Serial Book 1- Tempted to Submit (7 page)

Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren 47

“Spread your legs.” I did it before I even thought about it, the fabric of my skirt riding up, exposing the edges of my stockings, the flush of my panties, and the inches of skin in between.

The leather traced over my bare ribs, the valley between my breasts, my hard, tight nipples. I began to pant, more excited than I’d ever been in my life.

“Hold on to the desk.” I did, swallowing hard, wondering what would happen next.

Instead of the flogger, I felt Zach’s fingers toy with the crotch of my panties. I moaned lightly and leaned into the touch, but he didn’t linger.

Deftly, he pulled the fabric aside, and I felt slick pressure at my entrance. Instinctively opening to it, I was startled to feel something heavy and round being inserted in my most intimate of places, followed quickly by its twin.

I tried to clench my thighs together at the strange sensation, but Zach was there to block the movement.

“What . . .” I straightened up a bit to ask Zach what he had just done, and as I moved, the balls shifted. They created pressure in delicious, private places, and an unfamiliar ache bloomed through my belly.

“If you are to take this journey with me, then you must learn to trust me.” I was too distracted by the heavy sensation of the balls rolling around to ask him what he meant. “These are ben-wa balls. You will keep them inside of you until I say otherwise.” I shifted experimentally, and the balls moved, forcing sensations that were rich and impossible to ignore to flood through me.

“Bend over the desk again.” Oh, Lord. Bent over, the balls pressed heavily on the flesh above my clit. I wanted to rock back and forth, to build that delicious pressure so that it could be relieved, but a palm pressed to the curve of my back warned me against it.

Focused on the new sensations inside my cleft, I wasn’t expecting the hiss of the flogger when it came, the bloom of pain between my thighs. One kiss of the leather on each smooth expanse of leg, then several short, quick flicks right in my center. I cried out, fingers scrabbling for purchase on the slick 48 Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren

surface of the desk. He hit harder than he had the first time, and the blows hurt, hurt quite a bit, actually, landing as they were on my most sensitive flesh. But combined with that pain was a sense of pleasure, one that was dark and rich and seductive.

As my body jerked, the balls rocked inside of me. It was almost unbearable, that pleasure which melted so effortlessly into the sting of the whip.

The pleasure built, wave upon wave that finally reached the shore in a tidal crash of pleasure. I cried out again as the sensations washed over me, riding the darkness until I’d wrung every last bit of it out and I could see again.

Stunned, I slowly rolled over, propped myself up on my elbows and looked up at the man in front of me. His eyes were glowing like those of a cat, and they were full of an emotion that I couldn’t read.

I didn’t know him very well, after all, no matter what he’d just done to my body.

Something in his stare, though, was too personal, too raw, for anyone to see. In fact, I didn’t think that he meant for me to catch him that way, for as soon as he saw that I had come back down to earth, his eyes shuttered and his face tensed up. I watched as he closed his emotions back off from the rest of the world, again becoming the controlled, charismatic young billionaire who held the interest of the world.

So even all of his money couldn’t protect him from the demons that haunted him, that haunted us all.

Feeling exposed, though I supposed it was useless to at that point, I tugged my bra from my wrists and stuffed it in my pocket. I didn’t feel as though there was time to fuss with putting it back on. I wrestled my blouse back over my arms, my shoulders, and closed it hastily, not bothering to double-check if it had been buttoned straight.

I had no idea what had just happened, but I didn’t intend to think about it there. Zach was frozen in place, his eyes unreadable as they assessed me.

Pushing away from the desk, I hastily made my way toward the door, the balls rocking as I moved, Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren 49

making me moan. It was all just too much—too intense. I didn’t know what to do with it. I would rather have faced Philippa the paper-doll princess while mussed and braless than have continued to try to breathe in a room that suddenly had no air.

“Miss Reid.” My hand was on the door before he spoke. I turned slowly, not letting go of the knob.

The sexy man who just seduced me had changed. The tortured one who made me come had disappeared. In their place was the cool, controlled CEO, complete with arrogant posture and the hint of a smirk on his lips.

“Be in the first-floor lobby at half past six this evening. We need to have a discussion.” His words were serious and very nearly foreboding.

“Do not remove those ben-wa balls this afternoon.”

I shifted, aware all over again of the gentle rocking of the balls inside of me. Though I’d just had a huge orgasm, I felt the need beginning again. I tried to imagine going through the afternoon with them inside of me, of working at my desk while they weighed down on my clit. The thought made my cheeks flush and my lips part.

“I have exposed you to some of the pleasure of my . . . lifestyle, Devon. But I haven’t yet exposed you to the pain.” I couldn’t move, not without those balls sending jolts of need through my veins.

“I need to know if you are open to both.” My eyes were wide. Pain? More than the martinet?

Feeling as though I were in the presence of a predatory animal, I watched, cautious, as Zach strode across the room to me, tilted my chin up for a soft, short kiss.

“Go back to work now. I will meet you in the lobby at six thirty.” Somewhat dazed, drugged by the sensations in my blood, I nodded and turned to leave the room. Right before I exited the door, he whispered one last thing in my ear.

“And whatever you do, don’t come.”

50 Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren

Read more of Devon and Zachariah’s tumultuous passion in

Available from InterMix on January 8, 2013

Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren 51

And keep reading for a special preview of

Lauren Jameson’s upcoming erotic romance novel

BLUSH

Available from NAL in May 2013

It is easy to tell that someone is watching me.

I draw my finger down the side of my glass, tracing a fat stripe in the condensation, while resisting the urge to sneak a peek through my eyelashes at the man seated down the bar from me, to my right.

I haven’t turned my head, haven’t looked at his face. It is more the feeling, that prickling of the skin at the back of my neck—the primordial human sense of being watched.

Though I am curious—men don’t often take much note of me—I resist looking. I have a purpose here tonight, a goal.

I have to focus on that. It’s a small goal, to be sure, but it is a giant step on the road to getting my life back.

I feel jittery, and drum my fingers on the sticky surface of the bar to release some nerves. The clicking of my nails on the wood is an irritant as it scrapes across my ears. Having wiped my soda glass clean of its chilled fog, I lift it to my lips for a sip. The straw is bent at an awkward angle, and I have to open my mouth wide to catch it between my lips.

“You seem nervous.” The words are low, velvety and unexpected. I jolt, forcing syrupy sweet cola to splash from my cup.

“Dammit.” I reach for a napkin to mop the spill from my hand. Embarrassed now, I swivel on my bar stool to face the person to whom the voice belonged.

My breath catches in my throat and I feel a jolt of adrenaline straight to my gut when I raise my eyes to the person who has startled me so. This is the man who had been seated down the bar from me, this I know, though I couldn’t have told you
how
, exactly. Maybe because he radiates a . . . glow, for lack of a better word. Yes, a glow, one that is impossible to ignore.

His hair is dark, the color of salty black licorice. His eyes are deep blue, like the sea. He appears to 52

Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren 53

be maybe a few years older than me, which puts him in his late twenties. His face . . . he looks like a wicked temptation with concern etched in the fine lines around his lips.

His body . . .
ooh,
his body. Though it is covered in expensive-looking clothing, a soft button-down shirt and neatly pressed black slacks, his strong physique can’t be hidden.

“Are you all right? I didn’t mean to frighten you.” There is that voice again. It holds just the faintest hint of an accent, Irish or perhaps Scottish, one that has faded with time. Perhaps he moved here as a child?

I catch myself staring, and then I notice the resultant smirk on his lips. It doesn’t matter where he was born; it doesn’t matter what he looks like.

He can’t possibly be interested in me.

He seems to be waiting for an answer, though, so I shuffle through the last few minutes in my mind and come across the question he has asked.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” I need something to do with my hands. I pick up my abandoned soda, suck hard on the straw. The wetness eases the discomfort of my mouth, which is suddenly dry as the desert dust outside.

I dart another glance at the handsome creature beside me. His eyes are fixed on my mouth, his expression entranced.

He sees me watching him. Instead of trying to pretend that he hasn’t been looking at my mouth, he draws his stare lazily up to my eyes, not caring that I know.

His utter confidence makes something unfurl deep in my belly.

“I’m fine.” I repeat the words to break the silence that is growing uncomfortable . . . uncomfortable for me, at least. “I just . . . you startled me.”

Most people—at least, most people that I know—would have apologized for it, whether the words were meant or not. This man pinches his lips together in irritation and, as if I am a child, removes the nearly empty glass from my hand.

54 Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren

“You should never be startled. Always know where you are.” He reaches behind me to set the glass on the bar. The ice rattles against the glass walls. As he leans, he moves in very close to me, just for a moment. The heat that he gives off reminds me of the sun at midday in Nevada, glowing golden and hot enough to incinerate.

I narrow my eyes as I study him—I’m certain that I’ve never met him before. Yet his words strike a chord deep within me, a meaning that he may not have meant layered over the simple sentence.

Always know where you are
. Well, there’s my problem in a nutshell, isn’t it? In the past year I’ve lost all sense of where I am—of who I am, really.

I bite my tongue until I taste blood, not willing to tear up in front of this man. He couldn’t have known how lost I’ve been feeling. Really, I should be irritated with him for scolding me like he has.

I’m a grown woman, after all—no matter how much I have felt like a lost child in recent memory.

Many people would feel uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny that I have been directing his way. This man doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blush, doesn’t toss me a cocky smile. Instead he returns my stare, unabashed, stoic even, letting me look my fill. He doesn’t touch me, either, but after he sets the glass down, I feel as if his hands had been all over me.

Lauren Jameson
is a writer, yoga newbie, knitting aficionado, and animal lover who lives in the shadows of the great Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada. She’s older than she looks—really—and younger than she feels—most of the time. She has published with Avon and Harlequin as Lauren Hawkeye and writes contemporary erotic romance for NAL. Visit her online at
www.laurenjameson.com

and www.laurenhawkeye.com.

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