Sweet Surrender (King's Trace Antiheroes, #1)

by Sav R. Miller

Where Luca freezes me in place, rigidity lining my bones, Elia’s touch melts me, a soft flame incinerating my entire body the second we connect.

And for some really fucked-up reason, the rage I see hiding there turns me on.

My immobility has nothing to do with the way my heart spasms when I imagine someone else touching her—nothing to do with how my lungs constrict, how breathing feels like inhaling fire.

An entire week of her clouding my thoughts, my every fucking fantasy, of wondering what she was doing at home and when I’d be able to get back to her.

“I can do whatever the fuck I want, baby. This is my castle, and I’m your goddamn king.”

There’s a persistent sensation pooling in the back of my mind, in the dark part of my heart, that wishes she were more. More than some girl I married out of spite or some savior complex, and more than someone I have an expiration with. Something that wants her to be my saving grace, my redemption—a spring goddess, wrought from the earth to heal me even though I am entirely undeserving.

The sweetest, purest sin I’ve ever indulged in.”

I’ve never in my life felt anything as heavenly as this. Her pussy is warm and so goddamn wet, clinging to me like rain-soaked clothing.

I want to run my tongue along his dark stubble, want to fold myself up and let him consume me, and that worries me because I’m on a mission here.

Sitting there with his hair mussed and his clothes haphazardly hanging to his frame, he looks like some sort of god.

“I think it was something else. Something grand. Spectacular. Earth-shattering, like you.”

“No, you didn’t, but I wanted to help you.”

“Christ, I still do. Fuck me, right? I must be the dumbest, weakest capo of all time.”

I didn’t plan on making new enemies, yet I feel like my husband just circled himself on my list in dark bloodred ink.

Fuck, I’m gone for this little nymph.

her. I don’t know what it is about her fire that gets me, but each time she pushes me away or slices me open with her mouth, my heart turns to putty, aching for her to give in.

“Trust me, no one in this world could turn that man against you.”

“I don’t think he’s a good man, Jules. I think he could hurt you.” She gives me a wry smile. “What man can’t?”

“I don’t care. I’m gonna make every man who ever laid a finger on you regret it.”

I don’t want to mean anything to this man. Yet I want to mean everything.

But no one else knows the truth, that our coupling is a war, a fight for power—one that can only end in bloodshed.

“I don’t need your forgiveness. Don’t want it. All I want is your goddamn surrender.”

I don’t want to connect it to the fact that I don’t know where Caroline disappeared to; she ditched her phone at the house, and I’ve yet to bug any of her underwear.

I feel Elia’s presence before I even see him; his soul radiates toward mine like a heatwave in July, hazy and thick and suffocating. I know he’s down here, hunting, looking for me.

Who orders food at a club known for luxury cocaine and hookers?

The tenderness he’s showing causes something to crack in me, a levee bursting open with uninhibited waters. “Let me take care of you.”

I fit myself into him, trying to erase our seam. “I don’t want to go with anyone except you.”

Desire for her courses through my veins; she’s a fresh rain after a long drought, her innocence a magnet I can’t tear myself from. The fire in her soul something I want to consume me. Make me whole. Redeem me.

All this time, I thought she’d be the one surrendering—giving in. Jesus Christ, was I wrong.

Sort sol be damned; Caroline obliterates the sun all on her own.

Elia Montalto isn’t a king; he’s a god.

I want all of those men dead, for her. For whatever they did to her.

My only hope is that my mother isn’t looking down from wherever the hell the afterlife is—that she doesn’t visit me later when I’m asleep.

“If you fell in, maybe the baby would send information to your brain for survival, and the ability to swim would just kind of kick in.

An eyebrow perks up, intrigued, lighting my body like a three-wick candle.

Nerves course through me, jitters rattling me to my core, at the prospect of finally getting to wine and dine my wife.

“Plans change, Caroline. People, feelings, and circumstances change all the time. The universe gives and takes away, and our job is just to try to keep up.”

“You don’t have to ask, amore mio. At this point, I’d do anything for you. Spoken, unspoken, I don’t care. I want all the responsibility.”

And I can’t stop feeling fucking dizzy, like I’m three seconds from passing out from the sheer pleasure of getting to have her like this. Finally.

I want to own her; for our souls to be so entwined, there’s no way they can ever be separated, but not at the expense of her goodness. Her innocence.

One of nature’s most beautiful and terrifying phenomena.”

“Kind of like you.”

There’s something so hot about this made man being domestic that if I weren’t already pregnant, I think the sight before me might result in the same predicament.

She’s a balm to the chapped, burned spots on my soul. Not the solution. Not the fix. But the provision of just enough relief that I feel like I can get through life.

Everything you’ve done, every ounce of love and life you’ve poured into your existence, despite the evil he wrought on you, that’s your proof. You’re still here, thriving, in spite of it all. Don’t ruin everything you’ve worked to reclaim.”

We just learn to cover the bad stuff with better memories.”

“And you and I are gonna make the best goddamn memories.”

Caroline planted a garden in my soul, replacing the tar and darkness from before, flourishing with each passing day I spend with her and my daughter. My family.

My soul feels cleansed, rebirthed, and atoned, despite the blackness that still lurks in its depths. But for now, I choose to focus on the light.

I surrendered a lot more than bachelorhood when I offered her a whirlwind proposal, and I’ve gotten more in return than I ever could have imagined.