Fifth Avenue Box Set: Take MeAvenge MeScandalize MeExpose Me Read online

  He didn’t.

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Tell me.” Because showing was too revealing. It was too much.

  He cupped her chin, holding her face steady, forcing her to look at him. “Give me what you want,” he said, the command one she couldn’t deny. Wouldn’t deny.

  She lowered her head and drew him deep into her mouth. And she was lost in him. This was what she wanted. Austin. His body. Him. Always.

  Her heart sped up. She couldn’t have him, though, not really. Not now. Not ever. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. But it was.

  He pulled her head away suddenly, his grip in her hair hard. The flash of pain she desperately craved, a momentary reprieve from the pain in her chest.

  “Not like that,” he said, his breath ragged. “I need you. I need to be in you.”

  He bent and scooped her into his arms, picking her up and carrying her to the living room.

  “I can walk,” she said, except she wasn’t sure if she could. Her muscles were trembling, her legs boneless. She was on the edge of something. An orgasm, an emotional breakdown. She wasn’t sure which. She wasn’t sure it mattered which, or if the two were even different things anymore.

  “You don’t have to.” He set her down on the couch and got on his knees in front of her, wrapping her legs around his hips, pausing to pull a condom from his wallet and sheathe himself before pushing inside of her. Slowly. So slowly she felt each inch, felt the full impact of what it was to be filled by him, utterly, completely.

  “Oh, yes.” He lowered his head and tugged her up against him, forcing himself deeper.

  He kissed her then, desperate and wild, not the slow, sensual movements he’d treated her to before. In this, he’d lost his control. But he’d stolen hers right along with it.

  She needed to resist. Needed to retreat. But she couldn’t. So instead she wrapped her arms around his neck and met his eyes, a feeling so big, so impossible, so painful that at first she tried to push it away as it built in her chest.

  She wanted to hide from him, but then his eyes met hers, unveiled emotion in them, and she was caught, transfixed. Because she could see the desperation in his eyes. The need. For her. She could see how broken he was, way down deep. How he was trying to heal it with this, with the meeting of their bodies. Because the only way they made sense was together. The only way they seemed to make a whole person whose broken edges seemed to be just fine was when they came together.

  She understood why he was trying to fix himself this way, because she felt it, too. But she was afraid that when he fixed himself, it might break her to pieces. But she didn’t want to hide from him, even if it destroyed her.

  This was what she felt, and she hadn’t wanted him to be a part of this, because it was too real, too deep to share. But now she saw it in him. Felt it pour out over her. Their pain. Their pleasure. Their need.

  And suddenly, she realized she wanted this, whatever had brought him to this point.

  She wanted to be there for him. To shoulder it. And it didn’t feel like too much. It didn’t feel like something she couldn’t add to her already immense list of burdens.

  This was Austin. And like he’d shouldered her problems, she wanted to take on his. She wanted to catch him when he fell. She wanted to ease the weight that he was carrying with him.

  How had she not seen it before? Just how heavy it was inside of him. How had she never realized that he was having just as hard of a time breathing as she was?

  So she held him now, because it was what she could do.

  He bent and kissed her, fierce and hard, breaking the eye contact. And she kissed him back. Pouring every ounce of that emotion that was building in her chest into him. Because she wasn’t sure if she knew what to call it, wasn’t sure she would know how to say what it was. Because this was beyond her. Like nothing she’d ever felt before. Like nothing she’d ever imagined she might have.

  This man, who managed to touch parts of her she’d thought she’d blocked off from the world. And she wanted him there. She wanted him inside of her. She wanted him to know her. The beauty, the ugliness, the boring. All of it. The poverty-stricken girl she’d been. Whoever she was now. Her anger, her grief, her joy, she wanted it to be his. And she wanted his in return.

  Because that was the thing. It was too heavy for him to carry alone. And hers was too heavy for her. But if they could just share it, then they could go on.

  She was ready now.

  She needed Austin. She needed this. These things she’d never known she wanted, escape she’d never known she could find.

  “Katy,” he said, his voice rough, his face buried in her neck. “Oh, Katy. I need you. I need you.”

  “Me, too,” she said, kissing his temple. “Me, too, Austin.”

  “Come for me, baby. I can’t last. Come with me.”

  He put his hand between them, slid his thumb over her clit in time with his thrusts and sent her straight over the edge at the same time he lost it. She could feel him pulsing inside of her, felt his pleasure deep within her, joining with hers, pushing her higher, further than she’d ever thought possible.

  She clung to him, her nails digging into his skin as she rode out her orgasm. As she tried to be strong for both of them while he shuddered out his pleasure, his muscles shaking so hard she thought he might break apart.

  Not while he was in her arms. Not while she held him.

  Slowly, he came back to himself, and when he did, he moved away from her. All too soon. “I can’t...” He let out a harsh breath. “I...don’t know what happened just now.”

  “We made love,” she said, feeling completely destroyed by the experience. A leveled house after the storm.

  “I need to... I have to go back to work.”

  “Austin?”

  “I just need to go.”

  That was rich. He was running now. He’d forced her to lay it all bare, to make love nice and sweet when she was scared to death, and now he was the one trying to cover up.

  “What happened?”

  “What makes you think anything happened?”

  “The fact that you came in and demanded that. The look on your face when you came in... You seemed upset.”

  He put his hand over his face. He was sitting, naked on the floor, a marble statue in a pose of regret.

  “I wasn’t upset,” he said.

  “Really? Is that how you’re going to play it? You were totally fine.”

  “Yes,” he growled. “I was fine. I was...happy, for lack of a better word. Do you know where I just came from?”

  “No.”

  “My office. Where I took great pleasure in telling my father that I was going to see him taken for everything he owns.” He stood and paced the length of the floor, pushing his hands through his hair. “And he...he said something. And do you know what I did?”

  “What?” she asked, feeling hollow. Sick.

  “I wrapped my fingers around his throat and it took every ounce of my control not to squeeze tight and end him then and there. I want to kill him, Katy. Honest to God, I do.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “No. Because then I wouldn’t get to toy with him anymore. Then I wouldn’t get the pleasure of watching his life burn around him. Do you know what I discovered today? I am so much more like him than I ever realized.”

  “What?” she asked. “How can you stand here and say something like that when you just told me you wanted him dead?”

  “He likes it, you know? He likes it when he realizes that he has the power. When he can take it and lord it over someone. See the fear in their eyes. Today, I did that to him. And I liked it. Not a single part of me recoiled from that.”

  “Because of what he did,” she said. “Because of what he’s done to countless women. To my sister. Your friend. That’s why you enjoyed it. Hell, Austin, I’d wrap my fingers around his throat, too.”

  “It’s not the same. It’s not. Do you know how sobering it is to look that man in
the eyes and see nothing but myself staring back at me? It’s not him I hate. It’s me.”

  “Don’t hate yourself, Austin. You haven’t done anything.”

  “I haven’t done anything? I let a woman die, Katy. I let her sink into utter despair, because I was too damn comfortable to look past my own life and into hers. But I have a feeling it was even more than that. What if I just didn’t care?”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Isn’t it? That night we met at the hotel? It had nothing to do with you. You were a stranger, and I took you and used you—”

  “I used you right back. Don’t you dare try to change the story now, Austin Treffen. I will not listen to it.”

  “The only reason I made love to you just now was to prove that I could,” he said, his voice flat. And just like that, he stole it all from her. Everything it meant. Everything she’d thought she’d felt pass between them.

  “I didn’t need it,” she said, angry now, because he’d forced her to give so much, all so he could salve his conscience. “Didn’t I tell you I didn’t want your guilt? Not in the form of cash, and not from your body.”

  “So...what? You’d rather I just bend you over the table and force you? Wrap my hands around your throat like I did him?”

  “It’s not the same. I ask for it. I beg. Look what I begged you for. The first time and every time after.”

  “As if you even know what you wanted. You were just a virgin.”

  “Don’t you dare try to pull that on me. I don’t know why you’re spoiling for a fight, but obviously, you have a problem here. And I can also see that you’re being an asshole so I’ll write you off, since you’ve clearly written yourself off. But guess what, asshole. I love you.”

  Her words hung between them in the silence. And no matter how much she wished they would, they just didn’t fade. They were so very there. So very raw and true, and she hadn’t even realized they were until she’d said them.

  “I do,” she said again. “I love you.”

  “You can’t...”

  “I do. And, you know...I think I have from the beginning, which seems ridiculous, and yet...I knew you. That moment I saw you in your father’s office building, I knew you. You’re right, Austin. We don’t make sense. You said that once. That what we wanted didn’t make any sense. And it’s true. It doesn’t. Not when we’re apart. Together we make perfect sense. And it’s not just the sex. You’re this guy who came from a world where everything glittered and you had to learn the hard way that not everything does. And I never...I never saw anything beautiful until you. You’re the one who showed me that sometimes you can trust someone. That there are people who will help. Who will try and carry your burdens with you. You’re the first person to ever do anything like that for me. You make me believe in good things and...and for someone like me, from the place I’m from...that’s huge.”

  He laughed. Hollow and bitter. “How can I make you believe in something good when I’m not sure I believe in anything good anymore? How the hell can you stand there and look at me like the sun rises and sets on me when you know what I am? When you know I let your sister die. When you know that I have the same tendencies that that...monster has inside of me. I am not the man to share your burdens with. I can’t even be bothered to deal with someone’s burdens for five minutes, even if it would keep her from jumping to her death.”

  “You didn’t let her die. You didn’t know,” she said, her throat tightening. “And you aren’t your father.”

  “Just like you aren’t your parents?” he asked, his words a slap across her face. “Like you never hid in a room and got high to escape your life? I’m not my father just like you aren’t them, is that it? Let’s just face it, Katy. We’re fucked up down to our blood and there’s no real way to escape that. Did you think we were going to set up a house together and get married or something? Did you think we’d have kids and go to the burbs and pretend none of this ever happened?”

  “I...I...” She couldn’t speak around the knot in her throat. She felt sucker punched. By the fact that he’d used her confession against her. That he’d betrayed her like that.

  No one else knew about the drugs. No one. She’d trusted him with that. It had been a bigger leap of faith than letting him tie her up had ever been, and he’d just used it against her.

  “It’s not happening. Ever. I don’t want that from you. I’m not even capable of it. I might keep you as a sex slave. What do you think about that?”

  “Shut up, Austin,” she said. “Just shut up.”

  “Why? Because you built up a fantasy that doesn’t exist and now you want to hold on to it? Not my problem. I never promised you a damn thing.”

  “No, you didn’t. But this? This is crap. This isn’t you. This is... You’re running from something and you’re acting like a teenage boy who’s afraid and can’t admit it. Trying to hide what you want because it scares you. Getting pissed when you can’t deny it. You’re getting angry when what you really are is terrified. And I want to know why.”

  “You think you have some sort of insight into my emotions just because you got into my pants? Not even close.”

  “No, you know what? This isn’t you. I have spent every night in your bed, I’ve told you everything about me, I’ve held you in some of your lowest moments, and so I think I have a pretty good idea of who you are. And this isn’t it. So tell me right now what has you afraid.”

  “You want to know what has me afraid?” he asked. “I am afraid of turning into a sociopath. I’m afraid I’m halfway there, and the only way to protect anyone in my life is to make sure I cut the head off the source, and do everything I can to right what he’s done. Because maybe then I won’t have the chance to embrace the ugly inside of me.”

  “That’s not it. You aren’t him. You know you aren’t. And I love you.”

  “And so many people love him, you stupid, stupid girl,” he said, venom in his every word.

  The words hit hard. Mushroomed inside of her chest, blossoming like a bullet, leaving shrapnel behind she didn’t think she’d ever dig out.

  Of course, to him she was just a stupid, silly girl. A girl from nowhere, with no education. Good for a sex slave and nothing else.

  No. He doesn’t mean it. He’s afraid. It scared him, too. That’s all.

  “My mother loved him,” he continued. “My sister. Me. Sarah. Because you know she probably loved him, too. How do you think she got sucked into it? Why do you think she left Hunter? How do you think all of this started? Love. And all she was willing to do for it. Don’t throw those words around like they’re a gift that can only be given to the deserving, because that just isn’t true.”

  “So what? That’s what scares you? The love thing?”

  “No. It’s what loving me will do to you. You shouldn’t. I don’t want it.”

  “Oh. Well, then. I guess... I really think I should probably go. And I don’t know where that leaves this...the stuff with Sarah.”

  “You can stay here,” he said.

  “No, idiot, I can’t because you just broke my effing heart and I’m not going to let you walk over the pieces. I have pride, or something—I don’t really know what—but...I’m done. I’m not staying here and taking half. Or nothing. I’m not going to be your sex slave, even though I know full well you don’t want one and you’re just being full of crap.”

  She walked through to the kitchen and started collecting her clothes, putting them on as quickly as possible. Because being naked in front of him now felt stupid.

  “You can send my stuff. I’m not waiting around.” She clasped her bra and tugged her top over her head.

  She headed to the door and paused. “Do you want to know how I know you don’t just want me to be your sex slave?” He didn’t say anything. “I’ll tell you. It’s not because you came in here and made love to me. Not because you were gentle and sweet this time. Not because you put my pleasure first, like always. Because you looked into my eyes and I saw myself there
. It’s because you don’t get off on power. You like control. Yeah, you get off on it. But only if I get off on it, too. You don’t like my fear. You’ve never asked for it. So, guess what. I think you’re a different sort of beast than your dad. A beast, yes, but a different sort. If you need anything, any information regarding Sarah? Have one of your friends call me. There’s still work to do, and I’m not stopping until it’s done.”

  She walked out the door and down the hall, and she didn’t start crying until she was safely inside the taxi, with no idea where to tell the driver to go.

  Because there was nowhere. There was no one.

  No one but Austin. And he didn’t want to be there for her anymore.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “What are we doing here?” Alex asked, curling his lip as he looked at Austin. Austin didn’t care about his friend’s disapproval. He was too drunk to care about much of anything.

  And that was a state of bliss he hadn’t been in since before Katy had left.

  “Drinking,” Austin said, lifting his glass to his lips and knocking back the contents.

  “No,” Hunter said, “you’re drinking. I’m pretty sure that was mine. I could have used that, maybe.”

  Hunter lifted the empty glass and the bartender nodded, sliding a newly filled one over to his end of the bar.

  “Your parents’ divorce is all over the news,” Alex said, looking down at his phone and tapping the screen, pulling up the headlines that were dominating the society pages and entertainment sites. “And it’s ugly.”

  “Yeah, no joke it’s ugly,” Austin said, his arms resting on the bar, his head starting to droop. He was pretty drunk. There was no denying it. And Alex’s voice was a lot more annoying than usual. Not that it was usually annoying. It was just that anyone’s voice, anyone’s presence, was too much for him right now.

  He should have thought of that before he called Alex and Hunter down here for... Hell, he didn’t even know what. Advice? An intervention?

  “I’m representing my mother in the divorce. So it’s going to get uglier. Trust me. Because I’m gonna make damn sure it’s ugly.”