Surrender

Chapter One

I heard screaming.

It was loud. Deafening. The more I struggled to find my breath, the harder it was for my lungs to work. I felt as if I were drowning. I kicked wildly. My arms were pinned to my side, keeping me from moving. I fought to be free. The screams grew louder before I realized they were coming from me.

“Em, it’s ok. You’re ok. I’ve got you.” Something registered when I heard the warmth of his voice. “Wake up.”

I opened my eyes. I had squeezed them shut in my sleep. “Vaughn?” I swallowed a strangled gulp of air.

“Yeah. You were having a nightmare. I think it was a nightmare?” He looked lost. Worried. “I’ve been trying to wake you. You kept kicking me.”

“Sorry.” I pulled my knees into my chest. I was rattled from the dream. It had been vivid. So tangible I could still feel the pain. There was a thin layer of perspiration across my skin.

“What scared you like that?” he asked.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to admit a dream had affected me to the point I had screamed. “I can’t remember. It’s foggy.”

It didn’t help that everything around me was unfamiliar. I was disoriented from traveling. The hotel room looked nothing like the island bungalow we had been sleeping in for the past week.

“Are you ok? Do you think you can fall back asleep?”

He pulled me against his chest, sliding us under the covers so that his arm enveloped my waist in a tight hold. I didn’t mind how warm he was.

I nodded, glad he couldn’t see my face. My eyes would give it away. He would be able to see the fear coursing through me.

“Get some sleep,” he mumbled. “I’ve got you. Just sleep, babe.” He gave me an extra squeeze as if that would absorb the dream from me. I wished it was that simple.

It wasn’t long before his chest rose with the natural rhythm of his breathing. It was easy for him to fall asleep. He hadn’t seen what I had. I couldn’t close my eyes again.

Once I knew he was asleep, I carefully lifted his hand, peeling it away from my hip as I rolled on my side and put my feet on the floor. I closed the door to the bedroom and wandered to the suite’s sitting room. I sat by the window overlooking the city.

It was our first night in Paris. My first time ever in the city. I’d always wanted to travel to Paris. Somehow, I knew it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was here, but it still felt like an out of body experience. I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t take pictures. I couldn’t share my new life with anyone who knew me before we landed at Charles de Gaulle.

I hadn’t exactly walked through customs like a pro. There was definitely something terrifying about showing an international security agent a fraudulent passport to enter another country. It was almost as if I didn’t care when we were in the islands. I was drugged on lust. I was happy Vaughn and I were together that I hardly cared.

For one small vacation, pretending I was someone else was kind of fun. It was like when Greer and I would go out in college and use an alias to ditch assholes at the bar. That had been fun. Entertaining. Part of an inside joke she and I shared for years. This? This was life changing. There wasn’t anything fun about lying to the TSA.

I had watched Vaughn sail through the customs check point as easily as if he were at the grocery store register. His eyes never changed. His voice didn’t falter. I could barely make eye contact with anyone.

I knew I wouldn’t have been able to clear security on my own. The only reason I made it through was because of Vaughn. He steadied me. He smiled. Winked. Squeezed my hand for reassurance until we were outside the airport and in a taxi.

The realization of what that meant was gnawing at me. Was I completely dependent on him? Had I lost more than just my old life?

I reached for a blanket on the back of the chair and wrapped it around my shoulders.

Tomorrow Vaughn would have his next assignment from Blackwing.

He would be back at work, as if nothing was wrong. This was his normal. This was how the man I loved existed.

The bubble we had been living inside would be gone. Vaughn couldn’t create a sphere strong enough to keep his job from invading our life. I was worried. I was paranoid. I was distracted beyond reason.

How did I move forward, knowing his job was to lie? That he was plotting and scheming to take something that didn’t belong to him or Blackwing? Last time, he had stolen from the U.S. government at Greer’s expense. What was he going to take this time? Who was he going to hurt along the way? I didn’t want to know if he was confiscating military secrets or bank account numbers. It was wrong. It was the antithesis of how I lived my life.

I buried my head in my hands.

How could I tell him the doubts had surfaced? That after the most incredible week of my life, I didn’t know how to sleep at night? How could I admit to him that once we left the Bahamas, a pit in my stomach had grown until I could barely breathe? How did I tell him about the dream?

I wasn’t a psychic. I didn’t believe in pre-destined crap. I never gave palm readers my money, or even read a horoscope. But the dream seemed like a prediction of our future. I knew it was my fears playing out in my subconscious. It didn’t make it feel any less terrifying.

What if it haunted me every day? What if this was what our nights would be like? Sex that shattered me to my soul. A nightmare that claimed those shards off the sheets.

I tucked my feet under me, sitting curled like a cat. My eyes scanned the lights on the skyline. I was still in disbelief that this morning I was looking at the ocean, and now I was only miles away from Montmartre.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. We had tropical drinks on the beach and I watched Vaughn snorkel. Today was Black Friday. I let out an involuntary huff, knowing the label seemed different now. It was my Black Friday. The day I stepped on a jet and headed toward Blackwing. Whatever or whoever in the hell that was.

“Babe, what are you doing?”

I jumped when I heard Vaughn’s voice over my shoulder. How long had he been there?

I spun to face him. “I thought you were asle

ep.”

“I was.”

“I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“Why are you up?”

“It’s the time change. Just jetlag. I can’t sleep,” I couldn’t believe I lied again.

He strolled toward me, his chiseled chest cased in shadows from the hotel suite.

The sight of his body brought everything back. I was drawn to him. Bound to him. He moved me in a way that defied logic and love. This man consumed me. He kneeled in front of the chair. The lights from the window splintered across his face.

“Why can’t you sleep? The truth this time.”

My resistance faltered. I didn’t know if I was weak for wanting him to take away the fear. Or if I was tired from trying to sort through everything myself. I didn’t want to do everything on my own anymore.

“I can’t sleep because of the dream I had,” I admitted. “It was horrible.”