RequiredSurrender (5 page)

“Don’t shy away from him. He’s going to give you what you
want. What you came here for.”

“Don’t tense up.”

She hissed in a deep breath.

“It’s okay.” Ted kept petting the side of her hair. “Feel it
going in all the way. The burn, that’s what makes it better.”

“It doesn’t. It’s—”

“Relax,” Blake ordered and Ted wanted to push him away. The
guy’s only interest was getting that vibrator into her. Didn’t he know he was
missing the lion’s share of the lesson here? This wasn’t just about getting her
off this way. She had issues with this type of fucking and a Dom had to be
sensitive to those issues and help his sub get over them.

“I’m trying.” Her voice was small as if she were ashamed of
her involuntary reactions and when her pinky finger inched sideways and curled
over his thumb on the cool concrete, something woke up inside him. A need not
only to protect her but to help her exorcise that bastard’s unwanted touch from
her mind. Clearly what Blake was doing wasn’t working.

“You’re doing great, princess. Really good.”

He moved behind her and held his hand down until Blake got
the message and let go so Ted was free to control the vibrator. It was only
halfway in and he didn’t waste any time. He squirted more lube on the
un-inserted balance and slathered. When it was shiny and slick, he parted her
ass cheeks wide and thrust forward. Using his own aching hardness buried in his
kakis, he propelled the vibrator into her.

She grunted, but that didn’t deter him. He knew what she
needed. He pushed her forward until she was flush up against the wall with her
jaw to stone.

He flexed into her, once, twice, ten more times, before he
brought his hand between them and felt for the switch. When the low thrum
sounded she whimpered, and seeing her totally surrendered and so in-tune with
feeling, he couldn’t stop the Dom in him from leveraging this advantage.

“That bastard doesn’t own this part of you.” He flexed
forward and reveled when she moaned. “Say, that bastard doesn’t own this part
of me. Say it.”

“H-He d-doesn’t own this…this part of me.”

He pivoted against her and she started to slide. That’s when
he slipped his hands around her, between her pelvis and the wall and played
with her clit until she was pushing back all restless and needy.

“Breathe deep.”

“Yes, yes. Yes!”

“He doesn’t own this part of you, princess.” He flexed. She
moaned long and low and when she was quiet, he whispered, “He doesn’t own it,
because I do.”

She screamed when she came hard and fast all over his
fingers in hot, fluid honey. The spill of which filled the air around him in
the sweetest scent imaginable as he held her tight. He waited for her shakes to
ease before he ordered, “Thank me.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“T-thank you, Sir.”

Once she corrected herself he retrieved the vibrator. Tossing
the condom into the waste can, he returned the dildo to the bottom drawer for
cleaning as was protocol.

When he stood up he saw Blake. The guy was steaming and why
wouldn’t he be? Ted had specifically requested him to do this scene with her
and even though Ted had warned him that he’d be there and would step in if need
be he’d jumped in too fast. He should have waited a little longer. He knew
Blake wouldn’t be wielding a heavy hand with her. Damn. He could justify it any
which way he wanted. It didn’t change the fact that this was bad, bad form.
Invited or no, welcomed or not he shouldn’t have taken over.

There was only way to fix this. He walked over to Jo and
snapped her skirt into place with a quick matter-of-fact tug. “There.” He
peeled her off the wall and turned her to face Blake. “Now, I want you to kneel
at your Dom’s feet and wait for him to deal with you.”

Easing his hands off her shoulders, he stepped back and
nearly stumbled when she spun around and dropped to her knees in front of him.
Without a word she wrapped her arms around his right leg and pressed her bowed
forehead into his thigh.

“Fuck.”

Blake crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “What did
you expect?”

Expect? How the hell had this—he looked down and was shocked
to see his hand in her hair. Stunned when he noticed how his fingers massaged
her scalp. “Damn.”

“I’ll leave you to it.”

Blake left and all Ted could do was study his own reflection
in the mirror. He could only imagine what Ethan would have said about this if
he’d stayed. But then Ethan wasn’t his primary concern at the moment. Jo was.

“Come on, up you get.” He helped her up and walked with her
to the chair. Once he was seated he pulled her down onto his lap to cradle her.
Despite how fucked up the situation was because of him, she’d done really well
with things, but right now she was a little too quiet for his liking. “Are you
okay?”

She shook her head.

“Why not? Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

She was trying so hard not to cry it was almost painful for
him to watch. He hugged her up and whispered, “So what’s the matter?”

“You hate me.”

And before he could ask her where she got such a stupid idea
from she burst out crying and tried to slap him.

He feinted to the right and she missed. “Whoa, what was that
for?”

“Y-You didn’t even k-kiss me. I-I d-don’t want you to hate
me.”

He grabbed the hand she’d tried to smack him with. Turning
it over, he placed a kiss in her palm and waited until her sniffles eased up.
“I don’t hate you.”

“Then why won’t you—”

He wasn’t going to have this discussion with her right now.
He’d thought she’d need some aftercare, but apparently she didn’t. “Just
because I won’t Top you doesn’t mean I hate you. Far from it.”

He may not have wanted to talk about this but she did.

“You’re not going to walk away from me again.” Jo hastily
skipped to catch up behind him while simultaneously tucking in her blouse. She
nearly slipped on the marble floor twice in her haste keeping up. He wasn’t
going to get away with messing up her plan. Again. It was as if he didn’t want
her, but he didn’t want anyone else to have her either. It made no sense and
she wasn’t in a position at the moment to deal with any more confusion. “Don’t
walk—”

“I’m not walking away from you. I’m heading to my office.
You’re free to follow. Obviously, because you are.”

She skidded to a halt in front of his desk. Slapping the
hair away from her forehead, she glared at him. With him seated in his big
office chair he looked like a king on a throne. And why not? He was ruling her
world at the moment and she wanted some of that power back. “I want you to fix
me.”

He leaned back. “Fix you? The only person that can fix you
is you. If someone told you differently they lied.”

She kicked off her high-heels as her feet were numb beyond
the point of pain. “I’m broken. You broke me.” He stared up at her and even now
that broken part of her thrilled at the sight of him. She had to fight every
urge she had to drop her gaze and behave for him.

“We’re all broken. We all have cracks. It’s not about making
it through life in one piece, it’s about narrowing the gap between the fissures
so we don’t shatter.”

She stabbed a finger in his direction. “You see? It’s
precisely this kind of talk that wears me down. You’re too…”

The firm look in his eyes when he latched onto her finger
distracted her and she lost her train of thought.

“Hasn’t anyone told you before that it’s rude to point?
Lower that finger.”

“All right!” He quirked an annoying brow and she knew why.
“All right,” she said more reasonably. Scooping up her shoes, she hugged them
to her chest. “I just want to be the way I was before. I need to be that way. I
have to be strong. With no crying. I don’t want to cry. I never cry.”

His lip twitched. “I noticed.”

“That’s not the least bit funny, you know.” She wasn’t going
to let him off the hook until he made things better. She couldn’t face Anjay
like this and now that Anjay was back and getting awards for being an
upstanding guy she was going to have to. “I want you to change me back.”

He huffed out a sigh and crossed his arms over his chest.
“You think you’re not the same person and I had something to do with that?”

“I know I’m not the same person and you have everything to
do with it.”

His arrogant gaze swept her from top to bottom. “You look
the same to me.”

She almost dropped her shoes. “I look the…I look the same?
That’s all you have to say to me?” His casual shrug made her gasp. “Jo Nehr of
two months ago wouldn’t have shed a tear. Not one, you spell-casting
motherfucker.”

Tsk, tsk.
“Guttersnipe language, princess.”

“Ugh.” She grasped a shoe in each hand and plunked them down
on his desk, leaning over them. “I can’t be this blubbering mass of hormonal
crappiness right now.”

“I thought the session went well today.”

“Session? This isn’t therapy.”

“For you it is.”

Her eyes narrowed and it was the first time in her whole
life she abused a pair of Manolos when she strangled the patent leather. “If
you or the other dickwad did what I requested you to do, it might have been
good. I wanted to be hurt, not-not-not swept off my fucking feet with pleasure,
asshole.”

One minute she was holding her own, killing her shoes and
speaking so succinctly that spittle was spraying his desk and the next her
whole body was wiping it up as he dragged her across the surface. She shot over
the width like a hockey puck on newly polished ice.

“Let me go.” She struggled but it was no use. In two seconds
flat she was slung over his lap. Head toward the floor and ass in the air.
“Don’t.”

Too late, he spanked her with three hard smacks. She
squirmed and tried to use the one shoe she still had hold of as a weapon, but
he wrestled it from her grip and gave her another smack as he ordered, “Stop.”

She didn’t halt because he sounded mad—it was more because
he sounded amused. She hated to think he was getting a kick out of this when
she was close to dying inside.

“That’s better. Now, do I need to remind you about your
hell?”

Blood rushed to her head while she admired the make of his
shoes. The bastard. He had great taste in footwear. “What are you saying?”

“Feeling any kind of pleasure is hell to you. Face that and
you’ll do okay.”

“I don’t want to do okay.” He was inching his hand up her
thigh. Slipping his fingers under her skirt. Oh God, he was going to make her
melt again and she panicked. “I only have until Saturday night. I need the
wall. It’s my only protection.”

His hand stilled and he hauled her up. She was seated on his
lap, but facing him now when he asked, “Saturday night?”

She focused in on the flaw of his she loved, on his scar,
and had a powerful urge to trace her finger over the fine white line, but held
back the action when he asked, “What’s happening on that night that has you
worried?”

The way he spoke made her gaze drop. Dammit. She eyed her
hands and admitted, “I’m going to see Anjay for the first time in three years.
He’s back and now my dad wants me to go with him to the convention center to
see Anjay get his award.”

He hooked a finger under her chin and lifted. “Anjay is the
bastard who took advantage of you?”

Uh oh, the softness in his eyes had her getting all weepy
again. Too afraid to speak, she nodded.

“Is your mother going too?”

She nodded again.

“Why are your parents still friendly with him after what he
did? Why would your mother allow this?”

“It’s complicated. My father’s sick. He has been for a long
time and we don’t like to upset him. Anjay is like a son to him.” She didn’t
add that he was the person her dad had chosen over the women in his life. Nor
was she going to be telling him the long, sordid tale of everything that had
happened. It was enough that they’d suffered through it. It may have cost her
her relationship with her mother but that was to be expected and now that she’d
come to believe the only reason Anjay had pushed the old-world betrothal angle
with her father was to pay both she and her mother back? She didn’t see the
need to disgrace her family any further by sharing the whole truth. Hopefully
Anjay had done some soul-searching while he was away. Maybe grown up and moved
past his vindictiveness. He better have. Otherwise more than her heart would
break when she had to deal with the real truth.

“And the award? What kind of award does a bastard who takes
advantage of children get these days?”

“He’s been working with Doctors Without Borders for three
years. He’s a very talented surgeon.”

Ted’s eyes darkened, becoming hard to read.

“I don’t want to bother you.”

That got his attention. He frowned and some of the light
returned to his hazel eyes. “How do you mean?”

“This problem is mine. I know that. It’s just that I’ve done
everything you asked. I’m doing the karate lessons. I’ve done the half hour a
day of meditating about positive stuff and I’m even eating right and still it
won’t go away.”

“The painful memory?”

“No.” She eyed her hands again. “You were right about hell
and heaven. The memories were a hell I could live with, but it’s this new-found
heaven of aching for you I can’t take.” She looked up and stared directly in
his eyes. “It’s a physical pain low in my belly and between my legs that I
can’t get rid of. When you walked into that room earlier, I was so relieved I
almost passed out. I can’t focus on anything but thoughts of you. It’s killing
me.”

She fully expected him to laugh at her or make a joke so
when he pulled her in for a hug and whispered, “Thank you for your honesty,”
she was blinking back freaking tears again.

“I never cry.”

“I know, princess. I know.”