Terms of Surrender (12 page)

He slid his hand out of her pants and raised it to his nose. "This tells me that you did, and you liked it." He inhaled deeply before licking his fingers dry. At her prolonged silence, he said,

"I can't make you do anything you don't want to, Slany. I wouldn't try."

She glanced up at him with an almost hopeful expression lighting her eyes, and he wanted to tell her that he would never hurt her, but knew he couldn't make a promise like that, had never been into making impossible guarantees.

He was a Dominant, yes, but human. And humans made mistakes. He always kept the latter in mind when dealing with women, submissive or otherwise.

But that look, those sharp green eyes staring at him with such intensity and optimism could be his undoing if he let them. Undo him righteously, as no one and nothing else ever had.

"You can let me go now."

He did, watched her sniffle, heard her deep intake of breath before she pierced him with those drugging eyes and trapped his breath inside his chest.

She glanced down at herself, spread her arms from her side. "Look at me. I'm a mess. I can't go back out there looking like this."

59

Gracie C. McKeever

Nick stepped back, angled his head to look at her, and arched a brow. "You look fine to me."

"Of course you would say that, because I look like I've just been thoroughly…diddled."

He chuckled. "Is that a nice euphemism for thoroughly screwed?"

She slapped his shoulder. "You know what I mean."

He came close, cupped her face and kissed her. "You're gorgeous, no matter how undone you are."

"I've got a meeting to go to in a few minutes. And I still need to go over that ad with Remeni and get back to the session you so rudely interrupted."

"I'll take care of that." He raised a hand to push a tendril of hair behind an ear, caressed her face. He couldn't help himself, touching her becoming a dangerous habit. If he slipped and did that in mixed company, it would only justify all her objections to getting into it with him.

He'd have to be extra careful with his hands and temper around her and near witnesses.

"Why should you have to get stuck doing my work?"

"You're not sticking me with anything."

"Oh, yeah, right. Because you don't do anything you don't want to."

He nodded. "That's right."

"Well, neither do I, and I'm not Knowles."

Nick chuckled, cupped her face, and drew her close for a deep kiss. "I know that. You're much more conscientious and way prettier."

"I'm serious, Vega." She punched his shoulder, and he caught her hand before she could draw it back.

"Call me Nick."

She frowned. "Vega, Nick. They're both your name. What's the diff—"

"The difference is that I want you to do as I say. And stop erecting walls of detachment and distance between us. Walls can't exist between a Dom and his sub, not mental or physical."

She froze between obeying and arguing with him, several seconds ticking by before she finally nodded and tried to jerk her hand out of his grip. "As long as you don't want me to call you Master."

"Not yet."

She stopped struggling and gawked at him.

"You could never be a successful poker player, Slany. Everything you're feeling is right there on your face."

"I'll make sure and change that."

"Don't." He caught her chin, tilted her head up. "I like it."

"I'll bet. It gives you the upper hand."

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Terms of Surrender

"I already have that."

"God, you are so arrogant!" She pushed him away, and he let her. "And don't be so sure you have anything of the sort."

He smirked, skating the fingers of his right hand down her left arm until he interlocked his fingers with hers. "I want to know what your legs look like under all these slacks."

"Where did that just come from?"

"Curiosity."

"And I'm supposed to quench it, just like that?"

"I'll see them soon enough."

"Oh, really?"

He nodded. "Really."

"Dream on, and join the club."

"My dreams always come true, Slany. And I'm not a joiner or a follower."

"Of course not, because you're a leader."

"See, you're learning."

"So, was that a not-so-subtle command for me to wear a skirt?"

He shrugged, sensing he had pushed her enough for one day. He didn't want to push his luck with her too soon. "Take it any way you like."

"Is this all part of your master strategy of domination? Throw me off-balance with innocent requests and—"

"Make no mistake, there's nothing innocent about what I ask of you, Slany. What I'll demand of you."

She swallowed hard, and he almost regretted his last words. Almost. She was going to have to learn, better sooner than later.

"Demand, huh?"

He caught her by the shoulders. "Slany, don't get caught up in semantics. Just come where I take you, and see if it's where you want to go."

She stared at him, silent as she licked her full lips.

His cock twitched, not nearly satiated, ready to take the seduction to the next level.

"Promise me you'll give it a chance."

"Is that an order?"

"If it'll make you say yes, then consider it an order."

"I don't take orders very well, Nick."

He grinned, leaned in to kiss her mouth. "That will change," he murmured.

* * * *

61

Gracie C. McKeever

They'd gone into his office for what seemed like hours, but it was actually less than half
an hour.

But so much could happen in that time, so much debauchery and seduction.

Watching them caused a piercing ache in the chest. Watching her in action incited
unimaginable nausea.

Disgusting, the way she shook her ass and tits in his face all day, in all the male staffers'

faces, begging for attention with those ‘come hither’ looks and that pearly white smile.

Slut! Jane come lately!

Hate was a living thing, palpable, at the danger point and ready to boil over.

Plans would have to be changed yet again, disclosure delayed.

Courage, surreptitiously and steadily building over the last several months, nipped in the
bud by a bitch who didn't know the first thing about pleasing a man—more specifically, about
pleasing Nick, who was still totally ignorant of what he wanted and needed.

This was not over. This was only the first round, and no way in hell would Slany Breeze
win this competition.

Nick was already taken, and soon, everyone would know it. Especially that slut.

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Terms of Surrender

Slany left Nick's office twenty minutes after entering, head spinning, body still humming and throbbing with need from his hot touch.

Everything about the man turned her on—his scent, his body, his smile and style—

making it almost impossible to resist his advances. When he had her against the wall in his office, it took everything in her inexperienced soul that craved his dominance not to just throw herself down on the plush carpet and let him fuck her until they were both spent.

God, the man brought out the animal in her. Yet he made her feel so small and humble, she didn't think she had the right to act upon the very wild impulses he elicited, had her mentally hanging back, waiting for permission to enjoy him the way he seemed to enjoy her.

Slany turned from his door and just avoided bumping into Jeremy Keyes, one of
DMT's
mail clerks dropping a bundle of incoming on Yvette's desk.

"Hey, Slany!"

"Hey, Jeremy, how's it going?"

"Same old, same old." He shrugged, ever-present smile firmly in place. "Boss man giving you a hard time, honey?"

Is this the first of many, the rumors already flying?

Slany frowned, trying to play off her discomfort and hoping Jeremy didn't notice her blush. "Why do you say that?"

"You look a little frazzled."

She put a hand to her hair, tried to seem offhanded as she brushed several stray curls away from her face. "Not at all. Just tossing around some ideas."

He gave her a look that plainly said he thought they were tossing around a lot more than ideas, but only said, "I guess the pressure is on, with the whole Everwell project and all."

63

Gracie C. McKeever

Bless his heart. Jeremy was more tactful than most to say what was really on his mind, even if his expression already had.

Slany smiled. She was used to curiosity from the collateral staff, especially from the youngsters, most upwardly mobile go-getters always looking for openings and ins to the higher positions in the various departments. "You know how it is, Jeremy. The pressure is always on with all the accounts."

"Hard to satisfy all those demanding clients."

"We do our best."

"I'll bet you do." Jeremy smiled. "I'd better hit the road. Here comes the boss man's secretary."

Slany glanced up just in time to see Yvette turn the corner from the copy room, a stack of paper cradled against her chest as she swished toward her desk.

She was an attractive girl, with long, straight, shiny black hair and dark brown eyes that raked Slany whenever Yvette thought she wasn't looking.

She paused now several feet away from her desk, gave Slany the once over, and curled her lips Elvis Presley style before continuing behind her desk.

Could the woman be anymore obvious in her dislike?

Yvette gave Jeremy a blinding smile before glancing through the stack of mail he'd left on her desk. "Anything good for me today, Jer?"

"Work, work, and more work, 'Vette."

Yvette laughed, exposing all of her front teeth and most of her back as she touched Jeremy's shoulder in the manner of long-time cronies.

Slany felt like a third wheel, strangely excluded. When Yvette turned to her with a scowl and asked, "Is there something I can help you with, Ms. Breeze?" her cool tone just magnified the feeling three-fold.

Why did the woman hate her so much? Did she have more than a working relationship with Nick that Slany should know about?

She knew she shouldn't let it bother her, trusted Nick to make the right decisions where their relationship was concerned, trusted him not to put her in the line of fire with any past or present jealous lovers.

Was she being incredibly naïve?

Damn, she hated being so uncertain, and being around Nick seemed to breed uncertainty, had her wading into deep uncharted waters when she didn't know how to swim.

Slany smiled. "Not at all, Yvette. I've gotten all the help I needed from the boss man."

She didn't know why she'd just used Jeremy's term, but it felt like the right thing to say, the right way to make her point with Yvette, regardless of the woman's relationship with Nick, past or present:
he's mine now, so back off!

She turned to leave and felt two sets of eyes on her back—one amused, one plainly invidious.

64

Terms of Surrender

Fine. The line had been drawn. Slany knew which side she was on, willing to fight for her place with Nick. In her heart, she had already decided to accept his terms of surrender.

Slany was certain she didn't need to tell him.

* * * *

Couldn't she see that he wasn't worth her time, that he wasn't suitable to be her Master?

To be anyone's Master?

Evidently, she did not know, too much of an ingénue to the game to recognize a fake as opposed to the real McCoy.

Damn it, he'd had such high hopes for Slany and himself. Not that he was giving up on her yet. Not that he ever would.

Even if Vega did manage to seduce her, fuck her,
he
still had a claim, had staked it upon Slany's arrival when he'd been the first of the staff to meet her during Thorpe's walkthrough a year ago.

He wondered if she even remembered.

He did, remembered every single detail, from the outfit she'd been filling out with raw sensuality and quiet grace to the style of her hair, a flattering, sedate chignon with several auburn tendrils left loose to frame her strong, angular face in gentle waves.

He knew he wasn't exactly forgettable, attractive enough in a superficial way. He was miles and years away from the skinny dork verbally humiliated and beaten down by his father, and whose emotional needs had gone virtually ignored by his mother.

In his late teens, he'd experienced one of those famous growth spurts, shooting up several inches over one summer, and by the time he entered college at seventeen, he was topping six-one. He was still on the lean side at only one-eighty, but it was a well-proportioned, muscular one-eighty, a fine-tuned lithe figure that he took numerous pains to maintain.

Braces had straightened an already white smile (he didn't have a filthy smoking habit like
some
people), blue contacts had taken care of the horn-rimmed glasses, concealing his natural plain brown eyes, and his sexual exploits over the years in college and beyond seemed to have helped with his acne. Any leftover dermatological damage had been corrected with expensive laser treatments.

But sometimes, every once in a while, he still felt like that skinny dork from junior high, high school, even freshman year at college, still saw the nondescript brown hair when he looked in the mirror, rather than the blond-streaked locks he now sported. Still saw what his father and the handful of kids probably bribed into coming to his fourteenth birthday party had seen: a loser.

It made him wonder if Slany saw a loser. Did she notice him, not as a co-worker, but as a man to desire? Or did she find him that amorphous?

65

Gracie C. McKeever

Sure, he was unassuming and, by necessity, kept to himself. He'd never been very social and despised popularity contests and office politics, so avoided his co-workers as much as he could get away with without seeming dyspeptic.