Surrender to Temptation Part III: Tempted to Obey by Lauren Jameson

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    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
    TEMPTED TO OBEY
    An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
    PUBLISHING HISTORY
    InterMix eBook edition / January 2013
    Surrender to Temptation
copyright © 2013 by Lauren Jameson.
    Excerpt from
Blush
copyright © 2013 by Lauren Jameson.
    All rights reserved.
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    ISBN: 978-1-101-62072-4
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Chapter One
    “Are you awake now?” I sat on the edge of Zach’s massive bed, my fingers fisted in the cool fabric of his sheets. The way they were tangled over the massive mattress spoke volumes about the nightmare that still clung to him with dark tendrils.
    Though my entire being shied away from the thought, I recognized the blackness that hung around him like a shroud. It took me right back to those awful first months after I had lost my parents. Zach’s grief, though he refused to share it with me, opened the wound back up like the slice of a scalding knife.
    That, though, was the entire reason I had forced myself to stay, to move past the sensation of his fingers digging into my arms, of the fear I had felt when he had looked into my eyes and not recognized me.
    I understood. I suspected that many of the people who surrounded him didn’t . . . and that was if they even bothered to look closely enough.
    “I’m awake now.” Zach’s eyes, though now free of the fog of sleep, were shadowed with the ghost of something painful. He stood facing me, naked and completely unselfconscious about it. Those eyes were unreadable as they raked over my face.
    Though I was wrapped in a soft towel that covered me from shoulder to knees, my damp hair and the rivulets of water that clung to my skin made me shiver. I felt exposed under the intensity of his stare, even though I was covered and Zach was not.
    I was entirely out of my element. For years now I had become accustomed to burying every emotion that I had, not having the strength to