Surrender (21 page)

Maybe, I thought, he didn’t actually want to spend the night with me at all, not with just the two of us alone. He had already said he liked to watch almost as much as he liked to participate. Maybe he actually liked watching more?

Those thoughts not only left me completely unprepared for Armageddon, they effectively distracted me from the threat/promise Kaelen had made to claim the only virgin territory I still possessed for himself.

SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 94

It came as a complete shock to me when it dawned on me that I had spent almost four weeks at the mansion of ill repute. I’m not sure I would have realized it on my own.

It was my daughters who reminded me, not because they were any better at keeping track of the time than I was, but because my mother had reminded them that I would be coming home in a couple of weeks.

I was instantly torn. I shouldn’t have been torn at all. As excited as I was to realize that I would be home with the girls in just over two weeks, though, back to the life I had left behind, I couldn’t help the sinking sense of depression that accompanied that realization that that also meant in a little over two weeks I would leave my private Eden forever.

I was never going to see any of them again. I knew that. As little as I had discovered about them, I still knew we didn’t travel in the same circles—wouldn’t have even if I had traveled in
any
circles.

It didn’t matter, of course. If we
had
belonged to the same social class and group and we chanced to run into each other, they would pretend they didn’t know me, and I would have to do the same.

I was sure that would have been worse, a lot harder to bear. I was lucky it was going to be a clean break.

I didn’t know why that made me feel like crying my eyes out.

I assured myself it wasn’t going to be nearly as bad as I thought. The girls were going to take up every spare moment of my time once I got home, and I was going to be caught up in the battle with my ex. Once I finally got that settled, I was going to have to focus on training and job hunting.

I had everything mapped out for months. I was certain that I would hardly give the guys a thought by the time I had managed to get my life in order. It would be a distant, fond memory. I would hardly even be able to remember their names or their faces and all the time we had spent together, all the memories would just be a confused scramble in my mind, half of it completely forgotten.

God! It was going to be such a relief to have decent clothes to wear that covered all my body parts! It was going to be so nice to be able to breeze through days of doing laundry, cooking, breaking up squabbles over toys, mopping, vacuuming—job hunting--

without worrying about someone dragging me off into a corner and fucking my brains out!

I was so happy I cried for hours. It was a far better way to spend my afternoon than just resting.

My eyes were so swollen when I woke up I had to lay down with a cool cloth over them for thirty minutes before I could get the swelling to go down enough to see more than a blur of light and shadows. I wasn’t happy with the face that looked back at me when I went in to examine it before I took my shower to get ready for dinner. My eyes, and my nose, were still red and my lips puffy—my whole face looked puffy.

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Resisting the urge to start crying again because I looked like shit, I took a long, long shower and applied enough makeup to dull the effects of the delightful afternoon I had spent by myself even if it didn’t completely hide them.

Kaelen noticed, of course. I kept my face carefully averted as he helped me to dress, but I could tell by the frowning glances he kept flicking toward my face that he had noticed I had been bawling my eyes out. Wise man that he was, he didn’t make any attempt to find out why.

Either that or he just wasn’t that curious, I thought resentfully, immediately forgetting that only moments before I had been hoping against hope he wouldn’t ask me anything because I knew it would set me off again.

I struggled to act ‘normal’ when everyone met in the parlor for dinner, but I was glad for once that I wasn’t actually expected to participate in the conversations. There were definite advantages to being a submissive. I wasn’t required to have any social graces.

I was just the dress up doll they set in the corner to ogle to get their juices flowing and fondle and fuck when they were aroused enough to look around for a vessel.

They were real people.
I
wasn’t. I wasn’t supposed to have any feelings one way or the other.

The servant appeared to announce dinner before I could get myself
really
worked up into seething resentment. He might as well have put grass on my plate. I had no idea what I ate, but I did begin to suspect that I had imbibed a little too much wine when I lifted my head to look down the table and give Kaelen the evil eye and discovered I had to hold on to the edges of the table to keep from falling out of my chair.

Cameron took my wine glass and put water in front of me.

He was always watching out for me.

The ass hole!

The up side to eating almost nothing and drinking far too much was that I was convinced when Kaelen helped me up from my chair and walked me upstairs that he was taking me to my room to sleep it off. As soon as he opened the door, I pulled my arm from his grasp, wobbled over to the bed and fell in face first.

He pulled my heels off and rolled the stockings down my legs, dropping them to the floor beside my shoes.

“Thank you, Kael,” I muttered. “Good night.” He dragged me out of the bed. Bracing myself with an effort when he stood me upright, I stared up at him in confusion as he pulled my dress off, widening my eyes to try to keep them focused on his face. It dawned on me after a moment that he wasn’t looking particularly pleased with me. “Did I do something wrong … again?” I asked warily as he caught my shoulders and turned me so that my back was to him.

“I’ll let you think about that,” he said tightly as he loosened the lacing and then unfastened the hooks along the back of the bustier. “And while you’re at it,” he added next to my ear, “think about why I might feel like paddling your ass.” I thought he was going to when he shoved me face down on the bed. Instead, he removed the plug from my ass. Relief flooded me. Thank god he had taken that damned thing out! I could sleep a
lot
better without it!

“You’re mad at me
all
the time,” I informed him when he yanked me up again.

“And I hardly ever know why,” I added, my chin wobbling faintly as I dwelt on the sense SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 96

of misusage I felt over that.

He caught my chin. “If you start that again, I
will
paddle your ass,” he growled, effectively diverting me from the urge to cry.

“I think that’s SBDM not submission,” I informed him when I had given it some thought.

His lips twitched at the corners. “BDSM, you silly twit.”

“That’s what I said.”

“This may come as a shock to you, dear heart, but I don’t know or care what any of it’s called. I know what I like, and I know what I want. The only thing that matters to me is that
you
are willing to give me anything I want.” I smiled up at his face as he slipped an arm behind my back and one beneath my knees and lifted me against his chest. “I am,” I assured him just as he tossed me onto the mattress. I hit the bed with a bounce and threw my arms and legs out to keep from rolling off as the world spun around me. Kaelen grounded me when he had climbed into the bed by planting his chest on mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Don’t be mad at me, Kael,” I said cajolingly. “I’m sorry about whatever I did.” He levered himself onto his elbows to look at me, much to my relief because he had been crushing my lungs. His gaze flickered over my face. “The question most dominate in my mind at the moment is how much you’re going to remember tomorrow,” he murmured finally, shifting upward until his face was directly above mine. His gaze moved to my mouth as he said it. He let out a gusty breath of impatience. “Fuck it,” he growled, “sue me.”

My jaw slackened in surprise. My lips parted as I sucked in a breath to ask him what he was talking about. I didn’t get the chance to get anything said, though. His mouth was hot as his lips covered mine, so wildly intoxicating that I instantly lost my train of thought as his tongue raked boldly, possessively across mine, stroked it, entwined with it. I uttered a sound of surrender in my throat as I tightened my arms around his neck and kissed him back with all the longing I had bottled up inside of me for weeks. I realized I had fantasized about the way his mouth would feel on mine from the first moment I had seen it, felt my belly tremble with excitement just looking at it.

It surpassed my wildest imaginings. His touch, the taste of him on my tongue, made we so drunk with pleasure that I was reeling by the time he broke the kiss and explored the rest of my face with his lips. Panting for breath, I nuzzled him dizzily as he explored my face and came back to my mouth, traced shivery kisses along my throat and neck, and retuned to my mouth.

I wanted to feel his mouth all over me,
knew
how good his kisses felt everywhere he caressed me with it, and yet I was reluctant to give up the taste and feel of him on my mouth.

His forays thrilled me to my core, and yet I was desperate with longing again each time he returned to my mouth to give me a brief taste of the feel of his. Grateful to the depths of my soul, I stroked his head as he finessed my nipples one at the time until I was on fire with need, struggling to caress whatever part of his body I could reach with my hands when I had to accept that I couldn’t reach him to kiss him back.

We surged restlessly together, arms and legs entangling, stroking body to body, leg to leg, rolling around like wrestlers as each of us struggled to achieve maximum contact and at the same time tried to reach those parts we most wanted to caress. He SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 97

roamed beyond my reach finally. A shiver skated over me as I felt the loss of his heat, but the flick of his tongue on my clit sent a fresh wave of fire through me, enveloping me in a cloud of warmth.

I tangled my fingers in his hair as he continued to tug at me until I felt myself shuddering on the verge of climax. “Kael!” I gasped desperately, groaning as another wave hit me and I could feel my insides quivering. “I’m going to cum if you don’t stop!” He disentangled my tugging fingers, manacled them on the bed on either side of my hips, and continued the assault on my senses while I fought and writhed and begged.

I felt as if I was going to die if I didn’t come, and yet I was frantic to have him inside of me when I did. I was nearly weeping for him when at last he stopped and surged over me, impaling me on his shaft almost in the same motion. My breath left me in a grunt as the head of his cock rammed against the mouth of my sex, breached it, slipped deeper as he cupped his hips toward mine and drove upward. We clutched at each other, heaving together with a frantic, mindless desperation to join our bodies that slickened both of us with perspiration and brought us both to culmination within moments of at last achieving union.

Kaelen found my mouth blindly as the shock waves broke over both of us almost simultaneously. I groaned, sucking at his tongue even as he sucked at mine in a gusty tangle of mouths and tongues.

Replete, we sank together toward oblivion, drowsing lazily, shifting after a few moments to a more comfortable position but remaining entangled with one another, our chests brushing with each gasp we took trying to catch our breaths. He stroked me lazily from time to time, tightened his arms around me, nuzzled his face against me and then searched for my lips, sometimes sealing his briefly with mine, sometimes merely brushing his lips along mine.

After a time, when we had cooled, caught our breaths, his caresses became more purposeful, aroused rather than soothed. Lethargic and thoroughly sated, I responded sluggishly at first, but he coaxed a budding of warmth from me with his lips and hands.

With patient determination, he stroked and kissed me until the warmth blossomed into heat and the heat into fire that demanded assuagement.

He shifted to support himself on one elbow, skimming a hand down my belly and then traced my cleft until he reached the bud below my sex. I opened my eyes and looked up at him dizzily as I felt his finger lightly stroking me there. “I want you here,” he said huskily.

I felt my throat close with sudden doubt, but I had told him I was willing to give him whatever he wanted, and I was. I nodded. He moved away from me to get the lubricant from the drawer beside the bed, and I rolled over, getting to my knees shakily.

He caught me around the waist when he returned, rolling me onto my back. “This way,” he said huskily. “I want to watch your face.” Confused but willing, I drew my knees up as he positioned himself between my thighs. I gasped as he began to slowly penetrate me.

“Relax, baby,” he murmured raggedly. “Push for me.” I was too disoriented to make sense of the directions. It was more instinct that guided me, or maybe familiarity because of the times he had penetrated me with the plug before. I dragged in a shuddering breath and panted as he breached my opening and moved deeper, feeling a moment of panic as I realized this was nothing like the plug.

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He paused, stroking me with shallow thrusts as he shifted onto one arm and reached to knead my breasts with his hands. The panic left me as I grew accustomed to the feel of him inside me. He thrust deeper as he slipped one hand down my belly and began to stroke my clit. The heat rose in me again as he strummed that nub, and I began lifting my hips to meet his strokes.

Releasing a harsh breath, he began to move faster. I felt quivers of pleasurable sensation inside of me as he did. The sensation built, grew harder, stronger until I was gasping and groaning again with imminent release. He shuddered all over when I came, bucking against him a little frantically as I was caught up in the throes of release.