RequiredSurrender (30 page)

“A little more and this time I want you to come for me.”

He dripped the rest on her. Over her mound, onto the rapidly
softening cap and lower, into her heat until he was out of wax. He threw the tin
to the table and dropped to his knees. Sliding two fingers inside her slowly,
he pumped them in and out while he bent forward and blew on the hot pile of wax
that covered her clit. With rapt interest, he watched it harden with each blow
until her hips lifted and her breath caught, and he heard the words “I love
you, Master”, whispered on a quivering breath that skated right through him.
Almost as smoothly as her natural cream that freely flowed.

“Fucking beautiful.”

Waiting for a time, before he began to peel the wax off her
skin, as she came down from the endorphin high and returned to herself. He
sucked on her breasts and licked her navel, but when he got to the wax between
her legs, that was when he got focused and pulled it off her with his teeth. Even
after he was done with the wax, he tasted her until she groaned and ground
against his mouth.

“Please fuck me.”

“Oh yeah.”

He stood and scooped her up. She was so soft and wound her
arms around him so tightly he had the urge to protect her. To drive away all
the pain she’d just shared with him.

He looked at the custom-made bed, the mess of the wax and
the Sybian and suddenly he felt like the two of them were out of place in here.
At least for right now. For this moment and in this instance.

Without a word he walked out of his playroom and took her
downstairs. Behind the second-floor staircase to his room.

He kicked open the doors and flicked on the bedside lights
and the gas fireplace, before he strode to his bed and put her down.

“Is this your room? Your real room?”

He nodded and stripped off his clothes. He never took his
eyes off her and when he knelt on the bed she didn’t hesitate, she held her
arms wide in welcome.

“You’re so soft, princess.”

She made a little sound like a sob and crushed herself into him.
She must have missed hearing that endearment as much as he’d missed saying it.
But then everything was forgotten as she shifted her hips and his cock sank
right up into her.

“Damn.”

The embrace unhurried. Unimaginative. One hundred percent
vanilla sex had him hotter than any of their nastiest sessions together. The
feel of her hands in his hair, not pulling, but softly stroking, went through
him like fire. Her lips near his ear, whispering gentle words, touched him deep
and when she silkily wrapped herself around him and made sensual sounds low in
her throat he sighed, “God, you please me.”

He rolled them so she was on top, for no other reason than
he wanted to watch her come. He wanted to see the expression he loved. Hear the
words he loved to hear panted from those lips.

“That’s right. Let me hear—”

“I love you, Ted.”

He barely felt the hot silk drench him when she came undone.
He was too stunned as she collapsed over him and rubbed her cheek on his chest
in a gesture that told him she meant it.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He blinked as if coming out of a trance. The first thing he
noticed was the ceiling. The flat swirls in the plaster that always reminded
him of a repeating pattern of bowling balls grouped in clusters of five. He was
in his room. His normal room. Vanilla approved. No wonder she’d forgotten
herself. No wonder—he flipped her over and thrust into her. The heat. The
softness. God, she smelled like apples. He loved apples…he loved—he thrust in
deep one last time, slamming home—
her
.

His climax was kind of anticlimactic on that note. As his
breath rasped and his heart rate slowed to a more reasonable pace his thoughts
collided. He’d been crazy to think this could work. It couldn’t. He knew from
firsthand experience it wouldn’t.

He fell over onto his side and was back looking at the
ceiling again. But instead of the plaster swirls, he saw the white walls of the
hospital. The doctor’s white coat. Selena’s white face as she shattered.

No. No, this wasn’t going to happen.

“W-where are you going?”

Ted yanked on his pants and left the room without answering
her. By the time he returned she was sitting up in his bed. That gorgeous black
hair scattered around her shoulders and her eyes wide and watchful.

“Gather your hair, Jo.”

She started to do it and then stopped to ask, “Why?”

“Do it.”

When she did, he took the wire cutters out of his back
pocket and said, “Chin up.” He didn’t wait for her to comply, because she was
confused and he used her confusion to his advantage. Efficiently lifting her
chin aside, he held her jaw up and cut off the collar. Just then she realized
what he was doing and tried to jerk free.

“Stay still! It’s sharp.” Very carefully he opened the
circle and took it off her. Tossing it onto the nightstand where it
reverberated against the wood.

“Now the cuffs.”

“No!” She screamed and wrenched sideways, but he caught her.

“Jo.”

“Please don’t do this. Pleeeease. What did I do? I’m sorry.”

He made it a point not to look her in the eyes. He couldn’t.
“Stop moving.”

She didn’t, so he had no choice. He pushed her down on the
bed and wrestled with her until he had her pinned. With both of them breathing
heavy from the struggle, he cut off one cuff, then the other with quick snaps.
It was harder pulling them open enough to get them off without cutting her, but
when he did, the broken cuffs joined the collar beside the bed.

“I’m going to have Cam take me to the club.” He stood and
retrieved his shirt. “Then I’m going to send him back here to take you home.”

“No.” She grasped the bed sheet and pulled it up. No doubt
she felt more naked now than she ever felt in his home. He didn’t blame her. He
was feeling stripped bare himself.

“You don’t belong here.”

“Yes I do. I know that now.” Her fists strangled the linen
as she came up on her knees. God, she was beautiful. Gorgeous, but not for him.
“I understand about being authentic and—”

He finished doing up his shirt. “Enough, Jo. Enough.”

“No.”

Tears. He couldn’t take her tears spilling this way. In
pain-filled desperation. Normally he loved the way they hit her cheeks and
soaked her thick eyelashes, making them spikey and sexy as hell. But when the
real waterworks touched down? The droplets shone like diamonds against her
bronze skin and called to him so he couldn’t—wouldn’t—look. He wanted to
remember all the tears she cried for him, not because of him.

“Don’t go.”

But Ted knew he had to…

Jo sat in the middle of his bed in shock. What just
happened? Why? She looked around the elegant bedroom and tried to make sense of
the last few minutes. To make sense of the whole night. Quickly going through
the moments and when she got to the one where she’d said “I love you, Ted”
something snapped inside her. How dare he? How. Dare. He?

She flicked off the covers and ran for the door. “Ted. Ted!”

Stumbling she caught hold of the railing as she raced down
the stairs. Reaching the bottom, she halted when she spotted him at the open
door. Within sight.

“Wait.”

He turned his back on her. He was going to leave.

“No fucking way, you asshole!”

She grabbed the first thing she could lay her hands on. It
was the vase his late mother had given him. He deserved it. He so… The door
slammed and she screamed in frustration. “Fuuuuck!” No matter how mad she was
at the moment, she couldn’t throw his mother’s vase. She took a calming breath
and then put it back down on the hall table with a sloppy, albeit delicate,
pat, saying, “Sorry, but your son’s an asshole.”

She collapsed onto her haunches and grabbed her clothes.
Standing, she flicked her hair behind a shoulder and would have marched off,
but she caught sight of herself in the mirror. One glimpse, and she didn’t like
what she saw. It was the old Jo staring back at her. The unauthentic Jo, who
fooled the world with her fuck-you bravado that everyone not close to her
loved. And the same bravado that everyone she wanted to be close used as an
excuse to keep their distance from her.

Not Ted. He’d seen right through it.

She put her clothes back under the table and grabbed her
dragon, taking it upstairs. Not to Ted’s real room, but to their room on the
third floor. And an hour later when she heard the doorbell ring, she hugged her
dragon pillow tighter. She knew it was Cam there to take her home, but she
wasn’t going anywhere. Ted had accused her of not facing her challenges
head-on? Well, he better be prepared for a collision because she was staying
put until he told her why
he
had run away.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“You’ve looked better.”

Ted squinted at Ethan’s face looming over him and then
pulled back and looked around. Damn. He was at his office in the club. When
the—?

“Ah, I see it’s all coming back to you now. Do you remember
the midget in the waders?”

“Jesus fu—oh my head! Midget?”

Ethan grinned and Ted scowled. “Don’t mess with me. I’ve got
a two-hundred piece orchestra playing off key in my head right now. Did I get
hit with something?” He rubbed his jaw because it sure did feel like it.

“Yeah, your own importance.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? And what time is it?”

“Three a.m. And you’re a jackass.”

Ted sat up and winced. “Last thing I remember Dillon gave me
a shot of Yukon Jack.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’m not interested in what you did when you
got here. Personally, after I heard what you did before you came? I was hoping
I was going to have to take you to Mercy Central to get your stomach pumped.”

“Ouch.”

“Ouch is right.”

Ted hated how E looked so in control even in the middle of
the night with his buddy sicker than shit and messed up worse than one of those
bleeding hearts on the Jerry Springer Show.

“Are you here to talk some sense into me?”

Ethan sat on the edge of Ted’s desk and crossed his arms
over his chest. “I’m here because Colin sent me here. You think I’d drag my ass
out of a nice warm bed with a woman who has the softest skin imaginable to save
your sorry hide, unless I was forced to?”

Ted gingerly eased back against the couch cushions. “Thanks,
buddy.”

“What did you do?”

“Why—?” Ted lowered his voice. The pain in his skull was a
killer. “Why do you think I did anything?”

“Because Colin told me you did something and I’m supposed to
give up a night’s sleep to find out what it was.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn’t do anything. Jo was
the one who lied. Twice.”

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. I’m pretty sure there’s a family of
squirrels nesting in my mouth and my head feels like a high school band has
been using my skull as their lead drum.”

“I was being sarcastic. What kind of lies?”

Ted turned away. E’s cunning eyes always managed to freak
him out.

“Were they life threatening or dangerous in any way?”

He wasn’t going to answer him. Although the bastard had a
good point there.

“Were they against you, your family or your morality?”

The fucking guy was a prophet. Damn.

“Were the lies she told because she wanted to protect the
relationship she had with you?”

Mere prophet? He was the fricking Dali Lama.

“There’s a reason she’s struck a chord with you. Don’t fuck
this up. You need her, my man. For whatever reason you do. It’s been my
experience that a person who abhors something in someone else is guilty as
charged. What the fuck have
you
lied to
her
about?”

“What?” He snapped around before he could stop himself.

“You heard me.”

Ted did. Not that he was going to answer him, but it did get
him thinking and by the time Ethan left, Ted’s wheels were turning. He took a
shower and thought some more.

What have you lied to her about?

He opened the bottom of his desk drawer and took out the
photo.

Selena…

He stared at her image like he’d always done over the years,
but this time he couldn’t get a visual of recalled memories with her. This time
he didn’t feel the bitterness of betrayal or the anger. All he felt was sorrow.
Sadness for the woman she never became.

He ran the pad of his thumb over her smiling face and
whispered, “You could have done great things if only you forgave yourself.”

He sat up straighter because those words resonated. He heard
them, and without the grief and anger clouding his thoughts and making him
deaf, he listened. And what common sense told him? He couldn’t have saved
Selena no matter how hard he tried because in the end she had to save herself.

That thought rocketed through him. It shook his core
beliefs. If he’d been her Master wouldn’t he have been able to save her like he
was trying to save…?

He thought about Jo. He was so busy trying to compare her to
Selena he missed their most prominent difference. Jo was looking for better in
her life. She was a fighter. She was trying to save herself despite the
terrible odds that had been stacked up against her and what had he done? He’d
made it all about him saving the day. Saving her from herself. Jo didn’t need
saving from herself like Selena. If she needed saving at all it was from the
careless people around her.

And now you’re one of them.

Fuck. Jo didn’t need saving. She was a survivor.

Just like you. That’s why you love her.

And what had she done to survive the latest heartache in her
life? She’d lied to him just like he’d been lying to himself for so long. How
could he blame her for this when he was just as guilty? It wasn’t she who
couldn’t face living in truth, because she had. It was him. Jo didn’t need to
be forgiven, she needed to be commended. He, more than anyone, should have
known how hard facing one’s rawest pain was and how much easier it was to bury
it. Hide it. Lie about it.

“Jesus fuck.” What had he done?

He put away Selena’s image for the last time. There was no
more hiding. No more lying. To Jo or himself. Jo had said he’d understood and
accepted her needs without judgment and that much was true. He had, but “that
much” wasn’t nearly enough with the kind of intimacy he required.

He raked a hand through his hair and left off in a pull so
hard his eyes watered. Jesus Fuck. What he’d neglected to do was accept her for
exactly who she was with no judgment. She’d placed her trust in his hands and
he’d thrown it away by shutting her out. It was time to fix things between
them. It was time to let go of the past and head into the future. A future he
wanted with her.

He picked up his phone and tapped. “Cam? Sorry for calling
so late or I guess early but can you pick me up at the club?”

“I’m in the parking lot waiting for you.”

* * * * *

Jo had run the gamut of feelings with the situation. She’d
been upset, mad, mystified and finally resigned. She wanted Ted at whatever the
cost, and seeing as how only weak little girls ran away from a fight, she was
staying.

At first she’d gone to bed, waiting for him to come home,
but when he didn’t and it was past midnight? She decided he’d be home very soon
and grabbed her dragon to wait for him at the front door.

But then time ticked by and her eyelids got heavy. She was
cold and eventually she didn’t want to listen for a car anymore. Lying down,
she huddled against the mat and shivered until exhaustion won out. She woke up
only once, when the bite of the jagged metal on one of the cuffs she’d put back
on split her skin. Her fingers were stiff with cold as she readjusted it.
Vaguely aware that she was bleeding on her dragon.

* * * * *

Ted shut the door and locked it. He spun around, intent on
heading upstairs to get changed before hauling his ass over to Jo’s house as
soon as he could, when he halted.

“Jo? Jo!”

There was dried blood smeared across the white ceramic. No.
Jo.
His heart skipped a beat as he rushed forward and dropped to his knees. “Jo?”
Her arms were curled around the dragon. Clutching it against her cheek and
chest as he tried to see her wrists. Grateful when he put his hands on her and
touched warm skin. He knew from personal experience what death felt like. It
was icy, empty and still. All things Jo currently wasn’t. But the blood?

It didn’t take him a second to realize she’d put the collar
and the cuffs back on. He moved the dragon aside to get a good look at her and
when he did he determined that she must have cut her wrist when she’d put them
back on. That was where the blood had come from. Thank Christ.

“Jo?”

Finally she stirred. Slowly, but once she came fully alert
he had to lean back because she scrambled up into a kneeling position.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted.

He wasn’t expecting this. “For?”

“Saying I love you.”

That more than anything made him feel like shit because it
was one of her issues and he’d used it against her. He was going to apologize
for that. Apologize for a lot of things, but then he saw her involuntary
shiver.

“Jesus fuck.” He ripped off his top and then grabbed hold of
her. Dragging her onto his lap, he wrapped his shirt around her. “I thought I
told you never to stay too long in the front hall. The AC blasts in this area.”

“B-but y-you didn’t c-come home.”

He turned and sat on the floor with his legs stretched out
and his back against the wall. Pulling her up until she was cradled nice and
tight in his arms. “I’m glad you didn’t leave.”

“Y-you are?”

He let out a breath as he ran his hands up and down, right
to left, hell, all over her in order to get warmth into her. “Yeah, and here’s
a deep, dark secret unveiled.” The back of his head hit the drywall. Hard. “I’m
the one with the issues.”

“W-what?”

“Are you getting warmer?”

She nodded and he tucked her head under his chin and held
her close for a quiet minute before he said, “I haven’t been completely honest
with you.”

“Talk to me.” She turned his favorite phrase back on him as
she wrapped her hands around his biceps and squeezed.

“Remember when I said my wife was sick? She wasn’t.” He
hugged Jo tight. “I told you the truth about her finding out she was pregnant
with my child, but what I didn’t tell you was that she made the decision to
abort my daughter on her own. She did it without telling me. The day we were
supposed to go to the doctor’s, I
thought
to talk about our options, was
really an appointment she’d scheduled for something else entirely. This was
going to be an opportunity for her to tell me what she’d already done. She
planned it so she’d have an unbiased third party there for moral support. Only
something went wrong that morning and she started to hemorrhage.”

Jo let go of his arm and one of her palms slid up his chest.
Stopping to press against him. Only slightly, but it was enough of a comfort to
make him want to continue.

He shifted and pushed his back up straighter against the
wall. “Instead of buying cigars, I wound up in the ER waiting room thinking my
wife was having a miscarriage.” After those words fell out of him, he closed
his eyes. He hadn’t told anyone about this. Not a soul. Probably why the memory
of that instant was like a snapshot forever frozen in his mind.

“I remember that guy. The doctor. He looked like Bill Gates
and when he spoke he had a tiny lisp. His S’s slurred together. That was the
only thought that barreled through my mind even as he explained what had
happened. That Selena didn’t miscarry, but that there was a complication from
the abortion she’d had the week before.”

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Both of them
quiet for a minute or so and then he figured he’d come this far he might as
well finish it.

“I didn’t lie about the crying either.” He rubbed his jaw on
the top of her head. “Selena cried every goddamn night until I couldn’t take it
and I’d have to go out most times. But the days? The days were the worst. We’d
pretend everything was fine and walk through the hours. God, I hated that. We
were more alone together than when we were apart.”

Jo totally understood what he meant. That’s how she had
lived in her house for years after her dad’s accident. She studied the dark
stubble that dotted his neck. “So you divorced eventually?”

He stiffened and she automatically held her breath.

“No. That was a lie.”

When she heard that matter-of-fact statement, the air rushed
out of her, yet before she could get over the shock that he’d lied about
something else, he went on.

“We were heading that way, but I refused to let go.” He
rubbed her arm from elbow to shoulder and back again. “I kept hoping she’d get
over the guilt. The pain. It consumed her. Obsessed her. Until she couldn’t
take it anymore.” He stopped rubbing. The sudden stillness was unnerving. “I
found her one afternoon in the bathtub. She hadn’t done anything unusual that
day. She didn’t say anything different to me. There was nothing for me to…” He
sighed and began again. “Two days before our anniversary, she cut her wrists
and quietly bled to death while I was outside doing the yard work.”

She leaned back and examined his proud profile. Reaching up,
she used her index finger and slowly traced the line of his scar. “I’m sorry.”

He caught her hand when it reached his jaw and moved the
cuff aside to kiss the scrape on her wrist. Twining their fingers together, he
brought them down to rest on her lap. He was quiet for a long moment and then
whispered, “I’m sorry too. Sorry for punishing you for my misgivings. I had no
right—”

“We both made mistakes.” It was true. “And in this instance
I think the phrase, it’s easier said than done, applies.”

“How so?”

“It was easier for you to make me face my authentic truth than
it was for you to face yours.” She would have added that it was a guy thing,
but she didn’t want to ruin the moment.

He didn’t look at her. Only stared down as he rubbed his
thumb over the back of her hand. “Don’t forgive me. I don’t deserve it.”

“I have to forgive you because I’m glad you did what you
did.”

When he tilted his head and stared at her a thrill shot
straight through her at the spark of hope she spied in his eyes. “Are you?”

Sinking against him again, she snuggled in with a sigh. “Oh
yeah. Everything that happened, good or bad, brought us here. To this place and
moment in time and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Here is where I belong.
With you, if you’ll have me.”