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- Herausgeber: K.A. LINDE
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: Cruel
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Natalie gets revenge in her new dark and glamorous life on the Upper East Side in the conclusion to USA Today bestselling author K.A. Linde's billionaire romance Cruel Trilogy.
Darkness swept in.
Smothering everything in its inky black.
I have turned into their worst nightmares.
And I will not rest until they pay.
For everything.
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Cruel Legacy
Cruel Book Three
K.A. Linde
Copyright © 2019 by K.A. Linde
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at
www.kalinde.com
Join my newsletter for free books and exclusive content!
www.kalinde.com/subscribe
Cover Designer: Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations, www.okaycreations.com
Photography: Sara Eirew Photography,
www.saraeirew.com
Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing,
www.unforeseenediting.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1948427265
Contents
I. It All Started At A Masquerade In Manhattan
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
II. Tricks Of The Trade
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
III. Revenge Is A Dish
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
IV. Best Served Cold
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
V. King’s To You
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Cruel Truth
Acknowledgments
Also By K.A. Linde
About the Author
To ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’
Revenge never looked so good.
It All Started At A Masquerade In Manhattan
Chapter 1
Natalie
Elizabeth,
We met last month at Trinity for Jane Devney’s club opening in Midtown. I was wearing a one-of-a-kind Cunningham Couture piece, and I’m reaching out to you today at your insistence. I will be attending Jane’s New Year’s Eve Masquerade and want something to blow everyone away. Something no one else has seen. And you’re the only one I’d go to for this.
I’ll be back to the city for a fitting the day of, but you already have my measurements. Have your assistant reach out if you need anything.
Best,
Natalie
“I’m still shocked you had the balls to send that,” Amy muttered. “You sound like an entitled brat.”
“Reality check, Ames. That’s the level of confidence and bravado she’s used to dealing with.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed. You didn’t even give her an option to say no.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. No, I hadn’t. I’d rewritten the email about a hundred times before I got the tone right. The self-righteous, take-no-bullshit attitude that demanded and didn’t request. While also including enough flattery that Elizabeth would give me a chance.
A chance was all I needed anyway. Because without Elizabeth’s business card, I wouldn’t have a dress. Unless I asked Jane, and I wasn’t ready for that yet.
“Well, it worked at least,” I said to Amy.
“Fuck yes, it did.”
I’d been afraid it wouldn’t. Either Elizabeth’s assistant hadn’t bothered to check with her before agreeing to the dress or, as I’d suspected, she and Katherine Van Pelt weren’t as close as family just because they were now both married to Percy men.
I didn’t care which it was. Either was good for me right now.
We took the elevator to Elizabeth’s studio and strode through the glass door as if I owned the place. I’d thought that it would be a disaster zone, as it had been backstage for the fashion show at Trinity. But without the models, the studio was a well-oiled machine. Elizabeth’s assistant barked out orders like a drill sergeant. Sewing machines hummed. Fabric covered the space. Final details were being sewed onto mannequins. Row after row of purple Cunningham Couture garment bags hung on racks, and a half-dozen sumptuous gowns were still waiting for final approval.
I cleared my throat. “Excuse me.”
Amy shot me a look and mumbled under her breath, “One more time with feeling.”
Jesus, she was right. I couldn’t half-ass this first encounter. I had to make them believe it. But this came about as naturally to me as it did Hermione pretending to be Bellatrix Lestrange when they infiltrated Gringotts.
“I’m here for my fitting. Let’s get this over with. I have a busy day ahead of me,” I snapped.
Elizabeth’s assistant jerked his attention toward us. His look of annoyance immediately shifted to a welcoming mask. “Miss Bishop, you made it.” He strode across the busy room and took my hand. “Pleasure to meet you again.” He shook Amy’s hand next. “I’m Pierre, executive assistant to Elizabeth Cunningham. Come right this way. We secured a private room for you to check your dress before the event tonight.”
“Perfect,” I said.
We entered a brightly lit dressing room.
“Make yourselves comfortable. I’m going to bring the dress in. Elizabeth picked out an exquisite piece for you.”
Amy and I exchanged a look. So, Elizabeth did know. Interesting.
Pierre exited back to the main room, leaving us alone to investigate. Champagne chilled in an ice bucket on a table filled with finger food and tiny French pastries. Amy helped herself. In a second, I had a mimosa in hand. I left her to the indulgent treats that I probably needed to forego if I wanted to fit into this dress. A full week of nothing but cake frosting straight from the container was probably not going to help my figure. Though it had helped my mental state.
I held my glass aloft as I stepped onto a pedestal before a trifold mirror. The figure looking back at me showed my thin face, baby-blue eyes, and pink lips, the Cupid’s bow as prominent as ever. My silvery-white locks flowed down over my shoulders, covering my breasts in the plain white T-shirt and black jeans I’d donned for the occasion. Amy had done research and decided that was what models wore to these sorts of things.
And while I saw myself looking back, I didn’t feel like myself.
A week ago, I’d been dating Lewis Warren, hoping against hope that we had some sort of future in this messed up Upper East Side world. Instead, it turned out that he’d kept a file on me that revealed how he’d manipulated me into dating him and then stalked me. He’d photographed me back home in Charleston, purchased my building here in New York, watched video surveillance of my apartment, and most demoralizing, gone behind my back to read my manuscripts. Something I found beyond unforgivable. When we’d broken up, he’d gone even further and ruined any chance of my dream career as an author. I was blacklisted.
Between that and Katherine revealing my pen name, my world had shattered. And I was being pieced back together out of order. Into a deep, dark, vengeful version of the Natalie I had been. The one that said I was ready to burn this city to the ground, and nothing would stop me.
“So, what are you going to do about Penn?”
I sighed out heavily. “I’ll handle it.”
Amy stared at me in a way that said exactly what she thought about that. Before she could voice her concerns, Pierre reappeared then with a purple garment bag. He unzipped it to reveal a long, flowing gown that made my eyes widen with both excitement and alarm.
“Whoa,” Amy whispered from across the room.
“That’s…wow.”
“You did say you wanted to blow everyone away.”
I nodded mutely.
There was a twinkle in Pierre’s eye as if he had been waiting for someone this daring. “Well, this is the dress.”
I scanned it, admiring the simplicity coupled with its inherent boldness. A statement number that said I wasn’t slinking away into the shadows and letting the Upper East Side chew me up and spit me out. I was here to play.
“Let’s do it.”
A few hours later, I pulled up to Trinity in a limo. Nerves quaked through my body, but I refused to let it show. Not for this crowd.
Flashes went off at the first glimpse of my Louboutin heel and continued as they took in my daring Elizabeth Cunningham gown. The mostly sheer material fell down my body in a form-fitting sheath, giving it the appearance of artful lingerie. Black accents covered my full breasts and ran down the middle of my body. They crawled up from my feet as if I stood in a ring of black flames. It was fitting, as I was rising up from the ashes.
My fingers moved to the edge of my black lace mask that obscured the upper half of my face, and I checked to make sure it was secure. I hastily dropped my hand and stepped into the spotlight.
Alone.
Alone for the very first time.
Every time I’d ever made this sort of appearance in the past, I’d had an Upper East Sider crutch to help me through it. First, Katherine, then Penn, and then Lewis or Jane. But now, it was just me. Just me taking on the world. And I wasn’t going to cower.
I raised my chin, put a devilish smirk on my cherry-red-painted lips, and stepped into the spotlight.
Despite the fact that I hadn’t been born into this life and had no real money of my own, my name was on their lips. The scandal from last week had given me a sense of notoriety. If I hadn’t returned, perhaps I would have floated away into obscurity, but since I was here, now I was someone. All on my own.
The crew had given me that. Penn had given me that by drawing me into this world with a bet. Katherine had given me that by making me a pet project and then a household name. Lewis had given me that simply by putting me on the arm of a Warren. Even Jane had given me a piece of it by including me, befriending me.
And she was the one who had told me to fake it. I intended to heed her advice.
I posed for a few carefully positioned pictures, slowly making my way up the red carpet. Giving everyone a view of the dress, of me.
Take your fill, boys.
I shot them one more devious smile and then stepped across the threshold into Trinity. It was bustling with partygoers. I had no idea who would be here tonight. Which Upper East Siders I would run into during this. But I wasn’t here for them. I was here to be seen and photographed and gossiped about. Mission accomplished.
A passing waiter offered me a glass of champagne, which I took with relish. I could do this. I could see through the glossy shine of this world. The rhinestone society polished to look like diamonds.
Money couldn’t hide the sewage, and when I was done with them, money wouldn’t save them from it either.
Now for the real fun.
I withdrew my phone from the matching black clutch and read the waiting text from Penn.
I’m here. You didn’t really give me specifics. Where should I meet you?
My lips curled in excitement as I sent my reply.
Do you want to play a game?
I’m listening…
If you can find me, you can have me.
Chapter 2
Natalie
This was the moment that would determine it all.
Would Penn play the game? Would he chase me here, as I suspected he would? He’d said that he wanted this. That he would wait for me. But a week of radio silence as I’d figured out my next move meant anything could happen.
Especially considering what had happened to me.
I wasn’t the same person I’d been when we had sex in that hotel suite at The Plaza. I wasn’t the same person who had turned him away because I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I was someone…something else entirely.
I didn’t know where that left me.
Let alone us.
But I dared to find out.
I had to.
My eyes skimmed the crowd as I sipped my glass of champagne. My dress drew looks like a moth to a flame. People whispering behind their hands. I was sure they were explaining who I was. The risk I’d taken in showing up tonight. And I just tilted my chin up and let them look, let them talk. With luck, it’d get back to the people I wanted it to. It would snowball from there.
I smiled viciously at the thought of Katherine’s face when she found out that I was back in the city. But that wasn’t here or now.
I couldn’t predict how Katherine would react. But I was making my own way now. No longer waiting with the ball in her court.
Right now, I needed to focus on Penn.
My phone buzzed, and I glanced down at the message that had come in from him.
Fuck.
I laughed despite myself.
Yes, that’s the idea.
What are you wearing?
That’s cheating.
Any hints?
I took another sip and tried to reel in the giddy feeling at the center of my chest. Penn was dangerous in every way to my heart. But I figured I should give him something.
I flipped to the camera and took a picture of the crown necklace dangling at my throat. The crown that he had given me a year ago. The crown that I’d thrown at his feet when I found out about the goddamn bet. The crown that he’d returned to me when he decided to pursue me again.
Even though my heart still skipped when I was near him, I’d been certain that I’d never go back to him. Never allow myself to fall into his trap again. And yet, here I was, in his necklace. Maybe I’d catch him in my trap this time.
I approve.
The pad of my finger traced his comment before I returned the phone to my clutch. He’d find me. I was sure of it. Not that I intended to make it easy for him.
I went looking for him in hopes of drawing out our game and the anticipation. But I found Jane first.
Jane Devney was a force of nature. Shoulder-length ash-blonde hair and hazel eyes with a small stature that might make you overlook her. But she had stepped into the Upper East Side and claimed it as her own. She’d opened Trinity with sheer willpower and the enormity of her connections.
Tonight she looked stunning in a rose-gold dress as she clutched on to the arm of Court Kensington. Penn’s brother looked so much like him that it was sometimes jarring. While they were similar in looks, they were opposites in personality. Even if he wasn’t as bad as Penn had always made him out to be…or at least to me.
I evaded Jane. I wasn’t ready to see her yet. Or to hear her excitement at me being back and how she was right that it had all blown over. When I was certain that it hadn’t.
I escaped into a crowd of people and came out on the other side to find Penn standing there with none other than Harmony Cunningham, the daughter of the designer whose dress I wore currently.
My smile disappeared. I knew that Penn and Harmony had history. He’d used her to make Katherine jealous—or so Lewis had said. Right now, I didn’t know what to think of them. She was standing awfully close with her hand on his arm. Not that he looked pleased by it.
I hated the jealousy that settled in my stomach. It was an emotion I wanted to snuff out.
I retrieved my phone, snapped a picture of them standing together, and sent it to Penn with one line attached.
Wrong girl.
Then I creeped deeper into the crowd, keeping my eye on him as Harmony left his side and he checked the message. I reveled in the smile that lit up his features. He looked as sexy and alluring as James Bond. Dark hair artfully styled, blue eyes wide and bold, tuxedo crisp and tailored to his incredible build. But it went beyond that. To the casual confidence that had been bred into him. From living in this world with its expectations and scandal and silver spoons.
He was an enigma. It was what had drawn me to him in the first place. The Manhattan royalty playboy who wanted a different life. Who was so much more than what he portrayed to the world. The morality that he so fiercely tried to cultivate. The duality of his character that strove against his upbringing for a better life.
We all stumbled. We didn’t all get back up.
I circled Penn like a lioness stalking her prey.
He might be coming for me. But I was keeping him in my sights. Drawing it out until he got closer.
I turned away for a second to grab another glass of champagne, but when I looked for him again, he was gone.
My eyes widened in surprise and then scanned the room. Where the hell had he gone?
I walked carefully around the perimeter of the club, trying to figure out where I’d lost him. Every guy was in a tuxedo. Everyone was in a mask. That was the point. That was the fun. But I’d thought I had this figured out.
Then I felt strong hands brace my hips, a hot body press into my back, the flush of a breath against my neck. My body tensed at the first brush of his lips against the most sensitive spot behind my ear.
“Found you,” he breathed.
I relaxed back into him. “How did you know it was me?”
“I’d recognize you anywhere.”
“Even with my hair up?” I teased.
My sheet of silvery-white hair was my most telling feature. And I’d purposely had Amy pin it up so that only a few tendrils fell down around my face and over my shoulder. Otherwise I’d have stood out like a spotlight on a dark night.
“I know the way you move,” he said, our hips swaying to the tempo of the music. “My hands know every inch of your body. They long ago memorized your gentle curves.” He slid his hands forward over my hips. “I know the shape of you, the sensuous way you walk, the confidence in every step.”
Something got stuck in my throat at his words. I tried to push it down. Down and away. “Oh?”
“Oh, yes. With your shoulders back, chin up, eyes steady.” His lips trailed down my neck, capturing me completely. “You might not have been born into this world, but you carry yourself as if you belong in every situation. Even when you’re terrified.”
“I’m not terrified,” I said hoarsely.
“Of course not.” He sounded disbelieving.
Maybe he wasn’t a hundred percent wrong. I was afraid of this world, of failing. But I wouldn’t fail. I couldn’t.
I turned in his arms and wrapped mine around his neck, staring up into his dark mask. I wanted nothing more than to peel it from his face and look up into his perfect features. But I wouldn’t. Not yet.
“Well, you found me. I guess that means that you can have me.”
“I guess it does.”
“How exactly do you want me?” I purred seductively.
“In every way,” he said seriously.
“Shh,” I said, pressing a finger to his lips. “Don’t complicate things.”
“Is this all it is then?”
I stared up into those big blue eyes, willing him to see the truth. “Would you be mad if it was?”
He pursed his lips. “This doesn’t feel like you.”
I laughed at his words and ran my hands up into his hair. “Doesn’t it?”
A muscle flickered in his jaw at my nonanswer. Because of course, this wasn’t me. I wasn’t me anymore. That was what this world did to people. It changed them. He was the one who had taught me that. And he’d been right.
“I thought you said that you wanted me,” I told him.
“I do.”
“Just not like this?”
His hands roamed from their position at my hips, up, up, up until his thumbs ran under my breasts. “I want you like this.”
“This is what I want,” I told him. “You said you’d wait for me. However I was.”
“I knew that you’d still be hurt after what happened, but this isn’t exactly…”
I stepped back, aching with the absence of his hands. But Penn was already pulling me back into him.
“You don’t have to play games with me.”
“Who said I was playing games?” My lips coyly curved upward.
“You forget who I am. I know it when I see it.”
“I’m offering myself up, Penn.” I spread my arms wide. “Here I am. Take me.”
“You’re just offering sex,” he corrected.
I lowered my arms with a sigh. “Is it ever just sex with you, Penn?”
His voice turned low and gravelly as he dragged me tight against him. “Not with you.”
Then his lips were against mine. And I forgot about how I had planned to keep him at a distance. I forgot about Amy’s warning that there was no way I could handle Penn Kensington. No one could handle him. It wasn’t possible. I forgot everything.
There was a reason that I’d fallen for him seven years ago on one blissful night in Paris. Why he’d won me over in the Hamptons a year ago. Why I’d never been able to get him out of my system for the next year. Not even while I was dating someone else.
Penn Kensington had ruined me for all other men.
And this one kiss proved that all over again.
Chapter 3
Natalie
Penn’s fingers reached for the satin ribbon of my mask, but I held him back.
“Not yet,” I breathed.
A question lingered on his lips. I wanted to answer that question. The one that said we didn’t need to wait. He’d already found me.
But there was a sensuality…and anonymity to the mask. It made me daring. It brought me back to the giddy feeling I’d had when I was young and innocent and sitting on top of the world. I needed that tonight. I needed it now and every night after if I hoped to survive the Upper East Side.
“Later,” I assured him.
“Now,” he said, stealing another kiss.
I indulged in the sweet taste of him. “Make it worth my while.”
His hand slipped into mine. Our fingers laced together.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
I didn’t have to nod. He could read the answer in my eyes.
Yes.
We glided out of the party as quickly as I’d come. I had no concept of time. Only that the city was packed with New Year’s Eve revelers, spanning out from Times Square and filling the already-crowded streets. Penn flagged down a cab. If I’d been in anything other than a one-of-a-kind Elizabeth Cunningham and Christian Louboutin heels, then I would have said we could brave the walk to his place on the Upper East Side. But it seemed pretty impossible at this point.
The cab crawled inch by inch through the traffic and away from the mayhem. Away from the center of the Big Apple and the ball that would drop in front of the entire world. For years as a girl, I’d stay up late with my sister, Melanie, and later Amy to watch the musical talent and celebrities grace the stage. Now, I was in New York City for the spectacle, and I had no interest in being surrounded by a mass of people in the freezing cold.
Everything looked more glamorous through a lens. The reality was much more lackluster. Like finding out your idol was just a person after all. Making all the same mistakes you’d always made.
“Finally,” Penn muttered once the cab stopped in front of his apartment.
He paid the outrageous fare and then helped me out of the cab. My nerve wavered for a split second. The last time I’d been at his place, I’d found myself there after an argument with Lewis. It should have been one of the many clues that Penn and I couldn’t escape each other. Even when we hadn’t been expressly sexual, I’d still gone to him. He’d provided a means of safety. A circle of trust. Or at least, a semblance of it.
But I couldn’t stop now. And, frankly, I didn’t want to.
There was a reason I’d come here that night. There was a reason I was here now. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure where all of this was heading. I wasn’t sure if I was even ready to make the next move. But I’d be lying to him and myself if I said that I didn’t want something. Despite the anger and pain…I still wanted to find out what that was.
We took the elevator up to his penthouse suite overlooking Central Park. Penn immediately stepped in front of me when it dinged on the top floor.
“Totle!” he called.
And then a ten-pound gray Italian greyhound puppy bounded toward us across the living room. He was all long limbs and awkward proportions. His tail whipped back and forth, and his eyes lit up at the sight of us together.
“I’m going to try to save you from him. He’ll ruin that dress,” he said, snatching up the puppy before he could jump onto me. Penn cradled Totle like an overexcited baby.
“Hey, buddy.” I scratched his head and gave him a big kiss. “You’re just so cute, aren’t you? Is your dad taking good care of you? Or are you deeply neglected and need some time with me?”
Totle answered by licking my face. I laughed and scratched his floppy ears.
“I’m going to take him out real quick. Make yourself at home.”
I nodded and stepped into the apartment while he grabbed Totle’s leash and descended with the puppy. Penn’s place was how I remembered it. Though slightly less messy than the time I had unexpectedly turned up. His worn leather notebook rested on the wooden coffee table next to a fountain pen. His philosophy journal articles had been straightened into a neat pile on the other corner. Nothing was out of place. Which was crazy since he was inherently messy when he was working. He liked to leave coffee cups and whiskey glasses all over the place. Loose paper lying haphazardly across his desk. Books strewn in some order that only his brain could comprehend. Because that brilliant brain of his worked best in a cluttered environment.
For it to be this meticulous, he must have been anticipating taking me home. I’d let him know to meet me at Trinity. A smile quirked on my lips that he’d been so presumptuous. But what could I say? He wasn’t wrong.
I stepped over to the liquor cabinet and retrieved two whiskey glasses. My fingers trailed over the various bottles and decanters before selecting the prettiest bottle and pouring each of us a glass. Liquid courage never hurt anyone.
I carried the drinks back to the neatly arranged coffee table when Penn returned with Totle. My gaze scanned over his features that had been carefully hidden by the mask, which now dangled from his hand. It wasn’t a particularly large mask, but somehow seeing those high cheekbones and bright blue eyes unobstructed was so much more satisfying.
“No mask?” I breathed.
“I got weird looks,” he said as he scooped up the little dog and carried him over to me.
“Fair.”
“I see you took ‘make yourself at home’ literally,” he said, nodding toward the alcohol.
“Can’t blame me.” I scratched behind Totle’s ears, and he nuzzled his head into my hand. “God, he’s so cute.”
“Me or the dog?”
I grinned up at him. “The dog. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Penn repeated.
He set the puppy down on the couch where he promptly curled up into a tiny ball on top of a blanket. His big, dark eyes staring up at us, saying, Love me.
“And now yours,” he said.
His hands moved to the ribbons holding on my own mask, and I let him pull the string, releasing it. He caught the edges of the mask and removed it from my face. And with it, that last line of defense was stripped away. I was bare before him, even still in clothes that adorned my body like armor.
“That’s better.”
“Ah, the physical mask,” I purred as I passed him the glass of bourbon. “So much less potent than the mental ones.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Since when do you wear a mask for anyone?”
“You just took mine off.”
“Hmm,” he murmured, unconvinced.
“Yours comes and goes though.” I took a sip of the bourbon and felt the liquid forge a pathway for the flame.
“Not with you.”
“Ha!” I said with an exaggerated laugh. “When it’s convenient for you.”
“I don’t have one on right now.”
“Good,” I told him, slipping an inch closer and staring up into the face of the man who had tricked me so completely. Who I fought to hate … and forgive … and decide. The face of someone eternally torn between right and wrong.
“Tell me about the last week, Natalie.” His voice was strained.
“What’s to tell?” I asked. I downed another swallow of the liquid.
“Don’t bullshit me. We both know that you went home, messed up from that thing with Katherine. Then I didn’t hear from you until this.”
“So?”
He sighed and set his glass down, untouched. “How are you?”
“As well as expected. How are you?”
I wanted to confide in him about what had happened the last week. What Lewis had done to light my career on fire. The place I’d sunk into to deal with it. And the way I was pulling myself up, hand over hand, to escape it. But I didn’t. I wasn’t ready. Not yet.
“Nat…”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Just talk to me.”
“Or,” I breathed, running my hand up the front of his tuxedo, “we could not talk.”
He chuckled softly. “You’re determined to keep me at a distance.”
“No, I’m not.” And I wasn’t. But I couldn’t do this right now. “It’s New Year’s Eve, Penn. You want to talk feelings. And I want to enjoy the evening.”
“We can’t talk and then enjoy the evening?”
“You got me back to your place. Hasn’t anyone told you not to play with your food?” I said dramatically but with a hint of a smile.
His powerful hands came to my arms. Those long fingers trailed their way up to my shoulders. The pads digging gently into my sensitive skin as he moved to my neck. My throat bobbed as his thumbs dragged from the hollow of my throat up to my chin. He commanded me in that moment, tilting my chin upward and then to the side, exposing my throat to him. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye as my pulse jumped in excitement. His thumb lingered along my jawline as he took his time to examine every inch of me before sliding back down the side of my neck.
He dropped one featherlight kiss to the space on my neck he’d just caressed. “Are you saying that I should eat you?”
“Devour me whole,” I breathed, still trapped in his heated gaze.
He didn’t respond, just slipped his hands into his pockets, as he’d done so many times before, and strode in a slow circle around me. I stayed perfectly still. I was no longer the apex predator in the room. And he watched me with complete confidence and all the control.
I’d surrendered it to him when I entered his apartment.
Penn stopped at my back. I didn’t move. Hardly even breathed. Was he going to undress me? Take me right here, right now in my Cunningham dress? Or do nothing?
Sometimes, it amazed me that I knew Penn so well and still couldn’t predict what he was going to do. He kept me on my toes. And while I wanted to give in, a part of me coiled, waiting for the rug-pull. Waiting for this to be a trick, too.
It was the waiting that nearly did me in. I couldn’t relax with someone at my back. I’d had one too many knives stabbed through it.
But then I felt Penn’s hands in my mass of silvery-white hair. My eyes fluttered closed at the feel of him touching me. Something eased in my chest. I breathed out in relief before I realized what he was doing.
A pin pinged on the floor. Then another.
The pins that Amy had carefully put my hair up with earlier that day fell to the ground. And as Penn removed more and more, he loosened the strands of my hair until it fell down to the middle of my back like a waterfall whose dam had been broken. His fingers slid up into the strands, checking to make sure he’d gotten them all. When he was satisfied he slowly massaged my scalp until I was practically swaying with sleep from the relaxation.
He collected all of my hair in one hand and then put it over one of my shoulders. Then he pressed one more kiss into my neck.
“I like it better down.”
My heart thrummed in response. “I don’t wear it up often.”
But he wasn’t finished. He found the zipper on the Cunningham dress and tugged it all the way down. I slid the straps off of my shoulders and let the priceless material fall down my narrow hips to pool at my feet.
“Shoes,” he demanded.
The Louboutins followed. I faced him then in nothing but nude underwear and his crown necklace.
“Better,” he said, his eyes traveling down my naked body. “You don’t need any of that adornment.” He tipped my chin up. “You should always be unbridled with a flair of wildfire. Fearless, all-consuming, and so bright that you burn.”
My throat bobbed at his words. At the way he cut straight through me.
I was consumed by rage, and I wanted to burn the city to the ground. I was fearless in my desire to make the people pay for what they’d done to me. Finally free and wild.
But not in the way he was talking about. He was seeing me as he had seen me before. The Natalie who had let herself get run over, manipulated, used, and crushed under a stiletto heel. I wouldn’t let that happen again.
He must have seen some of that flair in my eyes because his widened. But I didn’t back down. I didn’t douse the spark that had grown to flames in my eyes. I let him see a part of the person I was now. Let him get his fill.
Then I stepped forward and captured his lips with my own. The tension sizzled between us, flames building, steam rising. The world ceased to exist around us as we set it on fire in that one searing kiss.
Chapter 4
Natalie
It was all I could do not to rip his tuxedo off. My hands were making quick work of the buttons. Hastily tugging them out of each individual loop. The restraint I’d felt evaporated.
Then Penn’s hands grasped each of my bare wrists. My arms were pushed up over my head. The grip tightened until he was once again in complete control.
My breaths came out in hot pants as I stared into his impossibly blue eyes. Dark lashes framing those midnight-ocean orbs that only got wider and wider as his pupils dilated and his gaze shifted down my naked form.
“Tell me this isn’t like last time,” he instructed.
“It isn’t like last time,” I said on instinct. At his command. The words were out before I thought of what he was asking.
Last time. When I’d found out about Lewis and we’d fucked like animals. He said yes to me when I confessed I’d always wanted him. But it didn’t make it any better. It was pure and primal need. Anger mixed with lust that fed into carnal bliss. Nothing more. I hadn’t been able to give anything more then. And he’d accepted it.
The look in his dominating eyes said he wouldn’t this time.
“Natalie.”
I huffed out a short breath and released the tension in my body. Turning into water against his hard touch. Was it different? This had nothing to do with Lewis. Nothing to do with what came next. I didn’t have to do this to reel Penn in. He wanted to talk first and foremost. But I wanted this. And I was tired of holding back. Tired of hating him so much. Of pretending that I didn’t want him when I did.
“It’s different,” I assured him.
He read my own eyes as if he could see all my secrets laid bare before him. He must have approved of what he saw in me because he nodded once. “Then we have all the time in the world.”
He stepped forward, releasing my arms, and scooped me up into his. I felt weightless in his grasp as he carried me out of the living room, down the darkened hallway, and into his bedroom.
The space was enchanting in how closely it reflected the professor, whose body was pressed tight to mine. The bookcases filled with tomes and skinny philosophy texts and a row of leather journals. The navy-blue comforter that beckoned as he laid me out like a feast. The glass window that opened onto a balcony overlooking the park, fireworks already bursting in the distance even though it wasn’t yet midnight.
I propped myself up on my elbows, so I could get a better view of him. Something had shifted in his features at my acceptance. At whatever he’d seen on my face before he picked me up. Now, he was the Penn Kensington that I’d fallen hopelessly head over heels for. He was all male. Standing taller with those wide shoulders that fell down to his narrow hips. The bulge straining at the front of his slacks. My fingers itched to remove his length and feel that hardness against my skin, in my mouth, but one look from him held me in my place.
He was in control here. We might push and pull, fight, argue, and debate outside of the bedroom. But here, I was his.
No, this wasn’t some midnight romp to expunge my anger. This was finally taking back what I wanted despite the costs.
Penn untied the bow tie at his throat and let it hang loose around his neck. Then, he finished where I’d started, unbuttoning his shirt and tugging it from his pants to bare his defined chest before me. I wanted to run my fingers down his chest, lick my way down his abdominal muscles. Feel each ridge under my tongue. Watching and not touching was torture.
And maybe he knew that because one corner of his mouth lifted at my response.
“Tease,” I murmured.
“You have no idea,” he said with that same heady grin.
“I think I do.”
“We’ll test your theory.”
The heat in his look went straight to my core. “Okay, Professor.”
He dropped his shirt off of his shoulders at my comment. He snapped open his slacks and dragged the zipper down, revealing the erection hidden beneath.
“Let’s see if you can pass the exam.”
“Oh dear,” I said, playing along. My body ached all over at his playful words. “I didn’t study.”
“Who knew that you were such a bad student?” he said. “Let’s see how fast you can learn.”
“I’m definitely a fast learner,” I breathed.
He smirked. “We’ll see.”
He stepped forward, his erection still straining against his boxer briefs, but he was attentive to me. His fingers hooked into the soft material of my thong, and then he slid it down my body, effortlessly tossing it away. His strong hands came down on my inner thighs, spreading me wide open before his face.
My pussy pulsed with anticipation and need. He leisurely stroked one finger down my core, and I trembled with the desire for more. More, more, more. I couldn’t stop the need. Then he was spreading my lips apart, slicking through my wetness, hitting every nerve ending, and making my back arch off of the bed.
How could one finger make me this fucking needy?
“Don’t move,” he said, withdrawing.
I pushed toward him and felt a slight smack against my pussy. I yelped at the same time fire struck me with desire.
“I said, don’t move.”
I froze in place. Torn between wanting to move while demanding more than the little he was giving me, the torture I was enduring, and following directions so that I could get more. My eyes tracked him across the room to where the sound system was located.
Because, of course.
Penn liked his music. I’d almost forgotten. Indie music, as unknown as possible, was his preference. Though I knew he also liked some mainstream stuff if he was pushed for it.
The melody picked up, and my smile grew as I forgot all about my needs. “Is this obscure enough for you?”
“It felt poignant. I do have a taste for timing,” he said with a hint of the pain he’d felt in the last year touching his eyes.
“I love it,” I breathed as “This Year’s Love” by David Gray filled the room through surround sound speakers.
When he returned to me, the pain was gone, but I could feel the tension in the room. The tension of a year of separation. A year of fractured trust. A year of other people who never quite satisfied.
And I wished that I could wipe the slate clean. Start over. Fresh and shiny new, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t possible to erase the pain we’d caused each other. There was no do-over. This wasn’t a video game. We didn’t have unlimited lives. Just this one. So while it hurt, it had also somehow brought us to this moment. While it was far from perfect, it was still perfection. Perfection to imagine that I could trust him enough for sex after what he’d done. Perfection to imagine that he could trust me enough to be intimate and vulnerable after what I’d done.
Penn slipped out of his pants. I admired the strong lines of his thighs. The pure strength and control from a methodical obsession with running. He wasn’t overly bulky but so defined. The very shape of him aroused me in a way that I had never understood about myself until him. Everything about our connection made me want to be adventurous. Break all my boundaries. Lay myself bare.
“Where’s your head?” he asked softly.
“I was cramming for the exam.”
He chuckled. Then his hands came down on my thighs, and he yanked my body toward him until my ass nearly fell off the bed. A gasp escaped my mouth, and then he was between my legs. No gentle coaxing or teasing, just tongue straight to my clit. Another gasp followed, but this one was of a wholly different nature.
This one had all to do with the motion of his tongue swirling around my most sensitive area. The flick against that nub. The sucking and gentle, unexpected nibble that had my eyes rolling into the back of my head and wetness pooling in the exact place his fingers were stroking to life.
I could feel my orgasm right on the verge, close enough that I could reach out and grab it. But as if Penn knew that, he slowed his strokes, pressed a kiss to my clit, and then glanced up at me with a devilish look on his princely features. How could someone that good-looking be so very bad?
“Not yet,” he told me.
As if I had an option.
“Please,” I asked him because I wasn’t above begging here.
This was nothing compared to my finger or a vibrator. This was prolonged need that shook me to my core and made me incapable of functioning beyond the precise thing that he was doing to me. And right now, that was circling my pussy opening like he was about to finger-fuck it at any moment. And the wonder of when made it all the more intense.
But he didn’t stop. He continued on as if he could do this all day. Bring me to the edge and then pull me back and then bring me forward again and again. My body protested, and yet I’d give anything for more of this. Whatever he was giving.
“Are you ready to come for me?” he asked, flicking his tongue against my clit again.
I nearly jumped off the bed at the unexpected motion.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I murmured.
“And do you want my fingers?”
“Please, Penn,” I panted.
“Tell me where.”
My eyes snapped open, and they locked on his. He stared back just as hotly, waiting for my answer. I could see he was holding on to control like a whip, waiting to wield it with a crack.
“Inside me.”
“What was that, love?” he purred.
“In my pussy,” I gasped out.
At my words, he entered me. One finger delving into my heat, getting the feel for me again. My walls contracted around him, and I whimpered.
“So greedy,” he said with a laugh before giving me what my body had not-so-subtly asked for.
A second finger went into me, stretching me but not filling me. I knew what I wanted for that. I knew at this point of the warm-up that I’d give anything for it.
He dipped his head back down to my clit and sucked on me with his fingers buried deep inside me. My body bucked, as the edge I’d been hanging on to came closer and closer.
Then another finger swirled through my wetness. I groaned at the feel, but then he was moving, going lower and lower. I tensed for all of a second in surprise as he pressed the liquid to the pucker of my asshole. But then he gently rubbed me in slow circles, drawing out my orgasm even deeper. Something I hadn’t thought possible.
He dipped barely a digit into my back door, and I shattered into pieces. Just the feel of that much stimulation rocked through me like a tidal wave. I had been so close as it was that, by the time he went further, there was no chance I wouldn’t come on the spot.
It took a few seconds before I realized the cries of pleasure were coming from me. I tapered off as I came down from my high. I lay back on the bed, my chest heaving, as Penn straightened with a satisfied smile.
“If I’d known that you’d respond that well to anal, I would have started a long time ago.”
My cheeks flushed at the comment. “Well, you learn something new every day, Professor.”
“I suppose that means, you passed.”
I slid off the bed and landed on shaky legs. “Thank god. Wouldn’t want a mark on my transcript.”
“You’re enjoying this,” he said, stepping into my space. His hand came to the back of my neck, taking hold of my mass of hair in a way that said he was in control and also like I was going to come again at any moment.
“I am,” I gasped out as I tilted my head up to look him in the eye.
“Open your mouth.”
I did as I had been told without thinking about it. He inserted the two fingers that had been in my pussy into my waiting mouth. I tasted my own hot desire as I licked his fingers clean of my arousal. His nostrils flared at my easy acceptance and the feel of my lips going to work on him, just like I intended to do to his cock.
My hands reached for the hem of his shorts. He was so aroused that the tip was jutting out of the top of his boxer briefs. The pad of my finger skimmed the head, glistening with pre-cum. I licked my lips, anxious to get on my knees for him.
“You’re going to have to wait for that,” he told me with a ragged, barely constrained tone.
“I don’t want to wait,” I said impishly.
“One touch of your hot mouth, and I’d come all over you.”
My smile ticked up at the power of that statement. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I’m going to fuck that smart mouth later,” he said confidently. “But I need to get inside of you.”
My heart skipped a beat at the coarse words that had left his mouth. The sophisticated professor devolving into the sex-god playboy who owned the Upper East Side. It shouldn’t have turned me on as much as it did. But fuck, I understood how he ruled his own kingdom. I saw why everyone fell to their feet for him when he growled commands at me and made me eat my own cum off of his fingers. I’d crawl for him. And he knew it.
“I’m yours,” I breathed, running my thumb across the tip of his dick one more time before he freed himself entirely, dropping his boxer briefs to the floor.
The song switched to something even I didn’t recognize. But the rhythm was hypnotic. The bass rocked through us. The words flowed like silk, driving us together. There was just us, the music, and the clock ticking down to the New Year.
“Mine,” he said roughly.
He twisted me in place and then folded me in half at the waist. My hands reached out to grip the comforter as he temptingly pressed his cock against my opening.
I was primed for him, and still, he teased, pushing the head in and then out, back and forth against my clit until I thought I would burst with waiting for him to take me. But he didn’t make me wait long. His hand braced himself against the small of my back as the other gripped my hip before he drove his cock home.
My body shifted forward with the force of his motion, but it wasn’t painful. A moan escaped me at the sweet feel of surrender. The pleasurable stretch of being completely full. Then he started moving, and my moan turned into gasps. Out and then fast in. Out and then faster in, slamming into me. Taking my body. Owning my body. Slicing through any last hesitation I’d had that he wouldn’t fit.
Penn Kensington had been my first.
Seven years later, still, no one compared to him.
Penn’s voice became incoherent as he thrust deep into my pussy and took his pleasure, coupled with my own. Something coiled in my belly, low and urgent. Something begging to get out, to be released. I tensed all over as I felt the first hints of it strike my body.
I clenched down on the comforter hard as he penetrated me one more time, and then I loosed my scream into the bed as it burst forth. I came to new heights, seeing stars in the night sky. I saw the planets and galaxy and even beyond that. I saw heaven in my den of sin.
Penn groaned and grunted loudly as he finished right after me. I felt the sheer force of his orgasm and sighed with pleasure.
It was a minute before he could move again, and my core immediately begged for him to return. A small mewl left my lips in protest, and he chuckled softly, rubbing my back again.
“There’s time for round two.”
I uneasily stood up and looked at his naked form, his cock still erect, jutting out between us. “There’d better be.”
Fireworks exploding noisily behind us kept him from a reply. We both watched the night sky light up with fervor out the window.
Penn stepped back into me with a tender smile. He pulled my mouth to his. A chaste kiss compared to what we’d just shared. But somehow, it fit perfectly. “Happy New Year, Natalie.”
“A new year for a new us,” I breathed against him.
He grinned at my choice in words. “To a new us.”
