Page 72 of Surrender
“I decide what’s good for me, Gareth,” I reply, then drip more wax on him.
He groans in pain and pleasure—a heady mix of confusing emotions.
“I make my own life decisions,” I add firmly.
He sighs heavily. “I’m sorry.”
His apology is surprising. I thought he’d fight me on this more. I thought I’d get to continue torturing him, and punishing him, and making him remember what we’re about. Instead, he’s submitting. He’s apologising, and it is really freaking sexy.
I blow out the candle and stretch over Gareth’s body to set it on the nightstand. My hair and breasts brush against his face, and his hands reach up and caress my back.
I pull back and smack his chest. “I didn’t say you can touch me.”
His lips form a thin line. “I’m sorry, Treacle.”
“Good,” I reply and sit upright on his cock. I press my hands to his chest and rake my nails through the wax coating on his trimmed chest hair. It’s messy, and flaky, and animalistic, and I find myself grinding down on him even harder. “Now, let me remind you why we do this.”
It took nearly an hour to scrape all the dried wax off of Gareth’s body, and it’s almost ten o’clock before we’re showered and back in his bed. Both still naked per my command, and both still gloriously satisfied. I watch Gareth’s muscled back as he stretches to flick off the bedside light.
He lies on his back next to me as I turn on my side to face him. “Did you like the wax?”
I can see his profile nodding in the darkness. “I like pretty much everything you do. Especially if you’re really into it.”
“Yeah?” I purse my lips to prevent the excited butterflies from escaping.
He nods and props a hand behind his head so his face is tilting down toward mine. “Although, I have the mostfunwhen you mess up, which means that sex with you is always bloody fantastic.”
I can’t help the Cheshire Cat grin that spreads across my face. “That is so crazy to hear.”
“Why?” he asks, eyeing me with a frown. “Didn’t you have great sex with your ex? I mean, you married him. It couldn’t have been that bad, right?”
I’m grateful for the darkness because he can’t see the guilty look flashing over my face. “It was never like this,” I reply, giving only a smidge away. “It was pretty basic. Traditional. Maybe if I had tried something different, it would have saved our marriage.”
Silence stretches between us. I think Gareth is looking at me, but it’s too dark to know for sure. His voice is soft when he asks, “Do you wish you would have saved your marriage?”
I frown at the thought. A few months ago, I might have said yes because not having Sophia every other week was killing me slowly. The dark days weren’t worth leaving a loveless marriage. My response is different now, though. I have found a life outside of Sophia and I’m learning to appreciate it.
“No, I think divorce was meant to be for us. I married him for all the wrong reasons.”
“What do you mean?”
I exhale at his heavy question. I can’t exactly tell him I got pregnant. And even though that was a large part of why we got married, it wasn’t the only reason. “I was young when I met Callum. Fresh out of college and a bit of a dreamer. My friends and I were talking about opening up our own boutique, but it seemed impossible to actually accomplish. I didn’t really grow up watching dreams come true.”
Gareth turns on his side to face me, his twinkling eyes smouldering on me when he asks, “How did you grow up?”
“We were broke,” I reply with a simple shrug of the shoulders. “Our dad took off when my sisters and I were little, so our mom raised us on her own. She worked two jobs only to still be a month behind on the bills. Even groceries were hard to afford. I remember she brought home chicken strips that were left in the fryer at the restaurant where she worked nights. She only got a couple at a time, so she froze them until we had enough for a meal. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t easy. Then I met Callum, and he was the opposite of poor. He was the epitome of wealth and responsibility. He was older than me, really established, really stable. I remember he always wore custom tailored suits. He had a good business, a good family. I met him at a bar, and he looked like he had it all together. I was still trying to figure out how I was going to pay my student loans once I got out of the grace period.”
I pause my retelling and think back to the child I was when I met Cal. I was a baby having a baby. Marrying him seemed like the only responsible decision.
Gareth continues watching me quietly, not feeling the need to fill the silence. Just instinctively knowing I need a moment.
Sighing heavily, I continue, “When he asked me to marry him, I saw myself being more responsible with someone like him. Less of a dreamer and more of a provider. I wanted stability. But we never really had that lustful attraction. We sort of skipped the fun stuff and went right to the grown-up stuff. Everything else was sort of forgotten about.”
“So you were attracted to his stability?” Gareth’s voice sounds disappointed, and I know what he’s thinking.
“I wasn’t a gold digger if that’s what you’re thinking—”
“That’s not what I’m thinking,” Gareth cuts me off, grabbing my arm urgently. “I’m just trying to figure out how a beautiful, strong woman like you could think she needed a man to make her feel stable.”
