Deep Surrendering: Episode Five Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Titlepage

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Books by Chelsea M. Cameron

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Deep Surrenderings, Episode 5

  Copyright © 2014 Chelsea M. Cameron

  www.chelseamcameron.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are use fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. All rights reserved.

  Cover Copyright © Chelsea M. Cameron

  Edited by GreatImaginations.com

  Interior Design by NovelNinjutsu.com

  “Hold on, just a second. Let me get my screen right,” I said, adjusting my laptop so it got a better angle on my face. “There, that’s better. Hi.” I gazed at the screen and wished that science had perfected the art of teleportation.

  “Hello, Marisol,” Fin said, his blue eyes blazing and making my stomach flutter, even across the thousands of miles that stood between us.

  He’d been gone for exactly one week and it had been the longest week of my life. Sure, we hadn’t been together long, but we’d covered a lot of ground already. Fin had impacted my life and I knew I’d never be the same.

  “Hey,” I said, even though I’d already greeted him. “I miss you.” Way to state the obvious.

  “I miss you. It hurts,” he said, giving me a grim smile. “How’s school and the candle business?” Boring. I didn’t want to talk about me, I wanted to talk about him. I wanted to touch him, kiss him, put my arms around him. But I couldn’t.

  “Same. How are you? How’s work?” His mouth, which had been turned upward into a smile made a straight line.

  “I don’t want to talk about work.” If we were talking face to face, I might not be as forward as I could be when we were far apart. But we were, so I was much bolder.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  He shook his head and looked away from the webcam.

  “Hey, talk to me,” I said, making my voice soft. His jaw clenched, and I could sense he was trying to hold himself together. “Fin. You don’t have to put on a face with me. Just talk to me.”

  He looked back at the web cam, and his face softened.

  “I’m sorry, Mari Cherry. It’s a habit. It’s nothing, really. Just missing you.” The last words wrenched my already-sore heart, tearing it open just a little bit more. Fin leaving had given me a wound I wasn’t sure was going to heal anytime soon.

  Two months left. Well, seven weeks. I tried not to count down the days, but that was impossible. My head had become consumed with math. How many days he’d been gone. How many days until he came back.

  “I miss you. I went to your apartment today,” I said with a smile. One of Fin’s parting gifts had been the key to his lavish place, and I’d went there at least every two days since he’d been gone. It made me both happier and sadder to be in those rooms, surrounded by his things and his scent. The last was the most important. Sometimes I’d crawl into his bed and wrap myself in his sheets, imagining him in the bed with me. Touching my skin. I’d turn off all the lights except for the enchanted chandelier, and I’d just lay there and miss him.

  But it wasn’t all bad. I had my friends and school and work, so I filled my days with everything I could to dampen the sting of him being gone.

  “And how does it look?” he asked.

  “I may or may not have rearranged some things,” I said with a sly smile.

  “Oh really?” He raised one eyebrow, and I could tell that wound him up a little. Fin liked control, and the fact that he’d even given me a key at all just showed how much he cared for me.

  “Just kidding. I’ve left everything as it is. Well, I might have put a few of my clothes in your closet,” I said.

  “Do whatever you want. I love the idea of you in my place. Your fingerprints everywhere. Your things mixing with my things.” That made my heart flutter.

  “I’ll mix with your things,” I said, making him chuckle. I loved mixing with his things. That was the worst part about being long-distance. Not that I couldn’t have sex with him, but because I couldn’t just reach out and touch him.

  “I wish I didn’t have to go, but I do,” he said. He was currently in France, which was six hours ahead. It was early for me, but he was nearly finished with his workday. Hopefully, he’d have time tonight (today for me) to talk again. We usually got our time in little sips, with longer gulps reserved for mornings or evenings.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Mari Cherry,” he said. I blew him a kiss, and he smiled before the video cut out.

  I sighed and closed my laptop. Chloe, my normal sounding board, was at work, as well as my other friends. That was the bummer of being in school when all your friends had grown-up jobs. Still, if I showed up at one of their workplaces, I was sure they’d make time for me. My friends were pretty spectacular.

  I needed to get out. Do something. My morning class had been cancelled, and I found myself with a few unscheduled hours to burn.

  First things first, I definitely had to put clothes on. I’d only gotten halfway dressed on top and made myself up to look nice for Fin. I looked down at my pajama bottoms and my lavender-painted toenails.

  Time to get myself together. If I could.

  “You look miserable,” Chloe said that night as we had drinks at one of the small bars near my apartment. She’d texted me saying she had a bad day and needed a drink, and I definitely needed one.

  “Really? I thought I was hiding it so well.” I cringed at the tone in my voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say it like that.” She gave me a sympathetic look and then rubbed my arm.

  “It’s okay, I can take it. You were there for me with my messy breakup and I’m going to be here for you while your man is away.” Her breakup had been more than messy. It was tumultuous, and I hadn’t been sure if she was going to come out on the other side of it. When Chloe fell, she threw herself into it, and when it ended, the crash had been explosive. I almost thought I’d have to take her to the hospital at one point.

  I wasn’t going to go through that. I wasn’t in love with Fin. Well, not yet.

  “Of course I had to get entangled with a complicated guy,” I said, draining my cosmopolitan. It felt like a fancy drink kind of night. Chloe was drinking a Corona and waved her hand at the bartender to get another.

  “I told you. You like the bad boys. They come with warning labels and side effects.” But why THIS particular bad boy? That was the question.

  Well, Fin wasn’t really bad. I truly believed that. But bad things had happened to him. Lots. I knew there were things that happened to him that I didn’t even know about yet. I hadn’t even gotten to the heart of his secrets, but I hoped that I would.

  “You could totally get on a plane and go see him if you wanted to,” Chloe suggested. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea, but I didn’t think it would go over well with Fin. He liked to keep work and his personal life separate. Sure, I showed up at his office, but it hadn’t gone well. His father had walked in, and I couldn’t stop the shiver that flowed down my spine when I thought about meeting the elder Mr. Herald.

&nb
sp; He wasn’t a man to be messed with.

  “No, I don’t need to do that. We can do the long distance thing. I can handle it,” I said, contemplating whether I should get another drink, and deciding yes, I wanted to have another drink.

  “Sure you can. I couldn’t, but I definitely think you can.” I wished there was more confidence in her voice, but we both knew that long distance relationships weren’t easy, even if you’d been together for ages.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Well, you should call Sloane, because apparently our girl Rory is in deep with this Lucas guy. Like, love deep. They’ve been spending a hell of a lot of time together and Sloane said she’s never seen Rory like this before.”

  Wow. That was really something. I’d thought the office romance was just going to be a fling, something that would burn out in a few weeks when the glow from forbidden sex wore off.

  “Well, good for her. She deserves to be happy,” I said.

  “We all do.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” I said as the bartender handed over our drinks. I raised my glass and Chloe raised her bottle.

  “To being happy,” she said with a grim smile.

  Fin didn’t call again on the webcam until late that night, but I was waiting for him and I didn’t care if I lost sleep. He was worth it.

  “Hey, Mari Cherry.” He looked even more tired than he had earlier, and his head was propped up on his hand as if he was too tired to hold it up anymore.

  “Hey, Fin.” I smiled, a reflex of seeing his face. Even on the slightly pixelated video he was a glorious sight. His hair was all over the place, as if he’d been running his hands through it. “How was the rest of your day?” He raised his hand and tipped it to the left and the right, as if he didn’t even want to say anything.

  “That great, huh?”

  He nodded. “But I was thinking … I’m in Paris, and even though I’ve seen it, you haven’t. So I’m going to show you Paris.” There was his smile. “I’m going to call you on my phone so I don’t have to walk the streets with my laptop like a freak.” I agreed and waited for the video to pop up again. It did, just a few minutes later, and he was out on the street, the video shaking a bit as he walked.

  “So, you ready?” he asked. I leaned closer to the screen to see and hear him. His voice layered over the background noise of cars and taxis and pedestrians on the street.

  He started walking and narrating, telling me about the places I was seeing. The video was shaky and made me feel a little motion sick, but I didn’t stop watching.

  “And there is Le Tour Eiffel,” he said in a perfect French accent. God, he was so damn sexy. The phone panned upward, showing the tower all decked out and blinking. He turned the camera back on his face. “What do you think, do you want to see the top?”

  “You don’t have to do that. I know it’s a lot of steps,” I said. There was probably an elevator though.

  “I’d walk miles for you, Marisol. A few steps is nothing. I’d walk to you if I could right now,” he said, his voice going serious again.

  “I’d walk to you too. We could meet in the middle.”

  If only that were possible, I’d put on hiking boots and grab a backpack and be on my way. But an ocean separated us. And that wasn’t the only thing. If it was just the distance, things would be much easier.

  He kept walking, and soon he was buying a ticket. Apparently, you couldn’t just walk to the very top, so he had to get a ticket to ride the elevator. Fin talked to me the whole way, even though I’m sure the people around him were giving him funny looks. As he walked, his voice was interrupted by his breathing, but he didn’t sound like he was struggling. Of course Fin could climb a bunch of stairs and make it look like a piece of cake. His steps were steady, even near the top.

  “I would be passing out about now,” I said, and he gave me a grim smile.

  “No, I’d pick you up and carry you.” Knowing him, he would. And not get winded at all.

  He held the phone up to the window, and I watched as the elevator took him all the way to the top. I could barely hear his voice over the chattering of tourists.

  “And here we are,” he said, getting out of the elevator and panning the phone around three hundred and sixty degrees. It was breathtaking, even on his phone.

  “Wow. Is it windy up there?” I asked. He trained the camera back on his face.

  “A little bit,” he said as he pushed his hair out of his eyes. “What do you think?”

  “I wish I was there,” I said. So much that my chest started to ache again like it had when he’d walked out and left me sitting on his bed.

  “You are. You’re always with me.”

  After Fin rode the elevator back down he walked around some more and we talked.

  “Hey, you should stop and get coffee somewhere, and I’ll make coffee and we can drink it at the same time,” I said, and he laughed. I loved that sound. So much. I also loved laying on his chest when he laughed, feeling the vibrations through his body.

  Seven weeks.

  “Let’s do it,” he said, and I took my computer with me into the kitchen and put on the coffeemaker as he walked into a café and ordered a coffee with a croissant. Crap. I didn’t have any croissants. All I had was a muffin that was a day or two old. Well, it would have to do.

  After my coffee brewed, I went to the fridge and got the French vanilla creamer.

  “Look, this is French,” I said, holding up the container. He shook his head as he carried his coffee and croissant in one hand and his phone in the other to a table outside the restaurant. It was quite late there, but the city didn’t seem to be slowing down at all. I liked that. A night owl myself, I couldn’t understand people who went to bed so early. All the best things happened under the cover of darkness.

  I settled down on my couch and set the laptop on the coffee table, angling the screen and the camera.

  Fin raised his cup. “To Paris,” he said.

  “To the French,” I said, and we raised our cups at the same time and sipped. Despite being in my pajamas—my cutest pair that were a little bit sweet and a little bit naughty—I almost, sort of felt as if I was there with him.

  We sipped our coffee and talked about this and that.

  “So,” he said, setting his empty cup down, “do you want your secret now?”

  I sipped the last of my coffee and gave him a look. “We’re still doing secrets? Even though I can’t reciprocate?”

  He chuckled and I saw a flash of Dark Fin. God, I’d missed him.

  “Oh, I think you might find a way.” He raised one eyebrow, and it didn’t take me long to get the gist. There were only a few options for long distance relationships to keep the sexy times going, but I wasn’t sure if I was up for any of them. But for Fin? I’d pretty much do anything.

  “Is that so?” I said, raising my own eyebrow.

  “So, what do you think?” he asked. “Is that an acceptable trade?”

  “Maybe,” I said, drawing out the word. “Depends on how good the secret is.” His secrets were all good. Or bad, actually. Most of his secrets involved his twisted past. I’d known when I met him that he had a dark past, but I just didn’t know how dark. Or how much darker it could be.

  “Let me get back to my hotel and then we’ll continue. I’ll talk to you in a little while.” I agreed, and we ended the video. For now.

  Sure, I’d thought about how we would keep the sexual spark of our relationship going, and I’d flirted with the idea of phone sex and even doing something via the webcam. But both of those things gave me an icky feeling. Like they were shameful, or wrong.

  It was ridiculous, given what we’d done already. Some people would consider getting tied up by their lover, or not being able to have sex face-to-face with someone as dirty or wrong. Things never felt that way with Fin. Everything felt right.

  So I put on some more lip gloss and fluffed my hair and tried to arrange myself on the co
uch in a sexy way as I waited for Fin to pop up on my computer again. I waited for fifteen minutes before he popped back up, and I hoped I was ready for this.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to make my voice as sexy as possible. Fin was back on his computer, in his bed. I probably should have gone to my bedroom. That would have been a better idea. Why didn’t I think of that? This couch had more than a few memories with Fin though. This was the couch he abandoned me on the first time we were naked together.

  After that, I thought I was never going to see him again, but I gave him another chance. And then he did it again. We’d been through a lot of ups and downs so far, and I knew there were more to come. We were in one right now. But the highs? Those moments when we were at the top and we started racing downward, hands in the air, screaming our lungs out, those were the best. They were worth the downs.

  “Secret first? Or secret after?” he asked, adjusting himself. He was on his side, curled around the laptop.

  “Um, secret first,” I said, my voice shaking a little. I was suffering from a little bit of performance anxiety.

  “That’s what I though you’d say.” He took a deep breath and pushed his hair back.

  “You know about the first time I had sex, and the second. But you don’t know about the first date I went on.” No, I didn’t know about that. He’d told me that he didn’t have sex with girls he’d dated, and he didn’t date the girls he had sex with. Well, most of the women he’d had sex with were professionals. I was definitely still trying to get past that. It was going to take more than a little bit of time for me to process.

  “Okay, tell me,” I said. He’d been waiting.

  “Her name is Tara, and she was the daughter of one of my father’s business associates.” Naturally. “She was everything my parents wanted for me. Well, they wanted Rory for me, but you know how that worked out. And I know you’ve seen pictures of me in my younger years.” Yes, I had. He was absolutely gloriously beautiful now, but he hadn’t always been that way. Still, there was the sense in his youth that he’d someday turn into something greater. He wasn’t ugly back then by any means, just … awkward. Gangly limbs, a bad haircut, a sour face and a bit of a skin problem.