Surrender to Temptation

by Lauren Jameson

  I ran my thumb down the length of Zach’s cock again, to the tip, and heard him groan, low and deep. Seconds later liquid heat filled my palm, salt scenting the air. I continued my strokes as he shuddered, arching into my touch. He came long and hard, and as on edge as I was myself, I smiled with satisfaction at being able to bring him so much pleasure.

  Once he had stilled beneath my hand, Zach inhaled a long, broken breath. He turned his head, and I found myself pinned beneath the bright stare of those golden eyes.

  He glared. I grinned. I couldn’t help myself.

  “You’re going to pay for that, Devon.” My smile faded as a black thrill shuddered throughout my body. Zach had told me that he was going to take me deeper, and I had played right into his hands.

  Rather than feeling fear, I was full of delicious anticipation. I relished the powerful sense of desire he brought to life within me, and the sense of the unknown about what he would show me next.

  “Can we go now?” I could hear the eagerness in my whisper. Though the two men on the stage below had switched positions and were caressing each other with renewed passion, I had lost all interest in the scenario.

  All I wanted was Zach, and whatever he wanted to bring me.

  In response he smiled, and in the curve of his lips were both danger and promise.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I stared at Zach with incredulity. Having just arrived at his house in Seacliff, he had led me directly into the kitchen and informed me, “You need to eat something.”

  I was still shaking with need and anticipation of sex. Food was not what I had in mind.

  “I’m not hungry.” I tried to reach for him, to wrap my arms around his waist, and was stung when he pulled away.

  Zach saw my hurt expression and huffed out a breath, raking a hand through his hair. He looked irritated, which didn’t help to soothe me at all. Biting my lip, I studied the vast expanse of veined marble counter, the sleek chrome appliances, the overhanging copper pots and pans that, if I had to guess, I would say had never been used. I was forced to again focus on Zach when pulling me into his arms, he pressed a quick kiss to my forehead, then released me. “I’m not used to having to explain myself, Devon.”

  Not entirely placated, I narrowed my eyes and moved out of his reach. I felt as if ice water had just been poured over the live wires of my nerves, and I didn’t much care for the sensation.

  He followed me with his stare, assessing my mood. I was on edge, and met his appraising glance with one of my own.

  He sighed, then slid a glass of water down the marble counter toward me. I took it after a long pause, and had to admit to myself that the icy liquid felt incredible on my raw throat.

  “You agreed that tonight I would take you deeper into my world. Well, we’ve only just begun.” I coughed as a too-large gulp of water forced its way down my throat.

  We had only just begun? I had expected that as soon as we got here we would satisfy the lust that had been riding me for the last week, but Zach’s words made it sound as though I was about to be led to a land from which there was no return.

  Perhaps there wasn’t. I knew that I had only experienced a taste of his dominance, and I was ready to admit I craved more.

  “What does that have to do with my eating?” Truly, I was so worked up that I didn’t think I could possibly swallow a mouthful. I didn’t understand why he was pressing the issue. “I’m really not hungry, Zach.”

  Frustration painted his features and I watched, fascinated, as he worked to smooth it away.

  “When you put yourself in my hands, I am responsible for your welfare.” I could hear in his tone that he really didn’t care for having to explain himself. Though there were so many levels on which I truly wanted to please him, in this situation I found that I liked provoking him.

  I suspected that, in the end, his frustration would lead to my pleasure.

  “Zach.” I wanted to move on to that pleasure right now. The stolen touches in the theater had only whetted my appetite. I wanted an entire night in which I could touch him, could look at his magnificent body, could feel his skilled hands on my own. “Please.”

  “I need you to eat something, Devon.” Turning from the fridge, he slid a bowl of raspberries down the counter to me. They reminded me of the night that we had met, and my cheeks flushed.

  His voice was tight, and the look on his face told me that he wouldn’t give on this matter.

  “I need to know that you are going to have the strength for what I have planned for you. Now eat.”

  My initial reaction was to refuse, just on principle.

  “Devon.” Exasperation thick in his voice, he raked his hands through his hair again, then tugged at it. “I shouldn’t have to explain. Just do it.”

  I didn’t appreciate being spoken to like a parent might to an errant child. Looking down at the bowl pointedly, I crossed my arms tightly over my chest.

  “I want to know why.” I held my breath, nerves slicing through me with jagged edges. I might have just pushed him too far, and I knew it.

  He had said that he wasn’t ready to share. From what I had seen, he might not ever be ready. But I couldn’t just obey him blindly. There were things I needed to know.

  Things like, what did he have planned that would be so strenuous that I needed food in my belly?

  Nerves danced over my skin with even greater force than before, and I eyed him with uncertainty.

  He scowled. I refused to break eye contact.

  Finally, begrudgingly, he spoke. “A few years ago there was a woman I was involved with. I had always been careful before her, and nothing bad had ever happened. I relaxed some of my rules with her. She wound up in the hospital, and never forgave me.”

  A small sound snuck past my lips. What had he and this woman from the past been doing that she ended up in the hospital, no matter what his rules were? I opened my mouth to ask the question, and to demand to know if he had something similar planned for me, but he shook his head before the words could leave my lips.

  “I’m not telling you what I have planned for you. And I’m not talking about anything else from my past.” A quick glance at him told me that he was entirely serious. Just those few simple sentences seemed to have drawn great amounts of energy from him, and I started to understand then what it cost him to visit those demons from his past.

  With that in mind, I pulled a plump, juicy red berry to my lips and took a bite, holding his gaze the entire time.

  “You’re learning.” A relieved and self-satisfied smile curled Zach’s lips, and in response I threw a raspberry at him, deliberately trying to lighten the mood. He was only too willing to move on, and he caught it in his mouth, drawing a giggle out of me.

  Things between us felt so light, so blessedly normal, that I couldn’t believe it had only been hours earlier that I had been convinced we were done.

  I bit into another berry. Zach’s stare followed the movements of my lips, my tongue, as I chewed and swallowed.

  “Did you enjoy what we saw tonight?” Walking—no, he stalked—across the kitchen toward me, he pulled my fingers from the bowl of berries and fed the next one to me himself. I made sure that my tongue swept across the pads of his fingers as I accepted the fruit, nodding as I chewed and swallowed.

  “You are amazing, Devon.” I shook my head when he lifted another piece of red fruit. With him standing so close, I could smell that essence that was so uniquely him, and I had tightened all over with need.

  I didn’t want any more food. Not one more bite. I wanted him.

  Shoving the bowl to the side with barely restrained excitement, Zach bent at the knees and swept me off of my feet, quite literally. My arms curled around his neck with barely restrained glee as his arms tucked beneath my knees and my butt.

  He may have meant it as a display of power, but it made my heart stumble
in my chest. I tried to swallow down the feelings that blossomed under his tender touch, knowing that he wasn’t in any place to reciprocate them, and only just succeeded in hiding them.

  At the moment, I would take any part of this man that I could get. And if it meant hiding away the fact that I was starting to care for him, really, truly care for him, then that was what I would do.

  Kicking open the door to his bedroom, he strode across the carpet before depositing me gently on his meticulously made bed. I thought of how he had awakened, tangled in nightmares, in that same bed, and felt a frisson of uncertainty.

  No matter how I felt about him, at the core I knew next to nothing about him. Whatever was about to happen, I was placing a large amount of trust in him.

  I looked up to find him watching me with a shuttered expression.

  “You can still decide, Devon. Yes or no.” His face revealed nothing. “But once we begin, you need to trust me. That trust is the basis of this entire relationship. You will have your safe word, but you have to have faith that I am not going to push you past what I know you can handle.”

  This was it, the decisive moment that would decide the path of our future. I could say no, could turn around and walk back into my calm, normal life.

  The life that had felt like it belonged to someone else. The life that couldn’t hold a candle to what I had experienced since I met Zach.

  “Yes.” It was all that I needed to say. Before my eyes I watched Zach channel the dominant aspect of himself. He seemed to grow taller, stronger, more arrogant, and yet at the same time I felt myself relaxing into his presence.

  No harm would come to me around this man. He would protect me with his own life. I was sure of it.

  He stared at me, unblinking. I held his gaze and found it intensely uncomfortable—it agitated my soul. I found that what I wanted to do was sink to my knees on the floor at his feet, but the little voice in my head that hadn’t completely surrendered argued against that notion. As a compromise I folded my hands in my lap, and stared down at the place where my fingers became tightly entwined.

  “Very good.” His voice was benevolent, a king speaking to his subject. He went further, leaning forward and catching my chin with his finger, tilting my face up and giving me permission to look him in the eye.

  “Devon, I am going to go retrieve some objects that I wish to use with you. When I return, you will have shed all of your clothing except for your panties. You will be sitting on the bed exactly as you are now, your hands folded in your lap, your eyes down.” Without pausing to see if I had heard or understood, Zach left the room. I blinked after him, my heart racing, then hurried to do as he had said.

  My fingers trembled as I undid the waist ties of my scarlet blouse. Not having the patience to fold it neatly, I still caught it before it fell to the floor and draped it over Zach’s massive wooden dresser. My skirt followed, and then my bra.

  By the time I sat back down on the cool sheets, clad in nothing but the thin cotton of my plain white bikini panties, I was shaking with nerves.

  Everything that Zach had introduced me to so far, I had thrilled to. I knew, however, from his earlier indications, that he was about to take me deep, far deeper than my mind could currently contemplate.

  I tried to slow my breaths, which were huffing from my chest. My fingers, which were laced together in my lap as he had commanded, were icy cold and slick with sweat.

  I started to look up when I heard Zach return to the room, but caught myself halfway, certain that that would earn me a reprimand. I stayed still, tracking his movements in my mind’s eye as he moved around the room this way and that, finally returning to stand before me.

  “Undress me.” His voice was coarse, almost cruel in its intonation. I looked up, into his face, and he hissed in warning, but not until I saw and recognized that he had become a completely different person. No, that wasn’t entirely correct. The Zach that I knew was still there, but in this situation, he was also . . . something more.

  I had experienced enough with Zach to know what he was capable of, even when he wasn’t fully channeling his dominant side. And wondering what was to come now made me instantly wet.

  “Start with my shirt.” I stood and lifted my fingers to the top button of his dress shirt. He had removed his tie himself at some point, and I was thankful, because I wasn’t sure that my trembling fingers could have dealt with a Windsor knot.

  The small buttons running down the front of the shirt were enough trouble. I fumbled, slipping several times and having to retry. He said nothing, his patience infinite, despite the lack of grace to my movements, and finally the shirt hung open, revealing the glorious, tawny expanse of his chest.

  I ran a palm over one of his pectoral muscles, and a fierce noise issued from his throat.

  “I have not given you permission to touch me, slave.” I reared back at the title. Slave? I wasn’t sure I was into that at all. Glaring at him, I took my hand away, daring him to say it again.

  “Only when you accept how sexually submissive you truly are, Devon, are you going to find what you’re looking for.” Irritation began to burn in my fingertips, traveling up my arms and out to the rest of my body.

  Much as I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me, either.

  I stepped back, hesitating. I knew that I could end this at any time. I had my safe word.

  Zach watched me calmly, his face unyielding. I pinched my lips together and told myself to get over it.

  Did it really matter what he called me? It didn’t change the fact that I wanted him, wanted him badly.

  “Good girl.” Zach spoke as the tension left my shoulders, my decision made. I thrilled to his praise, happy to have pleased him.

  “Remove my shirt from my body. Then my pants.” Tentatively I resumed my work, unbuttoning the cuffs of linen that bound his wrists and peeling the fabric from his torso. His skin, naked and glowing in the fading light revealed by the great panes of glass in the walls and ceiling, made me sigh and long to touch.

  “Zach.” I dug my nails into my palms to keep from reaching out for him. He glared down at me, his brow furrowed, and I knew that I had done something wrong.

  “While we are in this bedroom, you will call me ‘master,’ or ‘sir.’ Do you understand?” I stared at him, my mouth parted in surprise.

  Was he serious? What did it matter what I called him? But each time his dominant instructions brought me up short, I realized anew that it didn’t do anything to lessen the desperate want I felt toward him.

  In response to my hesitancy, Zach reached out and gave a quick slap to my left hip, hard enough to sting. I jolted, shying out of his reach, but he followed, staying too close for me to relax.

  “I asked if you understood me. Answer.” He wasn’t joking. There was no hint of levity on his face at all.

  I stuttered twice as I tried to reply.

  “Yes . . . sir. I understand.” Sir I could swallow. I wasn’t about to call him master.

  Wary now, I reached out for his waistband, half expecting to be scolded for that, too. But he had given me permission to remove his pants, and so he said nothing as I unbuckled and removed his belt, then unzipped his trousers and sent them tumbling to the floor.

  “Pick them up.” Bending at the waist, I retrieved the garment, folding it neatly and placing it on the dresser with my own clothing. I coiled the belt on top of it, shuddering with a mixture of pleasure and wariness as I remembered his use of it on me days earlier.

  “Come here.” Nervously, I crossed back to where Zach still stood. He was now gloriously naked, completely bare before my eyes, but I wasn’t allowed to lift my eyes from the floor.

  When I reached him he turned me, sliding his hands over my shoulders and down my rib cage, brushing the sensitive sides of my breasts as he stroked his way back up my body.

  Trailing his fingers delicately o
ver the nape of my neck, he wrapped his hand around my long ponytail. As he tugged gently, I could feel him tying the length in a knot, ensuring that the abundance of hair was completely out of the way.

  “Now, let’s discuss your punishment.” I gasped as he drew me back against him sharply, using his hands to press my hips back against him. His cock, which was erect if not completely hard, nestled in the crevice between my buttocks, and I fought the urge to grind myself back against him.

  “My punishment?” I was truly puzzled. I was trying to follow his orders, I really was.

  “Though some of your recent activities leave much to be desired, there is only one thing that you are to be punished for tonight.” His lips brushed over my ear and I shivered involuntarily, even as my gut clenched at his words.

  This was not something that I was going to like. I was somehow certain of it. Still, the brush of his fingers, following the trail of warm breath along my neck, told me that I would like anything he told me to.

  “What have I done?” A sharp pinch on the nerve that lay in the tender spot where my neck met my shoulder reminded me that he hadn’t given me permission to speak. Grinding my teeth together with frustration, I quieted, though I didn’t want to.

  “Your former lover placed his hands on you.” Shock whipped through me and I tried to turn, to confront him over the unfairness of his comment. His hands had come to rest on my waist, holding me still, and I was forced to speak while looking away from him.

  “That is not at all fair. I didn’t invite Tom to San Francisco. And I certainly didn’t ask him to touch me!” Surely Zach wasn’t serious. He couldn’t be.

  He squeezed my waist, his touch firm.

  “You placed yourself in a situation in which he was able to lay his hands on you.” I jolted forward, twisting this time until I did break free from Zach’s touch. As if he had been expecting it, he said nothing, simply eyeing me contemplatively.