Surrender (Careless Whispers #3)(19)

“Yes,” he says, his free hand brushing my hair back and tilting my face to his. “Safety comes first. It allows you to keep fighting the battles that need to be fought.”

Suddenly I am squeezing my eyes shut, and I’m back in time, in a gym with my father.



We are facing each other, circling on the mat. “Defend yourself at all costs,” he says, throwing a punch that should hit me, but he stops short.

“Damn it, child.” He knocks me to the ground and stands over me. “You could be dead right now. Your mother could be dead right now.”

“Don’t say that,” I hiss.

“Because of you, she could be dead,” he says. “Defend yourself at all costs.”

A growl escapes my throat and I stand back up. He throws a punch and I duck under it, kneeing him in the stomach. He catches my leg and I go down again.

He stands over me. “What do you do now?”



“Ella.”

I blink and the moment I look into Kayden’s eyes, he presses inside me. I gasp, and then pant, the feel of him stretching me, of pulling me down his hard shaft, stealing any thought or worry. “Now you’re with me,” he says. “That’s where I want you. With me and safe.”

I lift my bound hands and touch my fingers to his face. “I like that I am safe with you. But you are safe with me, too. I want to be that for you. You know that, right?”

His forehead finds mine. “Ah, woman, what you do to me. Yes. I know I am safe with you, in ways only you understand.” He reaches up and rips the tape, leaving it connected to my arms but freeing me. I immediately dive my fingers into the thick waves of his light brown hair.

“That means I need to be that person you can escape with,” I say, tightening my grip on his hair. “I need, I want, to be the person you escape with.”

“You already are.”

“I mean that dirty sex you talked about.”

“Ella—”

I press my lips to his, lingering there a moment, our bodies gliding just a little left and right. “I want that part of you. I want it to be a part of me. I want us to be that . . . complete.”

He cups my backside, pulling me farther against him. “You really want this?”

“Yes. I want to escape too. With you.”

He does a slow slide in and out of me, his lips brushing mine, his teeth nipping my lip. “Feel my hand,” he says, squeezing my backside.

“Yes. I feel everything.”

“I’m going to keep caressing,” he says, rubbing the sensitive skin, “and fucking.” He drives into me. Slow. Gently. He slides his hips back and forth, moving our bodies together. “Then, I’m going to spank you. Three times. Not hard, but not soft. And then we’re going to fuck hard.”

“Can you just do it now so I don’t have to be nervous?”

“If I do that, there’s no anticipation.”

“Right,” I say. “Anticipation.”

He kisses me, a long swipe of his tongue, followed by another, our bodies moving, his hand caressing. “Anticipation,” he murmurs, “is good.”

“My heart is racing,” I confess. “Really fast.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Promise? No. I know you won’t.”

“Easy, sweetheart,” he says, dragging his cock slowly back and then driving into me. “What are you thinking right now?”

I gasp. “Thinking? I’m . . . not.”

He drives into me again and squeezes my cheek. “Now?”

“That felt good.”

He does it again. “And that?”

“Better.”

He kisses me again and then says, “Now, sweetheart. One, two, three.”

“Now? I—”

He smacks my backside, with a firm, flat palm that bites sharply, and a roar of sensations erupts inside me, my sex clenching his cock, air lodging in my lungs. Already another smack comes, and then another. Then Kayden is kissing me, wild, crazy kissing me, and our bodies are melded together, the world falling away. There is this deep burn in my body, in my entire existence, that needs to be closer to him. That needs him to drive harder and faster. I have never been so lost, so explosive, and I lose everything but the sensations. Strokes. Grinds. Touches. Kisses. And then suddenly reality is spinning and fading in and out, my body stiffening. And then I am tumbling into oblivion, quaking from within. Kayden cups my head and leans into me, a low groan escaping his lips, rough and sexy, before he’s shuddering, shaking.

Slowly his body eases, and so does mine, the present returning, and awareness with it. I am limp, completely, utterly sated, my leg resting on his hip, when I don’t even remember it being there. Seconds tick by, our breathing all that fills the air, and everything comes back to me. The slow caresses, the sting of my backside. The absolute lust I felt in the wake of that sting.

Kayden cups my cheek, tilting my face to his. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Did I—”

“Hurt me? Scare me? No, you did not.”

He studies me, then, “Would you—”

“Do it again? Yes, I would.” My hand flattens on his chest. “I can’t explain it, and I know that was barely anything, but it was intimate in ways that I couldn’t be with anyone else. In ways I thought that I would never be with anyone, after Garner Neuville. You are somehow dangerous and sexy and still safe, and I don’t know how that’s even possible.”