Wicked Surrender (7 page)

When she had her tears
under control,
she finally lifted her head—a
nd knew from the tightening around his eyes that he’d noticed it.

In a cheery
voice,
she said, “Fine, I was going out anyways,” and stepped past him.

She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. She walked and didn’t stop until there was grass under her feet. Dmetri came up beside her, his long blonde hair reaching towards her
in
the breeze. The sunlight bounced off his pale skin giving him a faint, creamy glow.

A sudden thought had her snickering. “What?” Dmetri asked, looking at her.

“I was just thinking it’s funny that your skin doesn’t glitter in the sunlight.”

He looked at her as if she’d just escaped the nuthouse. “Why on earth would I glitter in the sunlight?”

After she had her laughter under control, she said with all seriousness, “Because you’re a vampire. Edward Cullen glitters in the sunlight, like a diamond twinkling in the light.”

“I
don’t know who Edward Cullen is
but vampires do
not
...
twinkle
.” He said the word with such disdain that she broke into a fit of
laughter
. His eyes softened as he looked down at her and her laughter quickly turned into hard coughs.

She knew he was there because she could smell
his distinct scent
but she looked behind her
anyway
to see Jacks trailing them
. He
look
ed
every bit the bodyguard with his eyes alert on the environment
—
on Dmetri. Her heart leaped in her chest, stomach fluttered and danced as she looked at him. When she turned back to look at Dmetri, she didn’t miss the fact that she felt none of that for him.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“You, me, us.”

“There hasn’t been an ‘us’ for a long time, and there isn’t going to be.”

“God dammit, Vera, just give me a chance. I fucked up badly. I know that now and I want to fix it.” Some things were either too broken to fix or to
o
old to bother with.
She wasn’t sure which category they belonged it, but it was probably the former.

“You don’t really want me, Dmetri.” He started to argue but she held out a hand. “No wait, listen to me. You don’t. We were together for a whole year. A year
that
I spent loving you and you spent not loving me. You didn’t love me then and you don’t love me now. That’s why you ended things.”

Calm and cool, Vera took a deep breath and nearly smiled. She was doing good at this. Shock couldn’t begin t
o describe what she was feeling.
M
ore like her mind was in a
blender
and someone hit frappe. But
neither she nor
her beast was interested in his offer, which surprised her most of all.

“Dammit, I’m sorry about that Vera. I’ve been sorry about it ever since I said it, ever since I let you go. And why does love matter so much to you anyways? We didn’t need love then and we don’t need it now. We were good together, Vera. We both know it.”

Vera’s hand
s
curled
into fists
. She may not be as strong as a vampire, but with the rage of her lykaen
beast,
she was certain she could get in a few, very gratifying shots before he could react.
Something in her snapped.
Coming to a hard stop, she shoved him hard in the chest.

“You’ve been sorry about it? What the hell does that mean. No,
don’t answer that
.
I know what it means. It means you realized you fucked up and now you miss me. Well do you know what I have to say about that,” she looked left then right, then got up in his face and yelled, “too fucking bad!”

It felt good to be telling him how she felt. Hell, she’d been living with it for years. And now that she’d
started,
she couldn’t stop. She paced before him and ranted.

“You don’t know what
love
has to do with it? What are you Tina Turner? Love has
everything
to do with it. I loved you, Dmetri. I wanted to marry you and spend my life with you in that ridiculously huge castle you call a ho
me.” She was shouting now
but she didn’t care.

“We might have been ‘good’ together, but dammit I can
do better
. I can be
great
with someone, if I’m lucky we might even be
perfect.
And you know what, Dmetri? I’m glad you broke up with me. I’m ecst
atic
because it was the right thing to do. You didn’t love me, and that’s not what I want. I want a man who can actually say the words and mean them. A man who actually needs to hear that I love him too.”

Her voice lowered to a husky, shaking whisper. Unshed tears were shiny droplets hanging in her eyes, her body a shaking mass of wired flesh.

“And you don’t deserve this either. You don’t deserve a half a relationship. You deserve a woman you can love and a woman who loves you. You may not realize it yet, but it’s true.”

And with her words still lingering in the air, she turned and walked away, her old pain a
fleeting memory
.

# # #

Vera had to walk, couldn’t stop moving even as she pushed into the
tree
s
and felt her feet sinking into the soft, muddy soil. She looked up through the canopy of trees to see gray light filtering in like flashlight beams from heaven. A storm was moving in, it darkened the sky with dark puffy clouds as it rumbled and growled its way
overhead
.

She couldn’t catch her breath and her stupid heart was panicking in her chest.

What had she done?

Elation
turned to
excitement
and
buzz
ed
in her veins like a drug, but regret and doubt clouded her mind with worry, making her climb her way over fallen trees and rocks with steely determination.

A hand touched her shoulder and she screeched, spinning around with her hands held out. She blinked then cocked her head to the side. God, how had she forgotten he was here? This was so not what she needed. That last thing she wanted to think about was the newest complication in her life.

She squared off to face him. “What are you doing here?” Jacks narrowed his gaze on her.

“I’m here to protect you.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, throwing out her arms and spinning in an unsteady circle. “I really need your protection all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. Why don’t you do me a favor and meet me back at the house, okay?” There, she could be calm and reasonable.

“I can’t do that.” Vera didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry, but when she stopped spinning and faced him she realized he was much closer to her than before. Or maybe her mind was just out of it. God dammit, she really didn’t need this now. So she did the only thing she could do and plastered on her trademark cocky smile.

“Yes, you can do that. See it’s not very difficult. You just turn around and start walking.” She mimicked the motion with her two fingers. “See? Easy.”

Too
late,
she realized she’d said the wrong thing. His body seemed to grow bigger, stronger as he came towards her. Blue eyes darkened to the color of midnight and never left hers.

She could have backed up, but
dammit,
her legs were traitorous bastards and stayed frozen in place. She let him brush against her, wrap his arms around her, and when his mouth captured hers, the worry in her left like a fleeting wind
.
L
eaving only a different kind of
exhilaration
. He lifted his lips and whispered her name
—
a haunted, husky ache of sound.

Thoughts fled her mind except one.

Jacks, Jacks.

She grabbed on to his shoulders and vaulted her legs around his hips, grinding her swelling sex against the hard cock that awaited her beneath his jeans.

Movement processed somewhere in her mind and she realized he was walking, and then hard bark was pressing into her back. She sunk her hand into his short, spiky hair and kissed him to keep from moaning. God, he tasted so good. Her tongue licked his, passed over his teeth and inner cheek, she couldn’t get enough of him. And when he groaned and squeezed her breast through
her
shirt, she knew he was just as gone as she was.

“I need you,” he growled, pushing her shirt up past her bra so he could see her breasts. His breaths deepened as he took in her heavy breasts, and he didn’t hesitate to pull them out of her bra cups. A part of her couldn’t help but like the way he took charge. He touched her possessively, like a man sampling goods before buying; his touch was rough and just a little bit hard as he plumped and massaged her breasts.

He didn’t need to touch her anymore. Her body was more than ready. His head bent down to take in a hard nipple and she gasped, her hands latching on to his back to hold on as pleasure shot through her.

“Jacks,” she whispered roughly. How had she never felt anything like this? She wanted to curl around him on the earthen floor and be taken by him in every way imaginable. She had to be careful. It would be so easy to lose herself in him, forget about all those reasons she needed to be in control. This was just like before but with some key difference she couldn’t wrap her foggy mind around.

Control. Had to stay in control. The unbearable pain of losing it wasn’t something she could afford to try twice.

Vera grabbed Jacks
hair,
pulled until he growled at her
and pulled away from her breast. He reminded her of a beast snapping at her because she took away his toy.

Dropping her legs back to the ground, she used her lykaen strength to shove him hard. He still only moved back a foot, when he should have gone several, but she used the advantage she had and tripped his ankle so he we
nt sprawling back
to the earth.

She climbed up his body, her eyes ravishing his hard,
muscular
body. His thighs were like solid tree trunks that she wanted to kiss and worship with her fingertips and tongue. She
laid
down over him, rested her cheek against the hard bulge in his jeans.

“Jesus Christ, Vera. Get the fuck up here now. If you don’t want your panties ripped off, you better take them off now.” Moaning, she ignored him and continued to rub her cheek back and forth across his
zipper
. She licked the denim, her hips undulating in a subtle plea. “You better take my cock out and do something about it before I take over, baby.”

Vera heard the threat in his voice and smiled. She felt like a cat in heat--
as if
she was in her breeding cycle and craved only one thing.
Only usually it didn’t matter who gave her what she needed so long as she g
ot it.
B
ut this was different.
It was only this man, this human
man that
she wanted.

She reached to unbutton his pants, her fingers tracing the edge of his low-slung jeans, dipping inside to feel the blazing heat of his skin.

“Fuck,” he growled, and then his hands were there, unzipping his jeans and pulling out his cock.

Vera moaned and couldn’t stop her tongue from flicking out and tasting the side of his cock. She moaned again at his heady, masculine taste. His cock was so soft but hard underneath. The head was a dark shade of red and weeping at the tip.

“Vera,” he warned, his hand fisting in her hair. Vera knew what he wa
nted, what she wanted to
give him
, but c
ouldn’t resist teasing him
even as her pussy throbbed and creamed.

Using only her
tongue,
she traced the sides of his cock, ignoring the
tip that
so desperately wanted her. Finally, after it was all wet, she used her lips and tongue to kiss the long, hard length. The hand in her hair started to shake. When she looked up, she saw his chest working hard, his lips pulled back into a pained grimace, and a dark warning in his eyes.

That was all the warning she had before his hand tightened in her hair and he thrust his cock past her lips and into her mouth. She watched as his eyes rolled back and his head fell heavily down to the ground. After he got into her mouth, he couldn’t stop. His hips pumped his cock between her plump lips, against her wet tongue, with only one thought in mind--pleasure.

Vera moaned and tightened her hands on his hard hips and knew she’d leave fingernail marks there. But then she pushed him down hard and pulled her mouth away. This was about control,
her
control. How did he manage to keep turning this on her?