“Take it.” His voice is low and demanding. “I need your mouth on me now.”
I can’t obey him fast enough. Arousal spirals through me, as sharp and compelling as Nick’s command. I close my lips around him and suck him deep, moaning at the feel of him on my tongue, filling my mouth. His hands mold to the back of my head as I move up and down on him. He shows me the tempo he wants, the pressure of his fingers urging me to go deeper, faster, harder.
“Fuck,” he grinds out tersely as he powers into my mouth.
I know he’s on the verge of coming and I want to take him there. I cup his balls and meet every furious stroke, even though it’s almost too much for me to manage. On a violent curse, he pulls me off him and shoves me down onto my back. His slacks and boxer briefs bunch low on his thighs but he doesn’t seem to notice or care.
Kneeling between my legs, he yanks my hips up to meet him, his scarred hand guiding his cock roughly into the folds of my slick, swollen cleft. He thrusts inside, tunneling deep and hard, as far as my body will allow. It’s almost too much. He’s immense and tonight he’s got the sexual hunger to match. There is an air of domination in him now that unsettles me, even though it once turned me on.
Nick’s eyes are locked onto mine but they seem remote, shuttered as he moves inside me. His hips rock urgently, violently, leaving no room for the tenderness I crave. I don’t know what’s spurring this animal need in him, if it’s the alcohol or the hospital or the dark, troubled mood that seemed to ride him most of the day. Maybe it’s all of those things.
He doesn’t give me any chance to reach him.
Pulling out of me on a harsh snarl, he lifts me under the arms and turns me around, positioning me on my knees and then pressing me down atop the arm of the sofa. With my hands caught in his grasp at my back, he enters me from behind, bucking into me with even greater frenzy. I can’t deny the erotic pleasure that streaks through me to be pinned beneath him, submitted completely and wholly at his mercy.
But this isn’t what I need right now.
I need to see his face. I need to touch him, and feel his arms around me.
I crave an intimacy I don’t think he’s capable of tonight.
“Nick,” I gasp, struggling to find my breath, let alone the words. “Nick, please . . .”
I don’t know if he hears me. He seems too far gone into whatever it is that owns him right now.
And then I hear the soft jangle of a belt buckle. Followed by the fluid whisper of cool leather being wrapped around my wrists at my back.
“Nick . . . no.” I flinch, a jolt of alarm shooting into my veins. I tamp it down, knowing he would never hurt me or do anything I don’t want. “Not like this, okay? Not tonight.”
Nick and I have played at games like this before, but something is different about him tonight. I don’t know why he feels the need for this kind of control right now, but he is lost to it. I sense a darkness in him so strongly it startles me. Terrifies me.
And the leather doesn’t leave my wrists; it only tightens. Everything inside me freezes in an instant.
“Nick?” I turn my head to look at him over my shoulder but his eyes are wild and vacant. “Dammit, Nick. I said no!”
I scramble away from him. Pulling my hands out of his hold and kicking free of the sofa, I fall to the floor in an inelegant sprawl. I sit up, naked and shaking. My breath heaves in and out of my lungs as I stare up at him in shocked silence.
I’m not sure which of us is more horrified.
“Avery—fuck.”
He reaches for my hand to help me up, but I don’t take it. I move away from the sofa in a rush of limbs then slowly stand up, easily out of his reach.
“Now you’re afraid of me?” His face is a mask of contrition . . . and barely contained fury. “Jesus Christ.”
He swings his feet to the floor and stands, pulling up his black boxer briefs and pants and tucking his still-erect cock inside. He zips up tersely and reaches for his empty glass on the table.
I swallow hard, searching for words as I watch him stride away from me toward the kitchen. Hastily putting on my clothes, I follow after him.
“What was that about, Nick? What the hell were you doing?”
“I thought it was obvious.”
His flippant reply stops me cold in my tracks. I watch from behind him as he pours two fingers of liquor into the glass. I wince as he throws it back in one gulp. “Do you really think more alcohol will help?”
He grunts, not bothering to face me. “It’s been known to in the past.”
“Oh, really? You mean like the night you almost put a gun to your head in the back office at the gallery?” The glare he swivels on me nearly sends me back a pace. I’m sure that’s his intent, but I hold my ground. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s bothering you. Does it have something to do with Kathryn’s cancer? The fact that she’s dying?”
“This has nothing to do with her.”
It’s not much of answer, but at least he’s talking. “Was it the hospital, then? I noticed how uncomfortable you were there.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Forgoing the glass, he grabs the bottle of single malt and stalks past me, back into the living room. “Stop trying to analyze me, Avery. If I wanted a therapist I’d fucking hire one.”
“Maybe you should.”
He barks out a caustic laugh. Still keeping me at his back, he walks to the large living room window that looks down over Manhattan’s nighttime skyline and the two glistening rivers that flank the island. The first night he brought me here, I stood in front of that window marveling at the view below and the darkly handsome, mysterious man who had invited me into his world.
Dominic Baine had been a fascinating puzzle to me, one I couldn’t wait to solve.
Now I can’t help wondering if I’ll ever know him.
Will he ever truly let me in?
“What were you going to say to me earlier today at the rec center, Nick?” I watch his body tense at the question. The change that sweeps over him is almost palpable. “When I said I was proud of you, something happened. Did it have something to do with your past? Maybe something about your father, or the fight the two of you had that injured your hand?”
“Drop it, Avery.” He pivots around to face me now, his jaw clamped. Finally, he blows out a short breath. “You’re making something out of this that isn’t there.”
“Am I?” I slowly shake my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think the way you’re acting with me now is nothing.”
“How I’m acting?” He holds his arms out, the web of scars gleaming on his forearm and his right hand, which is wrapped around the neck of the half-empty bottle of whisky. I notice he’s not quite steady on his feet. “You said you needed to fuck, so we fucked. Now you’re looking for reasons to fight with me.”
Anger and hurt surges up inside me like a black wave I can’t stop. “I didn’t need to fuck tonight. I needed tenderness from you, Nick. I needed comfort. Connection. Things you seemed willing and capable of giving me a few nights ago, so why not now?” I hate the way my voice trembles, the way my whole body shudders with the raw ache of my disappointment. “I told you that if we had any chance of making it, there couldn’t be any more lies or secrets—and you agreed. You agreed there would be no more games of control. No more power plays.”
“And what if I can’t do that?”
I take a step back, almost staggering at his quiet reply.
Now he’s the one who advances. He moves toward me, holding me in a penetrating stare that terrifies me as much as it breaks my heart. “What if those are promises I can’t keep?”
I swallow hard, a coldness opening up in the middle of my chest. “Then we’re only wasting each other’s time, Nick.”
He doesn’t say anything. Not a damn word. I want to scream and rail at him but I don’t have the strength to summon anger when I’m still reeling from the body blow of everything he just said.
“I should go,” I murmur.
“That’s probably for the best.” His answer is equally as wooden as I feel.
Oh, God. Is this really happening?
I don’t want to believe it.
My hands are shaking as I pivot around to retrieve my shoes. I put them on, collecting my phone and slipping it back into my purse.
“I’ll call Patrick,” Nick offers from behind me, his tone so reasonable I want to scream. “He’ll see you home safely.”
I cringe at the idea of his driver being summoned to schlep me back to Queens. “Don’t bother. I can get home on my own.”
I glance at Nick and find he’s already turned away, staring out at the darkness on the other side of the large window.
As I slip out the door and close it behind me, my exit is punctuated by the jarring crash of a bottle hitting a wall.
Chapter 18
My phone rings for the third time this morning, Nick’s number lighting up the screen. Ignoring the pang in my breast, I mute the call and send it straight to voicemail—just as I have all the other times he’s tried to reach me in the past couple of days.
He’s left messages, but I can’t bring myself to listen to them yet. I don’t want to hear his excuses or apologies. Even worse, I don’t want to hear accusations that I overreacted or that I’m being unreasonable in my demand that we strive for something more than just sheet-scorching sex and amazing orgasms.
I want something real with him.
I want his heart as open to me as mine is to him.
I thought it was, or that we were working toward it at least. At his penthouse the other night I saw that I was wrong. Evidently what I need are things he’s not capable of giving me.
Maybe Nick isn’t capable of giving himself to anyone like that.
“Avery?” My mother’s voice sounds from somewhere behind me, inside the rustic Pennsylvania lake house that once belonged to my grandparents.
It’s early, not even eight o’clock, but I’ve been up for a while already, soaking up the solitude of this place I used to love as a child. There is a tranquility here, comfort in the memories of being on the lake with my grandpa in his small sailboat, and decorating Christmas cookies with my grandmother when I was a little girl. Years before my daddy, Daniel Ross, died. And long before my mother met Martin Coyle, the monster who became my stepfather.
“Avery, honey? Where are you, baby?”
“Out here, Momma.” Seated on one of the old rocking chairs on her back porch, I set my phone facedown on the wicker table next to me and try to erase the sadness from my face.
I’ve been here at her house for the past two days, having taken a bus out of the city to Scranton where my mother picked me up. It’s only been a few weeks since my last visit, but considering we have a decade of separation to make up for since her parole from prison eight months ago, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see her enough.
But it’s not only that. I needed somewhere soft to fall after my fight with Nick.
I’m not ready to call it a breakup, but right now it’s difficult for me to see a clear path toward anything else with him.
The screen door creaks as my mom steps out to join me on the covered porch. “Well, there you are. You’re up early again today. How long have you been sitting here, honey?”
I shrug. “For a little while, I guess. I just wanted to watch the lake.”
She makes a pleased sound, somewhere between a sigh and a hum. “I spend a lot of time out here too.”
Paused where she stands, she simply looks out at the landscape before her. I see her small smile grow as she drinks in the tree-studded, gently sloping hill that leads down to the rickety wooden dock below and the tranquil lake that glistens like quicksilver under the pale morning light. She’s wearing a long cotton nightgown with tiny butterflies printed on it. Her feet are bare, and I can’t hold back my own smile when I see the bright red polish on her toes, and the sun-kissed color of her tan skin.
Her once-blonde hair has turned yellowish gray and her face is lined beyond her fifty-one years, but she is still beautiful. Still the vibrant, strong woman I admired all my life.
After the decade she spent in a small prison cell convicted of killing my abusive stepfather, she is finally free.
Thanks mostly to Nick.
“I thought maybe we could go to the farmer’s market this morning,” she says. “We can get a bunch of fruit and some peppers and onions to put on those kabobs we’ve got marinating for dinner tonight.” She turns an eager look on me. “You might even be able to twist my arm into making Grandma’s apple dumplings.”
My mouth practically waters at the idea alone. “Brownies last night and dumplings today? You’re spoiling me.”
“Yes, I am. And I’ve been waiting a good long time to have the chance, so you’re going to let me spoil you however I want to.”
“Even if it puts twenty pounds on my hips?”
She laughs, full-throated and joyful. It almost makes me forget about everything that’s going wrong in my life back in New York.
Almost.
She walks over to me and leans down, cradling my head against her breast as she kisses the top of my head. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
I nod. “Yes, Momma. I love you too.”
She’s quiet for a while, just holding me close like she used to do when I was a child. “How long do you plan to hide up here at the lake with me?”
I draw back, lifting my gaze to her. “I’m not hiding.”
I’ve told her about Nick—more or less. She knows I love him, and that I spent the past year miserable without him, despite all of my other personal successes. As of last night she also knows it was Nick’s money and connections that helped make her parole happen. I figure I owed it to him to give him that credit.
What I haven’t explained to her are the darker nuances of my relationship with him. I’ve glossed over the things that would only make her worry about me or question the soundness of my judgment when it comes to men. But Nick isn’t just any man. And I don’t expect anyone, perhaps especially my mother, to be able to understand the kind of relationship we have.
Or had.
I blow out a sigh, uncertain how to explain it to myself after what happened the other night.
She combs her fingers through my hair, sweeping it away from my face. “Is he a good man, sweetheart?”
“Yes.” I press my lips flat, shaking my head in frustration over all the good things I know Dominic Baine to be. “He’s a very good man, Mom. The problem is he doesn’t know that.”
“Not your job to fix him, baby.” She looks at me solemnly, sagely. “The only one who can do that is him.”
I nod because she’s right and I know it.
I can’t fix what’s broken in Nick any more than he can fix what will always be broken in me.
But what hurts even more than failing is the fact that he won’t even trust me enough to give me the chance to try.
There’s still a hopeful part of me that believes he needs me as much as I need him. He just has to be willing to see that too.
He only has to love me enough to finally let me in.
Fool that I am, I actually thought he might.
I smile up at my mom. She’s concerned about me, and I don’t want to burden her with my unhappiness. She’s already carried enough of my burdens over the years. “Let’s get to the market early, okay? And when we get back, we can make those apple dumplings together.”
Chapter 19
“Avery, pass me that icing bowl and scraper, will you, honey?”
“Sure thing.” Mom’s washing dishes from our baking while I’m working at the chopping board cutting vegetables for our lunch salads. I set down the bright red pepper I’m dicing and reach over to fetch the metal mixing bowl that’s sticky with sweet, buttery vanilla sauce.
“Can’t let this go to waste,” I say, grinning as I swirl the rubbery spatula around the sides of the bowl, then stick the end of it in my mouth.
 
; She laughs and shakes her head, making room for me to step in beside her and put the items in the sink. It’s been a good day with her. I didn’t realize how badly I needed the kind of slow-paced, easy companionship that she and I have always had together.
With the windows open and a warm afternoon summer breeze blowing in off the lake, carrying the fragrance of warm cinnamon and apples through the entire house, I cling to the simplicity of the moment like the small slice of heaven it truly is.
But it’s only close to perfect because part of my heart is three hours away from me in New York.
Maybe she hears my sigh as I go back to my cutting board and resume the rhythmic chopping. Or maybe it’s just maternal intuition that makes her too aware of the undercurrent of contemplative gloom that I haven’t been able to set aside all day.
She dries her hands, then wraps her arms around me from behind, her chin resting on my shoulder. “If you’d rather go back home to the city tonight instead of staying for dinner, I’ll understand, you know.”
“What?” I set down my knife and scoop the peppers into a small prep bowl. “I don’t want to leave. I’m exactly where I want to be, Mom. I’m where I need to be right now.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Releasing me, she moves to my side and leans back against the butcher block island so I have to look at her. “I think what you really need is to talk things out with this young man of yours.”
It almost makes me laugh to hear her refer to Dominic Xavier Baine, billionaire corporate titan, as my “young man”. She’s never met him, and I’m not sure she’s fully grasped the magnitude of who he is in the world of global industry and megadeals. To her, Nick is simply the man her daughter has fallen in love with. The man I continue to love even though he keeps breaking my heart open every time I think it’s starting to heal.