Surrender (25 page)

He could . . . take off those pants and shove that thick cock inside me. That would most definitely work.

Hoping to inspire him, I pulled my legs wider yet, stretching my inner thigh muscles until they burned. I lifted my hands to my breasts. My thumbs flicked over my nipples, sending tiny tremors of need zinging through my body. I liked this table. I liked this room. In it I felt sexy, and beautiful. I felt like I could do or say anything.

His eyes darkened. He wanted me. Badly. I felt so incredibly powerful, having a man so strong look at me with obvious wanting. He knelt, which put him at just the right height to eat my pussy, parted my swollen pussy lips, and audibly inhaled. “You’re so wet already. I love that smell. The scent of your need. It’s intoxicating.”

I clenched the muscles inside, wishing he would end the torment. I’d had enough. The anticipation, that had been so thrilling in the beginning, was now more of an aching, throbbing desperation.

“Lie back.” Angling closer, he blew a cool stream across my burning flesh.

I fell onto my back and shivered.

But then I felt nothing. I heard footsteps, retreating. He was . . . leaving?

I angled up on my elbows, and he gave me a stern look. “You said you trust me.”

I immediately dropped down again.

What was he doing?

“I know you like this,” he murmured a few moments later as he wrapped some kind of cuff around my wrist and buckled it. As he did the same with the other one, my heart pounded hard against my breastbone.

Oh, how well he knew me.

With great care he pulled my arms up and out in a wide vee and attached chains to each cuff so I couldn’t move my arms.

“Are you ready to receive your reward, Abigail?” His voice was smooth and mellow, seductive.

A reward? Wasn’t just being there with him a reward? “Yes.”

He parted my nether lips, and his tongue flicked up and down over my clit. In response, my empty pussy tightened, amplifying the need simmering in my veins. He suckled on it, and a wave of heat crashed through me. My whole body tightened as I soared toward release. I could feel it building inside, gathering strength, swirling deep in my center. The pleasure was almost unbearable. I writhed, arms tugging against the restraints. My stomach clenched, rocking my hips forward and back in time to the pounding ache building inside of me. A moan slipped from my lips.

“Are you losing control, Abigail?”

“Yessss.”

His tongue circled over my clit now, round and round. I heard the sound of lube being squirted from a tube. A second later something cool and slick was sliding between my ass cheeks, probing at my anus.

My heart caught in my throat. What was he pushing in
there?
The ring of muscles clamped tightly.

“Trust me,” he murmured. “This is your reward, Abigail. Accept it. Take the pleasure that is yours to have.”

Eager to please him, and equally eager to experience every decadent pleasure he offered, I concentrated on relaxing my bottom. The toy was big—larger than his cock. It pushed against my body’s resistance for one burning moment, and then my muscles opened and it slid inside.

A head-to-toe shiver quaked through my body.

As Kam licked my clit and fucked my anus with the toy, I tumbled head over heels into a torrent of aching sensual need. I was lost, powerless, on the verge of ecstasy.

“Look at me, Abigail.”

Somehow, I found the strength to open my eyes. Despite the overwhelming sensations blasting through my system. Despite the toy that was buried deep in my ass.

He was nude. I wasn’t even sure when he’d undressed. His thick, hard cock was ready. A droplet of precome glistened on the tip. He curled a fist around the base, gave it a couple of pumps, then tore open a condom wrapper.

Finally the sheathed tip of his cock was easing inside me, and I just about cried with gratitude. Ah, to be filled so perfectly, ass and pussy. He entered me a fraction of an inch at a time. His slow, deliberate invasion was glorious torment. I clamped my inside muscles around him as he pushed deeper, deeper until his cock nudged my cervix.

“Ohhhh,” I said on a groan. I was burning up. My blood simmering. My muscles so tight I could barely stand it. Air was sawing in and out of my lungs. My heartbeat was thundering through every cell in my body. I was teetering on the brink of release. It was there. Within reach. Just another second or two.

Kam eased out of me just as slowly as he’d entered, and I quivered at the sensation of his thick rod stroking along my sensitive nerves. A huge wave of heat slammed me, and I sank my teeth into my upper lip. A couple more slow thrusts. That was all I needed. My stomach clenched. My thighs quivered.

“You are so perfect.” I felt his cock swell even more, and another wave of heat blasted me. He growled. The deep rumble vibrated through my whole body. “Can’t wait another second.”

He pulled out, then slammed deep. One hard, sharp thrust. Then a second. And a third. Yes, oh yes. He was fucking me hard and fast. My body responded immediately. Every muscle spasmed as a powerful orgasm rocketed through me. The heat blasted from my center, out. To my chest. My face. My feet.

I screamed as I was overcome by the raw pleasure ripping through me. His movements grew even rougher as he rammed in and out, pounding away his need. His domineering possession pushed me into the maelstrom of a second orgasm that was nearly as powerful as the first. My insides blazed and convulsed, twitched and thrummed. I was exhilarated, soaring, swooping, spinning. Until gradually, all the pounding, throbbing pleasure eased, leaving me gasping for breath.

Wow, was that some reward.

But it was more than that.

This experience went beyond anything I’d ever shared with a man before. Beyond a physical act. Beyond sex. Beyond domination.

In that moment, when we’d both been swept up in rapture, I’d felt like we were one. Joined in body and mind and spirit. Complete and whole. Perfect.

When I opened my eyes I found Kam still standing with his cock buried deep inside of me. His head was thrown back, he was breathing heavily, and his chest covered in a sheen of sweat. He looked so beautiful.

He lifted his head, looked at me. “I’ve never lost control like that.” He grimaced as he pulled out of me, tugged off the used condom and discarded it. Next he removed the toy from my anus, leaving me feel empty but also twitchy and contented. Then he walked around the side of the table, stopping at the head to free my wrists from the cuffs. I was grinning like a goon as I pushed upright. He returned to his position at the end of the table, wedged his hips between my legs, and stared into my eyes. His thumb grazed my lower lip. “I owe you a thank you.”

A tiny chill buzzed up my spine.

No, he wasn’t . . . no . . . “Please, please don’t tell me that’s what this was all about tonight, thanking me for helping you get out of jail.”

With his hands at my waist, he helped me off the table. Then he took my hand in his and led me out of the dungeon, down the hall. “It has nothing to do with that, though I do owe you a thank you for that as well. Without your help I don’t know if we would have gotten enough to get Stephanie. At one point, I almost took the prosecutor’s deal, just to put an end to it all.”

I breathed a little easier at that response. For a moment I was doubting what I’d felt just now, questioning the connection I’d thought we’d shared. “I’m glad you held off.”

“Time was running out.” Stopping in the middle of the hallway, he smoothed his hand up and down my arm. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about something else entirely, about showing me what an idiot I had been.” He started walking again, out toward the main living space.

“An idiot? You?”

“Yes, me. Thanks to what I saw as a kid, I told myself I would never fall in love with a woman. Because falling in love would make me weak, like it did my father.”

At last he was talking about his family, his parents. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Your parents’ marriage wasn’t happy?”

He continued into the living room, sat on the couch. I sat next to him.

“No,” he said. “As long as I could remember, it was pure hell. They said ‘I love you’ to each other all the time. But those were just words. Their actions said something else entirely. Still, I grew up expecting my marriage to be like theirs. Public bliss and private hell. But, thanks to you, I learned that love isn’t like what I saw when I was a kid. True love, genuine love, doesn’t make a man weak, it makes him stronger. And a good woman doesn’t use a man’s vulnerabilities against him, she builds upon his strengths. That’s what you’ve done for me. To think I almost let you go.”

“You did? You almost let me go?” My head was spinning now, and my heart was practically leaping out of my chest. He loved me. A lot. And I loved him just as much. We had just shared the best sex of my life, and I had learned that receiving a reward in Kam’s dungeon was absolutely incredible. Trusting Kam was a good thing. A very good thing. I couldn’t wait until the next time we went in that room. And now, in this quiet moment, he was opening up to me more than he ever had.

“That whole thing with the drugging? I knew it wasn’t you. But I reacted that way because I could see I was falling in love. I was . . . afraid. But no sooner did I shove you away than I was craving having you back in my life. I couldn’t live without you.”

“You know I’ve had some problems trusting too, thanks to my parents,” I admitted. “My mom and dad didn’t have the best relationship either. My father . . . he wasn’t a nice man. Certainly not trustworthy. He abused my mother. My brother. And . . . me. So, I think I’ve always gone into relationships expecting to be hurt, and feeling I needed to protect myself. But something was different with you. Even in the beginning. I never would have let another man tie my hands. I never would have trusted a man that much.”

He pulled me into his arms and held me tightly. I had never felt so cherished, so loved and protected. “I promise I will always strive to deserve your trust. It’s the most precious gift anyone has ever given me.” His embrace loosened, and he leaned back slightly and gazed into my eyes. “I need to go get something. Wait here.”

27

K
am was holding a large envelope in his hand again. When he pulled the contents out, I recognized them.

The contract.

So he wanted to make it official? I would be his
submissive?
All this talk about love and trust had led us back to that?

“I’ve never . . . felt this way about a woman before,” he said. “When we were . . . making love . . . all I could think about was having you, taking you.” Something flashed in his eyes. “
Keeping
you. Will you, Abigail? Will you be mine?”

What was he trying to say? My gaze flicked to the contract in his hands. “Be your what?”

He slid the papers back in the envelope and handed it to me. “This whole thing has opened my eyes. I hadn’t realized until now how little I have in life.”

“I’m not following you,” I said as I flipped open the top flap.

“I have more money than I could spend in a lifetime. I have cars. I have buildings and land. But what I don’t have is a true legacy, the kind that will carry on after I’m gone.”

“Again, I’m not following you.” I pulled the contract out. What did a legacy have to do with this domination and submission stuff? “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a family. About a future. About children. About . . . a wife.”

“What?” My eyes dropped to the paper in my hands. The top line read “Contract of Marriage.”
Marriage?
“What is this?” My heart couldn’t have pounded any harder if I’d run a marathon.

Laughing, he yanked the paper and envelope out of my hand. “It’s nothing. Trash.” He lowered himself onto one knee. “This wasn’t the way I wanted to do this, but it seems you’ve given me no choice.” He took my hands in his and gaze into my eyes. “I don’t need you to sign a damn thing. I just need you to say yes, that you love me, that you’ll marry me. I want you to be my partner in life. My lover. My future. The mother of my children. And behind closed doors . . . my submissive.”

I couldn’t speak. I was beyond happy. Overjoyed. And yet I was petrified. There was something he didn’t know about me yet. I couldn’t marry him. Not without telling him.

Would he change his mind once he knew?

Kam’s brilliant smile faded. “You haven’t answered, Abigail. Tell me, is it because you’re overcome with happiness?”

I nodded.

“Good. Then I’ll take your silence as a yes.” He stood, gathered me into his arms, and a wave of heartache blazed through me.

I was a murderer. There was no other way to describe what I had done. And this man was looking toward the future. How could he do that by marrying a woman who had spent years running from her past?

He couldn’t.

Up until now, it had been easy to push this whole issue aside. As much as I wanted to believe he loved me, and as much as I wanted to believe he wanted something more than sex, I hadn’t let myself actually think about what that meant.

Tears were welling in my eyes, and I couldn’t hold them back. I was afraid that if he saw I was crying he would ask me why. He didn’t want to know why.

Holding him, I blinked a bunch of times, trying to clear my eyes.

“What do you think about maybe moving?” Kam asked. “I was thinking . . . I’ve had this dream since I was a kid. To live out west. Buy a ranch and slow down. What do you think? Would you like to get away from all this crap?” He cupped my chin and gently lifted it. His brows furrowed. “You’re crying.”

“I’m . . .”

I couldn’t lie to him. The words sat on my tongue and I couldn’t spit them out. Here was this honorable, kind, generous man planning his future with me, pursuing his dreams. If I ran away it might destroy him.

No, running would be the cowardly thing to do, not the brave.

That wasn’t the way to do it.

I inhaled deeply, exhaled. How could I tell him? How would I find the words? Terrified, I forced the first sentence out of my mouth. “I need to tell you something.” It got easier after that. “And I need you to listen, really listen. Because I think when I’m finished you might have some different ideas about what your future should look like.”

One brow lifted. His mouth twisted. “Okay.”

My heart was pounding so hard I was getting dizzy. I stared down at the floor. I couldn’t look at him when I told him. I couldn’t bear seeing the shock and disgust on his face.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. A huge lump of something was clogging my throat. It wouldn’t let the sound past. I coughed to clear it.

“Whatever it is, I can tell you with certainty that I love you. Nothing is going to change that,” he said.

“I . . . I haven’t told this to anyone. Ever.”

Kam placed his hand on top of mine. My hand was shaking. His wasn’t. “You can trust me.”

“I . . . I don’t know how to say it.” How could I talk about this? How? Once I started all the memories would surge to the surface. The terror. The desperation. It had taken me many years of pushing them down to even begin to move forward with my life.

Until now.

This was different.

I had to talk about it, no matter how bad it hurt.

The fact was, I couldn’t marry Kam without knowing for sure I wouldn’t have to run away again, to hide from the terrors of those years and the fallout of my actions. All this time I’d feared I might end up being arrested for that crime. Tried. Imprisoned. My life completely turned upside down. I couldn’t let Kam live with that risk.

Or our children, if we had any.

Until I put this behind me, there was only so much life I could allow myself to live. Marriage. Children. Those were out. I couldn’t risk hurting them, upsetting their lives because of something I had done years ago.

I had to find the strength. I had to face the horror. Now.

He said, “If you can’t tell me now, that’s okay. Whatever it is, I can wait. Nothing is going to change how I feel about you.” Wrapping his arm around my shoulder, he stroked my face. “I can’t wait to make you mine. For always.”

That sounded so wonderful. Too wonderful to be real. Like a dream, but better. A dream I’d never had the courage to dream.

I cleared my throat again. “You know about how I was a suspect in my father’s death? We talked about it.” I pulled in a deep lungful of air and blurted, “I killed him. I murdered my father.”

Ohmygod, I’d said it.

The world started spinning, and I clenched my fists, wishing it would stop.

Gently, Kam cupped my chin and forced me to look at him. He blinked. He tipped his head and blinked again. I waited for him to speak with my heart in my throat. When he didn’t say anything, I added, “He was going to kill my brother. It was only a matter of time. . . .” Words flowed from my mouth then, all my darkest secrets and fears, the horror of those awful days and nights, as if the dam holding them back came crashing down and I simply couldn’t stop them. “I was so scared. I was just watching him torture my brother almost every day. Joss was getting weaker and weaker. The beating was taking its toll. And the mental abuse, it was killing his soul.” My gaze slid once again to the floor. “Maybe it was already too late? It seems I didn’t save Joss after all. I thought all his mistakes had been because he didn’t have a mother and a father to help him through his teens. Maybe it wasn’t that.”

“Where was your mother?” Kam asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“We didn’t know. I remember one night, maybe three years before my father died. We heard shouting and banging. The next morning, when we got up, Father told us she’d run off with another man. She was starting a new family and didn’t want any part of us.”

He cringed. “Damn, what a thing to say to your kid.”

“That was one of the nicer things he said. We never saw her again.”

“What about the police? Did you go to them for help or a teacher? A friend? A neighbor? Anyone?”

“The one time I told someone what was happening we were both beat. There was nobody I could trust. No one.”

Studying me, he shook his head. “Abigail, I know you didn’t kill your father. You weren’t arrested. There was no trial.”

“That’s true. But I made it look like a suicide. I’d read books, true crime, thrillers. I learned how to fake a suicide, and that’s what I did.” I blinked as tears obscured my vision. After all this time wondering, I had to ask, “Does the fact that I took months to carefully plan out each step make me a murderer?”

“No. You planned it out because you were afraid of the consequences if you failed, but—”

A sob surged up my throat, and I swallowed it down. “I would have taken Joss and run away, but we had nowhere to go. And once he found us . . . He would have killed my brother first. He would have made me watch.”

“Shit. He was that evil?”

“He was. He wasn’t human.” I sniffled. “But does that matter? Maybe it wouldn’t to a judge? I might feel better if you talked to someone about it. The police. Or an attorney. A judge. Do you know someone? Someone you could trust to tell you the truth?”

“That’s not necessary.” Kam lifted my chin again, forced me to look at him. His eyes weren’t hard. I didn’t see any sign of contempt or judgment in them. “I hate what this has done to you. I had no idea.”

“Please, Kam. I’m begging.”

He sighed and added, “Yes, I know someone. He used to work for the county prosecutor’s office. He’d be able to give me an objective viewpoint.” My insides twisted. Was I really ready to face the truth? Yes? No. Yes. “But there is no real issue here.” He kissed one of my hands, then stared at it, cradled in his. “This is important, Abigail. I want to help you, to free you from the chains of your past. Will you trust me? Me, not an attorney? Not the police? Not an ex-DA? Me?”

I couldn’t hold back the sob that surged up my throat this time. I clapped my hands over my mouth.

He said, “I know you trust me. You’ve shown me again and again. This is no different. Abigail. Trust
me
. Not just with your body. But with your heart. With your soul. With your guilt and regret.”

My heart exploded into a million pieces.

Tears came. Hard. Fast. I couldn’t hold them back. After a few seconds I didn’t bother trying. I let them fall. At last someone knew. My terrible secret was out. I couldn’t take it back.
Oh God.

Once the tears had eased, I slid my hands aside, using them to frame my face. “I want to believe you. . . .”

He gathered me into his arms and smoothed a hand down my back. “I hate what that bastard did to you. Hate it. And I’m pretty sure you haven’t told me the worst of it.”

That much was true. I dragged a thumb under my lashes. “Please call your friend. I’m done running. I want a future. I can’t live in the past and have a future. It doesn’t work.”

“You’re right, you can’t.” Easing back, he looked me in the eye. “I can call him. But all the answers you need are right here.” He placed a hand on his chest and then on mine. “You don’t need an attorney or a judge or a jury to tell you the truth. You already know it. Just like I do. If you were a murderer, you wouldn’t feel guilt. You wouldn’t feel empathy. You wouldn’t feel anything. Please, Abigail. Listen.”

He was asking me to trust him.

He was telling me to believe him.

I was listening, but could I hear him?

“Kam, he’s dead. I did it. Maybe I don’t belong in prison, but I don’t deserve to be happy either.”

He pulled me against him, enclosing me in a warm embrace again. “Somehow I am going to help you see the truth. If it takes me the rest of my life, I don’t care. You’re not a cold-blooded killer. You are a loving, giving woman who is willing to sacrifice everything for the people she loves. If anyone doesn’t deserve to be happy, it’s me. I don’t deserve you. The way I’ve treated you . . . Oh God. I’ve been such a bastard. I have no right to ask this.” Holding my hand, he lowered himself onto one knee. “Please, please, Abigail, take me. I submit to you now as I hand you my heart and ask if you’ll be my wife. My lover. My partner. I am a better man, a complete man, because of you. I must have the chance to show you how much you mean to me.”

I was stunned. “But I just told you—”

“You protected your brother. And that brave and terrifying act has haunted you every day since then. You were not arrested because you did nothing wrong. Let me help you leave the past behind you now. Let me be your present and future. I will help you heal from that hell. I will help you put all that pain behind you. And the fear. And the guilt. There’s no reason to run anymore, Abigail Barnes. There never was.”

“You . . . really believe that?” I asked.

“Of course. Because I know you.”

He wanted
me
. He loved me?

Despite the terrible thing I had done.

Despite my brother and his girlfriend having stolen from him, and costing him millions of dollars.

Despite everything.

I was free?

To live? To love? To look forward, not back?

“I . . . I . . .”

“Abigail, stop. Stop it now!” Jumping to his feet again, Kam grabbed my face and looked me in the eye. His eyes were full of fire, anger, frustration . . . desperation. “Dammit, I didn’t want to tell you this. I didn’t want you to know, because I know it’s going to hurt. But if I have to stand by and watch you punish yourself for a crime you didn’t commit, I am going to go crazy. Do you hear me? It will destroy me.”