Terms of Surrender (24 page)

Vaguely he wondered what sort of "rough times" Slany meant, but didn't have the heart to ask. Not now, maybe never. Because if they were the kind of rough times he thought they were—the kind that EJ's reader's seemed to experience—then the conversation would definitely go further south if cultivated. And he didn't want to do that to her, didn't want to waste his time with her on unrealized dreams and regrets neither of them could change or over which they had no control.

Nick smoothed his palm down her face, smiled to lighten the mood. "Should I be jealous of my younger brother?" he teased.

"I don't know. Should you? He was looking kind of hot on that book jacket, if memory serves me correct."

"You…" He straddled her again, leaned in to take her full bottom lip between his teeth before sucking it into his mouth and lazily inserting his tongue in hers. "You are being totally impertinent."

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"Mmm…" She moaned before changing the subject yet again to say, "Creativity must run in your family."

"And it doesn't all have to do with cabinetry and literature."

Slany laughed, then caught her breath as he suggestively moved against her before sliding his hard cock through her passage slow and deep, sensually rolling his hips once he was comfortably seated inside her. "God, that feels good!"

"Does it make you forget about my brother?"

She grinned, but quickly became serious when he pulled back and thrust into her again, filling her with his width and length, dominating her insides with his hard cock. "He's a very distant memory," she whispered, and buried her face against his chest as he plunged into her, several long, concentrated strokes that created enough friction to take her right over the edge.

Slany closed her eyes tight, entire body spasming beneath him as she came.

Nick gathered her close, holding onto her, holding onto the moment—her naked, rapturous look, the desperate clutch of her pussy around his cock—feeding off of her energy and enjoyment, climaxing seconds after she did.

After a long moment, he flipped onto his back, bringing Slany with him and arranging her across his torso like a human blanket.

She rested an ear near his heart, curling the fingers of one hand against his chest and in the dark hair lightly dusting it. "'We can't stay in bed forever."

"I hadn't planned to."

Slany popped up her head to glance at him. "You could have fooled me."

“I could never fool you,” he said, inwardly shivering at the truth of that.

Nick suddenly glanced at the clock, shocked at the late hour. He could have sworn they'd only napped for a few minutes. It was already close to noon. He usually hooked up with the guys for a ballgame around one. "Maybe we
should
get a move on."

Nick sat up, put her away from him a bit, took a deep breath, and peered at her before uttering his next words.

He hadn't brought anyone to one of his games in years, not since he'd been a Big Brother and regularly brought his Little Brother. He definitely hadn’t brought any of his women to a game, his male bonding too sacrosanct.

Slany frowned, sensing the significance of the occasion. "What is it, Nick?"

"Come with me to my softball game."

"Is that an order?"

"I can make it one, but I'd rather not."

She smiled, a devilish gleam lighting her green eyes. "Good, because I already want to go with you."

"You like challenging me, don't you?"

129

Gracie C. McKeever

"I like being sure of where I stand."

"And it's my job to make sure you don't think too hard and that you're never sure of where you stand, at least not with me."

"Oooh, threats." Slany shivered with the proper amount of histrionics as she left the bed, and Nick reached out to give her a firm smack on her bare ass.

Slany gasped, holding a hand over the offended spot as she glanced at him over a shoulder.

"That's just a sample of the punishment you've been cruising for since last night."

She didn't say anything for a long time, making Nick hold his breath as she searched his eyes to see how serious he was, gauging how far she had transgressed.

She rubbed her bottom, smiling like a kid with a secret as she turned away and headed for the master bathroom across the hall.

Nick released his breath, had a second to wonder at her reaction—had she enjoyed it, or was she planning her revenge against him when he was sleep?—before the phone rang.

He wasted another few seconds berating himself for caring, because a true Dominant wouldn't waste time overanalyzing and wondering whether his treatment went over well.

Nick reached over to pick up the bedside cordless intercepting his outgoing message. He was so intoxicated by good sex and the intimate exclusive vibe he had created with Slany the last twenty-four hours, letting the outside world in, even in so small a form as a phone call, offended him. "’Lo?"

"I chose her first, Vega."

Nick blinked and rubbed his eyes as the shower came on in the bathroom, mind filling with a vision of Slany's caramel skin glistening with droplets of water. He drooled at the image and the urge to take one of her hard, wet nipples in his mouth as water pounded down on his head. "You chose who first?" he asked.

"Slany belongs to
me
. It doesn't matter if she's there with you now, because she'll be with me in the end. I saw her first. I
chose
her."

It suddenly dawned on Nick that the voice on the other end was mechanically camouflaged, and that the same strange someone had his unlisted phone number and knew Slany was here with him.

He shook his head, trying to shrug off the sensual haze he had been in for the last several hours to grasp who was on the phone and what the hell they wanted. "Who is this?"

"A friend of Kate's. She says hello, by the way."

"What the…? Who the fuck is this?" Nick stood, stalked to the window, and pulled the curtains aside to glance out, as if he would see the intruder and Kate outside on his twenty-second floor balcony waving at him. It couldn't be that easy, however. Whoever the person was, he or she was a professional, or at least cocky enough to believe himself or herself so.

A professional what? Nick wondered, the first answers coming to him running the gamut from very unpleasant to deadly and dangerous.

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"I said, who the fuck is this? And what have you done with Kate?"

Nick listened as the caller snickered, then hung up. He pulled the receiver from his ear to stare at it for several seconds before he felt Slany standing at the bedroom door behind him.

He turned to catch the stunned look on her face and wondered how much she'd heard before she said, "I came back to see if you wanted to join me in the shower again before I go put breakfast o—"

"I'll be with you in a minute."

"Prank call?"

Nick searched his brain for the best answer, couldn't dare tell her the truth, that he didn't know who it had been, that he was afraid for her, and even more certain, that something terrible had happened to Kate.

"Nick?"

"Slany, go wait for me in the shower."

At his harsh tone, her back went up.

He felt it even from his place several steps away, saw the look in her widened eyes that said she was going to bolt.

She turned to storm out the room, but he was right on her tail, not about to let her run.

Watching her back, seeing her trying to leave sent a wave of abandonment through him like he hadn't known since he'd been a teen hungry for his father's affection, hungry for approval.

Shit, he hadn't felt so vulnerable in a long time, and God only knew what Slany would do if she knew the power she held over him, if she knew who was really calling all the shots in their relationship, that it was her and not him.

Nick caught her by the shoulders, steered her towards the nearest wall, and pinned her to it. He wouldn't let her turn.

"What do you think you're doing?"

In answer, he slid a hand between her legs. She had changed into one of his dress shirts—

oversized, despite her robust frame, and he smiled to think she was going to go through his clean laundry in just two days of being here. Fuck it, he didn't care. She could go through his entire wardrobe, as long as she stayed bare beneath like she was now, like he liked her. As long as she stayed wet, so creamy and hot, his dick throbbed with the need to get inside her, throbbed as hard as did his heart with the need to keep her safe.

What had that bastard done with Kate?

"Let go of me, Nick."

"Is that what you really want?"

"Why do you ask me what I want when you never listen to my answer? You're only going to do what
you
want in the end, anyway."

"That's only because we both want the same thing."

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Gracie C. McKeever

"Bullshit." She pushed back against him, her firm, round ass colliding soundly with his cock, and Nick almost heard sizzling at the contact.

He wasn’t surprised, since he burned for her. And the memory of that crazy fucker's demented laugh, his allusion to his status in Slany's life, made him burn even more. Made him burn with the need to claim her as his.

Nick unbuttoned the shirt and slid it off her shoulders, slowly lowering the sleeves down her arms until they effectively imprisoned her wrists.

She struggled, trying to get away from him. "Nick…"

He leaned in, paused when he noticed the wing tattoos, one on the back of each shoulder, jealousy overtaking his senses at the sight, at the idea that some other man had touched her so intimately, put his marks on her.

He was sure he hadn't noticed the tats before, knew he would have said something, their beauty undeniable, their unlikelihood as arousing as the woman who bore them.

Nick brushed his lips across each one in turn, licked each wing as she wriggled in his arms, tried to get her arms free. "The tats. Your idea?"

"What if they weren't?"

"Answer the question, Slany."

"I had them done after…after a bad breakup."

"Is that when you got your navel ring?"

"Where is all this coming from? I asked you a simple question about who was on the phone, and now, you're giving me the third degree about my body art?"

"Because this body belongs to me."

"The hell it do—"

Nick penetrated her with two fingers, and she gasped and jerked against him. He leaned in to sink his teeth into the tender skin connecting her shoulder to neck, an alpha male calming his female, claiming her.

He scissored his fingers inside her, felt her trembling, knew the rush of pleasure-pain zinging through her center as if it was his own.

"You can't bend me to your will with sex," she panted.

"You don't want to challenge me on that, Slany." He turned her to face him, her arms still imprisoned at her side. He watched her face, saw the wary look in her big green eyes, felt her uncertainty and the fear, muted, right below the surface.

God help him, her fear turned him on in a way he couldn't explain and didn't even want to begin to examine. It turned him on almost as much as her disobedience and stubbornness.

"You know what, Nick? I don't have to take this from you. You're not my husband, and you don't own me." Slany struggled with the sleeves of the shirt, trying to twist her arms free.

Nick caught her wrists again, pulled her arms behind her back, then held them there, bending her back as he leaned in. He paused less than an inch from her face. "That's where you're 132

Terms of Surrender

wrong, baby, because I do own this…" He ran a hand down her body, parked the palm across her moist mound to emphasize his point. "Until you say when…or ‘Vega.’" He glared at her, willed her eyes up to meet his, heart pounding, certain she would see through his façade, that he wasn't as tough as he pretended to be, that she had him where she wanted him and not the other way around.

Then, he saw that familiar defiance in her eyes, knew she wouldn't back down, even if it meant submitting to him. Slany Breeze was a perfectionist, the type who once she undertook a venture, she would be the best at it she could be, even if that venture was being a submissive.

"Are you?" he murmured.

"Am I what?"

"Saying ‘Vega?’"

"You can manipulate your little hero-worshipping underlings on the job, but I'm not one of your underlings, and I'm not going to let you manipulate me."

"How's it manipulation giving you what you want?"

"You have no idea what I want, Nick."

"The very nature of our relationship says I do. It's my job to know what you want. What you need."

He knew she wanted him,
needed
this, as much as he did.

And he needed this desperately. He wanted to hold her against him, feel her heartbeat pounding next to his, feel her shuddering with the force of her climax—unbridled and unquestioning in his arms—wanted to feel the liquid warmth of her cream on his fingers, on his tongue, layering his cock.

He hadn't needed anyone or anything in such a long time. Not since his mother had first taken him out of public school to teach him at home.

He'd needed his mom then to help him through the worst of the isolation, help him adjust, but once he got used to the daily absence of his peers, the lack of daily teasing and persecution, the rest of his trip to solitary independence was all downhill.

He didn't need friends, didn't need a woman he couldn't trust and who wouldn't trust him.

Didn't need his father's approval, or to prove that he was just as good as the rest of his siblings.

Nick had thrown himself into his studies with his mother, into his work, just to prove his lack of need to everyone. He'd dedicated himself to helping others, especially those like him, to take the focus off of his own requirements, his own weaknesses.

He'd given and given and denied himself, denied the existence of his own deep-seated needs for so long, he barely remembered what it was he didn't need.

Now, he just wanted to take. Take Slany and show her how much he needed her body, her acquiescence. How much he needed her surrender.