Deep Surrendering: Episode Five Read online

  “I had interest in girls, of course.” He grinned at me. Most of the time when he told his stories, he went to another place and it was like I wasn’t there. He lost himself in the past for a little while.

  “Of course,” I said, laughing. Things hadn’t changed.

  “This was after my sixteenth birthday, and my father gave me some advice. He told me that I would marry a good woman and take care of her, and treat her the way a woman should be treated, and if I needed to work out my inner demons, I was to do it with a professional. That was what they were there for.” God, the more I heard about his father, the more I hated him. Yes, I hated him. For what he’d done to Fin. For how he’d treated his one and only son. What kind of father did that?

  “So, he said it was time for me to lock down a good woman. He’d met my mother when they were both in high school, and they got married right after graduation. This was the path I was expected to follow. He had a list of eligible women to set me up with, and Tara was the first. She wasn’t the last.” I assumed. His father definitely wouldn’t give up after just one failed date.

  “I had my license and my father had bought me a car, so I picked her up from her parents’ house. She had this pink dress on, and I remember thinking that she looked so young. I was seventeen, she was sixteen, and I already felt ancient. But I shoved that aside and opened the car door for her, made small talk when she got nervous, and tried to be a nice guy. She was much more into the date than I was, that much was obvious. I wasn’t sure if it was me, or if it was just the fact that she was out from under her parents’ watchful eye.” Probably a little bit of both, but I didn’t say that.

  “We went to a restaurant, and I did everything I was supposed to do, pulling out her chair, that sort of thing. There were a few awkward moments because we didn’t know each other very well, but for the most part, it was a nice date. Just nice. We had dessert and I drove her home a whole half hour before her curfew. Not because I was sucking up, but because I just wanted it to be over. I could feel her waiting for me to kiss her, but I didn’t want to. Wasn’t going to. This would be our one and only date. I wasn’t going to marry this girl and cheat on her with hookers. Hell, I wasn’t going to marry anyone at that point. I’d seen my share of marriages, and they were all unhealthy prisons. I refused to willingly walk into one and let them shut the door behind me.” It was a wonder he managed to function normally at all with the fucked-up stuff he’d witnessed in his youth.

  “She asked me if I was going to kiss her and then she laughed nervously. Her high cheeks were so sweet as she blushed in the dark, and I didn’t know what to say. So I kissed her on the cheek, but I knew she wanted more. If I didn’t end this now, she’d think that we were going on another date, or maybe she’d hope for one. I didn’t want her to want me. So I did the only think I could think of doing.” I held my breath for a moment and then let it out slowly.

  “I told her the only way I’d kiss her was if she let me fuck her. Her eyes got so wide. For sixteen, she was still so innocent. Her parents had kept a tight leash on her and isolated her from any information about sex. How they did it, I have no idea, but there she was. She went red again, but this time it was out of shame. I reached for her, and she started to cry and told me to take her home. So I did. I never heard from her again, and she avoided me at school.”

  Wow.

  “I’ve done a lot of shitty things in the past, Marisol. I can be a terrible person sometimes.” Yes, it was a terrible thing to do. Yes, he’d been young and had a crappy life, but that was no excuse. But the difference was he owned up to it. Fin knew what he did was wrong, but in a twisted way, he did it to protect an innocent girl. He definitely didn’t go about it the right way, but that didn’t make him a bad person.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I mean, it’s not. But I understand why you did what you did.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t deserve you, Marisol. I don’t deserve this time you’ve given me. I don’t deserve your body. I don’t deserve any of this.”

  I wasn’t going to fight with him on this. We could play this game for hours, but I didn’t want to. The only way to get him out of it was to distract him with something else.

  So I sat up and stripped off my tank top. I wasn’t wearing a bra underneath.

  Fin inhaled sharply. “Marisol,” he said, and his voice changed. Took on a deep, rich quality. I knew I had him.

  “Yes?”

  “Stop,” he said, but everything, from his tone to his body position told me he wanted the exact opposite to happen.

  “Stop what? I’m not doing anything.” Yet.

  I dragged my hand slowly down my chest, starting at my neck and moving between my now-exposed breasts. I watched his face the whole time, shifting a bit so the camera got a good angle. He swallowed, and I sensed he was swallowing his own protests as to why he didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve me.

  I didn’t care about deserving. If he did or not, it didn’t matter. I wanted to be with him, and he wanted to be with me, and that was it. Yes, I hadn’t done some of the things he’d done in his life, but that didn’t make me a better person. What qualified someone as a good person? Ask anyone and they’d give you a different answer. There were no commandments that applied to everyone.

  I moved my hand lower, slipping it under the waistband of my shorts as my other hand skimmed my nipples. Fin made a sound, and I put my finger to my lips in a hush motion. I didn’t speak, worried I’d break the moment. I closed my eyes and moved the hand in my waistband lower and imagined it was his hand, brushing over my skin.

  Playing with my nipples, I moved my other hand to right where I needed it. I thought about removing my shorts, but kept them on. I didn’t know if I was ready to be completely and totally exposed for him. Not like this, anyway.

  Usually when I got myself off, it was quick and just to get the job done. Most of the time I had a battery friend with me, but that didn’t seem right in this particular situation. Besides, I didn’t need it. Just the idea of Fin watching me as I pleasured myself made the ache between my legs and through the rest of my body intensify, heating my skin and making my breathing come in little gasps.

  I started a slow rhythm of stroking myself. The only sound in the room was the swish of my hand against my underwear, mine and Fin’s breathing. I kept eye contact with him, his gaze going dark with want and need and desire. They transported me back to his bedroom with the enchanted chandelier and the darkness that covered us and protected us from the world.

  Fin moved, and his shoulder started moving as he touched himself. That just made me hotter, and I picked up my pace. The pressure was already building and release wasn’t far off.

  “Say my name,” Fin commanded. He’d gone fully to his dark side as he watched me, and I moved frantically, little moans escaping from my mouth. My back arched into my hand.

  “Finnnn,” I said, his name an exhale.

  “Again,” he said, groaning and closing his eyes. He was definitely close. I knew him well enough to see the signs.

  “Fin. Fin, Fin, Fin,” I said it with my strokes, and it was almost too much to take. I was so close. So close.

  “Are you close?” I said, trying to hold off as much as I could. I wanted us to come together, if we could.

  “So close,” he said, his movements picking up and his breath coming out in grunts. “There,” he said, and growled with his release.

  Watching him come brought on my own orgasm, and I called his name one more time before I fell back against the couch. My chest had a thin sheen of sweat on it. I took my hand out from inside my shorts, and for some reason, I started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Fin asked, shifting and propping his head on his arm.

  “I just got myself off on a webcam. I can’t believe I did that.” The oddest thing was that I wasn’t ashamed. Not one bit.

  “Do you regret it?” he asked.

  I shook my head right away.

  “No, it was sexy.
Really sexy.” I could definitely do that again. Maybe naked this time. “Was it good for you?”

  “Not the same, but as close an approximation as we can get. Your face is so beautiful when you come, so open. So vulnerable and sweet. God, I want you so much right now.” I wanted him, too.

  “I miss you,” I said, because it was the only thing to say.

  “I know, Marisol. I miss you. If I could, I would…” He didn’t finish the sentence. We both knew he couldn’t leave his job. Yes, he wasn’t under his father’s roof anymore, but he’d always be under his thumb. I might not understand it, but I got it.

  Fin’s relationship with his father was complicated, to say the least. I hated it. Hated that he’d become the prisoner he’d tried so hard to avoid. Hated that his beautiful soul had been put in a cage.

  I only wished I could set him free.

  Despite my efforts to stay awake, I had to go to bed.

  “I’ll still exist tomorrow,” Fin said when my eyes started closing, even though I tried to fight it.

  “You’d better,” I said around a yawn. I’d moved the computer to my bed so I could lay down as we talked.

  “Same to you,” he said. We still hadn’t figured out a good sign off for our chats. Kissing the screen seemed silly, so I put my hand up to the camera, he put his up, and the images touched.

  “This is as close as we can get,” I said. It would have to do. We both sighed in unison.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Or today,” he said. “Goodbye, Marisol.”

  “Goodbye, Fin.” I waved like a dork and the video feed cut out.

  Seven weeks.

  My mother called me the next day, and I thought about ignoring the call, but that would only lead to an irritated voicemail later. I was exhausted from my late night with Fin, but it was Saturday, so I didn’t have anywhere to be. Just homework to do.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said, and the words sounded strange out loud. Yes, she was my mother, but calling her ‘mom’ was just … odd.

  “Hello, Marisol. I haven’t heard from you in ages.” Crap. I was supposed to be calling her regularly and I hadn’t been. I’d been too distracted by Fin. I did feel a little bad about that. Even though the only conversations I ever had with her were emotionally draining and left me pissed off.

  “I’m so sorry I haven’t called. I’ve been very busy with school.” It was the best excuse I had, even though she didn’t approve of me being in school. But I wasn’t going to bring Fin up. I didn’t want her to know about him. Ever.

  “Oh, have you? Are you sure you haven’t been busy with a young man you don’t want me to know about?” Her words turned my blood to ice. Shit. I had to bite back a curse and try to compose myself. How the hell had she found out? I didn’t have words for a moment.

  “What are you talking about?” Best to play ignorant at the beginning. I needed to know how she knew and what she knew before I admitted anything.

  “Don’t be like that, Marisol. Kitty Levelle saw you together having dinner and told me you looked very cozy.” I hoped she hadn’t seen me when I’d been talking with Fin about BDSM and nearly given him a hand job under the table. That would be … embarrassing wouldn’t even cover it. I’d rather die than let my mother know about that.

  “Where? When?” I needed details.

  “You tell me,” she snapped. Great, this was just spectacular.

  “Mom, it’s nothing. I just had dinner with a guy.” This wasn’t a lie. I’d had dinner with Fin. I’d done a lot more, but she wasn’t going to know about that.

  “Yes, I know. And the name of that guy?” Her tone clued me in to the fact that she already knew and was waiting for me to confirm.

  “Fin. Fin Herald. But you know that already.” She made a sound on her end, and I fought the urge to scream.

  “Yes. I did. I’m just a little bit upset that I had to hear about it from Kitty and not from my own daughter. How long has this been going on?”

  Please, let me be able to keep the lid on this.

  “It hasn’t been ‘going on.’ Rory set us up. She thought we would click. I went out to dinner with him.” Okay, so the first part was a lie, but the rest of the stuff was true.

  “I don’t believe you.” Despite the fact that my mother didn’t understand me, she could still catch me in a lie.

  “He’s overseas right now, and it’s not like I’m in love with him. That’s why I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t anything serious, so I didn’t want to get your hopes up.” My mother would like nothing more than for me to marry someone like Fin, drop out of school, and return to the fold, spending my life doing not much of anything. Yes, there were friends of my parents (including Rory’s parents) that put their time and money to good use and made the world a better place. My parents? Not so much. They thought buying a yacht and spending money was somehow helping society.

  I couldn’t get my head back into that space. I’d been trapped in that world for years, and I’d finally gotten free.

  But Fin hadn’t.

  “It’s not really anything,” I reiterated as my mother gave me the silent treatment but didn’t hang up the phone.

  “I still want to know what’s going on with you,” she said, but it wasn’t a sudden burst of maternal feelings. It was because she wanted to get control of my life again. Have me under her watch. I was an only child, so I was her one shot at creating the next generation of robots just like her.

  It made me sick, honestly.

  “I’m sorry. I should have told you,” I said, gritting my teeth and sucking it up. Yes, she made my life far more difficult than it had to be, and had done so for my entire life, but she was still my mother.

  I didn’t want something to happen to her and have the last words I said to her be laced with hatred.

  “Yes, you should have,” she said, finally losing the sharp tone in her voice. Silence followed, and I tried to shift the topic to something else.

  “So, what’s been going on with you and Dad?” I hadn’t seen my parents in person in weeks. I should probably go over for dinner or something.

  Mom detailed the remodel of the den in painstaking detail, down to the drapes imported from Europe and some sort of urn she was extremely excited about. I tried to listen and be supportive, but it was hard when she got more excited about an urn than my grades in college.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “At the club,” she said. Damn, I forgot. My parents kept a strict schedule that I used to know.

  “Well, tell him that I called. Maybe I could come over for dinner or something.”

  “That would be lovely,” Mom said, her voice finally softer. “I’ll see what I have open and let you know.”

  “Okay. Bye, Mom.”

  “Bye, Marisol.” The conversation ended on a hopeful note, but still, I was drained, and I lay back on the couch and closed my eyes for a moment. Next thing I knew, the apartment was dark and several hours had passed. I wasn’t much for taking naps, but I’d needed it, I guess.

  Life was exhausting sometimes.

  I spent my Sunday doing homework and waiting for Fin to call. It was almost like a tic, constantly glancing up at the clock mounted on the wall in the library. Usually only a few minutes had passed since my last look.

  I had a problem.

  My phone buzzed with a new email and I opened it up, trying not to let myself hope it would be something from Fin.

  It was.

  He’d taken some more pictures of Paris, most of them with him in them and smiling. It would be crazy to photoshop myself into them and send them back to him, right? That would be weird.

  As I clicked through the pictures, I found some of him at a park, and I had to fight the urge not to cry.

  He was feeding the ducks. If I didn’t know better, I would have said he was in the park in Boston. I sniffed and wiped my eyes, hoping I wasn’t going to cry in the library. I looked around and it seemed most people were too busy with their own work and weren’t paying attention
to me.

  When I got to the end of the pictures, he’d written me a little letter.

  Marisol,

  I wish you were in every picture with me. You’d love Paris, and I think Paris would love you as well. Work has been so difficult. More difficult than ever. I never thought being apart from you would be so hard. Sometimes I look up as if someone’s called my name, and I realize I’m waiting for you to walk through the door. I constantly keep my phone with me, and every time it vibrates or rings, I hope it’s you. I know these feelings are intense, but I have to share them. I can’t hold them in anymore. Being away from you has made me realize what we had and how special it is. I’m sorry if you’re overwhelmed, but I had to tell you.

  Talk to you soon,

  Fin

  Yup, I cried. Covered my eyes and put my head down on the library table and tried to be as quiet as I could. I pulled some tissues from my purse and dabbed at my eyes.

  He didn’t overwhelm me at all because I felt the same way. Maybe even more so. From the very beginning, our connection had been so intense. So real. Fin wiped away all the previous relationships I’d had, and I knew if this didn’t work, I’d measure all future relationships against his standard.

  I hit reply and tried to type a response, but all the words I tried to type felt wrong. I couldn’t put into words what I felt. So instead, I pulled out my phone and took a picture of myself, bad hair and all. I packed up the rest of my things and headed out, deciding I needed some park time. I dropped my books and laptop off at my apartment, and then went to the park after picking up a loaf of bread.

  I smiled as I took the pictures, but it wasn’t easy. I’d checked that my eyes weren’t red before I took the pictures.

  I used to come to the park and feed the ducks to feel alone, but now I was doing it to feel closer to Fin. Anything to feel closer to him.