Surrender to Temptation Part V: Tempted to Reveal (5 page)

His arms wrapped around my waist tightly, supporting me so I didn’t hang limply from my bound wrists. Though the tsunami of my orgasm had receded, I trembled, my muscles refusing to hold me up.

I hissed when, after a long moment in which he cradled me against his chest, Zach eased out of me. His sure fingers slid between my legs and extracted the vibrator, switching it off before tossing it aside.

My body felt abused and wonderfully lax. My emotions felt as though they had been pounded by the waves of the ocean that I could hear below us.

What had just happened?

To my mortification, tears sprang to my eyes. I turned my face away, desperate to hide them from Zach. He didn’t comment, instead stroking a finger down my back reassuringly before retrieving the key and unlocking my cuffs.

“Ssh, Devon, my little minx.” He massaged my fingers and palms, working blood through them. “It’s normal to feel a lot after something like that.”

I shook my head but kept my lips pressed tightly together as he nudged me back under the spray of the showerhead. He poured the delicious-smelling liquid soap over my backside, letting the suds and the water clean me and ease the sting.

I was afraid to part my lips to speak. I knew what I wanted to say, but I didn’t think it was anything he wanted to hear. So I allowed him to wrap me in another towel, to dry my skin and my hair. And as I did, I wondered what to do with myself now that I knew, for me at least, that the mutual sexual pleasure had blossomed into something that felt an awful lot like love.

***

Zach and I had both remained somewhat subdued as we gathered our toys from the patio and beach below and made our way into the house. He had ordered dinner to be delivered, and as I explored the house, he had dressed in faded jeans and a ripped T-shirt.

But his next statement jolted me out of my relaxed state. “You will remain naked.”

The demand brought the banked fire inside of me to life again.

“You’re dressed.” I pointed out as I slowly backed toward the bedroom, where the bag that had been packed for us both still sat on the bed. I had an idea, and his order put a definite kink into it.

“I’m the one who gets to make the rules.” He looked so pleased with himself that it made up my mind. I might be punished later, but I had a feeling that it would be worth it.

“Please, Zach.” I continued to back toward the bedroom, and he continued to move forward, stalking me. “Just give me a minute. You’ll like it, I swear.”

He paused for a moment, and I grasped the opportunity. Whirling and running into the bedroom, I slammed the door shut behind me before diving across the room for the nightgown that I had retrieved from the car while Zach was getting dressed.

Inhaling deeply, I shook the tissue paper covering from the scrap of blue silk, then pulled it over my head.

I heard the door open as I smoothed the lingerie around my hips. Turning, I clenched my fists at my sides and faced Zach, who looked for all the world like he had just caught his prey and was about to feast.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw what I had done.

“Do you like it?” The impetus for buying the nightgown may have been to spice up a dull sex life, and I may have convinced myself that the exorbitant price was a present to myself. But as Zach’s eyes traveled over me, absorbing the sight of me in the slip, I knew that it had been for him all along.

“You’re beautiful.” He spoke softly as he crossed the room toward me. My mouth went dry when he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in for a deep, drugging kiss.

My heart began to do funny things inside of my chest. When he slid his hands down my back, cupping my bottom and lifting me into his embrace, I wrapped my legs around his waist and opened myself to him entirely.

“Amazing.” I was laid on the bed with exquisite gentleness. I watched through half-lidded eyes, shivering slightly, as he stripped off the clothing that he had just put on, then lowered himself onto the bed until his heat ran along my entire length.

“So soft.” A single finger ran over my breast, tracing the line of fabric where skin and satin met, as he parted my legs with his other hand and slid a finger into my heat. It seemed that I was always ready with him, and when he positioned his cock at my entrance and pressed inside of me, he glided in with ease.

Our stares were locked as he balanced his weight on his elbows, his pelvis pressing down as mine thrust up. We moved with an easy rhythm, one that started slow and sped up only a fraction before pressure began to build.

“Sweet Devon.” Lowering his head to my breast, he suckled my nipple into his mouth through the thin silk of the slip. The fabric pulled tight over the engorged flesh, forcing a pleased cry from my lips. At the same time, he began to circle my clit with his hand, bringing me shuddering to the peak with sure fingers.

“I want us to come together.” He pressed the fingers at my clit together tightly, trapping the bud in their grasp as I surged upward. Stars danced in the air before me as, following in the aftermath of my shudders, he pressed as deeply inside of me as he could, groaning my name hoarsely as he spent himself between my thighs.

He nuzzled his face into the side of my neck as we tried to catch our breath, and I rubbed circles over the taut skin of his back with my palm.

The words slipped from my lips without my meaning to speak.

“I love you.” Caught in the moment, I voiced what I felt for him. The loving he had just shown me had been so tender, so sweet, that it was a full minute before I realized that his body had gone rigid as stone on top of me.

“Devon . . .” Zach withdrew from me and slid off the bed, running his fingers through his hair with agitated movements. He said nothing, but the shock and discomfort on his face told me all that I needed to know.

“I see.” Tears threatened, but with them was anger. I froze for a long moment, the slip clinging damply to my skin and leaving me feeling more exposed than if I had been naked.

I could have told him that it didn’t matter that he clearly didn’t return the feeling, just to put him at ease, but it would have been a lie. He watched, dumbfounded, as I drew in a shaky breath, then pushed myself off the bed and toward the duffel bag.

“What are you doing?” Shielding myself from his eyes as best as I could, I pulled out a T-shirt that must have belonged to him, since it was far too large for me. I didn’t care, tugging the slip over my head and the T-shirt on, thankful for the coverage. A bit more digging yielded a pair of leggings.

Swallowing against my outrage and hurt so hard that my throat burned, I ignored his question and marched out of the bedroom. I couldn’t stay in his presence a moment longer, not when the words I had spoken hung in the air between us, unwanted by him and so important to me.

“Devon. Stop right now.” I continued to ignore him, slipping my feet into my flats and grabbing my purse. Moments later I was out the door, my chin held high.

That chin trembled as I reached the long, winding driveway, Zach’s angry shouts echoing behind me.

First things first. I tried to push the pain away as I attempted to form a logical plan. It was what I did best, after all.

I would walk into town. I would find a motel to stay in for the night while I gathered my wits. In the morning I would rent a car and drive back to San Francisco, where I would think about what I wanted to do next.

I liked my job, but I wasn’t sure that I could be around Zach now. I couldn’t be with someone who insisted on denying the spark that flashed between us, who wouldn’t share his past with me so that we could move on and have a future.

“No.” The word was a pained cry that broke the dam holding back my tears. It would have been better if he truly hadn’t felt anything for me back. What was killing me was that I knew,
knew
that we had enough between us to be happy.

But Zach was dominant to the core. He had given himself orders, and he would never break them.

I couldn’t stop the tears. I reached the end of the driveway and turned onto the shoulder of the road, wiping blindly at my eyes. My entire body shook, and I felt as though I might be sick.

The scream of tires punctured my consciousness in a deafening roar. Voices, the bass of a loud song, laughter, then screams.

I whirled and found a blur of bright red coming straight toward me.

My scream was soundless as my body froze. My rigid frame was yanked out of the way, right off the shoulder of the road to the grass, as a car packed with teenagers, two surfboards strapped to the top, swerved over the area where I had just stood.

I fell to the ground with an impact that knocked the wind out of me. In my panic, as I wheezed, trying to catch my breath, I realized that the arms around my waist belonged to Zach. He was trembling with rage as he watched the car drive away, the obnoxious, bass-heavy music fading into the distance.

My heart leapt, making its presence known through the surge of adrenaline that made my limbs shake and my teeth chatter. But when I turned to look up at Zach, to thank him for what he had done, I found myself faced with a wall of ice.

My mouth opened and then closed soundlessly. I had no idea what to do with the anger, the pure rage that was undulating from him in waves.

“Thank you.” I had to say it, though my voice was quiet and small when I did. The words had the effect of his turning his eyes to look at me, but the frost in them told me that nothing had changed on his end.

“Get back to the house.” His words were clipped and raw. My heart wept even as my tears dried and my hands balled into fists.

“We’re going back to San Francisco.”

Read the stunning conclusion of Devon and Zachariah’s

tumultuous passion in the final installment of

SURRENDER TO TEMPTATION

TEMPTED TO POSSESS

Available from InterMix on February 5, 2013

Keep reading for a preview of Lauren Jameson’s

next sizzling erotic romance

BLUSH

Available from NAL in May 2013

I have ignored Alex’s advice to have another drink. But the sips of Alex’s old Bordeaux have warmed my stomach, giving me a blush of courage—and so have his words. Now I am seated at a blackjack table, and my fear is very nearly gone, replaced instead with the fizz of anticipation.

“Chips in.” I slide a small black chip across the table. It seems like such an insignificant thing, yet it represents one hundred dollars, the minimum buy-in for the table. It may not seem like much money to the fit fortysomething man on my left, the one whose well-cut suit can’t quite hide the softness of his gut, or to the predatory-looking woman to the left of him, the one wearing gold sequins and an expression of hawklike intensity.

The softness of the man’s belly, hanging over his black leather belt, draws my mind back to Alex, and the hardness of his frame beneath his expensive clothes. I must have looked drab in comparison, my floral skirt, black shell, and sandals all from Walmart.

I remind myself that it doesn’t matter. I will never see him again. I must focus on the game, or risk losing money that I really can’t afford to part with.

The dealer places my two cards in front of me. They are not good, a six and a seven compared to the dealer’s ten. Anxiety blossoms in my gut. The man to my left has a jack and an ace, and the woman a seven and an eight.

The woman wins the hand, and I watch my hundred dollars slide away across the green table.

I’ve played a hand now—I can go. I
should
go. But I’ve caught the bug . . . and I want to win.

Reluctantly I slide another black hundred-dollar chip across the table. I’ve purchased more tokens than I can really afford. I watch the woman slide forward two rounds of orange plastic, which I’ve learned are called “pumpkins”—each represents one thousand dollars. My knees quiver at the thought of losing so much money. The man offers up a pumpkin and a barney, a purple token worth five hundred.

I look at my lonely black chip. As if possessed by someone else, my hand slides four more little black pieces across the table. Five hundred dollars, and I’ve already lost a hundred.

I blanch when I realize what I’ve done, but it’s too late. And even though the idea of losing that much money makes me feel sick, the risk is . . . exciting. Yes, exciting.

It washes over everything else that I feel, tinting those thoughts a vivid, rosy pink.

The dealer places a card faceup in front of me, then repeats the gesture for the man, the woman, and himself, though his card faces down. The circuit goes around once more.

When he gestures to me, I’m distrac
ted, looking at my cards. Is that . . .

I don’t immediately understand when the dealer says the magical word. “Blackjack.”

I very nearly groan aloud, thinking that he must mean one of the other two. But wait . . . the woman has a four and a seven. The man has a jack and a queen . . . a great hand, but not an automatic blackjack.

Slowly I look down at my cards. Lying on the felt before me are the glossy faces of a jack and an ace. A jack is ten, and an ace can be an eleven or a one.

Holy shit.
I’ve hit blackjack.

The dealer slides my five hundred in chips back to me, plus another five hundred. I’ve won four hundred dollars, on top of getting back the five hundred that I had bet to begin with. It’s not a large amount, not at all, but winning it feels absolutely glorious.

“Congratulations, sweetheart.” The health-club man grins at me salaciously. I smile back, too excited to care about his leer, and contemplate playing again, just once more.

And then, although I can’t explain why, my gaze is drawn up. Across the casino floor, up high, is an ornate balcony, almost like what I imagine you would see in an opera house. It offers an unfettered view of the entire casino floor.

Standing up there, his arms braced on the balcony, is Alex Fraser. He is watching me intently, and when my eyes connect with his I can feel my heart rate speed up to double time.

His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, his tie loosened. It’s like getting a look at the more casual side of him, the one who has let that controlling persona, the one with the answers, slip just a bit.

He nods at me solemnly, the whisper of a smile around his lips. Flustered, I look back the chips that I have clutched in my suddenly sweaty palms. Moments later my gaze is drawn back up. Alex winks at me, just the tiniest movement, before his face returns to normal, as if we just shared a joke that no one else can know.

“Do you know who that is?” I mumble this to the man who has leaned in closer than I’d like. I gesture with my head toward the balcony. I had hoped he would be subtle, but the man next to me turns and stares, unabashed.

I can feel myself blushing furiously.

The man beside me leans back in, far too close. I can smell scotch on his breath, as well as the stench of cigarette smoke and sweat.

“That’s Alex Fraser. Bloody Irishman. Owns the place.” My mouth falls open as the enormity of the statement hits me.

He owns the casino? Alex Fraser owns the whole entire casino?

The man chooses that moment to place his hand over my own. It’s clammy and tugs at my skin. I barely hide a shudder before pulling away.

“I can take care of you just as well as that fucker.” I am appalled at the man’s choice of language, and am reeling a bit at the knowledge that Alex owns the casino. No wonder he could afford to buy a seventy-year-old bottle of wine.

“I . . . I think I’m going to go freshen up.” I extract my hand from beneath the other man’s, and know that the first thing I’ll do in the ladies’ room is scour the flesh that he touched with soap and hot water. I gather my chips, the little stack a satisfying weight in my hand. As I step away from the table, I dare to take another look up at the balcony, to see if Alex is still there.

He’s there all right, and he is scowling at me. No, not scowling, glowering. After a shock runs through my body—what did I
do
?—I realize that he’s not glaring at me at all, but at the man whose sweat still stains my palm.

Surely . . . could he be . . . he’s not mad that the man touched me? I shake the thought out of my head.

I don’t really know Alex Fraser at all, nor does he know me. I still don’t know why he introduced himself to me in the casino bar, and I probably won’t ever know. But I do know that he can’t possibly care who touches me.

As I scurry across the casino floor to the door marked
Ladies
, I reflect that even if he did care, he really doesn’t have anything to worry about.

I haven’t been touched, not that in that way, for a very long time.

I think of the wink as I walk, and it hits me out of nowhere. He arranged for me to win. How dare he? He might have been thinking that he was doing me a favor, but he has just undermined my entire experience. I don’t feel as if I can cross this item off of my bucket list anymore—it wasn’t real.

I want to go up there and yell, which is strange, because I never yell. No, I swallow my feelings, bury them inside.

I look over my shoulder, one more glance at the balcony before I enter the ladies’ room. I wonder if I can signal somehow that I need to talk to him, convey to him that what he just did upset me. Not that he will care, but I feel driven to do so anyway.

Also, I want just one more look at the man, the beautiful creature who has perplexed me so.

I catch sight of the back of him, walking away from the balcony. I also see a wisp of golden hair, not so different in color from my own, vanishing from the balcony in front of him. Someone else was up in that balcony with him, someone whom I didn’t see. He has followed that person back inside.

He is gone, and I will never see him again.

***

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