Submit and Surrender (6 page)

“I’ll try to be quick,” he said.

“Take your time, sir,” the kid said. “The other consulting producer is already in there.”

The other ‘consulting producer’?

But even as he opened the door, Ford knew. It was Adra. Lounging on a divan, long legs spread out in front of her, hair falling over her face, eyes on the script she held in her soft hands, her brow furrowed in that look of concentration that got him every damn time. She was beautiful.

Then she looked up and saw Ford. And the look of confusion and pain that spread across her face was unmistakable.

Sometimes there wasn’t a way to fix things. Ford would respect whatever wishes Adra had, even if he thought she was wrong, even if he’d learned that she wasn’t the woman for him, even if he wanted her more than he wanted his next breath. But he’d be damned if he could continue to stand by and watch Adra be hurt because it might be easier on him.

That
he could fix.

~ * ~ * ~

Adra had read the same page about a dozen times and she still had no idea what it said. That poor production assistant who was supposed to stand guard outside while she read the
Submit and Surrender
script was going to be there for a long, long time.

Ford had an
ex-wife
?

How was she supposed to think about anything else? Literally, anything else in the world? The Big One could turn L.A. into a floating island in the middle Pacific in the next two minutes, and Adra would still be wondering about Ford and his freaking
ex-wife
.

How could she not have known that? That Ford had been
married
? Thinking about it now, the man was in his thirties; it was ridiculous to imagine he hadn’t had important relationships. It’s just that Adra didn’t know about any of them. The idea that there’d once been a woman important enough to Ford that he’d declared his love, that he’d promised himself to her forever, that he’d…

Adra’s head was spinning. Which, that she could handle; she was used to her head spinning around Ford. But her heart felt empty, too. There was this huge part of Ford’s life, of his past, that he’d never shared with her. That she wasn’t a part of, even indirectly, even as just a friend who could show support.

She wasn’t used to being kept in the dark. She was used to people confiding in her, and she was used to being able to take care of them when they did. Somehow knowing that Ford hadn’t trusted her with this made the hurt of losing him seem fresh all over again.

Which was stupid, and selfish, because in the end, hadn’t he been right not to confide in her? Would she really have done anything differently if she’d known about the ex-wife? If she’d known about whatever emotional land mines Ford had in his past? Adra had felt them getting too close, and she hadn’t stopped it, and then she’d slept with him anyway, because she couldn’t stop herself. And then she’d had to tell him that she couldn’t be with him.

She didn’t tell him that she couldn’t be with anyone at all. Who’d understand? Hell, Adra herself didn’t always understand. She just knew that when she got too close to needing anybody, that was when she needed to get the hell out, because otherwise it would end in heartbreak in tears.

Well,
more
heartbreak and tears, anyway.

And so she’d been on the verge of crying all over again when Ford walked in.

And oh God, just the sight of him.

He was still wearing a white button down shirt, but he’d rolled up the sleeves, showing those powerful forearms, those big hands. First button undone, the crispness gone from the material. His hair kind of tussled. His eyes taking in the room in that commanding way he had, like he was surveying his territory.

Jesus. He didn’t even have to look at her to make her wet.

And then she remembered that she’d lost this man entirely, this man who had been her friend and who was even more beautiful inside than he was outside, and it crushed her.

They stared at each other.

Ford closed the door.

And Adra couldn’t take it anymore.

“I know you must hate this,” she blurted out. “I’m so sorry, Ford, I—”

He looked at her. “I don’t hate this.”

“I’ll just…I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.”

Ford cocked his head, and almost seemed to smile. “How the hell do you think you’re going to do that?”

Adra had nothing. He was right; it was impossible.

“Adra, look at me,” he said.

Jesus. He could have been a movie star during the Golden Age, with that bone structure, the sheer size of him. If he were all she had to look at for the rest of her life, she’d be fine with that. His eyes held her in place.

“I don’t hate this,” he said. “And I don’t want you to stay out of my way.”

Looking at Ford now, Adra couldn’t help but think about what his face had looked like when she’d told him that she didn’t want to be with him. And she felt absolutely miserable.

“Maybe you should hate this,” she said. “Maybe you should hate me.”

Ford’s Dom voice cracked the air between them.

“Don’t talk about yourself that way,” he said. “That’s an order.”

Adra blinked.

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away. Couldn’t think about anything other than Ford. They’d never gotten to do a proper scene during their one night together. There were hints of what he’d be like as Dom, and he’d dominated her without question, but it had been…very animal. Feral. Wild. What would he be like cool and calm and controlled? What would he be like with complete, deliberate control over her?

She could
feel
his eyes on her skin as sure as she could feel the wetness spreading between her thighs.

Breathe, Adra. You have to breathe.

She tried. It didn’t work. His eyes were on her lips.

Say something!

“You have an ex-wife?” she said.

Ford finally smiled. “You have an ex-Dom who’s a movie star?”

Adra laughed.

She’d been obsessing about how these secrets had revealed the gulf between them, but here, in the room, laughing about it with him, knowing in that moment that he understood what she’d been thinking because he’d been thinking it, too…she felt closer to him than she had since it all happened. Since maybe before that. It was the weirdest thing.

And it was, of course, terrifying. Because no one had ever gotten to her like Ford. No one had ever gotten so close to making her feel like she needed him. And the last time that had happened, she’d tried to quench that rising panic by sleeping with him.

Get it together, Adra.

“Ford, what happened with Derrick…”

Ford crossed the room quickly, looming over her in a way that nearly pushed all thoughts out of her mind.

“He can’t talk to you like that,” Ford said.

“I agree,” Adra said. Derrick really was an asshole. “But it’s not like we can kick him off the movie. And I don’t want you going to jail.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“Well, I am,” Adra said. “What
was
that, Ford? I thought you were going to kill him.”

Ford stood there, silent, looking down at her. She felt like there was something important happening, something churning around them, and she almost didn’t want it to end. She wanted him to look at her like that all the time.

Finally he sat down on the end of her divan, lifting her legs up and putting them on his lap. He was so close. His hand burned into the outside of her thigh.

“That was guilt,” he said.

It took her a while to process that one.

“Wait, what?” she said.

Ford leaned on one arm, an arm Adra knew was strong and hard and felt amazing wrapped around her waist.

“Adra, what happened between us,” Ford said. “We screwed up.”

It was like being punched in the stomach.

Why did it hurt so much to hear something she already knew to be true?

“We should have talked first,” Ford went on. “We were friends, and we both know better. That’s on both of us. But I should have talked to you afterwards. After you told me that you didn’t want to be with me.”

“Ford…” she said softly.

“Quiet,” he said. His voice was soft and strong, and his eyes didn’t leave hers. She had no chance. “I pulled away from you, because I thought that’s what you wanted, because I thought…”

He shook his head, frowning. Adra thought he was going to say more, but he swallowed the words, whatever they were.

“I pulled away from our friendship, but I didn’t explain it,” he said. “And that hurt you. I saw, today, for the first time, how much that hurt you, and Adra, it made me fucking crazy.”

She didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t thought she’d deserved an explanation, since it had made perfect sense to her, but of course it didn’t make perfect sense. Ford was not the kind of man to throw a temper tantrum because he didn’t get what he wanted. He wasn’t the type of man to throw away a friendship because of a bad decision.

So she’d just thought he’d changed his opinion of her. Like, he’d seen through her, he’d gotten close to her, and then the way she’d behaved afterwards had made him…

Adra blinked again. She really didn’t want to cry.

“Adra, it made me crazy with guilt, and then Derrick stepped out of line to hurt you on
purpose
, and I just snapped. I took it out on him.”

“You took it out on him?”

“I’m not sorry about it, but yeah,” Ford said. “That’s what happened.”

He was so freaking earnest, looking at her like that. She felt terrible.

“Ford, you don’t have anything to feel guilty about,” she said. “I…”

But she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

She couldn’t say that it was her fault, that this perfect thing between them was just something she knew she couldn’t have because she was screwed up, or because the world was screwed up, or both, and she couldn’t bear to one day see Ford screwed up, too. That things always ended, that they ended badly, that people inevitably walked out. That if that were to happen with him, it would destroy her. That she couldn’t even bring herself to tell him about it, because that would make her need him even more…

And he was the one who felt guilty.

“I let you think I no longer cared about you,” he said bluntly. “I let you think we weren’t friends. That was wrong. Adra, look at me.”

Adra couldn’t make herself look up. He was so freaking
good
, looking at her with all that concern, that sense that whatever it was, he would take care of it. It was enough to make anyone feel weak.

“I avoided you, too,” she said quietly. “I didn’t know how to—”

“Look at me.”

Shit
.

Slowly, she raised her eyes. He was just like she remembered. She almost couldn’t bear it.

“I’ve missed you, Adra,” he said.

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She felt stunned, breathless, incredulous, even.

He was relentless.

“You were the best friend I’ve ever had,” he said. “I don’t want to lose that.”

He leaned forward, his eyes bright and his jaw clenched.

“I
won’t
lose that,” he said.

The word “friend” kept bouncing around inside Adra’s head, making her feel happy and sad at the same time, but in the end she couldn’t tear herself away from Ford.

When she spoke, her voice was small.

“Ok,” she said.

Neither of them looked at each other like a friend. It didn’t feel like a friend’s hand on her thigh. It didn’t feel like a finished conversation, like there was so much unsaid, so much hidden behind those blue eyes. It made her want to reach out and touch him, to just…

No. That’s what happened last time. That was how they’d gotten into this mess.

“Ok?” he said finally.

“Ok,” she said, nodding. “We should be friends again.”

Ford smiled at her.

“I never wanted to stop.”

Adra smiled back. “Me, neither.”

And as soon as she said it, she knew it was a lie. She didn’t want to be his friend. She wanted to just be his.

Which was the one thing she couldn’t be.

“So you’re friends,” Lola said flatly.

“That’s what I said,” Adra said, handing the menu back to a very patient waiter. “Friends.”

“Friends.”

“Yes, friends. Why are you saying it like that?”

Lola gave her a classic “are you shitting me?” face.

“Because there’s friends, and then there’s
friends
, and you know the difference,” Lola finally said, turning on the waiter. The very pregnant redhead had more than the usual glow about her; somehow pregnancy had amplified both Lola’s Domme and sub characteristics. The waiter couldn’t take his eyes off of her, and it was funny to watch him try to figure out why.

Adra figured Roman had his hands full.