Submit and Surrender

chapter 18


The next day, Adra felt…off.

No, it was the entire world that felt off. Just wrong, somehow, like there was a major imbalance somewhere, something that would explain why she kept bumping into things, or dropping things onto other things, or just generally screwing up. Or why she had actually snapped at one of the production assistants.

She never did that.

She’d brought the poor kid a cup of coffee later because she felt so badly about it—really, if anyone knew how terribly people were treated at the bottom of the entertainment industry ladder, it was Adra, and she’d always promised herself that she would never treat anyone that way—but she’d still done it.

The kid was maybe twenty, and had just looked confused and suspicious when she’d apologized.

It was really not her day.

She tried not to think about why.

So, of course, she pretty much only thought about why. She’d realized around two in the afternoon that the previous night was the first night since they’d started having sex that she and Ford…hadn’t. Not even plain old vanilla sex. That was clearly her fault for running away in the middle of the day and falling into one of those deep sleeps she only managed when she was emotionally exhausted, but she still felt the absence.

She’d woken up with a blanket tucked around her and she’d wished it had been him instead.

And then, right on schedule, she’d had a mini freak-out about wishing it was him.

She was actually incredibly tired of freaking out. Really, how long could she keep it up? She was only human. It felt very much like she was on some kind of treadmill with an ever increasing speed, and she was reaching the end of her limit.

“Hey, crazy lady,” Lola said. “Whatcha being crazy about?”

Adra turned around to find Lola standing there with a giant, heaping plate of baked goodies stolen from the film catering table.

“That obvious?” Adra asked.

“Mmmhmm,” Lola said. “That’s why I bring you treats. Well, treat, singular. As in one. The rest are for me.”

Adra actually studied her options for a second, trying to make a considered treat-related decision, before Lola burst out laughing.

“Oh my God, I’m kidding,” Lola said. “I can’t make a pregnancy joke?”

“You ordered an entire page of appetizers. Remember that?”

“That was just indecision,” Lola said, waving her hand. “You helped.”

Adra laughed. “You are really milking this pregnancy thing, aren’t you?”

“Hell yes,” Lola said. “Wouldn’t you?”

Adra didn’t mean to give anything away, but she must have. Maybe her emotions were just running too close to the surface. She watched Lola’s expression fall, and felt terrible.

Man, I should come with a warning label today.

“Oh, honey,” Lola said. “I didn’t mean…”

“Of course you didn’t,” Adra said. “And I shouldn’t… I mean, I’m just weirdly sensitive today, it’s not anything you said. I’m just a big ball of feelings lately and I’m starting to feel…”

“Worn out?”

“Yeah.”

They sat down in one of Adra’s favorite little hidden areas, a little nook where you could see over the second floor balcony onto the chaos below and still have some privacy. Plus, the couch was super comfortable.

“So you want a family,” Lola said.

She said it gently, but it was still a statement.

Adra took a deep breath. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Not really,” Lola said. “I mean, yes, the getting one part is pretty complicated, and so is the having one part, but wanting it…that’s often pretty black or white.”

Adra tried to stare her friend down. She should have known that never would have worked.

“Fine,” she said finally. “Yes, in an ideal world, which this one is not, I would want a family.”

“Of course you do,” Lola said, tearing into a cinnamon roll.

“What do you mean?”

It was strangely alarming to think Adra’s most secret desires, the things she desperately wanted but knew couldn’t have, the things she almost never let herself think about, were totally, completely obvious. Like finding out your favorite dress was transparent in the wrong kind of light.

“You’re the most maternal person I know,” Lola said. She put down the now deconstructed cinnamon roll to give Adra her full attention. “And it’s not just maternal instinct, or whatever. You don’t treat people like children, but you take care of everyone, Adra. All the time. Like it’s your job. Like they’re your family.”

“You guys are my family,” Adra said quietly.

“But you don’t let us take care of you,” Lola said. “So, kind of. But it’s not the same, and you know it.”

“Lola, please don’t make me cry,” Adra said.

“At some point you have to let it out, Adra,” Lola said. “Whatever is eating at you, whatever this thing is with Ford—”

“Shit,” Adra said.

“Oh please, you know I know,” Lola said, and shoved a piece of sugared, cinnamoned, doughy heaven at Adra’s face. “Eat before you cry.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Adra said. “Sticky fingers and cinnamon tears. You ready for that mess?”

“Always. It’ll give me practice for the baby.”

Adra laughed until she nearly choked, which, as it turned out, was also a pretty effective way to keep her from crying.

“I hate to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure they don’t smell like cinnamon,” Adra said.

Lola was not deterred.

“You going to tell me, Adra?” she said, serious now. “I worry about you. I worry about you keeping this inside. I worry—”

“I can’t fall in love with him,” Adra blurted out.

There was a silence.

Lola carefully picked out a chocolate cupcake and handed it to Adra.

“And why not?” she said.

“Because…” Shit. This was one of those things, where, when she tried to explain it, she just sounded like an idiot. She’d never been able to put together the words to convey the feelings that came over her when she thought about allowing herself to rely on anyone, or have them rely on her, even though it was probably the single biggest guiding principle of her life. If she could even call it that.

Oh, who was she kidding? It wasn’t a principle; it was a fear. She should at least own up to it.

“Oh damn,” she said, and put down her cupcake. Her appetite was suddenly gone. “Because I’m not really built for it. Other people…I don’t know, they seem to manage it. But I never have. I get left, over and over again, and people in my family, they leave, and they hurt people. And I’m not strong enough for it anymore. I know that’s a pathetic reason, but it’s true, and I just…I would break, Lola. That’s the truth. I’d break, and I’d break him, and it would be awful.”

“That’s…”

“What?”

“I mean, I want to say that’s totally crazy and you’ve just had terrible luck,” Lola said. “But somehow I don’t think that will help.”

“Maybe it’s just bad luck, but it’s made me like this,” Adra said. “I mean, I’ve gotten used to the idea that I’m not able to have committed relationships. Fine. But if I tried it with Ford and it went to hell the way it always does…oh God, it would just destroy me. And I don’t want to lose him entirely. Selfish, I guess, but, well, there it is. So I don’t know how to manage the whole thing.”

“Who would?” Lola said, picking out another cupcake. “Sounds like a nightmare.”

“Well, it’s not all bad,” Adra said.

Lola grinned in a manner that could only be described as “saucily.”

“Uh-huh,” she said.

“There’s actually a lot of good.”


“There would pretty much have to be,” Lola said. “Hey, I have a question. If Ford’s your best friend, how come you’re not talking about this with him?”

Well, that broke Adra’s brain.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. But nope, she still had nothing. Because Lola had a point. If Adra couldn’t talk about this with Ford, he wasn’t really her best friend. It meant she’d already lost him in a way. It meant the current situation wasn’t working.

Lola raised her eyebrows like, Mmmhmm, I thought so.

Adra tried to untie the knots in her brain and took another cupcake.

***

It didn’t happen like she planned.

It wasn’t even meant to happen at all.

Adra had gone back to Ford’s early again. She’d paced, and thought, and argued with herself out loud. She’d tensed up when she heard him come home and then she’d waited, both nervous and dying to see him, until she heard his footsteps outside the door of her room. “Her” room—it was his house; that she thought of it as her room was kind of ridiculous.

He’d only knocked, and then when she flung open the door, insanely anxious because she still didn’t know what to say or what to do, he’d taken one look at her and asked if she was ok.

“No,” she’d said. “But I will be. Give me time?”

And then he’d asked no more questions, and made her dinner.

Now it was late. It was past late; it was that hour of the night that felt like a separate island from the rest of the world, at least up here in the Hills. Back at Adra’s place, she could always hear some sort of city sounds. But here, in Ford’s private house, she felt like she was in another world.

Maybe that actually helped what came next.

She’d been up all night. Trying to figure out how to maintain her friendship with Ford and keep the sex, because, well, she had to face it: the sex wasn’t going anywhere. The sex was like a force of nature. Which obviously wasn’t sustainable, right, if Ford was going to one day…

She couldn’t even think it. Which was screwed up; if she was his best friend, she should want him to be happy. She should want him to find someone to love and build a life with.

And she didn’t.

But she couldn’t be in love with him. Or, if she was, she couldn’t act on it.

Adra went around in these circles for hours, until the moonlight crept across her bed, until the night settled on everything like a deafening blanket, until she had actually driven herself out of her mind.

And it was at that point that she got up.

She walked, shaking, down the hall.

She knocked on his door.

She let herself in.

Ford was sitting up in his huge bed, rubbing his eyes, his bare, muscle torso a pale blue in the light from the window. Adra smiled softly at the sight of him waking up, the gentleness of it, this rare moment of softness. It only lasted a moment and then he was up. Fully present. Full attention on Adra.

It was like a spotlight.

“Adra,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

She twisted the ends of the shirt she’d worn to bed in her hands. It was one of his old button downs, worn soft and smooth—that’s why she’d told him she’d taken it to sleep in. But it was also because it smelled like him, ever so faintly.

F*ck, she had no idea what to say.

“Adra,” he said, and he got out of bed, his face worried, his body…

Oh God. His body.

Boxer briefs.

Adra snapped out of it, remembered what she was here for. “Wait,” she said.

“Whatever it is, we can fix it,” Ford said.

Adra closed her eyes.

“Just…be quiet for a second?” she asked.

“Ok,” he said.

Now or never.

Adra opened her eyes. “I came here to say…”

And she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t do it. She tried to speak, and realized that she still hadn’t pulled a coherent thought out of all that mess, still didn’t know what she could say to herself, let alone him. Because once again there weren’t really any words that did any of it justice, not words she could say, and so she choked.

She didn’t want to be talking. She didn’t want to screw up anymore by saying things that weren’t true or only half true or just a shadow of the truth.

She could have cried in frustration. Because there he was, Ford Colson, watching her from just a few feet away, and it felt like he was a million miles away. It felt so far, and the distance made her cold, and it made all those words weigh down on her when she already felt too damn heavy. She knew she couldn’t tell him how she felt.

She just wanted to show him.

“Adra…” he said again.

“No,” she said. “I can’t talk. I’m sorry, but I can’t…I just…”

F*ck it.

Slowly, Adra worked at the buttons on her shirt. Ford’s old shirt. He was watching her, his expression still worried, his brow furrowed.

One button.

Two.

“Adra,” he said again. This time his voice was hoarse.

“I’m not good with words,” she said. The buttons were done. The shirt hung open. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. “Let me show you.”

Silently, Ford put his hand on the side of her face. She leaned into it, savoring the feel of his hand on her cheek. And then she shrugged the shirt off, stood on her toes, and kissed him.

And after that, she didn’t know what came over her.

She’d never been too much of a sexual aggressor. She wasn’t lazy, either—she was adept at the ways a sub could initiate and contribute to the game. But she’d never felt the need to take; she’d never wanted to leave a mark.

She did now.

She’d never felt hunger like this.

She’d been starving. These days without him, these days without his touch, without that feeling of being with him—she’d starved. She kissed him with such manic desire that it took them both by surprise. Adra threw her arms around his neck and pressed her whole naked body against him. She felt him come alive, inch by delicious inch, felt him grow hard and huge, felt him match her hunger with that insatiable force that she’d come to crave.

Felt him pick her up with a growl and throw her on his bed.

He stood over her for a second, running his eyes over her body while she panted. Taking it in. Taking her in. Taking her.

And then he was on her.

He ran his hands down the length of her body like he was claiming every curve, every hollow, every dip. Ford was the one who would leave his mark, and holy God, did Adra want him too.

He kissed her again, roughly, deeply, his hand in her hair, his weight between her thighs, and then he entered her. There wasn’t anything controlled about it. Nothing formal. There was no game, no rules. He just took her with a ferocity that mirrored her own, and as he slid inside her, she found relief.

As they began to move together, Adra brought his head down to hers, his forehead against her own. She felt tears come to her eyes and this time, she didn’t fight. She let them spill down her cheeks as her back began to arch, as Ford drove her higher, tighter, brighter.

And the world went back to right.