Dare to Surrender by Carly Phillips Read Free Book Online

told that I mattered. Even the way he sank his hand into my hair and held on let me know that, as much as he was dominating me, he yearned for me too. He needed the connection between us as badly as I did. The intensity was furious, fast and sudden, but I needed it, and somehow he sensed as much. My nipples puckered tight, beading until they were begging for Gabe’s touch. His kiss held a direct line to my sex. But physical responses aside, the emotional yielding inside me explained so much more, screaming for me to believe that I could trust this man. A virtual stranger in so many ways, yet my body knew him already. Why else would worry flee from my mind, a foggy, blessed euphoria taking its place?
    He broke the kiss but didn’t release me, instead dragged his lips over my jaw and down to where my shoulder met my neck and slid his tongue over my skin. I trembled as he found an erogenous zone I hadn’t realized I possessed. Cream coated my panties. Though I should be embarrassed at my easy acquiescence, it felt too good, desire melding into a whirlpool of burning need. A hard nip of my skin startled me into awareness, the sting of pain taking me by surprise, and I yelped out loud. Before I could struggle against him, a shock of ecstasy pulled me back into the vortex, reaching downward to my full, damp pussy.
    Shaking, I crawled closer, finding his rock-hard erection behind a denim barrier, awaiting me. I needed him so badly. Could come so easily. I trembled and moaned. “Oh God.”
    “No, Iz. Just me.” His breath was hot in my ear, and even his deep chuckle sent shooting sparks of awareness through me. “I want to fuck you right now. I want to slide into you when I’m completely bare. Feel your hot walls pulse around me until I come inside you and you feel everything I can give you.”
    Holy mother. Knees knocking, body shaking, only Gabe’s hold on the back of my neck and the way he braced an arm around my waist kept me standing.
    “Is that what you want, kitten?”
    I moaned my assent. “Yes. Yes, take me now.”
    A masculine groan shuddered through him. “My bedroom,” he muttered, his grip tightening.
    That one word cleared my head enough for me to remember the other room in the house, the one with the rumpled sheets, the scent of sex, and the condoms in the trash that had sent me running.
    “No. I can’t.”
    Gabe lifted his head and stared into my eyes, disbelief flashing in the smoldering depths. He didn’t ask for an explanation, but I heard the silent demand anyway.
    “Not like this.” I repeated his reason for not kissing me earlier, although his explanation for stopping was very different from mine now.
    Again, he waited, as if he were entitled to an explanation but wouldn’t demean himself to ask.
    I swallowed over the lump lodged in the back of my throat. “I heard your housekeeper cancel on the answering machine and thought I could help you out by cleaning since she couldn’t. She promised you she’d take care of the other room,” I said in a rush. “The one with the closed door. So I … went in and saw … everything.”
    His eyes darkened in anger.
    Because I’d crossed that threshold where I didn’t belong? Lance’s triggers had been far less. “I wasn’t snooping. I was trying to help.”
    “Fuck.” He looked away.
    His reaction hurt, and I braced myself for the lecture to come.
    Without warning, his grip on me eased. I looked up to find him staring down at me, his gaze unexpectedly soft. “Don’t ever be afraid of me, Isabelle. I’m not him.” His calming voice soothed me.
    I nodded and realized I was shaking, that fear had indeed taken me over. “Yelling was Lance’s preferred form of communication. That or complete disdain followed by deafening silence.” Which had left me feeling as bereft and as alone as I’d been as a child.
    “Anything more?” he asked through gritted teeth.
    “No,” I assured him. “Lance knew how to wound without touching.”
    A muscle