Submit and Surrender

chapter 17


Adra made a beeline for Ford.

It was a weird reaction, technically. But she felt gross, having almost allowed herself to be manipulated by Derrick because she was feeling…whatever she was feeling about Ford, and, even weirder still, she felt somehow disloyal for having done so, even though that made zero sense. And now she was presented with a situation in which she was literally in the middle of a hallway with Derrick on one end and Ford on the other.

Nothing else in her life made much sense, but this, at least, was pretty simple. Even if no one else got the metaphor.

She walked toward Ford as quickly as she could.

Ford was staring past her in Derrick’s general direction, a truly frightening look on his face, right up until she got close. And then she had all of his attention.

And, like it always did, the full strength of Ford’s focus nearly bowled her over. Only this time, she couldn’t read everything she saw there.

He looked worried. Concerned. But there was…

It almost stopped her. Somehow not knowing what was going on in Ford’s head as he saw her have a supposed “moment” with Derrick was worse than if she’d seen something disappointing. Which was when she realized she had hopes that could be disappointed.

And she was hoping for jealousy. She was actually hoping to see jealousy in his face, since she’d just had a big fat heaping taste of that herself. And that, of course, was horrible and petty and juvenile, especially considering that Adra had been the one to set the limits on their relationship in the first place.

On the other hand, everything else about her behavior was starting to seem pretty nuts—really, crying alone in a storage room?—so what was one more thing to add to the list?

Besides, she might have been the one to initially set limits on their relationship, but everything since then indicated that Ford was now perfectly happy with those limits. He may have wanted her—all of her—at one point in time, but then he saw how flaky she could be, how terrible she was with relationships, and…well, he didn’t seem to want the same things anymore. He seemed content with their current arrangement. Which was a good thing, because it would protect them both, but it still kind of made her feel like…

“Crap,” she muttered.

“What’s wrong?” Ford said.

Adra looked up, got hit with those blue eyes, and was momentarily stunned.

There were so many things she wanted to say to him.

But how would she figure out how to say them? There weren’t words for them all, for all those conflicting feelings, for all the context, and so instead they just swirled around inside her head, overwhelming her, drowning her. Until she couldn’t think of a single thing to say at all, because not one thing was the truth, and not one thing told the whole story, and they were all hopelessly inadequate to tell Ford what he meant to her and why she couldn’t be what he deserved.

So instead she said, “Hi.”

She really hated feeling like a teenager all over again. Seriously, one ride on that hormonal hell train should have been enough. Adra ran a successful business in a cutthroat industry, she managed a high-profile club, she took care of everyone in her life, but Ford just made her ridiculous. All he had to do was look at her, or…

“Adra, are you ok?”

Or say something like that, like that was his only concern in life at that particular moment.

God. Dammit.

“I’m fine,” she lied.

Ford stepped closer, close enough that she could smell his cologne, close enough that she could see the stubble coming in, close enough to…

“Are you sure?” he said. Then he looked up, past her, where Derrick had been, and his eyes went hard. “What did he do?”

“What?” Adra said. He thought Derrick had hurt her? “Oh, of course I’m ok. I can handle him, Ford.”

In fact, she could handle pretty much everything, except apparently Ford. It kind of irked her that he thought otherwise. Or maybe she was just looking for an excuse to be mad at him so she wouldn’t have to feel…all these other things.

Ford looked down at her again, his eyes searching. “Of course you can,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you always have to, you know. Sometimes I might like to do it for you.”

Then he smiled.

Adra forced a laugh, and hoped that covered up how that had taken her breath away. She was constantly having to remind herself not to take Ford’s protectiveness too personally. He’d always been like that, with everyone he cared about. It was just who he was.

He was also apparently pretty unaffected by seeing her with Derrick. Which was the way it should be. Even if she’d felt like she’d gotten punched in the stomach when she’d seen him with Claudia.

But what weighed on her at that moment, standing so close and yet so far away from Ford Colson, was that what bothered her the most was how much she wanted to share everything with him—and how much she knew she couldn’t, and still keep things as they were: safe. Well, safe-ish.

So close, and yet so far.

But mostly so, so far.

And what once felt safe now felt like that great, yawning gulf, opening up inside her. Before it could overwhelm her, Adra smiled back up at him, gave him a peck on the cheek, and went back downstairs.

~ * ~ * ~

Ford ran hard.

He hadn’t taken his truck up to the canyons for a cross-country run in what felt like a long time. He’d gotten everything he’d needed lately from playing with Adra, but today required more, at least if he was going to be able to help the woman he cared about the most.

The sweat poured off him in waves, sucked up greedily by the dry ground as he ran harder and harder.

It was the only way to clear his head after Roman had told him that he was giving Adra an early ride back to Ford’s place. Hell, just running into Adra earlier had put him on high alert, but getting confirmation that there was something upsetting her, something she wouldn’t tell him about—again—just made it worse.

Every time he looked at Derrick Duvall, for example, he wanted to punch that pretty boy through a wall. Ford was self-aware enough to know that wasn’t even about Derrick. Adra was right when she said she could handle him, even though it pissed Ford off that she ever had to.

No, he was pissed off because Derrick knew what was going on. Derrick was still close to her in a way that Ford wasn’t.

It was straight up jealousy. Which was beneath him, and it was beneath Adra, and more importantly: it was f*cking dangerous. Ford had kept it under lockdown, not even letting himself think it. The last thing he wanted was to spook Adra further.

She was already so frightened. So torn up. And so clearly anxious about their arrangement, with those questions about his ex-wife. He could see it—he could f*cking feel it, like he had nerves tied to hers, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

He ran harder.

He ran until his lungs burned and his legs ached and thought he might, just might, have worked the worst of it off. And by the time he drove home the sun was already setting and he was thinking clearly. His priority was Adra. Which meant he couldn’t take his own baggage into any conversation with her; he couldn’t think about it his own past with a woman who didn’t know what she wanted and eventually left him for another man. He couldn’t push Adra into something because it was what he wanted.


He had to be strong enough to wait for her.

Which actually felt easier than it should. Easier than he would have expected it to feel. He thought about that, as he drove through the winding canyon roads, knowing he was getting closer and closer: this kind of situation should be setting off all kinds of alarm bells, reminding him of what happened with Claudia and Jesse, looking like the exact kind of thing he’d always said he’d avoid. It was the reason he’d avoided Adra for a while after she’d told him she couldn’t really be with him. It should have had the same effect now.

Only it didn’t.

He could kind of feel that in the background, weak and irrelevant. But it was like a shadow compared to what he felt when he thought about Adra now.

So much so that he knew he wouldn’t feel good until she did too. Fact. All he wanted to do was help her be happy, and it killed him when she wasn’t.

Yeah, he was one hundred percent, absolutely screwed in love.

And he was happy about it.

So happy that when he got home and found Adra already sleeping, her body curled up into a tiny little ball and her expression anything but relaxed, he knew enough to leave her alone. But he gently, slowly, draped a blanket over her first.