Aleena
The difference between the car ride home and purgatory was….there was no difference.
My mother talked the entire way.
She kept going on and on about garden themes, rose arrangements.
How the Hamptons estate would photograph beautifully for the society pages, because God forbid the wallpaper didn’t get its moment in the spotlight.
I pressed my forehead to the cool glass and watched Manhattan dissolve into the privileged sprawl of the Upper East Side, nodding when the silence grew too heavy to bear.
But every word she said just brought back memories of the blue eyes of Ethan Westwood.
My Dom.
My tormentor.
The only man who had ever made me climax so hard, was now engaged to my mother.
I could still feel the ghost of his fingers pressing into my thigh beneath the table at dinner.
The way my core had pulsed in response before my brain could even register the danger.
When we finally got home, I muttered a goodnight and fled up the stairs before Meredith could corner me with breakfast plans or darling, we simply must discuss the napkin folds.
I kicked off my heels and peeled the black dress from my body.
I should have been furious.
I actually was furious.
He recognized me and he was just going to stand there and play the fool?
But even though I was pissed at him, I still remembered the way I had felt when he touched me.
It was the same ache that had lived between my thighs for two years.
The same filthy hunger that no amount of hollow one-night stands had ever come close to satisfying.
I crawled onto the bed in nothing but my lace underwear and pulled the sketchbook from its hiding place in the bottom drawer of my nightstand.
The pages were littered with designs I would never show a client, dark, sensual interiors, rooms built for restraint and surrender.
Leather and silk and shadows.
Furniture designed to hold a body in place.
Spaces that whispered yield.
I flipped to a blank page and let my pencil move.
I drew without conscious thought.
A tall man with shoulders that strained against expensive tailoring.
Tattoos that peeked from beneath his sleeves like secrets begging to be uncovered.
Angular features and eyes the exact shade of sapphire that had haunted my sleep since the night he walked out of that dungeon and left me trembling and alone.
As I drew him, my free hand slipped beneath the waistband of my underwear.
I was already soaking wet and absolutely fucking desperate.
I stroked myself slowly at first, circling my clit the way he had forced me to do that night while he watched from his leather chair.
The memory crashed over me and it was almost as if I could hear the gravel of his voice telling me I wasn’t allowed to come, the way he had looked at me like he wanted to devour every broken, needy piece of my soul.
The rage flared again.
He had left.
He had left me there alone with my body on fire.
And now he sat across dinner tables from my mother and called her darling like none of it had ever happened.
I shoved two fingers inside myself and fucked them hard, chasing the edge with a soft, broken sound.
My thumb rubbed tight circles over my clit.
I imagined it was his hand.
His mouth.
I imagined him telling me I was a good girl for taking what he gave me and nothing more because that was all I was ever going to get from him, wasn’t it?
I came with his name tearing from my throat and my thighs shook from the orgasm m
I lay there gasping, staring at the ceiling, and felt no relief at all.
Only the same hollow, aching void.
Morning arrived quickly and much needed because I could hardly get any sleep at all.
I groaned, rolling over to check my phone, and found a text from Sophia that made me smile.
I’m back, bitch.
Brunch?
Sophia Reyes was a friend from college and we recently got close.
She had been traveling through Europe for the past three months, sending postcards and voice notes from Barcelona and Paris and some tiny village in the south of France that apparently had the best croissants in existence.
I had missed her.
I dragged myself out of bed, threw on a cream silk blouse and high-waisted jeans, and met Sophia at a little café.
She was already seated at a corner table when I arrived, her dark hair cropped short in a new style that framed her heart-shaped face perfectly.
“Aleena!” She launched herself out of her chair and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing tight.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in a century.
Tell me everything.
Did you finally tell your mother to fuck off?
Did you burn down the Hamptons house?
Please say yes to at least one of those.”
I laughed, “Not yet.
But the week is still young.”
We ordered and settled in, and for the next hour, I let myself get lost in Sophia’s stories.
She recounted her disastrous flings with men.
Like a Parisian artist who had insisted on painting her naked but forgot to mention he was also painting three other women at the same time.
And there was the British banker who seemed to have forgotten that he had a wife.
I laughed until my sides ached, the first genuine laughter I’d felt in months.
“You attract the most ridiculous men.”
“I attract all men,” Sophia corrected, waving a mimosa glass.
“The ridiculous ones are just the loudest.” She studied me over the rim of her glass, her dark eyes sharp and knowing.
“Speaking of which, do you have a boyfriend now?”
I shook my head, stirring my latte.
“No.
Definitely not.”
“Girl, you need to get laid.
I’m not sure I have ever seen you with anyone.”
“Yes,” I confirmed flatly.
“I’m aware.”
Sophia leaned forward, propping her chin on her hand.
“Okay, fine.
No boyfriend.
But you must have at least a crush on someone.
Someone who makes you feel something.
Even if it’s just a tiny little spark.” Get faster updates on g.com.
I shrugged, my fingers tightening around my coffee cup.
“I do have a crush,” I admitted quietly.
“On an older guy.
But he’s completely out of reach.”
Sophia’s eyebrows shot up.
“Older?
How much older?”
“It doesn’t matter.
It’s not going to happen.
He’s…
complicated.
And unavailable.
In every possible way.” I forced a brittle smile.
“So it’s just me and my sketchbook for the foreseeable future.”
Sophia opened her mouth, clearly about to press for more details when her phone buzzed.
She glanced at the screen and sighed.
“Work emergency.
I have to go.” She stood, gathering her things, and leaned down to kiss me on the cheek.
“But I’m coming to visit you soon.
We’re going to get drunk and you’re going to tell me everything about this mysterious older man.
Promise me.”
“Promise,” I lied.
I watched her disappear through the doors and sat alone for a long moment, staring into my latte.
The hollow feeling was creeping back up.
I paid the bill and drove back home.
My mother was seated on the couch, with a glass of white wine in her manicured hand.
She looked up as I entered and smiled.
“There you are, darling.
I have wonderful news.”
I almost groaned.
“What news?”
She set down her wine.
“Ethan had invited us to stay for a while.
I’ve already arranged for the staff to pack our things.” She paused, her eyes gleaming with barely concealed excitement.
“We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.
Isn’t that just lovely?”
Lovely.
Yes.
Absolutely fucking lovely.
“Great,” I heard myself say, the word scraping past the lump in my throat.
“Can’t wait.”
I fled up the stairs before my mother could see the tears threatening to spill, and locked myself in my room.
Tomorrow I would have to face him.
The question was, could I handle it?