No Surrender

by Sara Arden

  Maybe she’d become his ideal somewhere along the way because she wasn’t the type of woman who broke. Or at least, that was what she showed the world.

  Sean knew without a doubt this thing between them would break her.

  He knew that she had feelings for him, always had. Knew that she was in love with him.

  He loved her, but he wasn’t in love with her. Never would be. He didn’t know if he could be in love. Sean loved his job, but it required a certain disconnect to do what he did. A certain level of surrender and nonattachment.

  It wasn’t fair to do this to her.

  But Jesus Christ, when she said things like that, about not wearing any panties and showing him, he wanted to see it. He wanted to call her to the mat, then mount her on it.

  Just as he would on this damn pool table.

  Devil help them all if she actually had leaned over the pool table and shown him her bare cleft, all moist and slick for him, splayed for his view.

  His cock was so rigid he probably didn’t need the cue to shoot.

  Instead of releasing her, he only stepped closer. “You’re not wrong, Kentucky. I should go take a shower. I should submerge myself in ice, but it wouldn’t do any good. Not with your perfect ass in that skirt and your dirty little mouth telling me everything that’s not under it. That you’re bare.”

  “Maybe I was just talking shit. Maybe there’s a thong under there. Maybe there are high-waisted granny panties.” She leaned back against him just a little bit, but in that action was submission.

  Surrender to what he wanted from her.

  He hadn’t thought he could get any harder.

  “Maybe, but now you’re wondering what it would be like if I bent you over this pool table and I’m wondering what your hair looks like splayed on that green felt.”

  She shivered delicately. “So what if I am? I wonder a lot of things.”

  “Hey, Kentucky. If you’d told me you needed instruction on how to hold the cue, I’d have been happy to help,” a guy from across the bar said.

  Sean had fantasies of punching him in the face for speaking to her that way but realized that he’d spoken to her the same way. Treated her like a disposable thing just because he wanted her. Wanted the solace she offered and, more than that, the pleasure.

  “Yeah, you’re good at holding the cue. You do it every night by yourself,” Kentucky tossed back.

  “You’re a mean woman, Kentucky Lee.”

  “And don’t forget it, Billy Doniphan.”

  The guy held up his beer like a salute to Sean and nodded.

  “It’s like he wants to die,” Sean grumbled.

  Kentucky laughed, the sound melodic. “Oh, please. You don’t need to get into any fights over my honor. I’ve been turning him down since high school. He thinks you’re some kind of superman for getting this close to me.”

  “He doesn’t respect you.”

  “Do you?” She turned and faced him, placing her palms on his shoulders.

  Her touch was like a brand. “Of course I do.” Sean leaned closer to her, brought her against him and danced with her to whatever sad, slow ballad was howling from the jukebox—the game of pool forgotten.

  “That’s why I’m having such a hard time with last night.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to let it change us,” she whispered.

  “Me, too, but it did. Because I can’t stop thinking about touching you.”

  “Then maybe you should touch me while you can.”

  “Then what, Kentucky?”

  “I don’t know.” She swayed against him in time to the music. “But if we’ve already changed, we can’t pretend like we haven’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it hurts and right now nothing has to hurt.” She moved her palms from his shoulders to his back and pressed herself even more intimately against him. “It can just be about what feels good.”

  “And then when I leave?”

  “Then you leave. I know you’re not looking for love. You’re looking for comfort, solace, a surcease of sorrow.”

  “And I’m looking to use you to do that. To fill myself up with all you want to give me until it doesn’t hurt anymore. Until the night isn’t so dark. But I have nothing to give you in return.”

  “Did I ask you for anything?” She looked up at him, eyes wide and luminous in the half-light. “And before you tell me I don’t know what to ask for, believe me… I do. I also know that I’m a grown woman who doesn’t need you or Eric telling me what I deserve or what I want.” She leaned into him again, brushing her cheek against him, her breath a soft tease on his neck.

  “Maybe I want something to lose myself in, too. Maybe I’m feeling how alone I am with a singular intensity and maybe I want to put a Band-Aid on it. Maybe I want to use you to do it.”

  She described exactly what he was feeling, what he was afraid of.

  “But you know what we do with Band-Aids, right? We throw them away.” Something dark twisted in his gut.

  “Neither one of us are Band-Aids. We’re people. I’m not going to throw you away after you make the pain stop. You told me last night if I thought that about you, that I didn’t know you very well. What’s changed?”

  “I guess what’s changed is that I see what you want from me, Kentucky. I see you. I’ve always seen you.” She stilled in his arms, stood motionless. “But I want something from you, too, and it’s only a pale imitation of what you deserve. You shouldn’t accept anything but everything, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “Here I thought I kept my secrets well hidden.” She didn’t try to deny it. He loved that about her—she was so honest, so raw. He couldn’t imagine living that way, with his insides exposed to the world in that unapologetic manner.

  “Not from me. Lynnie never saw that want in you. You did hide it well from everyone but me. I know you like I know myself.”

  “Then you should also know that I wouldn’t offer you what I can’t handle.”

  “Yes, you would. You’d give me the world because that’s who you are.”

  “Don’t let that get out,” she half laughed, and pulled away from him to look up at him. “You’ve made me into some kind of martyr, and, Sean, I’m anything but. If I were a martyr, I’d have never taken you to Mossy Rock. I wouldn’t be here with you now hoping that your hands don’t stay on my waist. Or wondering if the stockroom in the back has a lock on the door.”

  “It does.” He knew he shouldn’t have gone there, shouldn’t have focused on the part of that statement where he got exactly what he wanted. He wasn’t protecting her; he wasn’t being a good friend. He was being the worst kind of bastard, preying on her wants and needs to get what he wanted when he knew in the end it would hurt her.

  She took his hand silently and guided him back to the storeroom and he followed her obediently as if he were the one being led down the path to his own demise.

  Kentucky locked the door behind him.

  He searched her eyes for a long moment looking for regret, for desire, for his own absolution.

  The only thing he saw there was her offering him everything he wanted on a platter.

  So he took it.

  His lips crashed into hers, rough and demanding. Instead of meeting him head-to-head, she melted beneath him, became pliable in his arms with her mouth opening under his like the unfurling of tender rosebuds in a thunderstorm.

  He could’ve laughed at his own description. Sean Dryden didn’t talk that way, didn’t think that way, but something about Kentucky made him want to find the pretty words. Made him dig through the darkness for the light, made him want to lay those pretty things at her feet.

  Sean remembered what she’d said about touching her until he could stop thinking about her, basically until he stopped wanting her. He wondered if that would ever happen. It was almost as if her body were a drug and now that he’d had his first hit, he couldn’t stop.

  Didn’t want to stop.

  She felt better
than anything had in so long.

  Better than the last time he’d been with Lynnie.

  He’d been so afraid of soiling her, of breaking her, of tarnishing her with all of the dark things he had to see and do. He’d just wanted to protect her.

  With Kentucky, the only pain he could cause her wasn’t the kind he could protect her from. Even if he walked away from her now, he’d already crossed that line.

  They’d both already crossed the line.

  He slid his hand up between her legs, satisfying his curiosity as to what was beneath that tight little skirt. His fingers came into contact with soft silk—so not bare, and not a lacy thong at all.

  Demure but sexy little silk panties. He wanted—no, needed—to know if they were pink just like her bra. Pink like the inside of her pretty pussy. Sean stroked his finger back and forth over the material until it was damp and she was breathless.

  He lifted her and sat her on top of the metal storage rack whose shelves were full of bottles of hard cider and imported beer. She leaned back and anchored herself, gripping the edges of the sturdy shelf.

  Sean pulled her panties down her long legs and stuffed them in his pocket. He angled her legs open and pressed his mouth to the inside of her knee. It was tender and sensitive. She shivered with each caress as he moved up her thigh, his fingers holding her knees wide.

  He wanted to taste her again, her essence on his tongue. He wanted to drive her wild so she was as addicted to him as he was to her.

  He loved the taste of her, the way she squirmed to get closer to him, the way her thighs tensed when she was close to her orgasm.

  He licked and laved, his cock swollen and thick, seemingly more so with every caress, every slide of his tongue over her engorged pink flesh.

  This angle was amazing. He was going to have to invest in metal shelves everywhere he ever lived. It gave him an unfettered view and easy access.

  Sean grabbed her ass and pulled her forward toward his mouth. He did all the things to her with his tongue he wanted to do with other parts of his body—thrusting his tongue inside her the same as he would his cock or his fingers.

  She loved every second of it, her smothered, breathy cries fueling him onward.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Please more? Yeah,” he said, ghosting his breath over her slit.

  He continued the campaign until she was shuddering against him and he could taste the evidence of her pleasure on his lips.

  Sean was good at this, at reading her body and giving her exactly what she needed. He took pride in that and loved the little sounds she made as she surrendered to ecstasy.

  He dropped his jeans, cock hard and at the ready. Sean used the condom he’d pulled from his wallet and worked it down his erection before lifting her easily from the metal shelves and sliding her down his body until he’d impaled her on his cock.

  For Sean, it was like the dawn. The feeling of her around him, pulling him deeper, banished all the darkness in his head. The loneliness, the fear and, for a moment, even the guilt.

  She clung to him, her forehead resting against his, her breath sweet on his lips. He wanted to taste her mouth, wanted her to taste her own pleasure on their lips.

  Kentucky gasped when their lips met and he lost himself in her, let himself drown in her pleasure.

  He pressed her against the wall, hips thrusting up to bury himself deep inside her and she leaned her head back, seeming to be completely oblivious to everything but him. She obviously trusted him to hold her up, to take her higher, to make her come again.

  Her interior walls tensed around him again as her pleasure reached its pinnacle and he spilled inside her.

  Even with his knees weak and his body still frenetic from his release, he didn’t want to put her down.

  When he put her down, when they broke apart, he’d have to face the world again. The pain. The shame.

  He’d have to examine what he’d done.

  What he’d do again if she let him.

  It was as if she knew. “Stay here with me a moment longer,” she said.

  So Sean did, because he didn’t want the intrusion of the outside world any more than she did.

  Would Eric and Rachel know what had happened?

  Not that he cared, not really. Eric would warn him off, but not because of Lynnie. He’d confided in Eric about his feelings, or lack of feelings, for Lynnie before he’d spoken to her about it. No, Eric would want him to consider Kentucky, to consider what the consequences of their choices were more than what was a healing balm in the moment.

  He’d be right.

  But neither of them could seem to stop.

  She wrapped her arms around him tight, clung to him, and he held her there. As if that could hold the moment with them.

  “The way this feels right now, I wish we could stay here.” Her voice was quiet and low.

  “Me, too. But the world didn’t stop spinning. We should get back out there.”

  “Okay. You go first. I’ll follow.”

  He kissed her again, tasting their passion on her mouth. “Kentucky—” he began.

  “No, we’re not doing regrets.”

  “I have to see you again,” he blurted.

  “Okay. You can come to the garage tomorrow. I live upstairs.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “I’m still not offering anything.”

  “I’m still not asking.” She shoved him toward the door. “This can be good. At least until you leave. Don’t screw it up by overanalyzing it.”

  He knew better.

  He knew better than to believe that this would do anything but crash and burn. He knew better than to take what was happening between them at face value, especially when he knew what was on the other side of the coin. He knew better than to think this wasn’t going to end them.

  But he would follow her down that primrose path to hell anyway.

  6

  “SO, YOU AND Dryden a thing?” Billy asked when he found her outside Eddie’s.

  Sean was still inside talking with Rachel and Eric, but she needed some room to breathe. Space to think. Perhaps talk some sense into herself.

  She inhaled the warm summer air and looked up at the sky. It was different now; the stars were different. The way they hung, burning and oblivious to the travails of the tiny creatures below. The sky wasn’t different, she supposed. She was.

  This was the same sky she’d looked up at the night before she’d been with Sean. The same sky after.

  But everything was different.

  “No,” she finally answered him.

  “You’re not the type to go into storerooms with guys on a whim,” he said.

  “How would you know? Just because I’ve never been in a storeroom with you?” she tossed back, defensive. She didn’t want to be prey for the rumor mill. Especially not for all the women who’d been practically foaming at the mouth at Lynnie’s funeral to get a piece of Sean.

  She turned to look at Billy. “We just had some things to talk through. That’s all.”

  “There wasn’t any talking. Some moaning, maybe. But no talking.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She pursed her lips and met his eyes evenly, trying to stare him down. Some part of her hoped if she stared long enough, her ire would melt that memory from his brain and they’d never need speak of it again.

  “I guess it’s none of my business.”

  “Nope,” she agreed easily.

  “But you know, there are more guys walking the earth than Sean Dryden.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Me, that’s what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I know you’re a guy.” She teased him because she didn’t want to have this discussion. Billy was a sweet country boy who’d been her friend for a long time. But she never had any interest in him.

  It made her think of her situation with Sean. She tried to imagine a scenario where she turned to Billy for comfort the way Sean had turned to her. The idea of
his hands on her, while it wasn’t repulsive, did nothing for her at all.

  She wondered if that was the way Sean thought about her.

  No, no. It couldn’t be. Not after what had just happened in the storeroom. She’d just told him not to overanalyze it, so she wasn’t going to do that either. She wasn’t going to pick apart each interaction and try to make it more or less than it was.

  “Kentucky, you know what I mean. No man has ever been able to make any headway with you since you first laid eyes on Dryden. His halo is blinding you to everything else.”

  “You can’t help who you love.”

  “I guess that’s true.” Billy nudged her. “Because, girl, even though I wish I didn’t feel this way, you’re it for me.”

  “I was trying to save you the confession.”

  “Words like that aren’t meant to be saved. To be hidden. You got to speak them to the world and let them breathe.”

  “Well, that’s nothing short of terrifying.” She laughed, unsure of what else to say to him. How to comfort him without hurting him.

  “Not so much. I lose nothing by telling you I care about you. A wild thing like you should know that.”

  But she could lose everything—especially the fantasy that someday Sean Dryden would be in love with her. She liked having someday. She liked being able to hold that close and hope.

  Sean knew how she felt. She wasn’t going to tell him, beat that dead horse into the ground. Neither was she going to deny herself these days with him. She could practice recrimination and regret after he was gone, although she’d never been a big fan of either.

  “Billy, you’re a sweet guy.”

  “Oh, hell, we don’t need to go there. I don’t need the nice-guy talk.” Billy grinned. “I just wanted you to know when whatever’s going on with you is done, I’ll be here.” He patted her back in an oddly platonic gesture and went back inside.

  “What are you doing out here?” Rachel asked her as she pushed her way past Billy.

  “Man, y’all keep filling up my dance card. I just wanted some quiet. Too many people inside, too much noise. You know me. I’m kind of a loner sometimes.”

  “Sean is inside getting hammered. What did you say to him?”

  “Nothing.” She brushed her hands on her skirt. “Look, I’m going to go. I’m tired.”