Surrendering to Us Read online

  Sloane’s dinner was delicious, of course. All her dinners were. This happened to be extra fabulous, as if she was trying to rub it in our faces. Thankfully, she did let us eat alone, but not before she left a box for me, with strict orders that we weren’t to open it until we’d finished dinner. I had to race Lucah to get to it before he could.

  “No peeking. It ruins the surprise.” I dashed to my bathroom and locked the door. I think he let me win that race on purpose, though. I knew he liked seeing the lingerie on me better than seeing it in the box.

  This time it was a black bra and panties that were made out of the same material as my gown from the company ball, and had little ruffles. It was adorable, but not the kind of thing you could wear under clothes, because of the ruffles. So I had no choice but to open the bathroom door and slink slowly out into the living room. Lucah was scraping up the last of the crème fraiche from the plate that the grilled peaches had been on.

  “What do you think, Mr. Blythe?” I tried to go for the breathy Marilyn Monroe voice, and I leaned on the doorway, with my butt popped out. Lucah dropped the spoon. Ahhh, so satisfying.

  It never ceased to delight me when I showed him one of Sloane’s new projects and he had this reaction.

  “I’m thinking that maybe I was a little harsh on Sloane, and also that I need to get you to bed. Now.” He grabbed me and I screamed. He threw me over his shoulder and marched to the bedroom. With another growl, he dropped me on the bed and then did a flying leap and landed right next to me. I covered my eyes and screamed.

  “You didn’t think I was going to hurt you, did you? Silly girl. I’d never hurt you.” He brushed my hair out of my eyes.

  “No, but I’m going to hurt you if you don’t get these clothes off and fuck me, posthaste.” I pulled at his shirt to make my point.

  “Yes, Miss Clarke. Whatever you say, Miss Clarke.” He batted his eyelashes at me and started loosening his tie. Painfully slowly. Bastard.

  “Huh. This tie won’t come off. I think I need a hand. Or two.” Now I was the one diving on top of him. I wrenched the tie out of his hands and used it to pull his mouth to mine. He stuck his tongue in my mouth and I lightly bit down on it as my hands worked on the tie. He broke the kiss and smiled.

  “Bad girl. Do you really want to go to work with marks all over you tomorrow? Because I can make that happen. I have no problem nibbling your sweet skin. Every little inch of it.” He blew on my exposed shoulder, which distracted me from getting the tie from around his neck.

  “Stop that, or there will be no ‘coffee’ for you, Mr. Blythe.” He knew what I meant. He glared at me, but stopped when I started unbuttoning his shirt and followed each open button with a kiss. Once I got his shirt off, I went to work, kissing and sucking, freckle, to freckle, making sure I paid ample attention to each of his nipples, especially the one with the hoop through it. He moaned when I tugged on it a little with my teeth.

  “I like that sound. I think I’ll make it my ringtone,” I said as I licked and sucked my way down to this belly button and then to the little trail of hair that disappeared under the waist of his pants. I made quick work of his belt, and then I had to shimmy down further to get his shoes off. I ran one fingernail on the underside of each foot and that made him growl again.

  Then I grabbed the bottom of his pants and yanked. It took some work, but I got them off. You’d think with us having sex so much, I’d get good at undressing him, but I struggled sometimes.

  I nearly cheered when I finally got his pants off, but instead, I kissed my way from his feet on up. His breathing got harsh and he started cursing, and his hips jerked a little. He’d messed with me, so now it was time to return the favor.

  I paused with my face only inches from his dick. I blew a little and he made a strangled sound.

  “Do you want your cock in my mouth?” I flicked my tongue out and caressed the very tip, just a little bit.

  “No, not really,” he said, his voice tense with anticipation.

  I licked him again.

  “Liar.” I took him into my mouth, as far as I could. I’d gotten better at doing this, and Lucah never seemed disappointed. I sucked and then dragged my teeth along his length to the tip.

  “Fuuuuuuccckkkkkk,” he said. His hands grabbed at my head and fisted in my hair, pulling a little. I didn’t mind one bit. I loved seeing him come undone because of me. I was the only one who could make him feel like this, make him say those things.

  Watching him lose himself in pure pleasure that I created was a powerful feeling, and it made me feel like a goddess of desire. Which, of course, only made me want him more.

  I pulled my lips over my teeth and started moving faster, sucking and making sure I used my hand to pay attention to his balls, as my other hand worked with my mouth. He was thrusting and losing it, and then his hand jerked my head away. Most of the time, he didn’t like coming in my mouth, though it didn’t bother me any, either way. I licked my lips and slid back up his body, which was glowing with a sheen of sweat already.

  “I’ve had enough coffee, I want to be inside you,” he said, kissing me hard as his hands made quick work of the frilly bra. His legs came up and wrapped around me and he flipped me so I was on my back. I lifted my hips so he could get my panties off and then he was above me lifting one of my legs up.

  “As much as I love,” he punctuated his words with kisses on the inside of my calf, “these little things that Sloane makes for you, this is how I like you best. Naked with your red shoes on. My sweet, sweet girl.” He kissed up my leg, as I had done to him, but he didn’t pause and tease me. His mouth went right where I wanted him most, and he set to work. Every time he went down on me I thanked anyone I could thank (God, Jesus, Zeus, The Great Spirit, whoever) that I had gone to that tattoo shop and gotten my VCH done. That little ball plus Lucah’s tongue and fingers was a trifecta of orgasm-inducing magic.

  I was already wet, and had been for a while, so he plunged two fingers inside me as his mouth licked and sucked my clit. He wasn’t going slow, but tonight I didn’t want slow. Maybe later. I hadn’t seen him all day, and all the talk about going to the supply closet and the things he wanted to do to me in there had me frisky and ready for something quick and hot.

  My first orgasm hit me hard, and for a second, I thought it would make me burst apart. Lucah brought me down and I thought he was going to stop and give me a break. But as the stars cleared from my vision and my body tingled with the release, he started again, and it was almost painful, because I was so sensitive.

  I moaned and bit my lip and begged him to stop. But I didn’t really want him to. I just didn’t know if I could take any more. Could you die from too many powerful orgasms? Was that a thing? I should look that up online—

  “Oh, fuck, I can’t. Not again.” I was rising again, as his hands and his tongue worked.

  “Yes you can,” he said, pulling back and then blowing on my clit. Je-sus CHRIST.

  With one last hard thrust of his fingers, I came again, my back arching off the bed and his name in my mouth, along with a string of curses and unintelligible words. I may have also cursed in several foreign languages, including Elvish.

  “Such dirty words from such a sweet girl,” Lucah said with a laugh, resting his cheek on the inside of my thigh. My chest heaved as I tried to get myself back under control. Or maybe put myself back together was the better term for it.

  “How is it like that every time?” I said, looking down at him. It was quite a sight, seeing the man you love with his glorious face in between your legs and smiling at you as if you’re the greatest thing to ever happen to him.

  “Because I love you. And because I’m very, very good at what I do, Miss Clarke. I always strive for perfection.” He pulled himself up with his arms so our faces were level. I knew he was ready, but he paused.

  “I’ve never been with anyone like you, Aurora Abigail Clarke.”

  “I’ve never been with anyone like, you, Lucah Jacob Blythe.” He le
aned down and gave me one soft kiss before he lifted one of my legs over his shoulder, got into position and slowly entered me. I loved not having to use condoms anymore. We’d both gotten tested and had clean bills of heath and I was religious about my pills so there was nothing between us anymore.

  He filled me completely, and he went so deep, it was like he was trying climb inside me. I wanted him to.

  There was another small pause as he filled me completely and then drew back, only to fill me again. I pushed my hips up to meet him and we started our dance. Neither of us needed to speak, but we did.

  Faster, harder, more, yes, I want you, I love you, fuck me, beautiful, more, I love you, more, I love you . . .

  And when I came a third time around him, he thrust once more into me and came himself, filling me with everything he had. It was a possessive thing. He was marking me, leaving a part of him behind. I was his.

  I liked being his, the smell of his skin on mine, the taste of him on my lips. He came to rest on his back, his chest heaving. I laid my head on his heart and his arm went around me.

  Cuddling was seriously underrated. I loved lying with Lucah for a few minutes as the glow faded from our bodies. It was almost better than the actual sex. I said almost.

  “So I know you have dinner with your parents on Sunday, but how would you like to come with me to my brother’s on Saturday? You could meet Gracie and Fiona.” Other than Ryder, I hadn’t gotten to meet any members of Lucah’s family. When he had finally revealed his true identity and, um, for lack of a better term, “come out of the closet”, and showed me the boxes hidden in his apartment, I’d found tons of photographs of his family. I’d had a lot of them framed and now they littered the apartment, along with more pictures of Lucah and me, Sloane and me, and a few of Lucah’s deceased parents.

  “I would love that,” I said, and I almost wanted to cry. Love made you more emotional about pretty much everything.

  He kissed my forehead and stroked my back.

  “I wish you could have met my parents. My mom would have adored you and I’m sure you would have won Dad over as well.” Yes, because of my winning personality.

  Lucah rarely talked about his parents, but he’d been doing it more and more; about how his mother would scrimp and save to make sure their Christmas was special, even if they barely had anything. She knew how to take a dollar and make it work for her.

  “They’d be so proud of you,” I said. I didn’t need to know anything about them to know that was true. I was pretty damn proud of him. He was a good man. I wouldn’t have fallen for him if he wasn’t.

  “I used to wonder about that. If they would approve of what I was doing, the way I was earning my money. In a weird way, I think I was earning it for them. Trying to make up for what they couldn’t have, even if they were gone.” I turned on my stomach so I could look at his face.

  “I love you.” I said it a lot, but it bore repeating.

  “I love you, Sunshine. You’re the first person, other than family that I’ve ever allowed myself to be me with. You snuck your way into my life and before I knew it, I couldn’t get rid of you, even if I wanted to.”

  It made me giddy and I wanted to giggle with happiness when he said things like that.

  “Well, it’s not really my fault. You’re the one who kept pursuing me. So. You only have yourself to blame.” He pinched my nose.

  “You’re probably right.”

  “Excuse me. I’m ALWAYS right. That’s how this works.”

  “Yes, Miss Clarke.” Damn right.

  One of the upsides, which was also a downside, of dating Lucah was that he was a morning person. So when I didn’t want to get up, he had all kinds of ways to make me wake up. Fortunately, a lot of these involved his penis. Waking up with something like that inside you was quite something. Much better than a blaring alarm.

  The next morning I awoke to a tongue in my ear and something hard pressing into my back. I moaned, but not because of the hour. I moved back against him as he entered me, ever so slowly from behind.

  He was always warm in the morning, and the sleepiness in my body was quickly replaced by desire as he moved in and out of me, kissing my shoulders and muttering in my ear. We both came quickly, and when he was done, I was definitely awake.

  “Good morning,” he said, and pulled out.

  “Good morning to you too,” I said, rolling back over. My body was liquid and I didn’t feel like I had any bones. He was going to have to carry me into the shower and hold me up.

  “Is this going to be one of those mornings when I have to make and then bring you breakfast, and turn the shower on for you?”

  “Is this a day that ends in Y?” He grinned and went to put on his boxers. If I ever had to live by myself, I was probably going to starve. Both my parents were good cooks, and then I moved in with Sloane and now I had Lucah to make me breakfast every morning. I used to just grab something on my way to work, but Lucah said he worried about the state of my arteries from all the donuts. That made me glare at him and ask if that was a safe way of telling me I was fat. His response was to slap my ass and take me to bed and show me just how much he loved every inch of me.

  Twenty minutes later, he brought a tray with scrambled eggs and salsa, toast, fresh fruit, a blueberry smoothie and a cup of green tea.

  “I want to have your ginger babies.” He’d even put a little flower in a vase on it. I was terrible about plants and Sloane was worse, but Lucah had brought a few of them into the apartment when we’d moved in. He told me that since he moved so much, he could never really have plants, so he was happy to finally be in a place where he could. Who could say no to that?

  “I don’t know if we’re quite ready for that yet, Miss Clarke. But I think you would be a beautiful mother.” Lucah had the power to completely liquefy my heart as well as the rest of my insides.

  “You haven’t seen me with your nieces yet. Maybe I’ll be terrible with them.”

  “I doubt that.”

  Honestly, I hadn’t had very much experience with kids, and not just because I was an only child. I didn’t have a whole lot of relatives, or friends with kids. None of my close friends had them.

  Like tended to hang with like, and a lot of the girls who had gotten married and started families young, I never felt I had much in common with. Nothing wrong with that, we were just different kinds of people. I didn’t want to have kids until I was at least thirty. Had to get my career on track first.

  Lucah joined me in bed and we ate our breakfast. He’d done well getting me up this morning, so I was actually going to have time to shower and do my hair. Living with Lucah had definitely impacted my morning routine, because two of us needed to shower, two of us needed to brush our teeth, etc.

  Sloane and I had different schedules, so we were almost never getting ready at the same time. I forgot sometimes that she wasn’t still living with me anymore. Plus, I was in a new apartment with a completely new vibe.

  I was relieved that Lucah’s Spartan style at his other place was just a side effect of moving around a lot and not wanting to have anyone figure out his identity. His neat tendencies remained, however, which was wonderful. I never had to nag him about vacuuming or using coasters on the coffee table.

  Yes, he was just about perfect.

  I finished breakfast and Lucah dragged me to the shower and shoved me in. When I was finally done, I got out and we switched places. After blowing my hair straight, I stared in the mirror and did the same routine I did every day. The what-do-I-do-with-this-hair routine.

  Lucah came into the bedroom while I was having my dilemma. He knew exactly what I was doing because I’d done it every other morning.

  “Do you want me to do the little twists on the sides into the bun roll?” I was sure there was a more specific name for this style, but I didn’t know what it was, and neither did he.

  Lucah twisted the sides of my hair back, almost like a braid, but with two sections instead of three. Then he gathered thos
e in the back, flipped the end under and pinned it. Apparently, having nieces gave him skills in the hairstyle department. Not that I hadn’t done fine on my own, but he could do it more fancily than I could. It also felt really nice when he did it.

  “Take a look.” He handed me a mirror so I could check out the back.

  “Now I want to have your ginger babies even more. Thank you.” I kissed him and he dropped the towel, giving me a lovely view. He had a great ass. I smacked it as I walked by him to go get my second cup of coffee.

  “Sexual harassment!” he yelled after me.

  “We’re still at home, Mr. Blythe. And you asked for it by dropping your towel.” I sipped my coffee and waited. I sucked in a breath when he walked out in a dark navy suit, white shirt and a yellow tie. He had the little diamond stud in his ear and he’d tried to tame his hair, but it refused to be tamed. My man in a suit with the wild streak. Perfection.

  “Shall we go to work, Miss Clarke?”

  “You just earned yourself some knee time, Mr. Blythe.” Even though we weren’t just sharing nights anymore, I still joked sometimes about our arrangement.

  “I will do that penance most happily this evening, Miss Clarke.” We kissed in front of my door, and again on the cab ride to work. Outside of the office, we got out and he squeezed my hand.

  “See you tonight.” We would ride the elevator together, but it wasn’t the same. We weren’t just Rory and Lucah anymore, we were Miss Clarke and Mr. Blythe, work associates.

  “See you tonight.” Our grip broke and the three feet of space stretched between us. He gazed at me and I gazed back as we rode the elevator with several other people. We didn’t work on the same floor anymore, so he got off one below me. I watched him walk away and smiled to myself, because I knew exactly what was under that fantastic suit, and it was even more fantastic than anyone could imagine. And it was all mine.

  “Good morning, Miss Clarke,” Lilia said breathlessly, the same as every other morning. We still had a lot of work to do. I would break her barriers yet. When I was done with her, she’d be able to stare anyone down with her ice-cold glare and make grown men quiver in their expensive leather shoes. She would be my protégée.