T. Grey: Wicked Surrender

She was shaking her head no, a ridiculous denial. Why she was denying it, she wasn’t sure. Except that what she’d done with him last night was a mistake. Yet that incredible passion she felt then, she still felt. Her mind might be in a tug-o-war match over whether it was a mistake, or a huge mistake, but her body was practically fist pumping the air at his attention.

“No, eh?” He bent his knees and rubbed his cock along her pussy. Even through their clothes, it made Vera’s breath catch, her sex throb like a pulse. He pulled back to look down at her. This man was a soldier, a man who didn’t miss a thing. He caught her hooded eyes, her rapid pulse, her hard nipples in a split second.

His eyes fell on her lips like a predator assessing its prey. Her tongue darted out at his hungry expression.

His shoulders fell as if he just lost some great battle, then he growled a dark curse and took her mouth.

She was ready for his kiss, born ready, but it still didn’t make the impact of it any less devastating. He claimed her lips hard with slick tongue and fiery lips. Hands roaming down her curvy backside, cupped her bottom, possessing her with his mere touch.

All thoughts of why this wasn’t a good idea, of keeping the hard shield erected around her wilted away like a dying flower in winter. He consumed her with a dizzying passion that bordered on madness. Vera clung to him and exchanged every ounce of passionate energy with him. Her thighs scissored in need, ached to be wrapped around his hard hips.

The door shuddered beneath her back and Jacks pulled back on an ugly curse.

“You’ve got be fucking kidding me. This place is fucking rigged,” he growled and tore away from her.

Her hand shook as she opened the door to whoever was knocking. Dmetri was standing there with a feral scowl on his face. With his sense of smell and hearing, he hadn’t missed her and Jacks’ exchange. She grinned, well good. It was more than he deserved really.

“Can I help you...again, Dmetri? The meeting isn’t for another two hours.”

“Yes, I know. I wanted to see if you’d take a walk with me.” He sent a withering glare to Jacks who seemed completely unaffected by it.

Vera snorted. “You don’t go for walks, Dmetri. What do you really want?” He shifted on his feet, a subtle tell, but one she was familiar with. He was getting uncomfortable.

She looked up into his handsome face, and for a moment, she almost wanted to cry. To break down and let it all out without a care for who saw her. This man had broken her heart into a million irreparable pieces.

“I wanted to talk.”

Vera’s smile faltered. Her heart felt like an anvil was sitting on it and her eyes watered. She quickly looked down and discreetly blinked them away, hoping like hell that he didn’t see that. She really needed to take a good sniff, but couldn’t with these two men around her--her old lover and her new one.

When she had her tears under control, she finally lifted her head—and knew from the tightening around his eyes that he’d noticed it.

In a cheery voice, she said, “Fine, I was going out anyways,” and stepped past him.

She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. She walked and didn’t stop until there was grass under her feet. Dmetri came up beside her, his long blonde hair reaching towards her in the breeze. The sunlight bounced off his pale skin giving him a faint, creamy glow.

A sudden thought had her snickering. “What?” Dmetri asked, looking at her.

“I was just thinking it’s funny that your skin doesn’t glitter in the sunlight.”

He looked at her as if she’d just escaped the nuthouse. “Why on earth would I glitter in the sunlight?”

After she had her laughter under control, she said with all seriousness, “Because you’re a vampire. Edward Cullen glitters in the sunlight, like a diamond twinkling in the light.”

“I don’t know who Edward Cullen is but vampires do not ... twinkle .” He said the word with such disdain that she broke into a fit of laughter. His eyes softened as he looked down at her and her laughter quickly turned into hard coughs.

She knew he was there because she could smell his distinct scent but she looked behind her anyway to see Jacks trailing them. He looked every bit the bodyguard with his eyes alert on the environment—on Dmetri. Her heart leaped in her chest, stomach fluttered and danced as she looked at him. When she turned back to look at Dmetri, she didn’t miss the fact that she felt none of that for him.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“You, me, us.”

“There hasn’t been an ‘us’ for a long time, and there isn’t going to be.”

“God dammit, Vera, just give me a chance. I fucked up badly. I know that now and I want to fix it.” Some things were either too broken to fix or too old to bother with. She wasn’t sure which category they belonged it, but it was probably the former.

“You don’t really want me, Dmetri.” He started to argue but she held out a hand. “No wait, listen to me. You don’t. We were together for a whole year. A year that I spent loving you and you spent not loving me. You didn’t love me then and you don’t love me now. That’s why you ended things.”

Calm and cool, Vera took a deep breath and nearly smiled. She was doing good at this. Shock couldn’t begin to describe what she was feeling. More like her mind was in a blender and someone hit frappe. But neither she nor her beast was interested in his offer, which surprised her most of all.

“Dammit, I’m sorry about that Vera. I’ve been sorry about it ever since I said it, ever since I let you go. And why does love matter so much to you anyways? We didn’t need love then and we don’t need it now. We were good together, Vera. We both know it.”

Vera’s hands curled into fists. She may not be as strong as a vampire, but with the rage of her lykaen beast, she was certain she could get in a few, very gratifying shots before he could react. Something in her snapped. Coming to a hard stop, she shoved him hard in the chest.

“You’ve been sorry about it? What the hell does that mean. No, don’t answer that. I know what it means. It means you realized you fucked up and now you miss me. Well do you know what I have to say about that,” she looked left then right, then got up in his face and yelled, “too fucking bad!”

It felt good to be telling him how she felt. Hell, she’d been living with it for years. And now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop. She paced before him and ranted.

“You don’t know what love has to do with it? What are you Tina Turner? Love has everything to do with it. I loved you, Dmetri. I wanted to marry you and spend my life with you in that ridiculously huge castle you call a home.” She was shouting now but she didn’t care.

“We might have been ‘good’ together, but dammit I can do better. I can be great with someone, if I’m lucky we might even be perfect. And you know what, Dmetri? I’m glad you broke up with me. I’m ecstatic because it was the right thing to do. You didn’t love me, and that’s not what I want. I want a man who can actually say the words and mean them. A man who actually needs to hear that I love him too.”

Her voice lowered to a husky, shaking whisper. Unshed tears were shiny droplets hanging in her eyes, her body a shaking mass of wired flesh.

“And you don’t deserve this either. You don’t deserve a half a relationship. You deserve a woman you can love and a woman who loves you. You may not realize it yet, but it’s true.”

And with her words still lingering in the air, she turned and walked away, her old pain a fleeting memory.

# # #

Vera had to walk, couldn’t stop moving even as she pushed into the trees and felt her feet sinking into the soft, muddy soil. She looked up through the canopy of trees to see gray light filtering in like flashlight beams from heaven. A storm was moving in, it darkened the sky with dark puffy clouds as it rumbled and growled its way overhead.