Surrender (8 page)

Kaelen led me to a stool and, grasping me around the waist, lifted me onto the seat. I hooked my heels on the rung below my feet. He promptly rearranged me so that I had one leg on either side. I didn’t have to look down to know the new position had left my skirt gaping. I could feel the currents of air wafting over my exposed pussy. Even if not for that I would have known without looking because as Kealen stepped away, all of the men did, freezing in position and staring unblinkingly for several moments before they seemed to come out of their trance.

Kaelen crossed the room and propped against the wall to watch. His focus seemed to be on the pool table and the men playing, but since he had taken up a position directly across from me I wasn’t sure he wasn’t watching me—or at least watching the others watch me.

“How’s the game going?” he asked.

Gareth flicked a glance at me. “I’m in the lead.” Kaelen’s gaze moved to me for a moment.

Dev sent Kaelen a look I found hard to interpret. “You’re not playing?” Kaelen’s dark brows rose. “I’m the host,” he said coolly, but there was something in the way he said it and the look he gave Dev that made me think there had been some sort of challenge issued and repelled.

Cameron and Gareth exchanged a look.

I had never played pool. I found it fascinating to watch them, but I began to have the sense after a little while that there were undercurrents in the room that had nothing to SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 35

do with the game they were playing. From time to time one or another of them would make some sort of challenging macho comment to another player, but the atmosphere wasn’t relaxed like I would have thought would be the case with a group of friends playing a friendly game. They seemed a little more competitive than friendly.

There was an objective to this game, I finally decided.

I suspected I figured into it.

I wasn’t sure why I got that impression. Mostly, after that first trance-like gaze I had gotten from the collective, they seemed to ignore me, but occasionally, as one game ended and another began, one would glance at me, study me for a long moment, and then look away again.

I was beginning to get uncomfortable from sitting so long when a strange man appeared in the doorway of the game room. “Dinner is served, Sir.” Nodding, Kaelen came away from the wall and moved toward me. As the men who had been playing pool broke off and moved to put the cues up, he helped me down from the stool and settled one hand on my back, just above my buttocks, escorting me from the room.

Gareth, Dev, Chance, and Cameron followed us, discussing points and games.

Kaelen guided me to the formal dining room, which I had discovered earlier while I was exploring the mansion. When he had escorted me to the chair at one end, he pulled it out for me. A little surprised, I sat.

It was a huge table, but I saw several leaves had been removed since I had seen it earlier. It was still long enough that when Kaelen took his seat at the opposite end he looked a long way off. Cameron and Gareth took the chairs nearest me. Dev and Chance, looking mildly annoyed, took the two seats on either side of Kaelen.

The table, I saw, was laid out formally. I stared down at the silverware, prodding my memory for the correct order I was to use the half dozen utensils.

The man who had summoned us from the game room came in with a bottle of wine and showed it to Kaelen. Kaelen nodded, and he proceeded around the table pouring wine for each of the diners. Surreptitiously, I adjusted the top of my dress as he neared me, trying to keep my breasts covered without being too obvious. The man very carefully refrained from glancing at my neckline, however, and moved on.

When he had left the room again, Kaelen glanced down the table at me and then looked at his guests. “How did the game go?” he asked casually.

Gareth sent me a smoldering look. “I came out in the lead.” Cameron flicked a glance at me before he turned to look at Kaelen. “Second place,” he murmured.

Looking disgusted, Dev lifted his wine glass. “Third,” he said, tipping the glass to his lips and draining it in one gulp.

Chance reddened and chuckled. “Guess I don’t need to say anything. I never was worth a damn at pool.”

I glanced at each of them as they spoke and finally looked at Kaelen, certain now that there were very definite undercurrents that baffled me.

Shifting in his seat, Kaelen produced a coin. He looked at Gareth pointedly.

“Heads,” he said implacably. Gareth frowned, but he didn’t say anything. Kaelen flipped the coin, stared at it a moment, and looked at Cameron. “Call it.”

“Tails.”

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Kaelen looked at Dev. “Heads.” He flipped the coin again and looked at Chance.

“Tails,” Chance said promptly.

Kaelen smiled faintly. “This just isn’t your night, Chance. Heads.” Completely at sea, I stared at Kaelen and then at the others, trying to decide from their expressions just what was going on. It was useless. Aside from the fact that Cameron and Kaelen looked pleased with themselves, and the others less pleased, I couldn’t tell what was going through their minds.

The server brought out a cart filled with dishes. Taking the shallow bowls off one at the time, he set a bowl before each of us and disappeared again. I stared down at the soup. It looked like lobster bisque. My stomach immediately leapt at the heavenly odor rising from the dish. I’d had almost no lunch, and the semen I had swallowed instead hadn’t really been very filling. I was starving.

Lifting the soup spoon, I sampled the soup and discovered it was as delicious as it smelled.

“Excellent soup!” Chance said enthusiastically. “I should try to steal your chef!” Kaelen flicked a vague annoyed look from Chance to me but smiled faintly. “I thought you already had.”

Chance chuckled. “I did. He’s seriously stuck-up, Kael. I don’t know why you put up with him.”

“Because he’s the best.”

Gareth glanced toward Kaelen sharply as if he had had a sudden thought. “Forgot

… I couldn’t get those reports. They weren’t ready.” Kaelen studied him for a long moment. He didn’t look pleased. After a moment, however, he seemed to shrug it off. “Tomorrow,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument.

Gareth looked as if he might argue, or at least say something else on the subject, but finally shrugged and returned his attention to his soup.

Cameron sent me an appraising gaze. “You’re beautiful tonight, Annabelle,” he said, his voice husky.

Startled, I glanced at him, feeling my face redden. No one, with the exception of my mother when she was really, really pissed off with me, called me Annabelle. I was actually surprised that he knew that was my full name. I didn’t recall putting it on the application I had filled out.

I must have, I decided. Otherwise, how would he know that Anna was a short form for Annabelle?

I smiled at him uncertainly, pleased even though I strongly suspected he was talking about the clothes not the woman. “Thank you,” I said hesitantly and then glanced at Kaelen, wondering if responding constituted speaking without being spoken to.

He was frowning at Cameron, I saw, but as if he sensed my gaze, he met it for a long moment. Finally, nodding slightly, he returned his attention to his dinner.

I wasn’t sure if that was an approval or not, but it didn’t really matter. I didn’t feel comfortable about joining the conversation anyway, or trying to. They all knew one another. I didn’t know any of them.

Gareth prodded Cameron with a comment about some incident they had both been involved in, and, as they fell to reminiscing, I studied the two beverage glasses in front of me—water and wine. I didn’t particularly care for either one, but I wasn’t sure I should SURRENDER Kimberly Zant 37

indulge in the wine. I had never had a head for alcohol and rarely drank.

On the other hand, I was well aware of its properties.

I decided I would drink a little, just to take the edge off of my nervousness.

It took the edge off, all right. By the time I was halfway through the main course, I had discovered that Cameron and Gareth’s anecdotes were hilariously funny.

Cameron took my wine glass and handed me the water. Since he winked at me when he did it, I decided he wasn’t angry with me, but Kaelen didn’t look terribly pleased. Subduing the urge to giggle at the look he sent me, I drank water for the remainder of the meal.

I was mildly disappointed when it ended. I was tipsy, and I knew it, but I had still thoroughly enjoyed the tales Cameron and Gareth had entertained me with of their boyhood together. Kaelen, Dev, and Chance had figured into a lot of them, but since Kaelen was older, I discovered, than Gareth by several years, he was ‘away at school’

during most of their wilder escapades.

Cameron helped me from my chair when we all rose to leave the dining room.

Stroking my cheek lightly, he smiled at me. “Later,” he murmured.

Surprised, wondering what he meant by that cryptic remark, I glanced up at Gareth as he came up behind me and settled a hand at the small of my back. Glancing at me, the others disappeared one by one, except for Kaelen, who waited by the door until Gareth had escorted me out and then followed us down the hall to the stairs.

Despite the wine, which had gone straight to my head and necessitated that I focus a good deal of my attention on walking without weaving, I began to get a feeling that something was definitely up as Gareth and Kaelen, without hesitation, led me up the stairs.

I was positive something was up when they escorted me to my room and went inside with me, closing the door.

Uneasiness moved over me, and I turned and stared at them a little doubtfully, feeling my belly tighten as they began to undress. Kaelen glanced at me as he removed his shirt. Frowning, he tossed it aside, moved toward me, and caught the hem of my dress, drawing it upwards and over my head.

I shivered as he discarded the dress and skated a hand down my arm.

“Nervous?” he murmured, his voice low but husky.

About what? I wondered, realizing abruptly that there was some sort of agenda here and someone had failed to give me a program booklet.

Gareth moved up behind me, skating a hand over my buttocks.

As I tipped my head to look up at him, he slipped his arms around me and cupped a breast in either hand, massaging them gently as he drew me back against him. He was naked. I felt the thrust of his cock against my buttocks, the prickle of his chest hair against my upper back.

He released my breasts after a moment, slipped a hand down to my waist, and urged me toward the bed. Shivering now with a mixture of nerves and anticipation, I climbed onto the bed. Gareth followed me, rolling me onto my back and nuzzling his face against my neck and the upper slope of my breasts. I felt the bed dip as he lifted away slightly and reached to cup one breast, tugging at the tip until it stood erect. Kaelen settled on the other side of the bed and rolled onto his side. Propping his head in his hand, he watched through narrowed eyes as Gareth plucked at my other nipple.

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I knew where this leading. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to blind me to that, short of drinking myself comatose. I just wasn’t sure why both of them were in the bed with me.

Taking my arms, Gareth lifted them one by one and settled them above my head.

Shifting downward then, he caught the nipple nearest him between his teeth and raked it just hard enough to send a jolt through me that felt like a bolt of electricity, frying nerve endings as it traveled through me. The fire they had built in me earlier had never died completely. It had only dwindled to smoldering ashes, and it took no more than the one touch to send me up in flames again.

I gasped, arching upward instinctively as he pulled on it. As I did, Kaelen leaned toward me and covered the other nipple, sucking on it hard and then plucking at it with the edge of his teeth as Gareth was doing. Twin bolts went through me then, shooting downward through my body to pool like fire in my sex. I gasped, moaned, writhed beneath them as they ignited my body into a blistering heat within moments. The wine I had drank was nothing compared to the euphoric drug that sent my mind reeling as I was bombarded with exquisite sensations so intense I couldn’t catch my breath.

A hand stroked my lower belly and found my clit, teased it a moment, and then slipped lower along my thigh. I realized, dimly, that it was Kaelen as he caught the thigh nearest him and dragged it outward, opening my sex to him. His hand glided upward again along the inside of my thigh. This time he stroked my cleft, delving one finger inside of me as he found the mouth of my sex. I arched against the finger as he probed me, began to stroke me deeply.

“Kaelen!” I gasped desperately, unable to evade them. “I can’t … I can’t….” He lifted his head, studying my face as he stroked me, and Gareth teased my nipple with his mouth and tongue and teeth until even my skin felt as if it was on fire.

“Only a little longer, baby,” he murmured, leaning forward to suck a kiss along my neck. “Hold it for me.”

To my relief, Gareth ceased to torment me and shifted into a sitting position.

Removing his finger, Kaelen told me to get up on my knees.

Dizzy, disoriented, I rolled over and struggled to comply. Gareth grasped me beneath the arms and dragged me over his lap, thrusting his cock against my lips. I opened my mouth over it mindlessly, aching all over, certain I was still to get nothing more than the opportunity to give them pleasure. Kaelen settled his hands on my waist, lifting until my hips were in the air. As he did so, Gareth speared his fingers through my hair, holding my head and guiding my mouth over his cock.

I felt something huge and rounded probing my cleft a split second before Kaelen aligned his cock with the mouth of my sex and thrust. If he hadn’t been gripping my hips when he did so, he would have shoved me head first into Gareth’s stomach. Pushing my legs further apart, he thrust again, wedging the head into my opening. I gasped around the cock in my mouth, struggling to focus on finessing Gareth’s cock when my mind was entirely on the huge, engorged member Kaelen was fighting to force inside of me. My moisture coated the head as he pushed again, allowing him to slip deeper. He stroked me shallowly for several moments, coating his cock with my juices and finally, catching my hips firmly, rammed into me so hard I nearly strangled on Gareth’s cock.