Terms of Surrender (21 page)

Slany writhed beneath him, turned on by her piquant taste on his mouth. She held in a moan, didn't want to lose control too early, didn't want to lose it at all in front of this man who prided himself in keeping control. But she knew control was no longer hers, something she could not claim in Nick’s presence.

"Now, Slany," he murmured against her ear, "tell me how you want me to fuck you. Slow and easy," he said, running a palm up her leg, tickling the edges of her vagina with his fingers, light butterfly caresses setting fire to her clit and labia, "or hard and rough?"

She didn't
care
. Any way he wanted, she would take it. Take him, his cock. She would take him beneath her, on top of her, inside her—oh, God.

She swallowed, gasping for breath, unable to form the words, unable to form a comprehensive thought as she stared into his honey eyes.

She'd waited most of her life for this moment, this man, and couldn't find a more intelligent way to express it than shamelessly bucking her hips at thin air, out of her mind with 111

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desperate need and want. Hunger. No man had ever done this to her before, ever made her feel so wild and wanton and reckless, so strong at the height of her subjection.

"Let go, baby, just let go." He circled the shell of her left ear with his tongue before plunging it in, simultaneously stroking her sides with both hands before moving to her breasts, where he slowly rotated her nipples with his thumbs.

Slany bit her bottom lip, vibrating beneath him as she closed her eyes tight.

Nick lowered his head to her breasts, the nipples already puckered and hard from his previous manipulations, standing at attention now, begging for more, begging for his mouth, his tongue, his teeth.

He straddled her, then suddenly sat back on his haunches to stare down at her.

Slany's eyes flew open, and she looked at him taking her in, like a diner at a mouth-watering buffet. All-you-can-eat, and from the looks of it, Nick intended not to leave a crumb.

"Take me, Nick. Please…"

"Are you sure?"

She frowned, stared at him. "Of course I am."

"Any way I please?"

She pitched her hips up, and her pubic bone collided with his balls. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought she should think twice before answering him, but no longer cared about appearances and boundaries and roles, despite the tiny warning bells going off at the mysterious tone of his voice. She just wanted him inside her, whatever terms. "Yes. Any way you please. Just take me now…please…"

He peeled off his shorts in a blink, spread her legs, and settled himself between her thighs.

Slany's pussy clenched, then opened in anticipation, sopping and hungry, every nerve ending and erogenous zone in a perennial state of stand-by as he paused with the swollen tip of his cock just brushing her moist folds.

She glanced up at him, saw the dark expression in his eyes and finally realized her mistake. "Aren't you going to use protection?"

* * * *

"Nick?"

"Would there be a problem if I didn't?"

"I'm not in the habit of taking unnecessary risks, Vega."

"Does that mean you want to stop?" He peered at her, his heart jumping at her firm tone.

He was actually turned on by her assertiveness, even though he knew he'd have to squelch it, at least where this was concerned. "You used your safe word."

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"You know that's not what I meant. Not like that." She stared at him, nervously biting her bottom lip before averting her eyes. "I don't want to get pregnant."

"Is that your only concern?" he pushed, wouldn't let her off the hook so easily, couldn't.

"You know it's not."

"I'm clean, and I don't like latex."

"How do you know
I'm
clean?"

"You're not in the habit of taking unnecessary risks." He couldn't have told her how he knew she was as clean as he, even without her self-admitted years-long celibacy, but he knew.

Just as he couldn't have said why it was so important for him to slide into her barrier-free, nothing between his hardness and the sweet heat of her inner folds and muscles except skin.

"There's still the unplanned pregnancy part. And I'm not on the pill."

Nick frowned at her, momentarily taken aback by her single-minded determination, wondered how far her anti-children mien went. Did it go as far as his?

"I don't like latex," he repeated, just as adamant, tone brooking no argument, despite the new box of condoms he had in the nightstand beside the bed. He had never gotten out of the habit of buying and using them, not since Tiffany Ember, a teenage girlfriend who’d tried to pass off another guy’s baby as his before Nick’s father stepped in and made Nick take a paternity test.

Over his big sister and Mom's objections, Nick had joined the Marines directly after this incident and graduating high school. He had the embryonic idea of making something more of himself than an undisciplined C-student of which his strict, uncompromising father might someday be proud.

Since Tiffany’s betrayal and his Mom and Dad coming to his rescue paying for the paternity test, Nick had decided he could never be too careful.

But for Slany Breeze, you're willing to take a risk?

The implications of that exception scared the shit out of him, just as the sensitive man in him wanted to show Slany his medical records to reassure her of his negative status and inability to reproduce.

The Dominant in him, however, wanted to test her resolve and desire, see how far she'd go, how far her commitment to D/s and their relationship went.

How far would her capitulation go?

Nick cupped her chin and lifted her head, her bright emerald eyes almost his undoing, almost enough to make him back off. Almost.

He was hungry, needed to take the edge off so that he could think straight and get a handle on the situation, get a handle on her. He could only take off the edge if she allowed his admission, and she had to agree without qualms, on his terms.

Nick’s erection throbbed between them, a pulsing reminder of his hungry state, what was at stake. He could hold off as long as he needed to, he just preferred not holding off. He especially didn’t like waiting now when she was so close, when
they
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already feel her vaginal muscles firmly gloving his shaft in her feminine heat. "Do you really believe I would do anything to put you in jeopardy?"

"No, but—"

"If we don't have trust between us, we don't have anything."

"Do you realize how much like a line that sounds?"

"I'm not in the habit of feeding anyone a line outside of business, Slany."

She looked at him, and something in his tone or expression must have decided her, because in the next moment she seemed to melt beneath him. Had she the ability to wrap her arms around him for a hug, he believed she would have.

Instead, she wrapped her legs about his waist, drew him near, and paused. "I've never…I've never done this without protection, Nick."

"I know. And you won't be doing it now. Trust me," he whispered, taking his erection in one hand and guiding its head past her slit and through to her moist depths.

She was tight, incredibly tight, incredibly hot, her copious juices at least making his physical invasion easy.

Nick closed his eyes, groaned as her inner muscles pulled him in and grasped his cock, as if welcoming home an old, well-loved friend.

He pushed further, rotating his hips as he ground his pelvis against hers for a firm seat, his heart pounding as she moved beneath him. She pitched towards him, responded to his thrusts with her own, thighs clenched firm around him.

Slany purred and leaned her forehead against his chest before lifting away slightly to plant her lips against a flat male nipple. She experimentally circled her tongue around the aureole several times before nipping him.

He gasped, and she laughed throatily.

"You like looking at me. I like tasting you."

"Don't make me put that to the test."

"I'm not afraid of you or your tests…Master."

He grinned, liked the way she was falling into her role, even if that "M" word slid past her lips with some wariness. He decided not to say anything and bring her attention to it and make her more wary, more careful. He didn’t want her any more on guard than she already was.

Nick lifted her left leg to rest on his right shoulder, angled his thrusts, and deepened his penetration. He bent his head to kiss and lick her throat, and Slany moaned, closed her eyes, clenching and unclenching her hands as he throbbed and drove inside her.

Nick felt the heat of phantom nails score his back, as if her hands were free, imagined how wild she would be when free, how much she'd explore.

He wanted her inside him, wanted her to see his secrets, touch his soul, yet the idea that she could infiltrate his defenses filled him with unimaginable fear, as well as excitement.

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Nick peered at her face. He had to reassure himself she was with him, suddenly overcome with tenderness for her vulnerability, turned on by it, admiring her silent strength.

She could really be his undoing if she wanted to, unravel everything he'd spent the last decade and a half tying tight with a bow never meant to be untied or unwrapped, a gift under the tree that belonged to no one—a gift that needed to remain ultimately unclaimed.

He reached for her hands, and she immediately twined her fingers with his, clutching like she could emit with the simple action all he was making her feel.

He felt her inner muscles tightening, felt her holding onto her control by a small thread, felt her refusal to give him everything and come.

Nick knew she was holding back, refusing to give him herself, refusing to give him anymore than he was willing to give her. Could he blame her?

"Let it go, Slany. Just let go, baby," he whispered, nearly pulled out of her, making her whimper before plunging deep and immersing himself in all her secrets and denials, gradually increasing the speed of his thrusts to set them both free.

She shivered beneath him, orgasm nearing as she matched him push for push.

"That's it, baby. Let it all go. All of it. Let it go, and give it to me." Nick pistoned his hips as he felt his own climax coming to a head.

Slany came several seconds before he did, achieving her release on a keening cry that tore at his soul, even as it squeezed and ripped an orgasm from him.

When he finally lay down beside her, panting and moist with her perspiration and his own, Nick knew who the Dominant in their relationship was, and it wasn’t him.

She owned him.

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Slany turned into Nick's body, eased an arm around his waist, and spooned against him, pressing her breasts against his muscled back, finally free to enjoy the breadth and width of his hard body and smooth skin. It felt like hugging velvet-covered granite, the muscles in his abdomen firm and well-defined beneath her palm, even in repose.

She could have stayed right there next to him, inhaling his spicy masculine flavor, reveling in the comfort of his big body forever, but something in her felt like exploring.

Like being nosy, is more like it.

She had noticed another room right before they'd gotten to the master bedroom. She'd only gotten a peek, the door opened just enough to reveal that it wasn't a closet or a bathroom.

Opened just enough to show her several pieces of wood—chests, cabinets, and tables—in various stages of creation.

Slany tried to slide her arm from around Nick's waist, but he reached out to catch her wrist. Possessive, as well as bossy, even in sleep. She waited several seconds, holding her breath in silence, expecting to hear his deep voice address her with one command or other, but nothing reached her except the sound of his deep breathing.

"Nick?"

He didn't respond.

Slany tried again to remove her arm. This time, she was successful, and used her freedom to ease from the bed. She glanced back at Nick, watching his chest rise and fall several times before she donned a tie-dyed College of Visual and Performing Arts T-shirt from the top of his bureau. Despite her own height, the garment still fell to her knees. She hugged herself, feeling indescribably secure and protected in the garment, surrounded by its soft cotton and his smell, almost ready to slide back into bed and treat herself to the real thing.

Slany pulled herself together long enough to pad down the long parquet hallway towards the mysterious room, paused a couple of times to run her hands over the various wood pieces in her path, furnishings that matched the bureau in Nick's master bedroom in style and beauty.

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Exquisitely crafted and shellacked to within an inch of their cherry lives, the furniture gave her an odd sense of foreign lands and old family traditions. Antique, yet surprisingly contemporary, it all gave her a sense of Nick's genius.

Instinctively, Slany knew he had made the pieces in the hallway, that the bureau in his bedroom was not store-bought but made by his two talented hands.

The space of interest must be a workroom—one she was about to invade.

She neared the room in question, paused for a long moment with a hand on the knob, took a deep breath before pushing the door open, and stopped at the threshold in awe.

In addition to the unfinished pieces she had earlier glimpsed were several finished pieces in varying sizes and shapes, but all with the same basic exotic appearance and style.

For a brief second, she was tempted to turn around and run, her sense of intruding upon Nick's own private haven that intense.

Slany took another deep breath and ventured further into the surprisingly immense space, admiring the pieces scattered throughout the floor and the small carvings lining the top ledge of a tall mahogany bookshelf against the far wall.