Deep Surrendering: Episode Four by Chelsea M. Cameron Read Free Book Online Page B

missing?”
    I gasped and pretended to be shocked. “Fin! I would never participate in such depravity.” I was totally kidding.
    “You wouldn’t? You wouldn’t touch yourself for me?”
    “Nope. Don’t do that. Ever.” I kept my face completely serious.
    He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re telling me you don’t masturbate?”
    “No, what’s that?” I was really laying it on thick.
    “Either you’re a good actress or you’re messing with me.”
    He was definitely confused. This was fun.
    “Yes, Fin. I’m screwing with you. Yes, I screw with myself. Doesn’t everyone?” I laughed and he glared at me.
    “You’d be surprised.”
    “Do you?” Just imagining him getting himself off made me want to get myself off.
    “Not very often. I like other options.”
    Interesting. You’d think someone who’s a sexual control freak would be all over that. Getting yourself off was the ultimate control.
    “Would you do it for me?”
    “We’ll see. I haven’t left yet.”
    I made a sound of disgust. “I hate talking about you leaving, but I know we need to. Necessary evil. Like doing taxes and getting a physical.” Speaking of that, I needed to see my gyno and update my birth control prescription.
    “It’s only two months. Eight weeks. About sixty days. You’ll be so busy with school and charity events and your friends that you won’t even notice I’m gone.” That was complete shit and he knew it.
    “And you’ll be so busy with meetings and client dinners and other fabulous things.” Our eyes met, and we both knew what the other was thinking about.
    “I’m not going to. While I’m gone.” He didn’t need to tell me what he wasn’t going to. I knew.
    “I’m conflicted. Obviously I don’t want you to, but I can’t make that kind of demand on you. We’ve been seeing each other such a short time and it’s not fair to you to make you change your entire life for me. But I want to ask you to. Because I’m selfish like that,” I said.
    I wrinkled my nose at him.
    “You can be selfish. It’s not a crime. God knows I’ve been. Every moment with you has been completely selfish. Asking you to keep this going is selfish,” he said. Not exactly. It wasn’t like I wasn’t getting anything out of it. This was working in both our favors.
    “Fine. Then we can be selfish together. Apart. But together,” I said.
    He took my hand and brushed a kiss across the back of my knuckles. “I promise you that I won’t be with anyone while I’m gone. I’ll wait for you.” God, I almost wished he hadn’t promised me. That was an awful lot to ask of him. “Will you promise me the same?”
    “Of course,” I said without thinking. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. I didn’t want anyone else like this. Just him.
    “I promise I won’t be with anyone but you.”
    Promises made. It was the keeping them that would be the harder part. I had faith in him and I believed in us. In what we had and what we could build.
    I yawned. Even with the nap, I was still exhausted from the vigorous sex.
    “Go to sleep, Mari Cherry. You’ve earned it.”
    I was about to close my eyes for the night when I remembered something. “Oh, there’s a stack of books next to the bed for you. There’s a variety, so you can pick and choose. Or you can take anything from my shelves.” I had a small bookshelf in my bedroom for my favorites, and a larger one out in the living room.
    “You think of everything,” he said, picking the top book off the stack. When I said “variety,” I meant it. Everything from romance to sci-fi, to young adult contemporary. The one he picked up first was a heavy young adult about a girl who’d been raped. I figured he could skip it if it was too much for him to take, but he read the back and then opened to the first page.
    “Don’t you want to change your clothes or something?” He always kept an overnight bag in his Town Car and he’d brought it up with him. “I mean, I kind of