Sweet Surrendering Read online

  Lucah was still dealing with brother drama. Apparently Ryder had gotten a job at Starbucks, but had been fired for cursing out an asshole customer. Lucah told me the story, and I had to say that I couldn’t blame Ryder. The customer had sounded like a total jerk. I wasn’t sure if I’d have been able to keep my cool. I’d cursed out a customer on the phone once or twice. That was why it paid to be the boss’ daughter.

  I got Lucah his key, giving it to him by placing it in my navel one morning when he slept over so he saw it when he opened his eyes.

  He was thrilled, and I told him that he could have a drawer if he wanted, so I ended up clearing out half my lingerie and shoving it in a lower drawer. Lucah’s stuff was more important than another pair of lace panties. He might argue with that, but I wanted him to have his own space at my place. I also slowly brought out the things I’d hidden when he’d first come over because honestly, he’d seen it all and he was still here, so I didn’t think there was much that he was going to find out about me that might send him running.

  I got a call from Fin on Friday while I was out at the bar and I went outside to take it.

  “Hey World Traveler!” I was happy to hear from him, because Marisol had been keeping her trap shut about him and changed the subject whenever we mentioned him.

  “Hey, Rory. What’s new? I just had a spare moment, so I thought I’d and see how things were going.” I hadn’t updated him on my relationship with Lucah, because I knew he was going to gloat about being right, or at least think that I’d followed his insane advice.

  “Things are good.”

  “Wow, could you be more vague? How are things with the coworker? And you know the one I mean.” I could just see him wiggling his perfectly arched eyebrows. For a guy, he had great eyebrows.

  “He’s fine. I’m fine.” That wasn’t going to be good enough for him.

  “From the fact that you’re avoiding topic, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you did in fact take my advice and are now so disgustingly happy that I want to reach through the phone and throttle you. Am I warm?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “You can drop the act. I heard the happy in your voice. So things are good with him?” Oh, he could hear happy now? Ugh, was I that obvious?

  “Things are good as long as we can keep it in our pants in the office and no one finds out. I hope there aren’t any other people who can hear happy.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m just more perceptive than most. Hey, you wouldn’t by any chance be able to pass along a message to Marisol for me?” It seemed weird, but I wasn’t going to question it.

  “Yeah, sure. I’m with her right now.”

  “Can you just tell her ‘Tom Hanks’?” Um, what?

  “Did you just say ‘Tom Hanks’?”

  “Yeah, just tell her that. Okay, I gotta go, Rory. Talk to you later.” I hung up and shook my head.

  Boys are fucking weird.

  I went back inside and delivered the message to Marisol. She blushed and then rolled her eyes and refused to tell any of us what it was about, no matter how much we pestered her. Oh, and we definitely did, no holds barred, no mercy, but she stuck to her guns and stood her ground. I should take some lessons from her.

  I had no problem telling Lucah I loved him and it came out at the oddest times. Once he was just in the kitchen cleaning up when he grabbed a cup and started moving and tapping it, and I was reminded of a game I used to play at camp.

  “I love you,” I blurted out as he performed tricks with the cup. I mean, it wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen in a million YouTube videos, but I thought it was pretty awesome.

  He just smiled and flipped the cup on the air and caught it behind his back as I clapped.

  Love made you easily impressed by things that you wouldn’t normally be impressed with.

  The paperweight and mug became regular fixtures at my desk and when anyone asked about them, I just said that a friend had given them to me and let them draw their own conclusions.

  We’d somehow found a routine and a pattern, and, of course, as soon as we got used to it, things changed.

  Lucah disappeared one Friday afternoon and I couldn’t find him. He went on lunch and didn’t come back. First he was a half hour late. Then an hour. Then two. Then three.

  I was trying to stay calm, but inside I was freaking out and picturing all the worst case scenarios and then trying not to do that so I wouldn’t jinx it while still trying to prepare myself for the worst in case it was the worst. I called and texted his cell phone and his home phone and I was about to start calling his favorite lunch places when he called me back.

  I shut the door so my hysterics wouldn’t carry down the hall.

  “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been going crazy here.”

  “I’m so sorry. I just . . . I got busy doing something and I turned my phone off. I’m so sorry, Sunshine. It will never happen again. I didn’t think it was going to take me this long.”

  “What? You didn’t think what was going to take you this long? You can’t keep secrets from me and then vanish. I love you and that makes me think that you’re dead on the street somewhere whenever you’re a second late. Loving you makes me into a crazy person, and I would think that you’d understand that.” It took all my strength not to scream at him, and I definitely wiped a few tears away. It was a fine line between angry and relieved. I wanted to throw my arms around him and I wanted to throw my knee into his crotch for doing this to me.

  “I’m sorry, Rory. I’ll be back in a few minutes. We’ll talk tonight.” And he hung up on me.

  WHAT THE FUCK?!

  He thought he had seen my bitch face. Oh, no. He hadn’t seen my bitch face, but he was going to get it.

  He hurried in about fifteen minutes later and came right into my office, shut the door and got down on his knees in front of me.

  I was torn by the need to make sure he was okay and the need to strangle the life out of him. I did neither. It wasn’t just about not telling me where he was. It was all the secrets. I thought I could deal with them, but I couldn’t. We had keys to each other’s apartments, but there was a corner of his life that he wouldn’t let me in. How can you say you love someone, yet keep secrets from them?

  I’d thought of everything it could be. From bodies, to a secret love child, to some sort of kinky sex room, to an obsession with My Little Ponies. Whatever it was, it wasn’t worth hiding.

  The only thing was that I didn’t know who he was protecting. Me or himself.

  “All I can say is that I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. You have no idea how much this kills me. To keep things from you. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I do. I’ve wanted to say, ‘fuck it’ so many thousands of times, but I can’t. My hands are tied. This is bigger than you and me and I wish I could. But I can’t. I wish I could for you. If anything would make me want to, it’s you, Sunshine.” He was a wreck. His eyes were red, his hair looked like he’d been tearing his hands through it and his suit was all over the place, his tie nearly coming undone, probably from him yanking on it.

  I’d never seen him like this, and his honesty made me feel a bit better, but still.

  “I love you, and you say you love me, but . . .” He put his hand on my mouth to stop me, and I almost bit his fingers, but let him speak. He was the one who had all the explaining to do.

  “I do love you, but this isn’t about us.”

  “Are you in the CIA?” I said, and my voice was muffled by his hand. He moved it and I repeated the question.

  “I wish, but even if I was, I couldn’t tell you.” He was serious. I’d kind of been joking when I’d asked.

  “Are you in the CIA?” I watched to see if his eye twitched or something to give me an indication I was on the right track. Nothing. And still, what would the CIA want with our company? Unless they thought we were funneling money to unsavory characters overseas, or making WMDs in our basement, and I knew that neither of those things wa
s happening. At least I thought so . . .

  Now my head was spinning with even more possibilities.

  “Shit,” Lucah said.

  “What?”

  “I can see your head working right now, which means I’ve said too much.” He’d barely said anything. He got up and sighed.

  “Are you still angry with me?”

  “Yes,” I said, even though I didn’t sound convincing. I really was pissed at him, and I was going to make him work to get back in my good graces.

  “Well. I think I can do something about that. You know there’s the stockholder meeting this afternoon and that they’re going out. No one is going to be in the office. Even Mrs. Andrews is going for the free food. So. We have more than enough work here and we should stay behind and get going on it and they can save us a pastry. What do you say to that?” He put both hands on the arms of my chair and leaned down.

  Was I still pissed at him? Yes. Was I going to let that stop me from having amazing office sex again? Nope.

  “I say that you’d better be absolutely sure this is going to work and then you’d better be absolutely sure that I am more than satisfied at the end of it,” I said, trying to keep my bitch face on.

  “Yes, Miss Clarke. I will let you know the details later.” His face was close enough to kiss, but he didn’t. Instead he smiled and strolled out of the office as if he was very pleased with himself.

  He’d gone from a man on his knees to a man that was practically skipping because he knew he was going to bang me on my desk. Not that I wasn’t looking forward to it, but that he could flip so easily was a little disconcerting.

  And then he rushed back into my office, shut the door, came over and looked into my eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, Sunshine. I hope you can forgive me.” And then he was gone again, nearly crashing into Dad as he walked past my office. Dad gave him a strange look.

  Being with Lucah was anything but boring and it was about to get really interesting . . .

  “Are you coming to the meeting? You know they’re serving those little crab puffs you love,” Dad said later on his way past my door to go to the meeting. I tried to look as frazzled and stressed as I could and didn’t glance up from my computer.

  “Would you hate me if I didn’t go? I’m absolutely buried right now. I have about twelve fires I’m trying to put out.”

  “Sure, I just didn’t want you to miss anything. Why don’t you send Mr. Blaine along to take notes for you?”

  “I need him,” I said, and then immediately realized how that sounded. “I need him to go down and get some of the old files for me. We’re kind of double teaming this right now, so it would just make more work if he left.” I typed faster and still didn’t look up.

  “Oh, of course. It’s nothing earth shattering. Probably it will turn out like all the others with lots of golf talk and discussion on the Red Sox’ chances this year. I’ll give your excuses. Have a good rest of your afternoon. I’m headed home after the meeting.” I said good-bye and didn’t look up until the entire office went silent. I glanced at Lucah’s desk and made a thumbs-up sign and he did the same.

  Coast was clear, but I had to make absolutely sure, so I knocked on every single office door and made sure we were the only two people left.

  Lucah leaned against his desk as I did one more check.

  “Is anyone here?” he yelled and I shushed him. He put his hand to his ear. “Nope, nothing but echoes.” He grabbed my shirt and pulled me closer.

  “So,” he said.

  “So,” I said.

  “Your desk or mine?” he said, kissing me and backing me up so I was against my office door.

  “I have reports all over my desk,” I said as he kissed me and started unbuttoning my shirt.

  “There are reports all over my desk,” he said. He kissed my collarbone and I moved my hands down his back to un-tuck his shirt from his pants.

  I didn’t want to have sex on reports that were going to go back into files. That was just . . . not okay.

  “How about we go over here?” he said, pulling me with him to the boardroom. There was a big huge table and it got cleaned every night and it also had a lock.

  “You’re so smart. I love that you’re so smart.”

  “I love that you’re so sexy,” he said, opening the door, slamming it and then locking it.

  Before I knew it, he was bending me back on the table and kissing me. I missed the tongue ring and he stopped and pulled back for a moment.

  “I almost forgot something,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out. He held his hand open and I saw that it was his tongue barbell. He stuck his tongue out, slipped the barbell in and screwed the top on. It looked a lot easier than it probably was.

  “You are the perfect man,” I said as he kissed and licked my neck with his magic tongue.

  “Turn around,” he said, and I did. He reached his hand up under my skirt, testing and teasing me.

  “Do you want me inside you?” He asked me this nearly every time and the answer was always yes.

  I heard the rip of the condom wrapper and then he was entering me from behind and we were both mostly clothed. It was deep and hard and he bent me over until my face was on the table and I turned my head to the side as he thrust into me and I met him with my hips. It was primal and felt almost forbidden. The combination of that and the location and the fact that anyone could walk in had me coming fast, with him right behind me.

  He lay on my back and kissed the back of my neck.

  “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  “I know,” I said, looking at him with my peripheral vision. “I’m still going to make you pay for it.” With that, he got off me and flipped me over, pushing me until I was sitting on the table with my legs dangling. I knew exactly what he was doing and the anticipation made it all the more delicious. He took care of himself, zipped up his pants and kneeled before me, spreading my legs open.

  Hooking my panties with his fingers, he pulled them over my hips and pushed my skirt up. I was wide open to him and my skin puckered with goosebumps.

  Lucah ran his hands up the inside of my thighs, stopping just short of where I wanted him. Then he stuck his tongue out and licked the path his hands had just taken, stopping short again. My legs were trembling, waiting. He was paying me back, but he was also going to take his sweet time about it, which almost made it worse.

  His tongue circled my clit, his piercing clicking as it hit mine and my hands went in my hair and then I was flying higher as his mouth and tongue and hands brought me up, up, up . . .

  “Oh God, Lucah. I love you.” I couldn’t come without telling him this now. His mouth was otherwise occupied so he didn’t answer, but when he made me come again a few minutes later and I collapsed on the table, the cool mahogany causing shivers to break out on my skin. He grinned and pulled himself up to sit next to me, his legs actually touching the floor whereas mine weren’t even close.

  “You’re forgiven,” I said, clumsily patting his shoulder. I didn’t think I could move. He was going to have to carry me back to my desk and prop me up in it for the rest of the day.

  “I’m still sorry.” He put his hands behind himself and leaned on them. I turned my head to watch him.

  “I know. It’s not like you’re hiding a secret lovechild, or you’re cheating on me. You’re not lying because you’re trying to save your own ass. I can respect that. I’m a reasonable person.” I waited for him to snort about the last part, but he didn’t. He seemed lost in thought.

  “You don’t have a love child, do you?” He finally looked at me.

  “No. No children here.” Not even any scares. “Hey,” I said and rubbed his arm and sat up, resting my chin on his shoulder. I shimmied my skirt down and made a note to find my underwear before we left.

  “It hurts so much, not being able to tell you. So much that it’s like a knife sometimes.” I kissed his shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Lucah. I swear. I’m f
ine now. Just give me a heads up next time, or at least try to get me a telegram or a smoke signal or something. Anything. I was really worried about you and I don’t like being worried like that.”

  “I don’t like to make you worry like that. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He leaned down to pick up my panties and got off the table, leaning down to put them back on. I hopped off the table and he slid them back into place. Such a shame.

  “So how was it for you, Miss Clarke? Do I get a performance evaluation?” His playful side was back and I was glad. Not that I didn’t like his serious side, but it worried me sometimes when he was too serious for too long a time.

  “Hm, I think I’ll have to see some more of your work before that happens.” I wrapped his tie around my wrist and used it to pull his mouth down for a kiss. And then we heard the sound of a door closing.

  Lucah and I froze, mid-kiss and my eyes flew open. I clung to him and we listened. The chances of someone coming in this room were slim, but you never knew. I started thinking about my options. The door was locked on the inside, but if someone tried to open it, we were screwed.

  I could hide under the table and Lucah could say that he had to get something, or he could hide under the table. Or we could both hide under the table, but then the person would need a key to open the door and if we were caught, we were definitely beyond in trouble.

  In limbo, we waited.

  “Do you want me to peek?” he said low in my ear. I shrugged one shoulder, scared to speak less the person hear us. Lucah walked as quietly as he could to the door and put his ear in the crack between the door and the frame. I held my breath and waited. And waited.

  The suspense was killing me and I could swear my heart was beating loud enough for it to echo through the entire building. Lucah put his finger up for me to wait. So I waited some more.

  Then he nodded and went to unlock the door. Was he insane?

  “It’s okay, I heard the elevator,” he said at normal volume and I nearly leaped across the room and tackled him. He unlocked the door and the sound was so loud it was like a gunshot.