Read Deep Surrendering (Episode Three) Online
Authors: Chelsea M. Cameron
Tags: #adult contemporary romance
Deep Surrendering (Episode Three) (2 page)
“Oh?” Every time he told me a new secret, I had this fear that this would be the one that I wasn’t able to handle. That this secret would cause me to reach the limit of what I could stand with him and then I’d have to say goodbye.
“And I went and saw her last week. After I left you. We didn’t do anything. I was too busy thinking of you. I was upset and I didn’t know what else to do. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, Marisol, but I don’t have very good coping skills.” Yes, I had noticed that, but it wasn’t the biggest issue at the present moment.
It was one thing to have him tell me that he visited hookers, prostitutes, whatever you wanted to call them, but it was another to know he’d seen one right after seeing me. Or before, actually.
He waited for my reaction, poised in his chair as if he was going to bolt again. Yet another failed coping mechanism. Run away when things get hard. Literally.
“Okay. Okay. Okay.” I kept saying it, emphasizing different parts of the word. I didn’t really know what else to say.
Once again, I wasn’t going to throw him a party, but this was yet another fact to put in the Fin File I’d started assembling in my mind.
“So you went to see her. To have sex?” I just needed to clarify that before we went forward. Perhaps it would be better if we did the secret thing after we had sex. It wasn’t the best foreplay at the moment.
“Yes. But the moment I looked at her, and she wasn’t you, I couldn’t, and I’m not sure if I can ever go back.” His eyes gazed at something far away that I couldn’t see, or even imagine.
He orbited in a strange world filled with people I would never meet.
“Ever go back to her, or to all of it?”
He inhaled again. “I don’t know, Marisol. I just don’t know. But there you go. One secret.” He put his hands on his knees like he was going to get up, but I put my hand up to stop him.
“Wait, I just … I need a second before we, you know.” He sat back and nodded. I wasn’t feeling particularly amorous at the moment, despite the fact that he said he’d been thinking of me and that was why he didn’t get it on with that woman. It was sweet, in a twisted way.
“Can we just,” I said, looking around, “can we just put on the brakes and do something else for a little while?” He nodded, his eyes unreadable.
“Cool. Okay.” I got up and searched for something to amuse us with while I mentally processed. I didn’t want to watch a movie, so I went to the cupboard under the TV and brought out several board games.
I held up Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit.
“Pick one,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t think this was the height of lame. I also had Jenga.
“Scrabble,” he said, pointing. The barest hint of amusement touched his lips. It was like a pre-smile.
“Scrabble it is. I’ll warn you, I know a lot of words.” I cleared a few things off the coffee table and set the board up.
“You do? Care to make things interesting?” Of course Fin was competitive. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from a man who loved control.
“Maybe. Stakes?”
“Winner gets to plan a date activity and the loser has to go along with it. No matter what.” Hmm, that was interesting. Mostly I’d let Fin pick our dates, but he’d asked for my input here and there on different places I liked.
“Deal,” I said, picking my letter tiles from the bag after shaking it up.
“No matter what,” Fin said, his eyes glittering. Yes. This was going to be interesting.
Fin did know a lot of words. He was a voracious reader, and I had to admit that some of the words he played I’d only heard once or twice in my life, and had never actually used in conversation. But my endless studies had also given me a store of academic buzzwords, and I was using them as much as I could. And so far neither of us had to use any dirty words. I didn’t know if he was avoiding them, or if they just hadn’t come up.
“Eschew,” I said, setting down my tiles. I counted up my points and recorded them. I was in the lead by a narrow margin. I tried not to gloat, but it wasn’t easy.
Fin stared at the board with more concentration than I’d seen on world class chess players. He propped his chin on his clasped hands and looked at the board from different angles, searching.
Finally, his mask of focus cracked and he set down his tiles.
“Quark.” Damn. He’d gotten a lot of points with that Q. I groaned inwardly and wrote his points down. I half-expected trash talking, but Fin was the silent type. He would make an excellent poker player.
I looked at my letters for a long time. I was trying to build from another word because I had an X, and if I could get it on a triple word score, I could get myself ahead again. There were only a few tiles left in the bag, so this was crunch time.
I mirrored his posture, making my face serious and clasping my hands.
At last, I saw it.
“Xenon. Boom.” I used up all but one of my tiles and looked up at him, triumphant.
He narrowed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “I’ll warn you, I’m not a very gracious loser. I’ll probably have to punish you for this.”
“For winning? How is that fair? It’s not my fault I’m smarter.” That made his eyes narrow to slits and I knew I was teetering on the edge of something.
He just shook his head again before reaching out, swiping the board off the coffee table and diving at me, pinning me to the floor.
I gasped and then my lungs were crushed under his weight.
“I told you I was bad at losing,” he said, raising himself onto his elbows but still holding me down with his hips.
“Cheater,” I said, matching his glare from earlier.
“I just decided I didn’t want to lose.” I stared up into his eyes, noting that dark Fin was here and I didn’t think he was going anywhere anytime soon.
“You have a tile in your hair,” he said.
“What letter?”
“It’s a T.”
“Oh.” The air seemed to heat and thicken between us and breathing became difficult. He was so close, but he hadn’t done anything other than the tackling.
“Tell me you want me,” he said, his voice soft and almost pleading.
“I want you. I really, really want you.” I reached up and stroked the side of his face. He’d shaved this morning, and the stubble was just starting to show again. I imagined how the prickling would feel against my skin and shivered in anticipation.
Want rolled over me like a wave, consuming me and making me forget everything else.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
I nodded. Was I?
I was going to find out.
“Take off your clothes.” By this time, I was used to Fin’s brusque manner when it came to sex. Did I wish for a slow seduction? Sure, who didn’t? But standing naked in front of him as his eyes devoured my body was pretty sexy too.
I just wished I could see his body, but that wasn’t allowed. Someday, maybe. We would have to build up enough trust. Him for me and me for him.
Once he had looked at me long enough to suit his liking, he told me to go and bend over the couch. Oh, the couch. The site of the first time he’d run away on me. I hoped this time wouldn’t be a repeat. I bent over the arm of the couch, grateful there was enough padding on the armrest. Fin came up behind me and ran a hand down my spine, stroking my vertebrae.
I waited.
His footsteps were loud in the quiet room as he assessed me. Two pillows were placed under my hands to prop me up. But then he pushed my head down until my face rested on them. I turned my face to the side so I could see him in my peripheral vision.
I kept silent. That was another one of Fin’s rules, and a hard one for me to follow.
“I love looking at you from the front, seeing your beautiful eyes and your smile and every other part of you, but I love you like this. The delicate curve of your spine and where it ends…” He stroked my spine from my neck to my tailbone. He kept going, and stroked all the way to my clit, making me inhale sharply. I was ready for him. I was always ready for him. He ran his finger in a circle on my clit once before reversing direction and going back up my spine.
“Wait there,” he said, and his touch vanished from my skin.
I craned my neck to see where he’d gone. He’d probably get mad at me for moving, but I couldn’t help it. The anticipation was killing me.
The sound of the fridge being opened was an odd one. What was he doing in there? Was he going to make himself a sandwich and then eat it off my back? I tried to think what kind of food I had in my fridge. Nothing sexy like strawberries and chocolate. I might have a thing of whipped cream in there, but it was the crappy canned variety, and I didn’t think that would be the kind of thing Fin would go for.
Something clattered on the floor in the kitchen, and I almost raised my head enough to peek and see what he was doing, but I didn’t think he’d like that. There was another clatter and a muffled curse from Fin that made me muffle a laugh into the pillow.
I was able to shove the laughter aside just as he came back and set a bowl down on the coffee table.
“Lift your foot,” he said, placing one of my dish towels under my feet. How considerate. I had only a moment more of waiting before an ice cube made its way slowly from the top of my spine, all the way down.
I let out a little sound of surprise at the cold.
“Shhh, Cherry.” His voice was gentle, but this was only my first warning. A second ice cube was added and he worked his hands up and down my back, almost like a massage. Water started to drip to the floor, but the towel caught it.
And then I heard him get on his knees, and my legs were spread apart. Oh, I knew what was coming next, but the combination of his warm lips and the chill of the ice cube on my most sensitive of areas made me bite the pillow to muffle a scream.
He couldn’t say anything because his mouth was otherwise occupied, but I did get a little tap on the ass as my second warning.
But how was I supposed to be quiet under such treatment? I’d like to see him try, if he’d let me.
Fin didn’t allow me to touch him when we were having sex. He took me from behind, so I barely saw him. During more quiet moments, I often thought about what those things meant. Right now, my thoughts centered to the area between my legs that he tormented with his mouth and the ice.
The first ice cube finally melted, and he waited before getting another, blowing on my skin.
“You like that? I thought you might.” And then a finger that had been chilling in the bowl of ice slid inside me and I actually did scream. It was unavoidable.
The finger was removed, and I waited for him to say something. But instead of a smack, his hand (the one that hadn’t just been inside me) stroked down my back again.
“So lovely. Beautiful, beautiful girl.” His voice was hushed, and I thought he might be smiling. “I want you so much I can barely stand it. You make me feel things I didn’t think someone like me could feel. I … I don’t know what to do about it.” I was frozen, caught in the heat of the moment, but breathlessly waiting for him to say more. These moments were so few, and I wouldn’t have that many of them before he left. The telltale crinkle of a condom packet let me know what was coming next.
“But I know that I’m going to fuck you now, and I’m not going to be gentle. You know what to do if you want me to stop. Agreed?” I nodded and heard the tear of a condom packet and then the zip of his pants.
He slammed into me so hard that the couch moved, and I hoped it didn’t scratch the floor. He pulled out slowly and thrust again, and I knew that he was right. This wasn’t going to be gentle. It was as if he was angry at his little moment of weakness and was going to punish both of us for it.
My fingers gripped the pillow so hard that I was afraid I’d tear it. The assault continued, vicious and intense. But I welcomed each stroke and even pushed backward to meet him. The pleasure was accompanied by pain, but the two mingled together and surrounded me, and before I knew it, I climaxed, my back arching and my world spinning into oblivion.
He grunted as he kept up the punishing pace for a few more strokes and groaned with the arrival of his own orgasm.
Fin lay across my back, his chest heaving, shirt sticking to the sweat on my skin. I was pretty worn out myself. Sex with Fin was always a workout and never boring.
He kissed the back of my neck and then continued, all the way down my back.
“Thank you,” he said, standing up.
“You’re welcome?” It sounded like a question.