RequiredSurrender

by Riley Murphy

  He picked up his phone and tapped. “Cam? Sorry for calling so late or I guess early but can you pick me up at the club?”

  “I’m in the parking lot waiting for you.”

  * * * * *

  Jo had run the gamut of feelings with the situation. She’d been upset, mad, mystified and finally resigned. She wanted Ted at whatever the cost, and seeing as how only weak little girls ran away from a fight, she was staying.

  At first she’d gone to bed, waiting for him to come home, but when he didn’t and it was past midnight? She decided he’d be home very soon and grabbed her dragon to wait for him at the front door.

  But then time ticked by and her eyelids got heavy. She was cold and eventually she didn’t want to listen for a car anymore. Lying down, she huddled against the mat and shivered until exhaustion won out. She woke up only once, when the bite of the jagged metal on one of the cuffs she’d put back on split her skin. Her fingers were stiff with cold as she readjusted it. Vaguely aware that she was bleeding on her dragon.

  * * * * *

  Ted shut the door and locked it. He spun around, intent on heading upstairs to get changed before hauling his ass over to Jo’s house as soon as he could, when he halted.

  “Jo? Jo!”

  There was dried blood smeared across the white ceramic. No. Jo. His heart skipped a beat as he rushed forward and dropped to his knees. “Jo?” Her arms were curled around the dragon. Clutching it against her cheek and chest as he tried to see her wrists. Grateful when he put his hands on her and touched warm skin. He knew from personal experience what death felt like. It was icy, empty and still. All things Jo currently wasn’t. But the blood?

  It didn’t take him a second to realize she’d put the collar and the cuffs back on. He moved the dragon aside to get a good look at her and when he did he determined that she must have cut her wrist when she’d put them back on. That was where the blood had come from. Thank Christ.

  “Jo?”

  Finally she stirred. Slowly, but once she came fully alert he had to lean back because she scrambled up into a kneeling position.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted.

  He wasn’t expecting this. “For?”

  “Saying I love you.”

  That more than anything made him feel like shit because it was one of her issues and he’d used it against her. He was going to apologize for that. Apologize for a lot of things, but then he saw her involuntary shiver.

  “Jesus fuck.” He ripped off his top and then grabbed hold of her. Dragging her onto his lap, he wrapped his shirt around her. “I thought I told you never to stay too long in the front hall. The AC blasts in this area.”

  “B-but y-you didn’t c-come home.”

  He turned and sat on the floor with his legs stretched out and his back against the wall. Pulling her up until she was cradled nice and tight in his arms. “I’m glad you didn’t leave.”

  “Y-you are?”

  He let out a breath as he ran his hands up and down, right to left, hell, all over her in order to get warmth into her. “Yeah, and here’s a deep, dark secret unveiled.” The back of his head hit the drywall. Hard. “I’m the one with the issues.”

  “W-what?”

  “Are you getting warmer?”

  She nodded and he tucked her head under his chin and held her close for a quiet minute before he said, “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  “Talk to me.” She turned his favorite phrase back on him as she wrapped her hands around his biceps and squeezed.

  “Remember when I said my wife was sick? She wasn’t.” He hugged Jo tight. “I told you the truth about her finding out she was pregnant with my child, but what I didn’t tell you was that she made the decision to abort my daughter on her own. She did it without telling me. The day we were supposed to go to the doctor’s, I thought to talk about our options, was really an appointment she’d scheduled for something else entirely. This was going to be an opportunity for her to tell me what she’d already done. She planned it so she’d have an unbiased third party there for moral support. Only something went wrong that morning and she started to hemorrhage.”

  Jo let go of his arm and one of her palms slid up his chest. Stopping to press against him. Only slightly, but it was enough of a comfort to make him want to continue.

  He shifted and pushed his back up straighter against the wall. “Instead of buying cigars, I wound up in the ER waiting room thinking my wife was having a miscarriage.” After those words fell out of him, he closed his eyes. He hadn’t told anyone about this. Not a soul. Probably why the memory of that instant was like a snapshot forever frozen in his mind.

  “I remember that guy. The doctor. He looked like Bill Gates and when he spoke he had a tiny lisp. His S’s slurred together. That was the only thought that barreled through my mind even as he explained what had happened. That Selena didn’t miscarry, but that there was a complication from the abortion she’d had the week before.”

  He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Both of them quiet for a minute or so and then he figured he’d come this far he might as well finish it.

  “I didn’t lie about the crying either.” He rubbed his jaw on the top of her head. “Selena cried every goddamn night until I couldn’t take it and I’d have to go out most times. But the days? The days were the worst. We’d pretend everything was fine and walk through the hours. God, I hated that. We were more alone together than when we were apart.”

  Jo totally understood what he meant. That’s how she had lived in her house for years after her dad’s accident. She studied the dark stubble that dotted his neck. “So you divorced eventually?”

  He stiffened and she automatically held her breath.

  “No. That was a lie.”

  When she heard that matter-of-fact statement, the air rushed out of her, yet before she could get over the shock that he’d lied about something else, he went on.

  “We were heading that way, but I refused to let go.” He rubbed her arm from elbow to shoulder and back again. “I kept hoping she’d get over the guilt. The pain. It consumed her. Obsessed her. Until she couldn’t take it anymore.” He stopped rubbing. The sudden stillness was unnerving. “I found her one afternoon in the bathtub. She hadn’t done anything unusual that day. She didn’t say anything different to me. There was nothing for me to…” He sighed and began again. “Two days before our anniversary, she cut her wrists and quietly bled to death while I was outside doing the yard work.”

  She leaned back and examined his proud profile. Reaching up, she used her index finger and slowly traced the line of his scar. “I’m sorry.”

  He caught her hand when it reached his jaw and moved the cuff aside to kiss the scrape on her wrist. Twining their fingers together, he brought them down to rest on her lap. He was quiet for a long moment and then whispered, “I’m sorry too. Sorry for punishing you for my misgivings. I had no right—”

  “We both made mistakes.” It was true. “And in this instance I think the phrase, it’s easier said than done, applies.”

  “How so?”

  “It was easier for you to make me face my authentic truth than it was for you to face yours.” She would have added that it was a guy thing, but she didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  He didn’t look at her. Only stared down as he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “Don’t forgive me. I don’t deserve it.”

  “I have to forgive you because I’m glad you did what you did.”

  When he tilted his head and stared at her a thrill shot straight through her at the spark of hope she spied in his eyes. “Are you?”

  Sinking against him again, she snuggled in with a sigh. “Oh yeah. Everything that happened, good or bad, brought us here. To this place and moment in time and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Here is where I belong. With you, if you’ll have me.”

  “If I’ll have you?” He squeezed her so hard she yelped. “I own you, remember?”

  “Today’s the
last day of our three-week trial.” She walked her fingers up the naked skin of his chest and stopped at his collarbone with a couple of warning taps. “So you better be nice to me, Master, otherwise I might change my mind about this slave gig.”

  He shrugged against her until she was forced to sit back and look at him. Which was a huge mistake because his eyes were back to being dark and smoldering. Carrying a look that could convince her to do anything. And he knew it, the devil.

  He grinned, his words skated over her like silk across marble. “Go ahead, but I promise you I’ll change it back.” His eyes fairly gleamed. “You know how much I love a challenge.”

  She matched his grin. “I do. You’re so lucky.”

  His chin came up a notch. “I am?”

  She saw his notch and raised it an inch. “Yeah, because I’m going to challenge you from now until the day you die. Which, if you’re not careful, could be sooner than you think.”

  He laughed and it was like a hug to her soul.

  “Sounds like heaven.”

  “It is, but you’re going to go through hell to get there. This,” she stabbed a finger at him, “I promise you.”

  He yanked her in for a bear hug and she nuzzled her nose against his neck and breathed in deep. When he spoke his throat vibrated against her cheek.

  “Do you know that apples are a member of the rose family? And speaking of roses, you never did tell me about the meaning of the six clustered together, did you?”

  “I forgot to check.” She closed her eyes and enjoyed the inner peace. “What does the group signify?”

  He spoke in her ear, “A need to be cherished.”

  Her eyes opened and she watched the pulse beat steadily under his skin while she held her breath, waiting for him to say more.

  “That’s what you have. What you want to be. And I’m going to spend my lifetime making sure you are. Making sure you never feel unloved again. I swear.”

  The cleansing breath escaped and…fucking hell, she sniffled, “I never cry.”

  He gathered her closer and kissed the top of her head. “I know, princess. I know.”

  Epilogue

  “What did Alistair say?”

  Jo twisted in the desk chair and smiled. “That he was going to enjoy dragging Anjay’s sorry ass to the poverty line.”

  Ted nodded. “He’ll do it too.”

  “I know, but not until Anjay finishes with all those therapy sessions we made him agree to. It could be years before I see any compensation.”

  He sauntered over and tossed her cell on the desk. “Here.”

  “What?” She looked up and frowned. “I thought I didn’t get this back until I finished with this stup—er, fascinating essay on how wrong I was to leave the house without it the other night.”

  “It was late on a Saturday and you were driving to a bad part of town against my wishes. What if you’d broken down?”

  “OnStar.”

  “What if you’d been attacked?”

  “Karate lessons.”

  “What if it worried the hell out of me until I almost lost my mind?”

  “I’d suggest Xanax, but that’s on the taboo list.”

  “Jo.”

  “All right. I just needed original signatures on those documents, that’s all.”

  “Next time Cam takes you.”

  “I know.”

  “Good. You look great by the way.”

  She looked down at the sheer and totally see-through outfit and scowled. “Don’t you get sick of seeing the same thing every day?”

  “No.” He grinned. “Not when that thing highlights you naked under it.”

  She didn’t know how he managed to melt her insides with only a look, but here she was crushing all over him. It was pathetic. Annoying. A big pain in the—

  “Stop analyzing and just accept it.” Before she could ask him how he knew what she was thinking he sat against the edge of the desk and pushed the phone toward her. “The reason I’m giving this back to you earlier than I planned to is because E called. Apparently Lacy’s in some kind of a pickle and has been trying to get hold of you.”

  Jo snatched up her phone. “Pickle?” She checked the caller ID. Three missed calls and a message. “I gotta call her.” She found her number and dialed. “Huh, no answer. I better check the message.” As she scrolled then waited for voicemail to sound, she asked, “How long ago did E call? He didn’t give you any other clues? Whoa!”

  She held the phone away from her ear and listened. Lace was yelling to be heard over…what was that in the background? A saw?

  “You were right about the quiet ones. He’s fucking crazy. He locked me in a chastity belt and made me apologize to Joe. Now he’s breaking through my bedroom door with one of Joe’s saws. You and Ted have to come over and talk some sense into the guy. I can’t—”

  The screech of the saw stopped and all Jo could hear was Lacy breathing. It was eerie and awful until she heard a loud bang and Lacy yell, “Get out of my room! I’m warning you. I’m—eat this, you bastard!” and the line went dead. Clearly David had taken her at her word when she’d thrown the phone at him.

  Jo didn’t move. Only eyes shot up. “You heard.”

  “Yeah. That’s a shame.”

  Shame? Ted didn’t sound the least bit upset. “We have to go over there.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  He brushed her hair aside and shook his head. “We’re not going anywhere except maybe upstairs.”

  “B-but what about Lacy?”

  “She’s going to be fine. Providing she wises up and stops pushing her guy. David’s not the guy to push. You can quote me on that.”

  He got up and was halfway to the door before Jo got her head around those words.

  “I thought he was the nice guy out of you three.”

  He turned but continued walking backward to the door. “Yeah? Well, you thought wrong. I wouldn’t want to cross him.”

  He spun around and was out the door before she jumped up and chased after him. “We have to go help her.”

  He stopped so abruptly she ran into him. Fortunately he was fast and swung around to catch her as she stumbled. “Be careful. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, but my friend isn’t. She needs our help.”

  Pulling her into his arms, he patted her shoulder. “What she needs we can’t give her.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Divine intervention.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel any better about all this it isn’t working. Is she going to be okay with him?”

  “She’s strapped in a chastity belt and facing a guy with a saw. What could go wrong?”

  His making light of the situation put her immediately at ease. Then he squeezed her and plastered up against him, she couldn’t help noticing. She sniffed and sniffed some more. “Mmm. I smell cinnamon and nutmeg. Maybe some sugar. Did you make fresh sauce?”

  “I did.”

  “That’s great.”

  “But it’s not for us.”

  She leaned back and looked up at him. “What? Why not?”

  “It’s for your dad and Uncle Vic.”

  “You see? I told you not to serve it to them when they came for dinner. Now they’ll be stealing all my sauce.”

  “Your sauce?”

  She loved his grin. “Well it certainly isn’t theirs.”

  He popped his brows up and down and then said, “It will be tomorrow. I promised your mom I’d clean out the gutters, remember? I’m going to drop the batch off to them then.”

  She closed her eyes and snuggled in for a hug. “You never should have started with all that handyman stuff either. Next my dad will have you installing that stupid French molding he always wanted in his bedroom.”

  “Too late. What do you think I’m doing after I clean their gutters?”

  Opening her eyes, she scowled. “How many times do I have to tell you I want you all to myself? You have to stop doing these things for the
m.”

  “They have no one else, Jo. And what about you? I notice you don’t have a problem ditching me to do those spa appointments with your mom. How many facials do you guys need to get before you admit to being best friends?”

  “I can’t help it if I’m a little jealous. I like it when it’s just you and me.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to mention this until tonight, but…”

  She leaned back. “Yes?”

  “Next weekend I made arrangements for us to go up to the resort. It will be closed to the public from Thursday to Monday.”

  “Just me and you?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “Who else?” She was getting excited. Despite what she said about wanting to be alone with him there was certain company she’d enjoy and her parents and uncle weren’t on the list. “Ethan and Colin?”

  “Yes, they’ll be there. Also a friend of mine you haven’t met. Michael Kavanaugh will be joining us.”

  Jo couldn’t have been happier. They’d only been up to the resort a few times in the last several months, but each time was better than the last. Every day was an adventure with a guy like him. Maybe because the way Ted had it figured, Jo and him were both bruised apples and when they’d finally accepted this and had come together? They made perfect, awesome sauce.

  “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

  “No.”

  He sounded so disgruntled she laughed but didn’t say the words. She didn’t want to spoil him. “I don’t mind sharing you with friends.”

  His eyes twinkled. “That’s not what you said when I suggested that three-way.”

  The guy was incorrigible. “I said no to another woman, but I did leave the topic open for discussion about another man.”

  “Yeah, no. Not going to happen.”

  That was just fine with her. “Seriously, I don’t mind the company of friends. It’s just my family. They hog you every chance they get.”