The Surrender Gate: A Desire Exchange Novel

  “Am I taking good care of you now?” he growls.

  “Fuck, yes…”

  “I’m sorry, what?” he whispers in her ear. “What’d you say? What was that word you just used?”

  “Bastard,” she whispers. “I called you a bastard. I called you a gorgeous fucking bastard, Marcus Dylan.”

  She lifts her mouth to his, their lips inches apart, his fingers still working her.

  “Does that mean you want to get fucked?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I’m not sure you’ve been patient enough.”

  Her lips part and she feels his tongue slip inside of her mouth for the first time, and the kiss, their first kiss, is like a magnetizing force that suddenly centers their dirty talk and rough play. They both seem to forget their poses and their dialogue as they rise up off the bedspread into seated positions before wilting into one another. He encircles her back with one arm and slides the other one up between their bodies so he can alternate between preventing her breasts from being painfully crushed against his chest and tweaking and twisting and pinching her sensitive, aching nipples.

  Her hand finds his cock while the other grips the back of his neck. Never in her life has it felt like she’s drawing strength from someone just by kissing them, by opening to them. Emily wonders for a fleeting instant if Lilliane’s radiance has left her more open to pleasure, to intimacy, to a man’s hunger for her. But everything about Marcus Dylan is solid, real, here with her. Flexing with her. Bending with her. Tasting her. Searching her with fingers, teeth, and tongue. Learning her.

  She slides down his body, takes him in her mouth for the first time, and when she looks up, the expression on his face is full of vulnerability and desire at once; his gasping mouth, his wide-eyed stare that makes him look not just surprised, but thunderstruck by the feel of her lips around his cock, as if, despite all the women he’s been with before, there is a miracle implicit in the fact that she can do this to him, that she can make him laugh, that she can fill him with jealousy, that can she turn him into a giddy, sputtering kid with just the right look, and she can also do this: unleash tides of pleasure across his cock with her lips, her stroking hand, and her fluttering tongue.

  “Stop stop stop stop stop stop,” he hisses, and when he pushes her off his throbbing, jerking cock, she realizes he’s trying desperately not to come. Laughing, she puts her hands out like an umpire declaring a guy safe on home plate, and this makes them both laugh even harder. But they’re riveted by the sight of his jerking cock, both of them saying a silent prayer it’s not going to fire prematurely.

  “Are we good?” she asks after a few seconds.

  Eyes locked on hers, he slides backward across the bedspread, reaches out and opens a nightstand drawer without breaking their intent stare. When his hands find the box of condoms, he says, “Now we are.”

  He tears the box open with his teeth, tries to sheathe himself without breaking eye contact. But she doesn’t want him to break eye contact either, so she takes the condom from his hand, opens the wrapper with her teeth and slides it onto him, using the knowledge she’s just gathered from several delirious minutes of having him inside of her mouth.

  “Still nervous?” she asks him.

  “No,” he says. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to make you forget your name, just like I promised.”

  Straddling him, pressing against his right shoulder with one hand, she guides his cock in, When he feels her part for him, he reaches up and grips the back of her neck.

  “Big guy,” she whispers.

  “Bigger for you,” he growls.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, you make it big. You make it real, real big.”

  “Don’t make me laugh you fucking bastard,” she whispers.

  “I won’t,” he whispers, gripping her hips so tight his knuckles whiten, guiding her swaying, grinding motion on top of him. “Can I make you scream instead?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Yes, you can.”

  He takes this as license to rise up onto his elbows, and then, after a while of being gripped by her walls as she rides him like a cowgirl, he pushes her gently onto her back, careful to remain inside of her the whole time, until she’s spread out on her back, the full strength of him, the full power of him, bearing down on her for the first time, his mouth meeting hers, one hand finding and stroking her clit as he finds a steady rhythm inside of her.

  Despite his promise, he whispers her name over and over again, sometimes in her ear, sometimes against the nape of her neck. Sometimes it has the frequency of a desperate chant, as if he’s trying to stave off another orgasm that’s building too soon, and sometimes it sounds like he’s trying to let her know that she’s the only one he’s ever felt, tasted, the only whose scent he’s ever hungrily inhaled. That in this moment, there is only her, the one worth waiting for, if he did only have to wait for about seventy-two hours.

  And she loves that, loves that in his passion and hunger, he’s forgotten his own Mr. Big Shot promise to make her forget her own name, loves that her name now seems written on his tongue, frozen in his mind. So when the samba beat of shivers starts to travel from her scalp all the way down to her tailbone, when her feet, which she’s wrapped around his lower back, start to tremble, warning her that waves of pleasure are poised to radiate throughout her prone body, she says his name right back to him, setting loose the tides of bliss.

  30

  “I don’t normally do that,” Marcus says.

  They’ve been walking hand and hand along the crown of the levy for ten minutes. Every now and then a jogger or a bicyclist whizzes past them, but for the most part, they’re alone with a sparkling view of the lake’s expanse, which is so vast it’s impossible for them to see the north shore even on this clear and beautiful day.

  “Have sex?” she asks.

  “No, fall asleep right after, the way we did.”

  “Well, we hadn’t slept for about a full day. It’s not like I blame you.”

  “Still, I know how important it is to, you know, talk…after sex.”

  “Because you read it on some website? Top 10 Things Women Need After Sex?”

  “Oh, okay. So next time it’ll be fine if I just roll off you and pass out. Maybe wake up a few hours later and order a pizza or something. Or hey, maybe I’ll just leave you half a pizza in the fridge with a note that says, Thanks for the good time. I’m at the pool hall with the guys.”

  “We needed sleep, Marcus. It’s not a big deal.” He purses his lips and stares bashfully at the ground in front of them. “You don’t have to sell yourself. Not to me.”

  “I know, I just want you to know that I try. Especially when a woman is amazing.”

  “Say that last part again.”

  “The part about the pizza?”

  “I actually kinda like pizza,” she says.

  “Great. I’ll remember that for next time.”

  “Good,” she says.

  “There’s gonna be a next time, right?”

  “There better be.”

  “Good. I mean, I guess you could always go see Lilliane again if I’m busy and do your little ocean thing.”

  “That’s also your little ocean thing, too. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “Your apartment was a lot better,” she whispers, as if it’s a secret.

  “’Cause no sharks, right?" he asks.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You’re right. I do. Also…”

  “Yeah?” she asks.

  “That joke I made, I mean… You knew it was just dirty talk, right? A little role-play kinda thing?”

  “Wait. Which one?”

  “The one about, you know, how you might be my boss soon and I was just angling for a promotion.”

  “Oh my God. No. I didn’t take any of that seriously.”

  “Phew.”

  “I mean, I'll totally fire you once I inherit, so it’s all good.”

  “What??
??

  She barks with laughter, stops walking, and pulls on his hand to fix him in place. “I’m kidding. For Christ’s sake. Oh my God! I’m totally kidding.”

  “Well, I couldn’t tell for a minute.”

  “Alright, forget I made the joke. Besides, it was in bad taste anyway. Because me inheriting means…”

  “Arthur dying.”

  “Yeah, and it’s hard enough trying not to think about what he did to Ryan either.”

  “Yeah. That was a tough one. But…it’s like Ryan said.”

  “What?”

  “He slept with the man’s wife,” Marcus responds.

  “Yeah…the dirty cops, though.”

  “What about ’em?”

  “I don’t know. I just…couldn’t help but wonder how Arthur goes from having cops on his payroll willing to frame his own son for a crime, to hiring my dad, who lost his career trying to get dirty cops out of the N.O.P.D.”

  “Maybe the two things aren’t as related as you think,” he offers.

  “Maybe,” she said, but she doesn’t sound convinced, and for a while they stand face to face, their fingers entwined as he stares off toward the setting sun.

  “It’s Ryan’s story, Emily. Not yours. Don’t take too much of it on. You’ll have enough on your plate soon enough. God knows.”

  Her cell phone rings in her pants pocket.

  “It’s Jonathan,” she says once she’s checked the caller ID.

  He pecks her on the cheek and strolls off, probably making an extra effort to give her space in this instance so he can demonstrate how cool he’s going to be with their friendship.

  As soon as she answers, Jonathan says, “Okay. So basically it’s like this. If you don’t hear from me in twelve hours, send the cavalry looking for me.”

  “Woah. What? You do realize I saved you from a kidnapping last night, right?”

  “I know, I know. And I appreciate that. But honestly, given what actually went down last night, maybe we can dial back the language we’re using to describe it. Just a little.”

  “Where are you going that I should be so worried about you?”

  “Lilliane’s house,” he offers meekly.

  “Why are we friends?”

  “Because I’m awesome!”

  “I know. You’re awesome. But seriously?”

  “I can’t stop thinking about what Ryan said this morning at the hospital. About how people like me are usually the ones who can benefit from his gift.”

  “You can’t stop thinking about Ryan’s ass in those pants.”

  “Maybe not. But it’s a great ass. And those were great pants.”

  “Then meet him at a motel and enjoy that. Stay away from the other stuff. It seems…intense.”

  “Uhm. Hypocrisy much? Are you sorry you did it?”

  “Did what?”

  “Let me rephrase that. Are you sorry you let Lilliane do it?”

  “Not really.”

  “’Cause you spent the day in newfound marital bliss with your Navy SEAL.”

  “Let’s not get crazy.”

  “But you did spend the day in bed with him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “See? I want my Navy SEAL!”

  “I really don’t think that’s what The Desire Exchange offers people. I mean, do you honestly think Alexandra Vance went home to find two hot college guys waiting to get whipped in her garage?”

  “If there's a God, she did, yes..”

  “Still…”

  “I want to know, Emily.”

  “Want to know what?”

  “I want to know why I can never fall in love,” he says. “I want to know if it’s like you said. If it’s because of what happened with Remy…killing himself. Or if it’s… I don’t know, Em. I just want to know if I’m destined to never feel what you’re already feeling for Marcus, but won’t, you know, actually admit to feeling until about four months from now—”

  “Easy there, tiger.”

  “I also want to know if I’m destined to confuse my love for a friend with, you know…something else, like I did with you for three whole days.”

  “Sounds like a good question.”

  “Yeah, but do you think they have the answer? Or do you think they’ll do that radiance thing on me and I’ll just see a bunch of Olympic gymnasts and some whipped cream and still kinda be at square one.”

  “I can’t answer that, Jonathan.”

  “So answer my other question.”

  “Which one?”

  “Are you glad you did it?”

  Several yards away, Marcus is down on his knees, saying hi to an elderly woman’s French Bulldog by shaking its paw.

  “Yes, I am,” Emily says.

  “There you go. I’m doing it.”

  “Alright. But be careful around Ryan, Jonathan. Please.”

  “Oh, you mean, like, just have sex with him.”

  “Okay. Or that.”

  “Well, good, ’cause I’m totally going to have sex with him if he’ll let me.”

  “Maybe right now you could pick someone a little more…”

  “More what?”

  “Human!”

  “He’s human. He’s just complicated.”

  “No, Jonathan, people with obsessive compulsive disorder are complicated. Ryan flies through the air and shoots gold dust out of his feet and hands.”

  “Yeah. That all really happened, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah. It did.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m not having that hard a time with it. I mean, I’ve always believed in angels. I just never thought they’d be all that fun to hang out with.”

  “I don’t think they’re angels, Jonathan.”

  “Oh, I don’t either. I just meant, I’ve always believed in something weird that might be just around the corner, so I’m not having a very hard time believing in them.”

  “That’s what I told the guys last night on the boat. Try to think of the one crazy thing you’ve always believed in and that’ll keep you from going nuts when you’re confronted with something you’ve never believed in.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Alright. But be careful. And call me when you’re home safe.”

  “I will…and Emily?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love you. And not in the let’s almost destroy our friendship with sex kind of way. More in the I don’t know where I’d be without you kind of way.”

  “I love you too, Jonathan Claiborne. And nothing, nothing, could ever destroy our friendship, and don’t you forget that.”

  “Don’t make me cry, girlfriend. I want to look my best for Mr. Benoit.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  She makes good on her promise, and when he sees her slide her phone back into her pocket, Marcus jogs over to her, still laughing over the adorable dog he’s been playing with for several minutes.

  “Did you see that guy?” Marcus asks.

  “He’s pretty cute.”

  “Do you like dogs?”

  “No.”

  “Really? What about cats?”

  “I’m not really an animal person.”

  “Alright, well, see ya later.” He makes a show of jogging off, but he only gets a few paces before he turns on his heel toward her and gives her a big grin. “Just kidding.”

  “I was kidding too. I’m a dog person.”

  “So what was Jonathan up to?”

  “He’s going back, apparently.”

  “Back?”

  “To Lilliane’s house. They’re going to…I don't know, radiate him, or whatever they call it.”

  “Ryan’s going to radiate him, and he’s going to do it wearing those pants he had on this morning, I bet. Those pants. I mean, I’m as straight as they come but—”

  “That’s enough. Thanks.”

  Marcus shrugs and gives her a sheepish smile. “I’m just saying they were great pants, that’s all. I'll wear a pair for you if you want.”

  ??
?Maybe for Mardi Gras.”

  “So, uhm, do you need to go with him?”

  “Oh, no. Jonathan’s on his own for this one.”

  “Good. So we can…” This time the chime comes from Marcus’s pants pocket. “Text message,” he says, pulling out his phone. “Doctors saw Arthur this morning after we left. They said the pneumonia’s cleared and they’re going to try bringing him off the ventilator later this week. So…good news. Not great news. But you know, it’s good.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean the cancer’s still everywhere…” he says, pocketing his phone.

  “Right.”

  He reaches out and takes one of her hands. “Do you have any idea how much your life is going to change when he…?”

  She brings his hand to her chest. “My life has already changed, Marcus Dylan.”

  With a beaming smile that lights up his eyes, he brings his hand to her lips and gives it a gentle kiss. “So,” he says. “You want to keep walking?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How far?”

  “I’m thinking…as far as we can go.”

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  Welcome to 1001 Dark Nights… a collection of novellas that are breathtakingly sexy and magically romantic. Some are paranormal, some are erotic. Each and every one is compelling and page turning.

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