and another squeal of tires as he braked and made the turn onto the road, not much, but some. At least I knew he hadn’t wrapped the car around anything … yet.

“What

happened?”

I turned and stared at Kaelen, feeling guilt swamp me, feeling my nose and eyes begin to sting with imminent tears. “I wouldn’t let him kiss me,” I finally managed to get out, my chin wobbling so badly I could barely form the words.

Silence greeted that. Kaelen’s expression went perfectly blank.

“He’ll be bent on getting roaring drunk,” Cameron said after a moment, breaking the silence. “I’d better go after him.”

I turned to look at Cameron when he spoke, but I could barely see him for the tears swimming in my eyes. All I could think was that Gareth was going to hurt himself if he kept driving that crazy. I gulped as my eyes reached maximum capacity, and the tears gathered there overflowed and ran down my cheeks. Something about the way Cameron glanced at me as he turned and hurried down the hallway made me feel about the size of a worm.

I wasn’t sure if I had imagined the condemnation because of the guilt eating me up or not, but I was afraid I hadn’t imagined it. I met Kaelen’s gaze for a moment, wondering if he was blaming me, too. They were all going to blame me, I realized, if Gareth got hurt, but no more than I was going to blame myself.

“He’ll find him,” he finally said. “He knows where Gareth usually goes.” I tried to smile at that tiny piece of reassurance but discovered I couldn’t manage it. Nodding instead, I turned away and headed back up the stairs as Kaelen strode down the hall toward the garage, no doubt to join the search.

No one bothered me. The house felt empty, and I decided they had all gone out to look for Gareth. I paced the floor trying not to imagine all sorts of horrible accidents, trying to block the images of Gareth’s broken, bleeding body that kept popping into my head—Gareth in handcuffs and some else’s broken, bleeding body slumped in their squashed car. I walked faster whenever those images popped in my mind, as if I could outrun them.

The images alternated between the fight we had had for a while and the body in a hospital bed … or morgue. After a while, the images that rose to torment me were of expressions I had seen flicker across his face as he watched me like a hungry cat, smiled at me, or someone else. I remembered the way he had looked at me when I had told him it was just sex more than anything else.

I wore myself out with guilt, remorse, worry, and the pacing, but I couldn’t rest.

Every time I heard a car, I raced to the window to look out. Finally, around two in the morning, I heard a car for the first time in hours and moved to look out. Realizing as I pulled the drapes back that the sound was coming from out front, I hurried to a window facing the street and looked out. A cab had pulled up the driveway that curved up to the door and stopped. The door opened, and Gareth fell out. Cameron, looking almost as unsteady, climbed out behind him and tried to help him to his feet. The doors on the SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 82

other side opened, disgorging Kaelen, Chance, and Dev.

They were all drunk as lords, I realized when I heard them stumble inside like a herd of buffalo, talking loudly. Snickers followed each heavy thump as they knocked something over or bumped into a wall.

Having waited until they came into view to count heads and make sure all were accounted for, I was about to dash off on tiptoes before they spotted me when Gareth did.

“Why, Miss Scarlet!” he exclaimed, grinning at me in a way that wasn’t at all pleasant and doffing an imaginary hat. “May I say how very fetching you look tonight with those bodacious tits of yours!”

I gaped at him, feeling my belly take a freefall. I couldn’t help it. He looked so damned cute with his dark hair a wild tangle and hanging in his eyes… and dangerous all at the same time, I was enthralled. The look of intent in his eyes, though, was enough to give me second thoughts, especially when he shrugged Kaelen and Cameron off and headed toward the stairs. They caught up to him, restraining him with an effort.

“It’s my night,” he growled, trying to throw them off even though I could see he was having trouble standing alone. “And it ain’t over yet!” Kaelen and Cameron sent me a questioning look. I stared back at them in disbelief. They didn’t really expect me to take him to my bed when he was so drunk and belligerent!

Correctly interpreting my anxieties, Kaelen fixed his brother with a hard look.

“You think you can behave yourself, Rhett, and treat Miss Scarlet with respect?” Gareth sent me a look, his eyes glittering in a way that made me feel hot and cold at the same time. “Absolutely!”

The promise in his gaze sent shivers down my back, but I realized I didn’t really believe he would hurt me, and I knew none of the others would allow it. All I had to do was scream like a banshee if I discovered I was wrong.

I nodded, waiting at the head of the stairs until they had helped him up them. By that time, I was fairly certain he was no threat at all. He could barely negotiate the stairs
with
help.

I offered to help when they reached the top, but Kaelen shook his head. He and Cameron walked him into my room. I followed. Reaching the bed at last, Gareth shrugged Kaelen and Cameron off and fell face first onto the mattress.

He didn’t move. After staring at him doubtfully for several moments, Cameron and Kaelen exchanged a speaking glance and then turned to look at me. I saw then that neither one of them were in much better shape.

“It’s ok,” I said, hoping I wasn’t going to regret this.

When they had left, I moved to Gareth, removed his shoes and socks, and began struggling to get him the rest of the way onto the mattress. He rolled after I had tugged and shoved at him for several moments, carrying me with him since I had hold of him and didn’t let go quickly enough.

He lifted his head and looked down at me when I fell across him. A dopey grin curled his lips. “Darlin’, if you wanted me naked, you should’ve said so.” SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 83

I couldn’t help but smile back at Gareth, but I shook my head. “You’re in no condition to do what you want to do.”

He grabbed my hand and moved it to cover the huge bulge in his pants. “That’s where you’re wrong, baby. I’m in just the condition to do what I want.” I refrained from pointing out that wanting to wasn’t the same thing as being able to. When he sat up and began struggling with his clothes, though, I helped him pull them off. “As long as you’re down there,” he murmured huskily when I had dragged his pants off, “maybe you could kiss me there?”

I gave him a look. “Where?”

He flopped back against the bed. “My dick, baby. You won’t kiss me anywhere else.”

I stared at him as he dropped an arm across his eyes, more than a little suspicious that I was being played. Recalling how sick with worry I had been about him, though, I dismissed that. He was drunk enough it wasn’t likely he was going to remember anything very clearly when he woke in the morning, and I discovered I desperately wanted to make up for hurting his feelings earlier—even though I knew I hadn’t been in the wrong, that I had been well within my rights to refuse besides the fact that he had hurt my feelings first.

“Where do you want me to kiss you, baby?” I asked quietly.

He lifted the arm and looked down at me suspiciously.

“Here?” I asked, taking his cock in my hand and sucking on the head for a moment before I went down on him, closed my mouth tightly around the flesh I had sheathed and pulled upward again.

His eyes were glazed, glittering with heat when I lifted my head to look at him questioningly. I crawled a little higher. “Here?” I asked, lowering my head to suck a love bite in the center of his belly.

He sucked his breath in sharply.

I brushed my lips along his belly to the breast nearest me and sucked at his nipple.

“Here?”

When I lifted my head to look up at his face again, he swooped upon me, catching me around the shoulders, rolling me onto my back on the bed, and rolling over me. He stared down at me, breathing gustily. I wasn’t sure if it was the whiskey on his breath that made me dizzy, or desire. I didn’t care either. I lifted upward, closing the distance between us and brushed my lips lightly across his. “Here, baby?” I whispered against his lips.

He let out a harsh exhalation and opened his mouth over mine, spearing his tongue between my lips and raking it possessively across mine. His mouth was hot and wet and tasted strongly of liquor, but it was the desperate hunger of his kiss that set me on fire. I kissed him with all the fervor he evoked inside of me, with apology, with all the SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 84

affection I felt for him in that moment.

He broke the kiss after a few moments, breathing as if he had run a mile. Supping from my skin as it he wanted to taste all of me at once, he dragged open mouthed kisses across my face and neck and downward. Ravishing my breasts with his teeth and tongue and lips until I was half out of my mind with the alternating jolts of pleasure and pain that hit me whenever he was a little too enthusiastic with the teeth, he finally grabbed one of my thighs, shoved it out of the way, and wedged his hips between my legs.

Struggling for a moment, he levered his hips upward, caught his cock in his hand and guided it home, grunting in satisfaction, and he heaved upward and wedged the head firmly in the mouth of my sex.

“Baby,” he muttered, contorting his body to nip at my nipples again. “I love sucking your tits. You have the sweetest nipples. I love the way they feel on my tongue.”

Realizing after a moment that he couldn’t suck them and fuck me at the same time, he straightened and burrowed his face against the side of my neck as he curled his hips and heaved upward, driving deeper. “Your pussy feels so good, so hot. You’re so wet for me, baby.”

He ground his teeth as he thrust again, uttering a groan as he sank deeply at last.

“Jesus, you’re so tight and hot. Jesus, baby, oh god, you feel good! You feel so good.” He covered my mouth again, managing a half a dozen awkward, stabbing thrusts, while he stroked my tongue with his. Fevered with need by now, wildly aroused by his rambling praise, I sucked his tongue. He shuddered, bucked against me, lifted his hips, and pumped wildly for several moments.

His fits and starts were driving me up the wall. I dragged my feet up and arched against him, grabbing his buttocks and trying to force him into the rhythm I needed. He broke the kiss again with a harsh gasp. “That’s it baby. Take what you need. Cum for me. I want you to cum till you scream.”

His deep strokes had the desired effect. I climaxed hard enough it rattled my brains. It was several moments before I realized he hadn’t cum, was still pumping into me in short, deep strokes. His determined pounding against my g-spot, roused it again.

The second time I came, I
did
scream as it hit me like a neutron bomb, exploding so hard I came as near to passing out as I ever had before in my life.