Surrender (20 page)

He smiled faintly but caught my hand. Guiding it around his waist, he slipped his arms around me and dragged me close, covering my mouth with his before I even realized his intention. A jolt went through me that was entirely pleasurable, but anxiety SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 89

shot through me, as well. I tensed, pushed at him until he released me. “Gareth!” I hissed.

His lips curled. “You don’t want the others to know.”

“Oh god!” I had been sure he wasn’t going to remember anything clearly from the night before. Obviously, he did, much too clearly. And now he thought I hadn’t kissed anyone else—which I hadn’t, but I knew he was going to think—
know
that was significant.

I couldn’t think of a damned think to say to ‘fix’ this problem. “You’re not supposed to kiss me,” I said finally, hoping he actually didn’t remember last night as clearly as I feared he did.

He moved closer, stalking me into the corner and then bending his knees and bringing his cock up against my cleft. The roughness of his pants brushing along my exposed lips was enough to send harsh currents of sensation through me without the pressure his erection added to it. “You started this,” he murmured as he dropped his head near mine, his lips near enough to my ear to send another thrill through me as his heated breath caressed my ear. “You kissed me.”

I met his gaze helplessly when he lifted his head to look at me. “Don’t make this harder for me, Gareth.”

He frowned. Something flickered in his eyes, but I couldn’t begin to guess what was going through his mind. Finally, he stepped away from me. “I’ll let it go … for now.”

I wasn’t sure of what he meant by that, but I was relieved that he had backed off.

I was still shaken by the entire episode, worried that he wouldn’t let it go, worried that he would confront Kaelen, sick that I had started the whole thing just by kissing him.

That had been so incredibly stupid!

I felt, abruptly, as if everything was falling apart around me. I didn’t want to hurt Gareth—if that was even possible, but I didn’t want to
get
hurt either. Kaelen hadn’t told me anything I didn’t know already—that there was no future in me coming to feel
anything
for any one of them.

It was almost worse that I was in much the same predicament with them all. I
was
very fond of Gareth, but I was also very fond of the others.

How screwed up was that, anyway?

And it wasn’t my fault.

They were all handsome, well built, young, virile, sexy—interesting, sweet, thoughtful—and they made me crazy when they fucked me.

Maybe

they

had
fucked my brains out, because I was acting like an idiot.

I

was

never
going to make it through this in one piece, I realized.

And what was really scary was that they had changed the damned rules on me.

I hadn’t thought about it before, hadn’t had the chance to think about it, but Gareth had said it was
his
night.
That,
I realized, was what the argument had been about.

That was what Kaelen had been so against. They wanted a night alone with me, and, considering how seriously I had fucked up with Gareth, I knew I was in real trouble, bad trouble, if they stopped running interference for each other. I might have had a chance of making it through this relatively unscathed, emotionally speaking, if they had just kept things the way they were—where I was never alone with any one of them.

Except Kaelen—the one of all of them I was most worried about.

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They seemed dead set on throwing me for a loop. I worked myself up all day worrying about which one would spend the night with me, and then discovered they had reverted to pairing off with me again.

By the following day, I had decided I must be suffering from some sort of hormonal disorder that was playing havoc with my emotions and making me nuts—or had been. I felt as if my world had been set to rights. Gareth hadn’t balked at doing three way with me and Dev. He hadn’t behaved at all differently than he had before, and I decided I could put any anxieties away that I had been nurturing that he would try to woo me and convince me to open wide for heartbreak. If I could just get a grip on myself, I was going to be fine.

I

was
fine. I was fond of them. I loved fucking them and being fucked by them, but that was all there was to it and when it was over … I was going to be really horny all the time because I didn’t have my fuck buddies any more, but I would get over that.

I would find someone when I had the time, maybe even meet someone when I got around to taking the classes I needed. Or maybe meet someone special when I managed to get a real job. I really wanted to get back to a normal life, have a normal sex life.

I really did.

There

was
life after the mansion of ill repute. I was going to be fine.

I had almost convinced myself of that when Cameron escorted me up to my room the following night and everyone else disappeared.

I

did

not
want to spend the whole night alone with Cameron, because I
did
want to, which meant he wasn’t good for me.

I wasn’t in a position to object, unfortunately.

And Cameron did
not
like being rushed. There would be no quick, rough tumble—maybe two—and then falling to sleep, I knew.

I was right. Cameron stripped to the bare skin, much to my consternation, and gave me a back rub. I had had no idea my backside was so sensitive. I had never had so much attention lavished on it. He had begun by planting his ass on my thighs, and sandwiching his anaconda between my butt cheeks. Despite that, he had actually massaged my back and shoulders until I was almost completely relaxed, not that I could be
completely
relaxed with that huge cock between the cheeks of my ass, but I was relaxed enough to pay full attention to what he was doing as he finished massaging my back and shoulders and worked his way down my thighs and calves.

I knew what was coming, I thought, when he got to my feet. Instead, he surprised me by massaging them, too. I don’t think I had ever felt anything quite that wonderful. I could’ve lain for hours while he massaged my feet.

I didn’t get to, of course, but I was putty in his hands when he rolled me over and started on my front. I was already so wet by the time he had finished sucking my toes it was embarrassing. It
would
have been embarrassing, anyway, if I hadn’t been wreathed in such a heated, sensual fog I hardly knew where I was.

I was so ready by the time he had worked his magic along my legs and lower belly and breasts and neck that I came before he had even managed to wedge his cock fully inside the throat of my sex. Came the first time.

If it had been the only time, I would have been vastly disappointed because it was a gentle quaking that was little more than a ripple in a pond. The second was harder, the third harder than that. By the time I felt myself building toward a fourth climax, I was SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 91

actually a little worried.

My mind disintegrated when it hit me. My whole body felt as if it had shattered and flown apart. The convulsions were so hard each wave that hit me dragged a keen cry from my throat that bordered the edge of a scream and drove me a little further over the precipice between consciousness and oblivion until I literally fainted for a handful of seconds.

Cameron, scoundrel that he was, took full advantage of my inability to fend him off. I returned to the world of the living with the feel of his mouth on mine, the caress of his tongue along my own, and no strength of will to protect myself from the barrage of sensations and emotion that completely overwhelmed before I had managed to gather any of my wits about me.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world when he cuddled me against him and we fell asleep entwined like a pair of vines.

I slept so deeply and dreamlessly from being so thoroughly satisfied that I only surfaced from dreamland early the following morning when Cameron breached the mouth of my sex. Already wet from his caresses, boneless with the dregs of sleep that still enveloped me, he claimed me with little of the effort it generally took, gliding deeply through the wet, relaxed channel and carrying me to culmination before my mind could catch up with my body.

The sound of a closing door penetrated my scrambled wits as I flat-lined from the third climax. I was drifting toward sleep when the sound of running water alerted me to the fact that it was the bathroom door I had heard, not the bedroom door, not a door further down the hallway. I was too exhausted to piece the puzzle together, though.

Cameron nuzzled my neck. “Time to get up, sleeping beauty.” My lips curled upward in a smile. “Mmmm, I didn’t get much sleep,” I disputed, yawning and stretching as he released me and rolled out of the bed.

“You’ll have to catch up later,” Kaelen said, not sounding the least bit amused.

My eyes popped open. I stared at him owl eyed for a moment and turned to look for Cameron. He winked at me from the door as he went out, his blue eyes gleaming with mischievous amusement.

I scrambled out of the bed and headed for the bathroom. This time I locked it before I relieved myself. There was a thump and an expletive from the other side as I flushed the toilet that baffled me for a split second before I realized Kaelen had expected the door to open and flattened himself against it when it didn’t. I covered my mouth as a chuckle escaped me, trying to disguise the sound as a cough when it slipped out anyway.

“Anna!” he growled from the other side of the door just as I unlocked it and snatched it open.

I bit my lip and averted my face as I spotted the round, red mark on his forehead, fighting the urge to giggle. His thunderous expression was a clear indication he wouldn’t take it in good part.

I had mastered the urge to laugh by the time I had joined Kaelen in the tub for our morning ritual. The episode had diverted my mind from Cameron, but I discovered as Kaelen bathed me that that was only a temporary situation. I shivered as Kaelen bathed me, bringing my mind right back to the night I had spent with Cameron because it took no more than a light brush along my still sensitized skin to stir up echoes of the sensations I had so recently experienced.

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Tossing the washcloth aside, Kaelen got up abruptly, slammed the can of shaving cream and the razor down within my reach, and got out of the tub. I looked at him with a mixture of uneasiness and confusion, but he didn’t meet my gaze. Grabbing a towel, he dried himself and went back into the bedroom.

Deciding it wouldn’t be a good idea to linger too long, I shaved as quickly as I could, rinsed, and got out. Kaelen was dressed when I reached the room, staring out of the window with his back to me.

He seemed more pensive than annoyed, though, as he helped me dress.

I was relieved enough to see that he had tamped his temper to begin to wonder why he had been annoyed to start with. The only thing that occurred to me was that he wasn’t happy to discover Cameron still in my bed when he had come in, but then again he hadn’t said anything either to Cameron or to me about it. I had to assume he had approved the new order of things because it had become crystal clear very shortly after I had arrived that Kaelen was the grand master of all things that went on in the mansion of ill repute. I wasn’t happy about the change, because it didn’t take me long to figure out that the sense of well-being I had felt upon waking wasn’t just because I had been thoroughly satisfied. What I had felt had gone well beyond mere physical satisfaction.

But that was a good reason for me to be unsettled, not for Kaelen.

At least, I couldn’t figure any reason why Kaelen might not like it, assuming he had noticed, and I knew that there wasn’t a hell of a lot Kaelen missed.

I supposed it could be because he was concerned about possible repercussions just as he had been after my night with Gareth. Cameron wasn’t his younger brother, though.

Cameron, I was pretty sure, was about the same age as Kaelen and not only did Cameron behave as if he felt like Kaelen’s equal, Kaelen behaved toward Cameron as an equal.

I dismissed it after a while. I had other things to worry about, like the fact that I hadn’t been wrong when I had suspected the game plan had been changed and the rug snatched out from under me. I had just had my defenses breached by a tactic I hadn’t been expecting.

By the end of the week I was so thoroughly confused I hardly knew which end was up. They might think it was a wonderful idea to arrange more time for themselves with me, one on one, but it sure as hell wasn’t good for me, not when I had already been struggling with my feelings about them. In the space of a week I had gone from fuck buddy to lover—in my mind and emotions. I couldn’t speak for theirs. I entertained a good deal of doubt that it had been as emotionally taxing for them as it had been for me.

For me, it changed everything.

I struggled mightily with it anyway. I tried with every fiber of my being to behave just as I had before, to merely accept their sexual overtures on a purely physical level and ignore the fact that their touch no longer
felt
impersonal and purely sexual. But I felt like a drowning woman going down for the third and last time as the days passed, and I waited with absolute dread for the one night I knew was going to finish me off, trembling in my spiked heels with both fear and anticipation of Kaelen’s night.

That was going to be the coup de grace, I knew, and even while I was happy to put it off as long as I could, the anticipation was killing me slowly, making me almost wish I could have gotten it over with first instead of having to wait.

I didn’t know why Kaelen allowed everyone else to go first, but it seemed significant to me and not in a good way.

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He just wasn’t all that interested in spending a full night with me, I realized, reminding myself that he had never even spent the rest of the night with me on those nights that he had lingered after everyone else had gone. And he had ceased to linger at all after they had settled to alternating.