Expecting Surrender (Dominion Trust Book 3)

by Trent Evans

  Keihl breathed in deeply, his chest expanding with it, his nostrils flaring, his brilliant gaze not leaving hers.

  She pressed on though, knowing she had to get this out, to finally let him see. “The pregnancy … it’s made me feel so much closer to you. I feel it, see it, the way you’re so protective of me, always taking care of me, knowing you’d never let anyone harm me.”

  His dark eyes flashed, his lips curving in a tight, knowing smile. “That’s because I won’t. Ever.”

  “And I love you for that — you have no idea how much I love it. This big, strong male, he man who loves me, protecting his woman, his child. The feeling — it’s like nothing else, believe me.” She sighed. “But that’s the problem too. Because there’s something else that’s helped me feel so much closer to you, and I’m terrified that that something … isn’t compatible with this pregnancy, with the changes we’ll go through.”

  Keihl’s grin faded, and he inclined his head. “The Game.”

  She nodded. “Like oil and water, right? The two things just won’t go together. And it makes me … sad. I know I sound like a needy, selfish bitch right now. But it’s the truth. I want this baby more than anything. I can’t wait to see those beautiful blue eyes staring back up at me. But at the same time, I want, I need, what The Game has given us, what it’s shown us. It’s been like this … sexual awakening. And it’s made me confront something about myself that I’ve pushed deep down inside for way too many years.” She took a deep, shuddery breath. “I’m more … submissive than I’d ever realized. A lot more. And it’s been weighing on me more and more. It’s shown us how things could really be between us — if we have the courage to see where it goes. It’s why I don’t want it to be a game anymore.” She shook her head, looking down. “This makes no sense, I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you still sure this new you isn’t just because of all the changes? You’ve got to at least admit — the timing is interesting.”

  Of course, she had to acknowledge it. It was the first — and the hundredth — thing she’d thought herself. But it was the truth, and she knew it would be, baby or no baby. But even that wasn’t the whole story. Pregnancy had somehow opened a door into her psyche, into a room that was at once familiar and alien. Carrying this growing life within her had somehow made her feel more bound to this man, in ways both sexual and emotional, and it was something she’d been wholly unprepared for. Yes, submitting sexually to him was an incredible turn-on, but now there was something even more instinctual, more primitive, about it. He’d made her pregnant, she’d swell with their child, and in the process she’d rely on him more and more, even as the feminist within her fought a losing battle with a failing voice, in telling her she’d never need a man. While technically true in not needing a man, she wanted this man, and she felt it more every day. She knew he’d protect her, keep her safe. He’d always be there, and that knowledge, paradoxically, gave that submissiveness within her a chance to flower, to realize its full, natural form. And a beautiful form it was.

  “Sure, I wondered the same thing. It would be stupid not to, right? But this is me, it really is. Work is one thing, my social life is one thing — but with us, it’s different now, and I want to see what this leads to. I need this. I need to not be in charge anymore. Not in the bedroom, not anywhere — when it’s just you and me. I need you to … lead.” She turned to him, cradling that strong jaw in her hand. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I think so — but something tells me I don’t know the half of it. At least based on what little I just read.”

  “You don’t, Keihl.” She kissed his cheek. “But think about it, okay? Stay open to it — and think about it.”

  “You thought I’d run away from this.” He nodded down toward the phone. “Didn’t you? Why?”

  “I don’t know. I hoped you wouldn’t — but sometimes honesty doesn’t go as well as you hope.”

  He pulled her closer, breathing deeply into her hair, his strong arms snug around her, making her feel safe. “I’d never run away from you, girl. Not ever.”

  They sat that way for a long time, silent, warming in the morning sun, and Kirsten smiled, hoping, anticipating what might lay ahead.

  No, he had no idea whatsoever.

  * * *

  “Earth to Keihl.”

  He looked up from his phone, his neck sore from the position it had been locked in for the past half hour.

  “What?”

  His admin, Ella, looked at him over the tops of her glasses, her pen tapping his desk.

  “Are you going to make it to the partners meeting? I think they want you there.”

  “Oh, did — did they say that?”

  Ella rolled her eyes. “No — but I’m guessing they expect you there anyway.”

  Keihl switched off the phone. It was all he could think about, the revelations he’d read on that site. It was like a dark, twisted, incredibly alluring dream. Female submission, maintenance spankings, lists of rules and instructions for the wives to follow, and something that he hadn’t even thought was a thing — something that surprised him the most because it was the first confirmation that he wasn’t the only one with those same thoughts — eroticized pregnancy in a HoH and even D/s context.

  Now, the rat race to make partner didn’t matter so much to him anymore.

  “Okay — yeah, I’ll be there.”

  “Eleven, tomorrow. Don’t be late, okay?”

  “Got it. What else, Ella?”

  She swiped something on her tablet, her head tilted. “I think that’s it — which is weird.”

  “Why is it weird?” He leaned back in his chair, stretching his neck. “I’ll take a light schedule for once.”

  Yeah, so you can go jack off in the men’s room to what you’re reading on that website.

  “I thought you’d be slammed with this EI hearing coming up. But it looks like you’re basically clear. Yeah, weird.” Ella slipped the tablet into her case, but rather than standing, she leaned forward, her chin on her hand. “There is something else, actually.”

  “Wonderful.”

  That tone of Ella’s never boded well.

  “I did a little digging.”

  “You’re not supposed to be doing any digging I don’t assign you. Was this assigned?”

  “Nope.”

  Keihl flipped his pen onto his desk, looking up in exasperation. “Of course it wasn’t.”

  “It’s not a big deal—”

  “It is a big deal, Ella. You’re not even a paralegal.”

  “Yet.”

  “Not yet.” He rubbed the twitch that had developed over his right eye. “Which means it’s not okay.”

  Ella’s eyebrows wiggled, her voice a sing-song. “Might be interested in what I found out.”

  Keihl looked down, sighing. “Let’s hear it. I’m sure half of it is illegally obtained, so it’ll be as if I never heard the words. In one ear, out the other.”

  “Legally obtained? Probably. The information I found? Probably not.” She drummed a long fingernail on the desktop. “You know the Coal Creek development, right?”

  “It’s only what my entire job has revolved around for the last month, Ella. No, I have no idea.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  “Learned it from you.” He waved at her. “Come on. What about it?”

  “Stan, you remember him, yes?”

  “I do.”

  He tried to suppress a smile, as he watched her warming up to her subject. She’d make a damned good lawyer someday.

  “I looked up his firm — and it’s part of a holding company.”

  “So? Lots of holding companies are used in developments.”

  “It’s got a registered agent too.”

  Now, that was a little interesting.

  “Okay, odd, but not unheard of. Usually that’s simply to hide identities — or at least make discovering them a little more difficult.”

  “I called a friend at the state and as
ked him to look up the agent.”

  “Yeah, you can’t do that, Ella.”

  “I know, I know. Just a favor, no big.”

  “Not technically illegal — but it wouldn’t look good to a judge or arbitrator. At all.” Keihl scrubbed his face with a palm. “And what did you get for this favor?”

  He wondered if she’d benefit from a little … structure, too. If she ever held down a boyfriend for longer than a month, he might have to have a word with him.

  And tell him what, genius? Not everyone is as pervtacular as you.

  “The name that agent was working for? It’s not a person.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  Ella shook her head slowly, her eyes dancing. “It was something called the Dominion Trust.”

  Whoa.

  “That’s… interesting. But I’m not sure I’ve seen a point to this. Are you just trying to show off your strings pulling skills? Duly noted.”

  “I’m not done.”

  He held up a hand. “Sorry. Proceed.”

  “Do you know anything about them? That Dominion Trust?”

  “Never heard of them. Should I?”

  He wasn’t sure why he was lying. He needed to talk to Tom about this. Like yesterday.

  “I hadn’t either, so I tried researching them. There were two things that were especially weird. One, was the fact that there just wasn’t much on them — anywhere. Second, what I was able to find seemed to say almost the exact same thing. Public records databases, search engines, you name it — all about the same.”

  “Maybe there isn’t much to find.” Keihl picked up his pen. “Sometimes a company is just a boring company. Nothing of particular note.”

  “To have all the information show the same thing? Doesn’t that strike you as weird?”

  “We need to get you a thesaurus, Ella.”

  “Shut it.” She shifted in her seat. “Seriously? It’s gotta make you wonder, at least a little bit.”

  “It’s possible they’ve had their listings scrubbed. Wouldn’t be the first company to do it, but it’s incredibly time-consuming, and to hire one of the outfits that does it would cost a fortune.”

  Ella stood. “I don’t know about any of that, but I thought you’d want to know it — just in case.”

  “You did good — even though you shouldn’t have done it.”

  She smiled at him, and opened the door, smoothing down the thin fabric of a skirt so short, he’d have to speak with her later about not wearing it to the office. Before she left, she looked back at him over a shoulder.

  “One last thing. Just for the hell of it, I looked up all the entities that agent currently represents. I found thirty seven represented companies. I had my friend start checking into the companies on that list, but after he told me the first five, I told him to stop.”

  “Why stop your law-breaking at five, Ella?”

  He already knew.

  “Because all five of them were owned by the Dominion Trust.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Watching him dress was one of her very favorite pastimes, the way those slacks slid up his legs, encasing that muscular ass of his in their snug embrace. The wide stretch of those powerful shoulders as he pulled on the crisp white button-down shirt. The sound his belt made as he pulled it through the loops. The crisp, male scent of his cologne as he bent to kiss her. It made her want to jump him rather see him off on his trip.

  “Do you really have to go?” She untied the stay at the top of her robe, spreading it wide, the morning air cool on her revealed cleavage.

  His eyes dipped to the proffered breasts for just a moment, a quiet growl sounding deep in his throat. “You’re cruel, wifey.”

  She sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling up the hem of the robe to expose the lengths of her thighs, knowing her new position afforded him an even better view of her cleavage.

  “You probably should do something about that, shouldn’t you? Keep your wife in line, maybe? I wonder what you might have to do to her to get her to behave?”

  “I wonder,” he rumbled, stepping within the span of her thighs, his hand pulling her chin up. “You’re just digging your hole right now. You know I have to go.”

  Time to up the ante.

  She pulled the next three of the ties, and spread open the bodice of the robe, the curves of her breasts blatantly exposed. “You’ve got forty minutes until you need to be there.”

  His jaw clenched so hard she was sure it would break.

  “There’s time… before you go, Keihl. Sir.”

  She locked gazes with him, the dangerous fire she saw in his dark eyes something she hoped to stoke until he lost all control.

  His hand caressed her cheek, then eased over her ear, clenching suddenly in her hair, yanking her head back. Her breath left her in a pained gasp.

  “You know I don’t have time.” His other hand lifted her breast from the clutch of the robe, his big palm closing around the flesh, squeezing tightly.

  “Ah, yes,” she hissed, her eyes closing. Hoping. Somehow seeing him like this, knowing he’d be gone soon, made her feel almost desperate, as if by delaying him just that much longer, somehow he wouldn’t have to leave after all. It was unlike her. He’d left on dozens of trips, she on even more. What was going on here? Was it the baby? Was it just crazy hormones? Or was this something more, something deeper? Why was she so desperate to keep up with the Game, when in the back of her mind she knew she should just set it aside, revisit it another time? After.

  “I’ll miss these when I’m gone,” he rumbled, giving her breast a deep, hard squeeze sending that confusing mix of pain and pleasure straight to her sex. “I’ll miss you when I’m gone.”

  He pulled up on her hair, making her stretch for him, and he bent over her, closing that gap, his hungry lips devouring hers, his tongue darting deep, possessively, angrily.

  Yes.

  She thrilled to it, knowing, feeling how much he didn’t want to leave her either. This was what was so confusing to her, this spiraling need, almost an obsession to go deeper, to push further, to see what lay beyond that next turning point. To see what might be, to learn what she might want. Kirsten didn’t want him to go, because she was already starting to think of herself as his, as connected to him in a way much deeper, much more profound than simple bonds of marriage. Now, it was something truly primal, instinctive. She kept coming back to this — it was a desire that fed on itself, drawing energy, velocity from all corners, from all experiences.

  Even her pregnancy.

  Your therapist would have a field day with this.

  But did she care anymore?

  As Keihl growled into her mouth, his soft lips pressing to her cheeks, to her nose, her eyes, the little sounds of delight, and of ownership, coming from deep in his chest, she knew the answer to that.

  All that mattered was this connection, the forging of this ever deeper bond — and her fear that in the end, just as all seemed in her grasp, it would slip away, lost to the heartache of what might have been, of the path seen, but never taken.

  Keihl dropped to a knee in front of her, his hand loosening in her hair, but not letting go. He guided her other breast from the confines of her robe, his gaze greedily drinking in the sight. He met her gaze.

  “These… are mine.” His eyes narrowed a moment, and he looked up. “So I have a task for you, my beautiful wife. Something I want you to do, while I’m gone.”

  “Anything,” she murmured, turning to kiss his wrist, her hands upon that solid chest, feeling the hard muscle there. The muscle she’d be bereft of for the next sixteen days.

  His hand cupped a breast, gently bouncing it in his palm, the thumb stroking back and forth across her nipple, sending electric pulses down to her core each time. The sensitivity of her nipples was now at an almost unreal level, the fine line between pleasure and pain nearly indistinguishable now.

  “While I’m gone, I might miss something.”

  “Like what,” she asked, givin
g him a coy smile. She was changing every day. Perhaps the reminder of that would stay his decision, convince him to remain after all?

  A fool’s hope. A hormone-addled, deeply in love, pregnant woman’s hope.

  He took hold of her nipple, squeezing just enough to get her biting her own lip, the sensation dancing on that knife edge between not enough, and too much.

  “These, for instance.” He twisted her nipple slowly, and her breath caught, her pussy spasming. “They’ll darken, and lengthen — among other things. And I want to see it all.”

  “How do you expect to do that from 3000 miles away?”

  The trip to DC had been planned for months, long before she’d gotten pregnant. She wasn’t far enough along to convince him to stay — quite. But up until today, she’d nursed the hope that perhaps — no matter how irrational — he’d change his mind, that somehow someone else could go in his stead. But it wasn’t to be.

  Stop being an idiot. He’s not leaving forever, Kirsten.

  “Did you hear me, girl?” He twisted her nipple again, harder, and she squeaked with the pain.

  “Sorry. What did you say?”

  He gave her a gently admonishing shake of his head. “You’re going to do something for me while I’m gone. And you’re going to do it every single day.”

  “I am?”

  He nodded, a slow smile curving his lips. “Yes, you are. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be at the hotel in Arlington, and I want to see a report from you.”

  Uh oh…

  “Report?”

  “Yes. Each morning I want either a picture or a short video of you. Naked.”

  “O—Okay.” She swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. “What … do you want me to do?”

  “Simply show me that body. I’ll leave it up to you for tomorrow — and tomorrow only. After that, I’ll have instructions for you for the next day, and each day after that.”