Kendall Ryan - When I Surrender

He smirked. “Not the same thing, angel. I have custody of three boys. Don’t bring my shit into this. We’re talking about you.”

“I happen to like volunteering, and I like being here with you guys. I have no desire to go out and party it up like a twenty-one year old.”

“But someday you might. And you might regret not doing all the things young people are supposed to do.”

Was he speaking from experience? He’d certainly missed out on enough being responsible for his brothers. Though his sexploits more than made up for that deficit. “I’m not going to regret anything.” I already lived with enough regret over my choices that fateful day I’d lost my parents. There wasn’t room for more in my world. “Serving others is the only thing that keeps me sane. The only thing that makes me feel okay with being me,” I whispered.

“I get that.”

“Then don’t ask me to change.”

“I want you to find balance – that’s all.” Knox wrapped one hand around my knee and gave it a gentle squeeze. His touch was all that was needed to reassure me. He wasn’t trying to force me to change or make me feel guilty about my choices.

“I want that, too,” I admitted.

“One step at a time. Right, angel?”

I grinned up at him wryly. It was the same thing I’d said to him once about his addiction. “Right.” I was suddenly feeling like the patient rather than the counselor. This was new.

“There’s something that scares me, McKenna.” Knox ran a hand through his wayward hair, meeting my eyes with a worried stare. “One day you’re going to forgive yourself and let go of all this hurt you carry around. You’re going to wake up and realize I’m all wrong for you.”

Knox was the only one to call me out on my obsessive tendencies. I avoided my life. I avoided dealing with my emotions and grief. Not even Brian was brave enough to tell me the truth. I appreciated his honesty, but he was wrong. I’d always want him. He made me feel alive and secure. Like maybe I could finally stop running from my past.

“And when all that happens, you’re going to want someone nice and normal,” he continued.

“Let me guess, someone like Brian?”

“The thought has crossed my mind, yes. He’s in love with you, McKenna.”

The crushing weight of the knowledge that he was right hit me square in the chest. Knox was looking at me like he could see straight through me. I could not have felt more exposed if I’d been sitting there completely naked. How did he not only understand me so well, but also get my complicated relationship with Brian? Feeling vulnerable and needy, I curled into his side, needing his warmth, his protection from the muddled mess my life had become. Knox pulled me closer, lifting my mouth to his while my pulsed thrummed violently in the base of my throat.

I didn’t try and explain away my feelings, I didn’t even tell him that I wasn’t going anywhere, but I did decide then and there it was time to show him how deeply my feelings for him ran.

Unable to resist the swell of her full mouth quivering so close to mine, I lowered my lips to hers.

A kiss that was meant to be innocent quickly turned heated. McKenna whimpered and opened her mouth to mine, our tongues tangling wildly as her hands pushed into my hair. She nipped my lower lip, tugging it with her teeth to pull me closer.

She was a woman in need and I was just a man. A man who hadn’t been laid in God knows how long. I needed to feel her heat surround me. Gripping her ass, I lifted her from the sofa and moved her to my lap. She wrapped her legs around my waist, clinging to me like I was her everything. And maybe I was. It broke my fucking heart and something in me snapped.

With our mouths fused together, her tongue hypnotically rubbing against mine, I found my hands unbuttoning her pants. Rather than stop me, McKenna’s hips pushed forward, her body eager for friction.

I needed her just as badly as she needed me. We were two lost souls fighting to cling to something real. But our first time shouldn’t be like this – so desperate and full of anguish, mouths seeking, hands grasping, clutching for something to hold on to. We were a tangle of limbs and hands groping until each of us had shed the other of our clothes. I lifted a fully nude McKenna, strode with her across the room and lay us back against my bed. She straddled me and remained motionless for several seconds. The dim light in my room bathed her skin a faint golden glow. She’d never looked more beautiful to me than in that moment.

Pulling away from her mouth, I cupped her face in my hands. Hazy blue eyes slowly blinked open to meet mine. “Not like this, not for your first time,” I breathed, my heart pounding.

“But this is how I need it. Make me forget everything else,” she whispered.

I wanted her to know only my name, to know it was me inside her, but she deserved to be loved, cherished, and I had fuck-all of a clue how to do that properly. I only knew the physical aspects – I dealt in pleasure and orgasms and how many condom wrappers were on the floor the next morning. But real intimacy, taking care of all a woman’s needs – let alone a woman as complex as McKenna? It was a sure shot at failure.

But right then, in that moment, McKenna was just a girl looking for closeness any way she could get it. If that ended with me inside her, so be it. It was the only way I knew. And it seemed neither of us was capable of waiting anymore.

She was giving herself to me, despite knowing what I was. The most beautiful gift she had to offer was mine. Feeling her damp heat against my belly where she sat, and my erection brushing against her ass, desire rocketed through me.

Everything in me wanted to take control, to lift her hips and position her so she could slide down on me, but I knew if I did that, I’d hurt her. And since that wasn’t in the cards, I hauled her off me, forcing her to lie on her back.

Coils of desire raced through my bloodstream, and I had to physically force myself to go slow. I kissed McKenna, long and deep, claiming her with my mouth. Never had I spent so much time just kissing, but with her, I found it strangely satisfying and hard to stop. When she was squirming beneath me on the bed, I dropped to my knees on the floor between her legs, taking her ankles in my hands and planting her feet on the bed so that she was wide open for me. McKenna’s head lifted from the pillow and she looked at me, poised above her with wide set eyes. With my gaze locked on hers, I lowered my mouth to the juncture between her thighs and inhaled. McKenna flinched, her belly dipping as she sucked in a breath. She needed to understand that I loved the feminine scent of her arousal. That sweet fragrance made me lose all sense of right and wrong, all rational thought. Parting her glistening pink flesh, I swirled my tongue over her clit until a sob broke from her lips. Her entire body trembled, begging for release, while I ruthlessly licked against her.

Her orgasm hit me like a sucker punch to the gut. I was becoming addicted to giving pleasure rather than taking it. Emotions tore through me and I took a moment, sitting back on my heels and wondering how it was this beautiful woman I’d only known a short time had completely undone me.

“Knox,” she whimpered, reaching for me.

I crawled up onto the bed with her and McKenna immediately took my cock in her hands, rubbing and stroking just like I’d shown her. A dark hunger simmered inside me, pooling at the base of my spine, the need to be inside her overtaking me. I reached for a condom and rolled it down my length while McKenna watched and chewed on her lip. Hesitation surged inside me. Was I doing the right thing?