—
The next day, I didn’t even bother going into her room. The moment I stood outside the threshold, I saw her dark green eyes boring into me. On any other day, I could’ve faced twenty irate, hostile hotel guests, but thinking about the horrible things she’d said to me yesterday left me questioning why I’d spent so much money to meet her.
I could’ve stayed in the U.K. I would’ve still felt empty, but damn, at least empty was a cakewalk compared to feeling hollowed out like catfish prepared for the grill.
She knew how to do it, too.
But I had a distinct advantage, which I exploited: I could leave and come back.
That unpleasant woman couldn’t leave the bed yet. The way I saw it, I had nothing but time and the same amount of stubbornness. Maybe a bit more. I could chip away at even the bitterest of people.
After she expressed, in a not-so-polite manner, how much she didn’t want to see me, I got her some water and marched right out. The hospital grounds were a great place to do a few laps. So I circled the fountain twice instead of taking a long jump off a short pier into the bay.
“Were those heels made for walking that much?” a familiar voice asked.
I was about to make another lap and there was Tomas sitting on one of the flowerbed ledges. The amusement shining in his eyes made me want to knock him backward into the dirt.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped.
He lifted two bags. Lunch again.
“I’m not hungry.” I began marching again.
He chuckled and I wanted to hurt him even more. “You should be. I saw your refrigerator. You didn’t have enough food to feed a small child.”
“So you noticed….” I slowed down a bit. “Were you the one who had the hotel staff put food in my fridge?”
He shrugged a bit. “Maybe. Your hotel does offer a service to buy your groceries for you.”
“Yes, and it costs money.” What I needed to eat wasn’t at the small corner mart near my business travelers’ hotel. Hell, I didn’t know what to eat half the time and it drove me crazy.
Right now I’d give anything to feel normal.
Seeing my fridge full of fresh produce and healthy food had lifted my spirits, until I’d gotten here. I gave up venting and sat down next to him. “I’m just so fucking pissed right now.”
He placed the food into my hands and I jabbed my hand into the bag and found an apple. “I could just—arggghhh!” I grunted and then took an angry bite out of the apple.
“Having a hard time?”
“ ‘Hard time’ is an understatement.” I recounted to him every harsh word she’d said. By the time I was done, my apple was nothing more than a sad little core. It was exactly how I felt. “I’ve been waiting for this reunion for such a long time. All my life I’ve worked myself to the bone to have the money to do this kind of trip. Not sure if this was worth it…”
“She needs time, Carlie.”
“She’s had enough time. Like twenty-five years.”
“Maybe, but you don’t know what she’s been through. How do you know if she was in a position to keep you? Perhaps every time she looks at you, she’s reminded of her failures. Looking at you is a reflection of the decisions she made.” He bit into his veggie wrap.
“She owes me.” I attacked the next thing in the bag. A grilled chicken Caesar salad.
“Personally, I believe she owes you everything—but we’re selfish like that. If I could have my mom back, I’d be that way, too.”
Slowly, I ate and considered his words.
“On the hard days, think of her as your toughest customer,” he said. “The one person who doesn’t want your help or need your help, but your job is to take care of them.”
I sighed. Right now I just wanted some distance between us. “Why are you here?”
“Because you don’t eat right?”
“No, seriously.”
“Because you needed a friend.”
With that, I finally nodded. I did need a friend right now. I’d been too overwhelmed to call Penny, Sophie, or Griffin yet. I should, though. They would be standing here with me grumbling every step of the way. And yet, having Tomas here with me was much better.
“I never had anyone after my mom got killed,” he said out of the blue. “My aunt Daniela never showed how much my mother’s death affected her, because everything is about image to my family.”
My chewing slowed, but I didn’t say anything to interrupt him.
“The day she left us, I remember complaining about how she never spent time with me. All she did was travel with Dad and leave me with Aunt Daniela and my nannies. So I tricked her one evening when she was heading out for another weekend. Being the boy I was, I faked getting hurt. My mother rushed back and she got into an accident.”
“Tomas…”
“For years I wanted to see her again so I could apologize and fix what I had broken. All this time I’ve been fixing things until I feel like they’re not broken anymore—except us.” He sighed and murmured something in Portuguese I couldn’t understand. “But something I’ve learned lately is that it’s never too late to try again.”
We sat quietly for a moment.
“What are you trying to say?” I asked softly.
“Have you ever wanted to fix us?”
He was looking at me, but I couldn’t look back. “How are we broken?”
He leaned forward. “We meet each other for sex, Carlie. We can’t do that forever.”
“Seems to be working so far…”
“Do you truly feel that way?”
I finally glanced at him.
No, I didn’t. The way his dark brown eyes fixed on me made me look away. Only a few times had his look left me feeling something so deep that it left me empty when we parted.
Tomas Goodfellow walked on dangerous ground.
“We don’t know how to fix this arrangement,” I whispered.
He stood and offered his hand, which had grown larger and rougher over the years. “What if we learned how?”
I considered just sitting there, but placing my hand in his felt right. Slipping into his arms was easy. My breath quickened and uncertainty turned into something much deeper. “So what are we doing right now?”
“We’re hugging in a park.”
I chuckled. “For real?”
“We’re fixing what’s broken between you and me.” He looked down between us. “I’ll take care of you. Maybe I’ll start with those shoes first.”
I snorted. A new pair of heels wouldn’t make anything better. “I don’t need anything but you right now.”
“I thought you were working with me here. It’s just one pair of shoes, Carlie.”
His grip on my hand tightened when I tried to back away. “First the lunches, then my mom’s room was paid for. It’s like I owe you now. Why can’t we just be there for each other for a while?”
“Caring about someone means giving a part of yourself without expecting anything in return. I just want to buy you a comfortable pair of shoes. After that we can cross the street to the next level. I’m not trying to make you be my friend—although I’d like for us to be the way we used to be when we started out, at the very beginning.”
I considered his words. “I don’t know if I can cross that street.”
His jaw twitched. “What if I took your hand and dragged you across?”
I laughed a bit and saw the Tomas I remembered from when we first met. “I’ll be kicking and screaming…”
“What if I took the first step? How about you hook me up for once?”
“How the hell do I do that…unless you want me to…” My eyebrows rose with mischief.
“Instead of me buying you shoes, how about you buy me a pair?”
Oh, yeah, he’d really be moving up after I bought him shoes. “You’re wearing thousand-dollar, hand-tooled Italian loafers.”
“How do you want me to fix this?” he finally asked. “Work with me here, Gingerbread.”
Damn, he always knew how to make me bend over like I wanted to be punished properly.
I glanced around until I saw something across the street.
“Come with me.” Twelve minutes later, Tomas Goodfellow, owner of the Goodfellow Tower Hotel, was the owner of a new pair of eighty-dollar dress shoes. I made him try on multiple pairs until we found something I liked.
He chuckled. “Does this make you feel better?”
“Just a little. Those shoes do look nice on you.”
Tomas walked me back to work, and when my workday ended, he was waiting to walk me back to the hospital—wearing the new pair of shoes I’d bought him.
Chapter 22
Tomas
Having Carlie all to myself was something I never thought I could experience. Revealing what had happened to my mother was something I never told anyone.
For the Pereira family, my mother’s death was like she had simply left the family and never come back.
“O que acontece na família Pereira fica na família,” Aunt Lucia always said.
What happens in the Pereira family stays in the family.
Getting lost in my thoughts was easy while I waited for Carlie on a bench outside the hospital. Visiting hours would be over soon. As much as she grumbled about me showing up randomly, being there for her was something I wanted to do, but hospitals like this one still reminded me of the one Saul snuck me into over fifteen years ago.
The London Clinic, just like this hospital, was surrounded by busy streets and nestled deep in the heart of a metropolitan city. On that particular day though, the London paparazzi wanted a picture of a grieving Goodfellow family member after their tragic loss.
Hospitals were not only for the living, but the dead, as well. I walked in without a mother and I was in the same condition when I left the next morning. My aunts were in transit from overseas and I had no one. Not even my father.
Carlie deserved to have someone waiting for her.
I’d waited to see if any of her friends showed up, but they didn’t. I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. Carlie’s independent streak was one of the reasons I loved her. I had a driving need to possess and protect a woman who didn’t need me.
I sucked in a deep breath. Did she think of me that way? The one frustrating thing about her was how I always felt like she drew me into her world, chewed me up, and then spit me out.
But I was just as guilty. At first, life had pulled us apart, but now that we were older, we ran away until we were free again.
I waited quietly on the bench until she walked up to me. She didn’t say much, merely stood there with her blond hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and work jacket slung over one arm.
Just like the day before, my Maserati pulled up to the curb to give us a ride to her place, but she paused before getting in.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I don’t want to go home,” she murmured. “Just take me to your place.”
Did she need comfort, or was tonight another meet and fuck?
There wasn’t lust shining in her olive green eyes this time, but something else. Fatigue touched the corners of her mouth. “Just for tonight, Tomas.”
I nodded and gave in because I wanted to be with her. When Carlie asked me, I had trouble refusing her, but this was a road we’d been down before. All the fucking led to one place: someone’s bed.
Instead of eating the dinner I offered, she went straight to my bedroom. Naturally, I followed. Once past the double doors, her heels were silent on the carpeted floor. The room was dim—the only light filtered through the opened curtains along the floor-to-ceiling windows. Shadows enveloped her curves. Her clothes whispered as they were shrugged off her shoulders. I watched her place her jacket and skirt in a neat pile on the nightstand.
Just walk out, Tomas. Let her rest.
Moonlight hit her back as she unsnapped her black bra and discarded her lacy panties.
Tension descended from my stomach to my groin. Did she know how easily she threw me off kilter?
She slipped into bed and pushed back the covers on the other side of the king-sized bed: her invitation. She didn’t want to sleep.
I crossed the room in a few strides. My clothes came off soon after.
Now we were in bed together again, lying face-to-face, and she waited. I cupped her cheek and enjoyed the smoothness of her skin. Her gaze was cast downward, a slight smile to her lips. She was waiting for me to act. For me to do as I pleased. What I wanted most though, I couldn’t have.
We tortured ourselves every time we did this, and yet, we gravitated to face each other as if we trusted ourselves. Damn, I wanted to brush my lips against hers. To feel her tremble underneath me as I kissed her. She blinked, her eyes searching mine. Her breath had quickened and her pulse thrummed against my palm.
“Carlie…” My voice had a dark edge.
Kiss me right now. The command lingered on my tongue, but I refused to say it.
She turned away from me. I pulled her back against my chest and inhaled the scent of her hair. That delicate pear scent drew me in every single time. The curve of our bodies fit together perfectly. All my hard lines against her soft ones. I couldn’t resist the pulse of my hips toward her ass. I hungered for her and she responded in kind, grinding her ass against my hardening length.
If she wouldn’t let me kiss her lips, I’d kiss her elsewhere.
I kissed her shoulder first. A lingering brush of my lips along her shoulder blade. From there, I traveled down her back. A lick here, a feather-like tongue trail there. She shivered with each stroke.
I’d lay claim to the places that belonged to me. She was mine to sample. Mine to taste. I licked her hips and turned her over to touch the places I’d been aching to caress: her long legs to the curve of her ass. She tried to reach for me.
“Do I have to tie you up?” I warned her with a growl.
“Yes.” My little treasure was still defiant.
“Yes, what?” My bed. My rules.
“Yes, sir.” She sucked in a breath. “I need you.”
“No.” She wasn’t getting her way tonight. In a drawer beside my bed, I had enough bondage hemp to tie her up until she couldn’t so much as twitch. If I wanted, I could punish her until she climaxed from my hand alone.
But tonight I was getting what I wanted: to give her pleasure in the manner I saw fit.
With one hand, I held her wrists above her head, and with the other I gripped her hip as my tongue traced a circle around her pink areola. “Bela.”
I sucked and nipped, drawing her deep into my mouth. Every moan and soft sound she made drove me crazy. The need to bury myself inside of her grew painful.
“I want to hear you come over and over again,” I told her in Portuguese as I descended along her stomach. I let go of her hands. “Stay still. I want to feel you tremble while I fuck you with my mouth.”
She quivered as my nose brushed against her belly button. I settled between her legs, eager to sample her swollen flesh. All it took was a long lick of my tongue from her clit to her pussy and she bucked hard. I came at her again, latching onto her sweet bud. This was the place where I wanted to be, feeling her squirm while my tongue darted incessantly into her wet heat.
“Tomas!” she gasped.
As expected, Carlie didn’t behave for very long. As much as I enjoyed feeling her hands caress me, I wasn’t bending to her whims tonight.
So I froze and then I got up. She watched me the whole time. In the silence of the bedroom, the only sound was of her contracted breaths and finally her groan of frustration. The need to punish her filled my senses, but spanking her or using the flogger wouldn’t get my point across.
I stared at her beautiful body. Her legs were still parted and her pert nipples begged me to touch them, but I didn’t move until she looked away. A small surrender on her part.
Now that she was complacent, I returned to the bed and settled my face between her legs.
“
What are you going to do, Coraçao?” I finally asked.
She shuddered from each exhale I made along her clit.
Her hands hovered over my head, then she slowly placed them above hers. “I’m going to do as you please.”
“That’s my girl.” Relentless, I sampled every part of her until she screamed my name again and again. Tonight was about the pleasure I wanted to give her.
Now that she was sated and running her fingers along my chest, I still hungered for something more. And it wasn’t just kissing her. Every single time I waited for her outside of the hospital, I hoped she’d want more. Perhaps we’d find that bliss we had before I left for Europe all those years ago.
I hoped she’d stay, but the moment she drifted off, she was ready to leave.
If I kept doing this to myself, I’d never be able to let her go without hurting both of us.
Carlie
All these years, I wondered where my stubborn streak came from.
“Ms. Hall, do you have arrangements for aftercare?” the discharge nurse asked.
“I don’t need—”
“Yes, she does.” I stepped forward.
Over the past two weeks, my birth mom had managed to progress from the point where they removed her feeding tube up until she could eat. Now that she was ready to go home, I was here to make sure she got there safely. Whether she wants my help or not.
“Why do you keep doing this?” she implored.
“Because you’re my mother.” I wheeled her out of the hospital and helped her into my rental car.
“I don’t have any money,” she grumbled as she got into the Camry’s front seat.
“That’s apparent. I already paid for the car for the week.”
“Don’t expect much,” she finally said. And that was when I knew she’d at least be quiet for a while.
Until I’d gotten her address from Tomas this morning, I had no idea where she lived or if she had a place to stay. All I knew was that I had time off and I planned to use it…for her.
The ride toward the southwest was silent for over forty minutes until we pulled up to a quiet west Boston neighborhood. I’d never been to this area before. We were quite far from downtown—beyond the skyscrapers and busy sidewalks. This neighborhood seemed more countryside than cityscape.
Surrender to You Page 13
