Surrender To You (22 page)

His free hand roamed, down to my breast to cup it. A pinch of the nipple had him chuckling as I gasped. Our mouths broke apart. He leaned over and took the other nipple in his mouth, licking, sucking and nipping it as he tortured the other one by plucking it as if it were a string instrument. Then, he released my neck only to glide that hand toward the part that ached most for his touch.

The silky slide of his hand on a place where only inches away lie the part of him it prepared for excited me. I bucked against his hand and he chuckled against my skin as he skimmed down with two fingers, opening me with one, the other joining the first only moments later. Then started the torturous dance. Aching to get closer, to finally have him inside me had me pleading before long.

“Please Simon…”

“Open your eyes,” he demanded.

I gave him what he wanted so he’d reciprocate in kind.

Bringing our bodies flush again, he held himself up with his arms once positioned just right.

Feeling him there, just out of reach, I mewled in protest.

Pressing a kiss to my lips, I felt his mouth curve as our gazes stayed connected.

“Simon says reach out and take what you want, Elle.”

I relaxed one leg so I could reach down, the other clamped on to apply just enough pressure to force his body forward. I positioned him just right, surging upward at the same time I used my leg to grip him. Bringing the other up, I put my arms around his neck as I arched up again.

Simon’s eyes closed on a groan, one hand going to hold my hip in what I gathered was a need for some control over movement. Still, he sunk inch by inch until finally, we couldn’t get any closer and I wanted to sob with the joy of it. His eyes opened again, the green darkened with desire.

“I’m afraid to move.” I laughed and his eyes widened. “I felt that.”

Grinning now, I rotated my hips gently.

“Shi—” I heard him grit his teeth. “Oh god, don’t.”

“If you think this is ecstasy, pull back and push back in.”

I loved seeing the look on his face as he did what I said. He sucked in a breath as he made as if to withdraw, only to let it out on a hiss once returned.

He stopped, gazing down at me.

“I don’t think—” He gulped. “I should stop.”

I shook my head, laughter bubbling in my throat.

“Kiss me, Simon and keep kissing me while you go as fast as you can.”

The widening of his eyes made me bust out laughing.

“What about you?” His theatrical whisper even as I saw the strain of him keeping still made my heart flutter.

“Next round.”

With one long stare at me, he did as I suggested. As our mouths made love to each other, ours bodies did the same. At first he hesitated, but then he gripped my ass with my guidance, taking a hint. In, out, speeding up until I thought he’d split me into a million pieces.

“Elle,” he grunted, the word a praise on his lips as he gripped me tightly, with one last long moan into my mouth.

“Welcome to sex, Simon,” I said with a giggle.

He rolled off, cracking open one eye.

“It’s official, I’ve got two decades to make up for.” He smiled. “Give me a few and we can get started on that.”

Laughing, I playfully smacked him in the head with a pillow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

My mother looked up at me from underneath her wide brimmed straw hat, hands covered in soil from her garden. “It wasn’t my place.”

She focused on her task again.

“Penny pretty much said the same thing.”

“Well honey, I honestly thought he’d tell you himself. When I realized he hadn’t yet, I tried to warn you something was coming at least.” Yes, she had, which was more than I could say for anybody else. “You still seeing that doctor?”

I almost asked how she knew, but then realized that while people didn’t seem keen to share information with me, nobody minded sharing mine with everybody else.

“Yeah. His name is Simon.” Something in my voice must have given away my feelings because she looked up at me again.

“Right, Simon. I’ve met him a few times.” She smiled. “Is he it then? What about Stefan?”

She put her hand up after clapping them together to get the soil off and I helped her stand. We headed inside. As she poured us some drinks, I answered her question.

“I told him it was never going to happen.”

“When was this?” She raised one eyebrow, taking a sip of her lemonade.

“Five days ago, at the party. You didn’t come, were you even invited?”

She nodded. “Penny asked me to the original one, but when they moved it, I already had plans.”

“Ah, well. There was a nice blow up at the end which started with Yvette yelling at me before pushing me to the ground.”

“She did what?” My mother’s voice rose in disbelief. “Why would she do such a thing? She’s always so quiet!”

“Because Simon came there. I thought he came because I asked him to, but Penny actually invited him. Yvette said neither of us belonged there. That I wasn’t family. Didn’t shock me really, she hadn’t liked me for a very long time. You remember her antics at the funeral, right?”

“Yeah, I do. Ever wonder why she dislikes you so much?”

“Yes. I wish I knew.” I laughed. “She accused me of hurting her brother not once, but
twice
. I agree with blaming me for years ago, but now? As if him lying to me should have been something I just accepted.”

“Sounds like she’s trying to convince a certain somebody that he’s better off without you.”

Something in her statement had my eyebrows rising, as if she were saying…

No, she couldn’t be.

Yvette had been around for so long that I forgot most of the time that she’d first been fostered by Liliana, then adopted at the age of twelve. She’d been an angry and depressed preteen, coming from a past involving an abusive alcoholic father and a drug addicted mother. Found roaming the streets at age ten, she had claimed her father had abandoned them and in desperation for drugs, her mother sold Yvette to a strange man. Who it was and how she’d ended up near to town had never been answered; she also hadn’t cared to share.

Stefan had been eighteen when Yvette had come to live with them, twenty when he’d legally became her brother.

I threw my mother a disgusted face.

“They’ve been brother and sister since the moment she came to live with them, even if it took two years for it to be legal.”

My mother shrugged. “It wouldn’t be that weird. She knows he’s not her brother. Just because he thinks of her as his sister doesn’t mean she sees him that way.”

I covered my face with my hands, groaning. “What makes you say this? I just…ugh.”

“Her actions scream jealousy to me. You and Stefan were only friends when she first met you. Then, two years later, you and he were dating. She wasn’t always mean to you. Didn’t you ever wonder why the sudden change in her attitude?”

No, she certainly hadn’t been. When he and I could drag her out of the house, she tagged along with such joy at being included. Even if we only went to the mall to walk around, she didn’t care. Every time I left, for two straight years, she hugged me and told me she couldn’t wait until we could do it again.

I rapidly began to feel sick.

Twelve years since Yvette had moved in, ten since she’d been adopted and Stefan and I had begun dating, and her attitude had done a one-eighty. I wouldn’t have put it together like that then - even her family had simply assumed her to just ‘being a teenager’ and let it go. I had let it go too; I’d been aware of her past and never held it against her.

“Oh god, you’re right!” I exclaimed with dawning horror. “I wonder if he knows.”

“Don’t you say a word to him,” my mother retorted with a scowl. “No need to embarrass the poor girl. He most likely has no clue.”

Just then, my phone lit up with a text message.

‘
Can you come over? Wanna talk.’

The message had come from Grace. After her kindness in picking me up the other day, and her apology, I realized I had yet to say sorry to her for my behavior at the party. I text her back.

‘
Sure, at my moms, leaving soon.’

I stood up and my mother did the same. “Okay, Grace wants to talk so I’m gonna go to her place.”

“Tell her I said hi and that she should bring Lyndsey over so I can give her the gift I bought.”

“Will do,” I promised as she enveloped me in a hug.

Then I left, the remnants of the discussion I just had with my mom not far from my mind as I drove to Grace’s house.

~*~

“Hello?” I opened Grace’s front door, calling out as I stepped inside and shut the door. Not seeing her car outside, I wondered if the car was in the shop and entered the house. Nobody ever locked their doors here. Walking to the kitchen, I called out again. “Grace?”

Backtracking to the steps by the front door that headed upstairs, I took a step just as the door opened behind me.

I turned around to find Stefan standing there.

“What are you doing here?”

My eyebrows shot up. I put my hands on my hips and scowled. “Me? I was invited. What are
you
doing here?”

He grinned, closing the door. “I got a text from her asking me if I wanted Lyndsey for the afternoon.”

“Isn’t Lyndsey in daycare?”

 
“She’s supposed to be.” He shrugged. “I thought perhaps she’d not gone today.”

“Well,” I said with a sweep of my hand, realizing she had tricked both of us. “She’s not here and I think it’s safe to assume she’s not going to be here.”

Chuckling, he crossed his arms over his chest, his wide stance blocking me on the step so I only had one way to go. “A set up then. I just might forgive her for lying to me at this rate.”

“And here I was, willing to apologize for my behavior to her at the party, but perhaps I’ve changed my mind.”

He lifted a hand to my face, cupping my face in his hands. “Don’t be that way. She’s just trying to help,” he said softly. “She royally screwed up and she knows it.”

“Too little, too late.”

I didn’t move, I barely breathed. Just the feel of his hand against my face had my heart racing.

It had always been like this. He’d touch me and I’d just want to melt, to let him hold me, touch me, make me forget everything.

His next words shocked me.

“I hate the way you made me feel at that party. The way you’ve made me feel ever since you found out. You’ve no idea the torture I’ve endured the last five years. I didn’t know where you were - I only knew you were safe because your mother said so. I begged her, many times through the years to just tell me where you were, but she always denied me even as she apologized. That you’d come back when you were ready. You never planned to though, did you?”

All I could do was shake my head as I stared at him. The words came through his teeth, his restraint evident even though the gentleness of his hand hadn’t changed. His expression tightened, his mouth flattening at my response.

“I knew that. The fact she gave me your number just showed me that she’d given up. She didn’t even think I could bring you back. You were so far gone from all of us, never giving us any thought. You didn’t care how we felt, you only cared about yourself.”

I stiffened at that and slapped his hand away.

“Don’t even,” he bit out before I could speak. “You can be righteous all you want but what you did to us, even for all your reasons, was just as despicable as Grace and I not telling you about having a child together.”

Not thinking about the consequences of my actions, I laughed dryly. “Oh, so I suppose everybody in your life is being one hundred percent truthful at this point? If they all know how much lies hurt, have they told you all the things
they
are hiding?”

He blinked, the response obviously not one he expected. “What are you talking about? This is about you and me.”

“Is it?” My voice rose as my ire increased. “I hid one thing - one thing! - and suddenly I’m the bad guy? I admitted I hurt you and I’ve said sorry. It
was
cruel of me to just push you out, but at the time I was in so much pain that I wanted to die. It’s not the same thing as fucking my best friend and having a child together, and not telling me about it before you start sucking up to me!”

“Sucking up to you?” He shoved a hand through his hair, holding it for a second before letting go with a laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me? I have been devoted to you since the moment we met, Ellie! We have been friends since I was twelve and you were ten; we told each other everything. Did you care about that when you shut me out? No! No, you didn’t! You treated me like I meant nothing!”

The pain on his face spoke volumes.

“If you want to pretend I mean nothing to you, that’s fine,” he continued, his voice breaking. “But don’t you
dare
tell me I haven’t changed, because I have. Don’t pretend to know why I did or didn’t do something. All I wanted was for you to come back home and even if you being in my arms only lasted a few weeks, it was better than never again.”

“You would see it that way,” I whispered. “You hurt me more by doing it that way.”

“I would have hurt you either way!” He roared, throwing his hands in the air in a gesture of helplessness. “I wanted you so badly I said fuck the consequences, because it’s not like we were friends anymore. We were nothing and you made us that way!”

I flinched, wishing that for just a moment, I could go back and changed how I’d handled it all.

“You’re right,” I admitted, my throat clogging with tears I refused to shed as I stared down at my hands. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry, dammit. I want you to fix it.”

I knew the feeling. In one particularly intense therapy session near the beginning of my new life far away from home, I’d cried about how nothing I did seemed to ease the pain.

“It takes time, Elizabeth. You can’t just will the pain away. You can only do so much. Sometimes, our brains are ready to move on faster than our hearts are. You will never escape what’s happened, you can only learn to deal with it.”

“I just want to fix it!” I cried.