RequiredSurrender by Riley Murphy Page B

spun around and dropped to her knees in front of him.
Without a word she wrapped her arms around his right leg and pressed her bowed
forehead into his thigh.
    “Fuck.”
    Blake crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “What did
you expect?”
    Expect? How the hell had this—he looked down and was shocked
to see his hand in her hair. Stunned when he noticed how his fingers massaged
her scalp. “Damn.”
    “I’ll leave you to it.”
    Blake left and all Ted could do was study his own reflection
in the mirror. He could only imagine what Ethan would have said about this if
he’d stayed. But then Ethan wasn’t his primary concern at the moment. Jo was.
    “Come on, up you get.” He helped her up and walked with her
to the chair. Once he was seated he pulled her down onto his lap to cradle her.
Despite how fucked up the situation was because of him, she’d done really well
with things, but right now she was a little too quiet for his liking. “Are you
okay?”
    She shook her head.
    “Why not? Did I hurt you?”
    “No.”
    She was trying so hard not to cry it was almost painful for
him to watch. He hugged her up and whispered, “So what’s the matter?”
    “You hate me.”
    And before he could ask her where she got such a stupid idea
from she burst out crying and tried to slap him.
    He feinted to the right and she missed. “Whoa, what was that
for?”
    “Y-You didn’t even k-kiss me. I-I d-don’t want you to hate
me.”
    He grabbed the hand she’d tried to smack him with. Turning
it over, he placed a kiss in her palm and waited until her sniffles eased up.
“I don’t hate you.”
    “Then why won’t you—”
    He wasn’t going to have this discussion with her right now.
He’d thought she’d need some aftercare, but apparently she didn’t. “Just
because I won’t Top you doesn’t mean I hate you. Far from it.”
    He may not have wanted to talk about this but she did.
     
    “You’re not going to walk away from me again.” Jo hastily
skipped to catch up behind him while simultaneously tucking in her blouse. She
nearly slipped on the marble floor twice in her haste keeping up. He wasn’t
going to get away with messing up her plan. Again. It was as if he didn’t want
her, but he didn’t want anyone else to have her either. It made no sense and
she wasn’t in a position at the moment to deal with any more confusion. “Don’t
walk—”
    “I’m not walking away from you. I’m heading to my office.
You’re free to follow. Obviously, because you are.”
    She skidded to a halt in front of his desk. Slapping the
hair away from her forehead, she glared at him. With him seated in his big
office chair he looked like a king on a throne. And why not? He was ruling her
world at the moment and she wanted some of that power back. “I want you to fix
me.”
    He leaned back. “Fix you? The only person that can fix you
is you. If someone told you differently they lied.”
    She kicked off her high-heels as her feet were numb beyond
the point of pain. “I’m broken. You broke me.” He stared up at her and even now
that broken part of her thrilled at the sight of him. She had to fight every
urge she had to drop her gaze and behave for him.
    “We’re all broken. We all have cracks. It’s not about making
it through life in one piece, it’s about narrowing the gap between the fissures
so we don’t shatter.”
    She stabbed a finger in his direction. “You see? It’s
precisely this kind of talk that wears me down. You’re too…”
    The firm look in his eyes when he latched onto her finger
distracted her and she lost her train of thought.
    “Hasn’t anyone told you before that it’s rude to point?
Lower that finger.”
    “All right!” He quirked an annoying brow and she knew why.
“All right,” she said more reasonably. Scooping up her shoes, she hugged them
to her chest. “I just want to be the way I was before. I need to be that way. I
have to be strong. With no crying. I don’t want to cry.