Dare to Surrender (10 page)

He stayed that way for several minutes, leaning against the wet tile, panting.
Get a grip, Hunter!
This was not the time to be starting a relationship. Just the word sent a shiver of fear through him. Ash had only had one
so-called
relationship,
and he’d fucked that up. Not in the way Ruby thought, but still. He’d never felt the way he knew he should have, the way
she wanted him to, and he’d let it go on way too long.

He liked Joy. He wanted to bind her. But he refused to let it get serious. He didn’t have the time or the energy to do his
job, support his family, and start a new relationship. His family had to come first, and that meant his job needed to be the
priority. That also meant he couldn’t stay up all night in a darkroom and expect to still competently do his job.

He’d already let people down, and that was something he couldn’t allow to happen. Ever again.

Joy was locking up the gallery when she felt her cell phone vibrating in her purse. “Crap.” Dropping the bag onto the ground,
she began pawing through the contents and finally dug out the phone just one ring before it went to voice mail.

“Hi, Erica,” she said, standing.

“Hey. Just wanted to say we’re meeting for Monday night cocktails at the Zone instead of the usual bar. I guess there’s some
bartender Scott is crushin’ on.”

Joy closed her eyes momentarily. “Oh, crap.”

“What?” Erica asked, her voice curious. After all, Joy had never missed one evening of Monday night cocktails.

“I can’t go.” Joy stepped onto the street and closed the door behind her, locking it. The sky was a gloomy gray, and it felt
like rain would fall any second. The first rain of the season; it was early this year. “I have to see Ash tonight,” Joy said.

There was a long pause before Erica spoke. “Ash? Didn’t you just see him two nights ago?”

“And last night,” she said before thinking.

“Wait. I was at your house last night. Did he come over after I made dinner?” Erica asked incredulously.

“Yeah. I needed to talk to him about… something.”

There was a long pause; Joy knew Erica was waiting for her to explain. When she didn’t, Erica said, “So he showed up at what?
Ten? Eleven?”

Joy paused at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn. “Around ten thirty. Why do you sound so shocked?”

“Joy. That was a booty call.”

“What? No. I asked him over because I needed to discuss business with him.” The light turned green, and she stepped into the
street.

“And did you?”

“Um… not really?”

“Did you do it?”

“Um, by ‘it,’ do you mean sex?” Why was Joy blushing at the memory of being spanked over her kitchen table?

“Of course I mean sex! Well, did you?”

“Listen, I’m going into the garage to get my car. I’m going to lose my signal in a minute.”

“So you’re flaking us off to go see Ash?”

Joy did feel guilty about that. Every Monday for nearly two years she’d been meeting the same group of three of her closest
friends for drinks and dinner. Under any other circumstances, she wouldn’t have flaked off her friends, but she had to see
Ash. She had to tell him about the sculpture, and she couldn’t wait one second longer than necessary. She’d been sick to her
stomach all day thinking about it, but it had to be done.

“Listen, I’m sorry. Tell the gang I’m sorry, too. If my talk with Ash goes fast, maybe I’ll catch you later.”

“Yeah. Right. Somehow I have a feeling that won’t be happening.”

“Erica, don’t worry.” A few drops of rain hit her head, and Joy picked up the pace. The last thing she needed was to show
up at Ash’s with damp, frizzy hair. She nearly laughed at the thought—frizzy hair was the least of her worries.

The phone was silent for a long minute and then Erica spoke, this time in a softer tone. “You’re right; I’m being overprotective.”
Joy heard voices in the background, and Erica lowered her voice. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Joy. I—”

But Joy had entered the parking garage and her signal dropped. “Crap,” she muttered as she unlocked the Mercedes and got inside.
There had definitely been a strange undercurrent between her and Erica over the last few days, ever since she’d met Ash. But
she couldn’t worry about it now, and anyway, it was probably going to be a moot point after Ash found out about the sculpture.

She pulled out of the garage and immediately had to turn on her wipers as rain assaulted her windshield in hard, steady drops.
The streets were full of drivers honking and generally driving crazy, as they tended to do each year during the first rain.
Driving only made her more nervous, and as she made her way to Ash’s place, her stomach felt sicker than ever. Yeah, Erica
had nothing to worry about. After tonight, she doubted Ash would ever want to see Joy again.

S
tanding in the corner of the student kitchen, Erica stared at her cell phone. Joy had never missed Monday night with the gang,
and now she was doing so for some guy she’d just met?

Something wasn’t right.

Ash Hunter. He was obviously using her; why else would he show up for sex late at night? And Joy, so sweet and so naive, was
totally clueless. Just like she had been with Cartwright.

“Your girlfriend acting up again?”

Erica jerked her gaze up to see Blaine staring at her with a raised brow and a smirk.

“Don’t you have some bread to burn?”

Blaine took a step closer, and damn if her heart didn’t skip a beat.

“So sassy.”

Taken aback by something in Blaine’s eyes, Erica shook her head, for once in her life having a hard time finding words to
make a retort. “Stop it.”
Yeah. Real cool, lady.

Blaine’s expression changed, softened, and he took a step closer—too close—and reached up to softly graze Erica’s cheekbone.
Her breath caught as Blaine ran his finger down the side of her face, her throat, to skim the V-shaped neckline of her short-sleeved
dress. “I think you need to find some other ways to expel all that energy of yours,” Blaine whispered before turning on his
heel and walking away.

Exhaling, Erica stared after him, her heart beating a mile a minute. What had that been about? She wasn’t exactly sure.

And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

There wasn’t any parking in front of Ash’s building, of course, so Joy had to run two blocks in the pouring rain before he
let her into his apartment. Shivering, she stood in the entry and knew she probably looked even more of a mess than usual.

Ash took her bag and coat and hung them on the coat-rack. “You’re soaked through.”

“N-no. I’m fine.” She brushed a dripping-wet lock of hair out of her eye.

“Come on. Let me make you some coffee.”

She followed him toward the kitchen. “How about some whiskey instead?”

Glancing over his shoulder, he raised a brow in question. “Long day?”

She pictured Panos’s beady eyes as he’d yelled at her earlier. “You could say that.”

Ash went to a cabinet and pulled down a bottle of Bushmills. “On the rocks?”

“Neat.”

Ash poured some of Ireland’s finest into a tumbler and handed it to her. She tilted the glass and poured the potent liquid
down her throat. Swallowing, she gasped as the whiskey burned its way into her gut. She held out the glass. “More, please.”

“That must have been some day.” Ash poured another two inches into the tumbler.

“It’s about to get even better.” This time she took a smaller sip instead of drinking the entire contents in one swallow.
She met his gaze. “Ash, there’s something I have to tell you. It’s important, and I’m afraid it may affect your feelings for
me.”

But he was just staring at her again. “Okay, but first I want to show you something.”

“But—”

He took her free hand. “It will only take a second.” Leaning in, he kissed her ear and gave the lobe a sharp nip. A shudder
went through her, but this time it was Ash-induced instead of alcohol.

Oh, but the exquisite whiskey was hitting her blood now, and a warm glow was spreading over her. “Fine. But don’t distract
me for long. I want to talk to you about something significant.”

“Scout’s honor.” And then he kissed her like no Scout should know how to kiss.

When he released her, her eyes drifted open lazily. “Damn, you’re good,” she said, drawing out the last word. And that whiskey
was lovely.

“Come on.” He led her to a door and stepped through.

“The garage? You want to show me your garage? Hell, if I knew you had a flippin’ garage, I would have parked in it instead
of a mile away in the rain.”

Laughing, he said, “Watch your step; it’s narrow. And this was a garage, but now it’s my darkroom.”

As she followed him down the steps, the acrid smell of chemicals hit her. “You want to show me your dark-room?”

He paused in front of a table of plastic trays but nodded to his left. “No, I want to show you these.”

A clothesline stretched across a twelve-foot space, and pinned to it were several black-and-white images. She slowly walked
toward the photographs, her eyes widening as she got a closer look.

“These are… Is that…
me
?”

He was behind her now, and she felt the warmth of his body, felt him breathing as he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
Every time he did that, it melted her just a little.

“But, how did you do this?” Logically, she knew the images were of her—he’d taken them last night, but the woman in the photographs
was someone else entirely. That woman looked Brigitte Bardot–sexy, with her wild hair and sex-glazed eyes, her curvy form
stretched across the table.

“How did you do that?” she whispered.

“What?”

“Make me look…”

“What, baby?”

“Not fat,” she whispered, and her face burned at her own words.

She felt his hand on her side, palming her rib cage. She could see her ribs in the photograph, and it shocked her. That girl
in the picture wasn’t nearly as big as Joy knew she was.

“Don’t you ever look in the mirror?”

She actually avoided full-length mirrors whenever possible, but she didn’t tell Ash that now.

Ash reached into the waistband of her jeans, his hand sliding in easily to span her pelvis. “You should wear tighter clothes,
Joy. You have a body that should be shown off.”

Her chest gave a nervous clench, and she tugged at her loose shirt. She remembered the knit dress she’d worn last week and
how her grandmother had told her girls with her figure shouldn’t wear things like that. “No,” she said.

“Look at the woman in those photographs. Is she unattractive?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “You’re just a talented photographer.”

“Hey, I don’t mess with the photographs by using any of that digital shit. It’s simple. You’re a beautiful woman, Joy. And
it shows.”

She didn’t believe him, but she wasn’t going to argue with him anymore. And then he turned her around and started kissing
her. “I tried not to think about you today.”

“Gee, thanks,” she said against his mouth.

“I didn’t succeed. I thought about you all day. I thought about you all night, when I was printing these. My mind was going
crazy with ideas.”

“What kind of ideas?” she whispered, her heart hammering.

He brought her wrists behind her back. Settling her hands against the base of her spine, he pressed her to his body, his erection
hard beneath his jeans. He pulled her arms back, gently, until her chest arched forward.

He ran his tongue along her bottom lip. “Naughty ideas. Perverted ideas. Things I want to do to you, what I want you to do
to me.”

Her nipples swelled inside her bra, but she said, “We need to talk….”

“I
am
talking. I’m telling you exactly what I want you to do.” He reached to the side, and she saw a length of clothesline in his
hand. He grinned. “Never thought I’d use anything but nylon or hemp, but right now I just want to bind you, and I don’t want
to wait.”

She didn’t want him to wait.

So weak. With him, her body’s response always won, and she knew, once again, she was going to delay the little talk she’d
been putting off for too long already. Just a bit longer…

Along with being a disorganized, tardy mess, she also had the lovely character trait of being a big procrastinator.

“I’m going to tie your wrists behind your back.”

“Yes.”
Please.

He spun her around, and seconds later she felt the scratchy rope around her wrists. When he was done, he turned her back to
face him.

Just the act of him binding her made her pussy throb and dampen. Just knowing he wanted to own her, knowing he wanted to use
her, made her insides flutter.

He unbuttoned her blouse, the backs of his knuckles warm against her skin. When it was undone, he pulled one of her breasts
out of her bra and squeezed her flesh, tightly. She gasped as desire washed over her, landing in a hot pool right between
her legs.

“Yes,” she hissed.

He undid the front of her jeans and slid his hand beneath her panties to slip a finger into her moist folds.

“You’re wet for me.” His fingers were long and warm as he reached deeper, and she bucked against his hand. “Fuck my hand,
Joy. Show me how much you want to be fucked.”

Even as her skin burned with embarrassment, she began to move her hips against his hand, back and forth, rubbing her slick
skin until her pussy felt swollen, wanting. He beaded her nipple between the fingertips of his other hand and pulled; she
cried out as the sharp pain shot straight to her sex.

“Yes, that’s my girl. Beautiful girl.” He slapped her breast, lightly, and she felt her flesh bounce when he did it again
harder.

“Ash…” She couldn’t believe what he was doing to her, what she was letting him do. Letting go, giving him total power over
her. Using her.

She continued moving against his hand, let him slap her breasts. Her arms clenched behind her back, her wrists strained against
the twine. Her thigh muscles tensed as she moved her hips, back and forth, trying to hold off her orgasm, just a minute longer….