The Beauty of Surrender (22 page)

He had to stop, rake a hand through his hair, but he kept his other hand clasped to Marina’s as the images ran through his head: the lush greenery dotted with shacks made from plywood and thin panels of corrugated tin. The abandoned coffee plantations like some sad testament to the country’s need. Odd flashes: A boy riding a bicycle down the street, a goat held tightly in his lap. A row of women dressed in brightly colored cloth balancing water jugs on their heads and pathetically thin children on their hips. A long line of military Jeeps kicking up dust. The red dirt road they’d been driving down when the world had gone to hell around him.

“James? Are you alright?”

“What? Yes, sorry. So … I was in Burundi, had been there for about a month, just gathering information to put together an in-depth piece. I had my connection there, an ex-military guy. He wanted a better life for his country. He really did. So he took us around, these three other reporters and me. And one day … in fucking broad daylight, we were driving down a road to this small village to visit a hospital and they stopped us.”

His stomach pulled so damn tight he could barely breathe, couldn’t keep talking.

Just breathe
.

Long, deep breath into his lungs, and a reminder that it was over, he was home now, and there was not a damn thing he could do.

“James …”

Marina was leaning forward, her hand wrapped around the one he was holding her wrist with. He could see his fingers digging into her smooth flesh, turning the skin around it white, but he couldn’t let go, couldn’t loosen his grip.

He went on. “Fucking pseudo-military. I think. You can’t always tell. They had uniforms. Machine guns.” He picked up his drink and drank the rest in one swallow. The burn didn’t help. He wanted another drink, but this would have to do. Because he couldn’t stop now. “They pulled us over and talked to our guide. I didn’t catch most of what they said, so I never knew why. I never fucking understood why they yanked us all out of that van and shot everyone at point-blank range. Everyone except me.”

“Jesus, James. I’m so sorry. I know that’s not enough. But I am.”

Tears in her eyes, real tears, and he could barely stand it.

“They left me there, on my knees in the dirt at the side of the road, the others dead all around me. I could smell their blood everywhere. I just stayed there, waiting for them to come back, but they never did. After a while I got up. I put everyone into the van,
went back to Bujumbura, the capital. I didn’t know what else to do. Everything after that is a blur for a long time. Months, maybe.”

“This was why you quit,” Marina said softly.

“Yeah. Or maybe it was the last straw. I don’t know.” His stomach was going loose and warm. Was it relief? Or was he finally going to lose it? “All I know is I couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t have it in my face any longer. And let me tell you, I felt like a fucking failure. Like I was letting down all of those people I hadn’t written or talked about yet. And every awful thing I saw on that trip, I put my notes away, couldn’t even look at them, and I felt like I’d let the whole damn country down. I was racked with guilt for keeping my mouth shut about what was going on in Burundi. For what happened to those men I worked with. For not being dead myself. Classic survivor’s guilt, I know. I went to therapy. It didn’t help much. I can’t shake it. I don’t know that I ever will.”

“I don’t know if anyone really could. You’ll never forget, James. And I think it’s okay not to. I think you can still … honor those people by remembering. But you’ve got to find a way not to let it hurt you so deeply. Not to let it affect your everyday life.”

“That’s why I came to you, Marina.”

He looked at her, his brown eyes full of pupil, nearly black except for a rim of deep gold around the edges of the irises. And Marina shivered inside, a warm frisson running through her, making her weak with an aching empathy, a need to make it better for him. He was so damaged but still so strong.

“James, I want to help you. But I don’t know if … if I can be objective enough.”

He signaled the waitress for another drink before responding. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

“And?”

“What if the objectivity of the others I’ve worked with, the Dommes, the therapists, what if their objectivity was the obstacle rather than the key it’s supposed to be?”

She searched his features, but his mouth was still set in a grim line, his jaw tight. She couldn’t tell what he was suggesting, what he was thinking. “What do you mean?”

“What if what I need is for someone to … really go there with me? To be involved.”

“Do you mean sex?”

“Yes. Partly.”

Marina picked up her drink and swallowed as the waitress brought James another Scotch. Watched his throat work as he drank it down fast.

“You need me to engage, is that what you’re saying, James? To let my guard down with you?”

“Yes, I guess that is what I’m asking.”

She nodded. It made sense. She could go only so deep with him, expect him to open up to her, if she wasn’t willing to do the same. Being the distant and mysterious Domme worked well enough with most submissives, but James wasn’t entirely submissive, regardless of how his body responded to being bound, to being dominated by her. Far from it. And he had a very specific need. One she wanted to meet. And her wanting went beyond the usual satisfaction of her control issues, the hot spark of being in command. It was so much more with James.

It scared the hell out of her.

“James … what you’re asking is not something I’m used to giving. Not something I’ve given anyone for a very long time.”

“This is the thing you don’t want to talk about.”

His tone wasn’t at all accusatory. Still, she felt shaky even contemplating telling him about Nathan. Felt almost a sense of disloyalty to Nathan, talking about him to another man. But perhaps James was right, that this was the only way.

She wanted to tell him. She dreaded telling him, talking about it. But everything felt different with James. His pain opened up her own, made her feel as raw as he must feel, simply hearing him, seeing him struggle to get the words out.

She hated it, feeling so wide open. Almost hated James for making her feel this way.

But she was going to do it.

Because everything
was
different with James: the way she felt about herself, the way she felt about him.

The fact that she
felt
for him. It was like being bruised all over. And just like some submissive girl, a part of her reveled in that pain.

She really must be losing her mind.

Closing her eyes, she drew in a breath, drew in the fragrance of James’s Scotch, the acrid scent of her own martini, and beneath it all, something male that was purely
him
.

Drawing in another breath, she steeled herself, prepared herself to talk about the one thing she never, ever discussed. The pain that had shut her down so long ago, and that she now understood she’d hung on to for far too long. It hurt to even think about letting it go. But James was right. It was time to talk about her pain, her past.

Chapter Six

“T
HIS ISN’T SOMETHING
I talk about, James.”

He nodded his head, waiting. His eyes were still two enormous dark orbs, no less shadowed than they’d been before he’d told his story. But the telling didn’t always diminish the pain; she knew that.

“So, Nathan was … he was my partner. My submissive. My lover. He was … I loved him.”

It was hard to say it, yet strangely, not nearly as difficult as she’d thought it would be, with James’s hand still holding on to her, his gaze steady on hers.

“What happened, Marina?”

“He died.”

James was quiet, watching her, his features softening. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes, so was I. I’ve never finished being sorry.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. Which is why I can tell you.”

He nodded. “Go on.”

“He had cancer. Pancreatic, so we knew it was terminal as soon as he was diagnosed. But it took eight months.”

“How long were you together?”

“A little over two years.”

“Not long enough.”

“No.”

She was crumbling inside, but only a part of it was grief. Some of it was a sort of coming apart, a continuation of the opening up, as though it were the walls she’d constructed around her heart that were falling apart, rather than herself.

“And since then?” James prompted. “You’ve shut part of yourself down, just as I have. But I think you haven’t reached that point where you want things to be different, have you? Where you want to let it go.”

“I think …” She had to stop, to consider what he’d suggested. “I think that recently I have reached that point. Made a few realizations. And it’s because of you, so thank you for that.”

“I don’t know what I did. But you’re welcome.”

“I don’t really understand it myself.”

God, his gaze was so intense, as though he could
see
her, really see her, in a way no one had for a long time. Maybe never.

“I haven’t been with another man since Nathan died. It’s been four years,” she told him, feeling oddly embarrassed by it. “I’ve played only women, until you. You’ve changed things, James. And this is no empty flattery. It’s simply the truth.”

He nodded. “You’re changing things for me, too. And I think together, we can change more for each other. That we can accomplish some forward motion for us both.” He leaned in, his fingers slipping between hers, grasping tightly. “Tell me you’re willing to try, Marina. For you. For me.”

Her heart was pounding. At the idea of making herself so vulnerable with James. At his closeness, the way his hand felt in hers. He was so damn strong, in every way, it was nearly impossible to see him as submissive.

She knew there would be nothing submissive about him in
bed. And if she agreed to continue with him, there was no doubt they would end up there, and very quickly.

“I want to.”

Too badly. But she wasn’t going to think about that now.

He smiled then, a sort of odd half smile that was charming, nevertheless. And with his gaze still on hers, his grip on her hand softened. He lifted it to his lips, laid a soft, sweet kiss across her knuckles.

Heat shot up her arm, making her breasts go tight, her nipples harden. And in her chest was a churning mass of emotion, heavy, intense. She glanced down at her hand, then back to his face. She saw emotion mirrored in his eyes. Emotion, and desire as powerful as her own. And the heat was electric, sizzling between them.

“Now, Marina?”

She could only nod her head. She was half numb, and yet more alive than she’d been in years.

Four years.

James let her hand go long enough to drop a pile of cash on the table, then he stood, held her chair, and helped her to her feet.

“I live down the street. Do you need rope? I have it. Or we can go to your place.”

“It can be anywhere. Let’s just go.”

Her heart was pounding, her body pulsing with need. He took her coat from the back of the chair, helped her slip into it, took her umbrella from her, and led her out to the street. He pulled her to his side, holding the umbrella over them both as they walked quickly to his apartment. She barely had a moment to take in the old stucco building, the narrow wooden staircase. Then he was unlocking the door, leading her into the open warehouse flat. An enormous sofa at one end, handwoven rugs on the wood floors, shelves and shelves of books. But she couldn’t focus on any of it. All she could see was him.

James
.

“Where are your ropes?” she asked him, her palms itching to feel the texture of them, to bind him, to watch him struggle. Yes, she loved that about him, that exquisite struggle. It showed his strength rather than any weakness.

“In here. Come with me.”

He held her hand tightly as he moved across the room, through a door, and into a large bedroom. The bed was in the very center of the room, which was broken up by heavy wood posts. The room was dark, the only light coming through the windows: moonlight, streetlamps, the glow from the storefronts on the street below. And all of it blurred and softened by the rain, which was coming down harder now, a steady pulse-beat that matched her own.

James dropped her hand and moved to a large dresser against one wall, a heavy wood piece, Asian, probably. He pulled open a drawer, pulled out a number of net bags, carried them back to the bed, laid them down on the dark cotton quilt.

“They’re color-coded by length,” he said, his voice a low, husky murmur. “Fifty-foot, twenty, ten. Some shorter pieces. What do you want?”

He straightened, looked at her, and her breath hitched in her chest. He was so damn beautiful, his face hard, challenging her, his strong jaw set. Yet there was something soft and loose around his eyes, that contrast showing his inner struggle to submit.

She went hot all over. Wet.

She couldn’t think of the usual commands. Could hardly think at all.

He stepped closer.

Oh, no, can’t think at all now
.

“Marina,” he said, his voice quiet. “Just do it. Don’t plan it.” He reached out, stroked one finger down the side of her face, kicking the heat up another notch, before dropping his hand to his side. “Let’s just … go where it takes us.”

“Yes …”

She licked her lips, kept her gaze on his. “Take your clothes off, James.”

He nodded and began to strip.

She took one step back and watched him, every motion a graceful ripple of slowly revealed muscle. How could she have forgotten how sleek his body was? How utterly perfect. His abs were a stark play of shadowed surfaces, his shoulders impossibly broad. And the tattoos on his left arm stood out to her, even in the pale light from the street.

She reached out, almost touching his biceps.

“What is this?”

“The archangel Gabriel. For protection.”

“And this?” It seemed important, somehow, to know. She let her fingers rest on his skin, ran them down his forearm to the Asian figure draped in patterned robes.