Page 9 of The Surrender (Arlington Hall #2)

He pulls his phone out and wanders around the counter, and I look up at the ceiling speakers when Lana Del Rey starts singing softly to Riopy playing the piano. I smile, turning myself on the stool. “What are you cooking?” My thighs tense and squeeze together in an attempt to stem the pulses.

“Lamb and roasted vegetables.” He pushes a chopping board across and places a peeler and a knife on it. “You’re in charge of the carrots.”

I raise my brows and collect a carrot. “Are these from the Kitchen Garden?”

“Everything in the basket is from the Kitchen Garden. Use the big carrots. You need to peel them and slice them into discs around five millimetres thick.”

“What qualifies as big?”

“About eight inches long, two inches thick.”

I frown to myself and pout as I try to measure out eight inches between my hands. “I don’t know how big that is.”

“Think of my cock,” Jude says, peeking up from slicing the courgette. “Erect.”

I cough over my laugh. “That’s not allowed.”

“Sure,” he murmurs. “Get on with it. I want to get to the really not-allowed stuff.”

God damn me, so do I. It was foolish to slap conditions on this. Our sexual chemistry was the catalyst to us. And truly, we’re not really us without our intimacy. I see a more vulnerable side to him when we connect like that.

I reach for a carrot and assess the length. The girth. Peek up at Jude, who’s merrily chopping his way through the Kitchen Garden. Smirking to myself, I get off the stool and round the island, and Jude stops chopping, eyeing me until I’m next to him.

“Excuse me,” I say, lowering to my knees.

His eyebrows shoot up as I stroke over his crotch. “What are you doing?” he asks, his voice unmistakably gruff.

“I take my job very seriously.”

The knife drops from his hand, clanging against the oak. “Shit, Amelia.”

I unzip his fly and reach into his boxers, taking hold of his hardening cock, and Jude grunts under his breath, clenching his eyes briefly. “Is this allowed?” he asks, as I continue to massage him.

I smile and pull out his raging hard-on, inhaling at the sight of the swollen, taut head weeping. I lean in and lick the head, humming my happiness. The smell of him, the feel, the taste. Home.

“Fuck,” Jude barks, his eyes dropping, hooded and dark. “Suck me, baby.”

“You want me to suck you?”

“Do it.”

I consider his demand for a few seconds, then smile and hold the carrot next to his dick, humming. “I think it’s just shy of eight inches, actually,” I muse, dropping him and standing. “Your dick, not the carrot.”

Jude lets out a sharp bark of laughter, grabbing the counter for support, as I make my way back round the island and slap the carrot on the chopping board, holding it gingerly with my damaged hand and bringing the knife down on the end.

He jumps. The top flies off and shoots across the kitchen, and both Jude and I follow its path until it lands by the doorway.

“Now it’s seven inches,” I murmur, making Jude fold over the counter in complete hysteria.

It makes me stop and take a moment to appreciate it.

It’s the most gorgeous sight, Jude Harrison in a full-blown laughing fit, having to hold himself up.

I rest my arse on a stool and split my attention between peeling a carrot, holding it cautiously with my dressed hand, and watching him gather himself, odd chuckles escaping.

He wipes his eyes. “Alright there?” I ask.

He grins down at the half-chopped courgettes. “Amelia,” he says, turning his gaze up. His eyes are so green right now. I tilt my head in question. “I ...” His mouth closes, and he inhales. “I’m really happy you’re here.”

I hardly want to admit it. Hardly. “Me too.”

Jude nods, thoughtful, blindly lowering the knife to the wood again, and the way he’s looking at me has sparks lighting up my insides.

My body burns for him. I can’t stop it. Don’t want to.

I lower the peeler, my lungs screaming with the effort to breathe easy.

Just look at him. This beautiful, complicated man.

My breathing becomes even more strained when the track changes and Kidnap and Lydy May ’s “Cold Water” joins us.

“Oh God,” I whisper, feeling the throb between my legs get more violent.

“To hell with your boundaries.” Jude comes round the island and grabs me, getting his mouth on mine and attacking me full force.

I reach for his shirt to tear it off, forgetting myself, and pain shoots through my hand.

I hiss, retracting, trying to maintain our kiss.

“Careful,” he says gently, forcing my backwards steps towards the bedroom, keeping our kiss up as he unbuttons his shirt, and I wriggle out of my sweater.

The backs of my legs meet the edge of the bed, and I drop to my arse, flinging my top aside and trying and failing to unfasten my bra with one hand.

“Leave it.” His chest swells as he shrugs out of his shirt and drops it.

My panting is out of control, Jude looming over me as he strips, his eyes hungry and full of intent.

His trousers hit the floor. I inhale. His thumbs slip past the waistband on his boxers.

I peek up at him and bite my lip, my mouth watering as he eases them down his thighs and kicks them aside.

And he’s naked. A polished mass of manly perfection.

I swallow back my awe and reach for his hip, tracing a line down one side of his V to his pubic bone.

His cock is at mouth level, and I won’t pass up that kind of opportunity again.

Licking my lips, I take hold of him gently and circle the tip with my tongue, gazing up through my lashes to see him watching me intently. “Taste good?” he asks.

I hum my approval but don’t get to indulge myself more. Jude pulls away and shoves me to my back, taking the waist of my leggings and drawing them down my legs painfully slowly, followed by my knickers before he yanks down the cups of my bra.

Then he pulls my legs apart and lashes straight up my centre with his hot, wet tongue.

I nearly go through the ceiling, my back snapping into an arch, the pleasure unbearable. “Jude!” I yell, feeling him bite each nipple as he passes, crawling up my body until he’s settled on top of me.

“Delicious,” he mumbles, taking the wrist of my injured hand and putting it above my head, holding it in place for me, because he knows I’ll fail to keep it still and out of the way. He looks at me, his dick throbbing against my lower tummy. His lip twitches at the corner. “Is this allowed?”

“Shut up.” I lift my head to catch his lips.

“Do you want me inside you?” he asks, and I groan, exploring his mouth with my tongue, my temperature rising, my body throbbing with the music. “Do you want me to fuck you, Amelia?”

“Jude,” I whisper, aching for him, my internal walls pulsing. “Please.”

“I can’t fuck you.”

“Yes, you can.”

“But you said we need to take this slowly.”

“Jude!”

“Have you changed your mind?” Biting my bottom lip, he pulls away, and I growl my annoyance, making him smile. “Answer me.”

“I can’t resist you,” I admit, and he nods lazily. Understanding.

“I can’t resist you either, baby.” He lifts his hips, lines up, and pushes into me infuriatingly slowly, the friction and heat sending me wild and dizzy, my hand twitching in his hold above my head while my other claws at his back.

Air hisses through his teeth, his jaw tight, sustaining the absolute rightness as well as enduring my punishment of his back.

“Are you going to argue with that?” He strains the words, reaching the deepest depths of my pussy and holding still, allowing us both a moment to get a hold of ourselves.

“Never,” I cry out, my muscles out of control, clenching and releasing him, the pressure both unbearable and wonderful. “Oh God.”

His head drops, hanging heavy. “Fuck, baby, we feel out of this world.”

“Yeah,” I whisper, finding some patience and waiting for him to start moving.

And when he does, I can’t describe the pleasure, his slippery flesh sliding easily through me as he withdraws and hovers briefly before advancing again, steadily and accurately.

I groan and close my eyes, flexing into his hips each time he rolls into me, my falling heart pounding with something more than the strain of sustaining him making love to me.

“Open your eyes, Amelia,” he orders hoarsely, nodding when I do. He scans my face, every inch of the ecstasy coating it. “This is my favourite view.”

It’s mine too, his hair in disarray, damp, and falling into his eyes, his green gaze alive but heavy, his rough jaw pulsing from the effort of holding himself together. I release my nails from his back and slide my hand onto his upper arm, feeling his muscles flexing with his pumping hips.

“For years I’ve had to think about every breath I take, Amelia,” he whispers, dropping a light kiss on the corner of my mouth, not wavering in his delicate pace, keeping me in a constant state of euphoria.

“You’re all the air I need.” He brushes his lips over mine, and I melt under his soft words and handling of me.

My tongue leaves my mouth and finds his, and they dance, rolling delicately, each swirl pushing me higher.

I don’t know how he’s maintaining his rhythm, how he’s keeping his torso raised.

I love you!

“Jude,” I mumble into his mouth, my toes curling as I hook my legs around his waist and cling on.

“Is it coming?”

“Yes.” Urgency is coming too, my release tinkering just out of reach, needing a few more strokes to get me there.

“I’ve got you.” He’s so calm, but his hips move faster. “Wait for me.”

“I can’t.” I shake my head, making his lips slide onto my cheek. He bites down gently, panting harshly, his hold around my wrist getting tighter.

“You can.” He finally collapses onto me and buries his face in my neck, and my eyes close, my hips meeting every one of his thrusts, chasing the pleasure.

Then I hear him gasp and curse, before he quickly lifts his upper body and kneels, taking me under my knees and using his hold as leverage to yank me back and forth onto him.

I throw my other arm over my head and cling to the headboard, watching as Jude controls every bit of my body and our pleasure, feeling him expand inside me. “Fuck!” he roars, pumping harder. Faster.

I can’t talk to let him know I’m about to fall over the edge, my chest hurting from holding my breath, my eyes fixed on the Adonis before me on his knees, wet, hard, fucking gorgeous. My clit throbs. My thighs tense. My back arches.

And I come, releasing the air I’ve held on a loud yell, immediately shaking with the force, twitching, convulsing, shots of intense pleasure firing from my pussy to my toes, making them point. “Oh my God,” I wheeze, everything out of control, my body at the mercy of my orgasm.

Jude goes rigid, his jaw stiff, his head thrown back, as he comes hard, jolting over and over until it unbalances him and his arse drops to his heels, my lower body in his lap, his cock still held deep inside as he comes in powerful surges. Moaning.

I’m out of my mind.

I don’t think I’ll ever recover from that.

Our breathing is loud and chaotic, as I watch him ride the wave with me, a wildfire blazing inside, burning through all my doubts.

I love him. And I can’t fucking help that. Can’t stop it.

“Shit,” Jude gasps, dazed, appearing to shake his vision clear, his damp hair sticking around his eyes, the pieces flicking out from his nape starting to clump into wet locks.

“Shit, shit, shit.” He drags a hand down his face, his body spasming every few seconds, the aftermath of his climax lingering. I’m spent. Dazed.

Still full of him.

My lids heavy, I let them close and listen to the pounding of blood in my ears as Jude somehow keeps himself inside me as he negotiates my body so he can come down on top of me. Falling onto his side, he pulls me close so we’re face-to-face, still connected, his dick softening against my walls.

“I’m not ready to leave you,” he says, breathless, kissing my damp forehead.

I don’t argue, moving in closer to his chest and entwining our legs. So sweaty. So hot.

So right.