Page 85 of Surrender
“And you think I’d take that away from you,” he says knowingly.
I shrug. “We have a good thing going. Why can’t we stay as we are?”
He pulls back and slides his hands through his hair, gripping the back of his neck. “Because it’s not enough for me anymore.”
My shoulders sag in defeat as I stare down at the space between us. We’re so close, yet so far away. He’s asking for something I’m not sure I have inside of me to give, and I know that means he’s going to walk away.
My heart begins breaking. Suddenly, his warmth is pressed against me. I look up as he roughly shoves my back against the wall. His hands reach down and are vice-grips around my wrists as he pins them above my head so high, my feet nearly lift off the ground.
I cry out in shock as his lips crash down on mine in the most feral, possessive, intensely passionate kiss of my entire life. Like a savage, he parts my lips with his tongue and sucks mine into his mouth, a deep growl vibrating from him as he devours me to his fill.
My eyes squeeze together, willing my concentration to stay deeply focused because I know I’m experiencing something I’ve never felt before. I have to take it all in. I can’t miss a single tiny detail of what’s happening between us.
He sinks his teeth onto my lower lip, sucking it between his lips so hard, it’s like he’s draining every last part of me. All those bits I’ve been holding back. All those feelings I’ve denied for weeks, for days, for minutes, for seconds. I’ve kept this part of me away from him because I knew deep down what would happen if I didn’t.
This.
This would happen.
Gareth Harris would claim me.
His lips continue pillaging, sucking, tasting, grazing, teasing my entire mouth into such a frenzy, I can’t help but participate. His tongue massages mine, and he kisses me like he was born to do so. Like I’ve never been kissed before.
My back arches into his firmness, my feet dancing on the ground as I yearn for more and less at the same time. My body and mind at war with each other as he takes the gift I gave him.
A kiss.
Just a kiss, but also so much more.
When he breaks away, I moan from the loss of his pressure on me. My hands feel pasted to the bricks above me as he steps back with a fire in his eyes, like he’s ripped an organ straight from my body and is holding it hostage in front of me.
“We’re not all one thing, Sloan,” he repeats, his voice guttural and his face haunted as he looks me up and down in a possessive sweep.
He’s proud of the work he’s done.
Then he leaves.
He walks away…
…and he doesn’t look back.
I watch him drive away and admit with an earth-shattering thud of my heart that we are more than one thing. But am I strong enough to not lose myself beneath him?
ISMOOTH DOWN THE LAPELSof my suit as I sit in the backseat of a stretch limo that’s just pulled up to the red carpet of the National Football Museum. Photographers, fans, and fellow attendees swarm the grand entrance as celebrities and footballers make their way inside for the FPA Awards Gala. The same gala where I’ll be named Player of the Year.
How crazy is that?
What’s even crazier is that all I can focus on is the nauseous feeling this suit is giving me. The suit Sloan made me.
The texture of the material wasn’t an issue before. Come to think of it, nothing was an issue when I was with her. As we grew closer, she became the only woman who could touch me any way she liked and not send chills down my spine. My texture sensitivity had been magically cured. She was like my own personal anxiety medication that soothed away the unusual strain that a lifetime of painful memories had inflicted on me.
Now, everything aches. It’s like I can feel the stitches closing in on me with every breath, tightening around me like a noose.
My mobile vibrates in my hand. I glance down to check it, sickeningly hoping to see Sloan’s name on the screen.
Dad: I’m very proud of you, Gareth. Wish I could be there.
My traitorous heart splinters down the middle from the tone of his text. Part of me wants to text back and ask him what it would take for him to put me first for once in his bloody life. Even when he asked me to move back to London, I knew he was only thinking of himself. But there’s this new part of my heart—a part that never existed before—that understands a tiny fraction of the pain he feels on a daily basis.
