Stepbrother Wants (His Twisted Game, Book Eight) (2 page)

“You should leave.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This is too fucked up, this is … ” He
stepped away from me, pain and torture clouding his face.
 
“We’re not good for each other.
 
I can’t… I can’t control myself around
you, and it’s not going to end well.
 
For either one of us.
 
Even now, just looking at you… I want to grab you, I want to
strip you and fuck you.
 
I want to
control you.”

“So do it,” I said, panicked at the
thought of not being with him.
 
“Take my body, Cole.
 
Use
me.
 
I want you to.”

I reached my hand out to him, but he
pushed me away.

“Dammit, Avery,” he said.
 
He turned and walked back toward his
desk, increasing the distance between us.
 
“You need to stay away from me.
 
I’m serious.
 
I need you to
leave.
 
Right now.”

“So what?”
 
I asked.
 
“You’re just going to send me home?”
 
I hated the way my voice sounded, so weak and wounded.
 
But he had the power to destroy me, and
there was no hiding it.

“No,” he said.
 
“You can’t go home.
 
I’ll help you find an apartment, I’ll get you set up with a job.”

I stared at him for a long moment, our
gazes locked on each other.
 
I
waited for him to take it back, waited for him to tell me that he couldn’t live
without me, that he would treat me the way I deserved to be treated the way
he’d promised the other night at our parents’ house when we were lying in my bed.

But he didn’t say any of those things.

Instead, he just moved over to the
windows of his office, gazed out across the city.
 
“We’re fucked up, Avery,” he said.
 
“And we’re just going to fuck each other up more.”

His voice sounded resigned, accepting,
with no trace of anger or sadness. It was a stark contrast to how I felt, the
feelings and longing I had for him bubbling up inside of me, sharp and brittle
and threatening to break me into a million pieces.

I felt my knees buckle a tiny bit, and
for a horrible second I thought I was going to fall to the floor, that I was
going to collapse into a puddle right here in Cole’s office.
 
But instead, I put the pieces of my
soul back together and somehow forced them to hold.

I looked at my stepbrother, standing
there, so strong, so beautiful.

I’d thought he was different from all the
other men I’d met.

I’d thought he wanted to protect me.

But I’d been foolish.

I’d ignored all my doubts, all my
reservations about his secrets, the warnings from my mom, the things I’d seen
him do.
 
I’d let myself get caught
up in the warmth of his body, the ache that permeated through me whenever he
was close, how my own damaged psyche craved being dominated by
my him
.

He was just like all the other men who’d
let me down, made me promises.

He was a liar.

And I wasn’t going to stand here and let
him find me an apartment or a job or whatever other things he wanted to do in an
of effort to soothe his guilt over tossing me aside like I was just some
crumpled up piece of garbage.

I wasn’t going to let him off that
easily.

I turned around and walked out of his
office.

There was a group of people at the end of
the hallway – Cole’s employees-- huddled together in a group.
 
They must have heard at least some of
what had been going on in Cole’s office.
 
The sound his phone had made as he slammed it against the wall had
reverberated through the room.

Had they heard what we were talking
about?
 
Had they heard him say he
couldn’t stand the thought of another man putting his hands on me?
 
Or was it more likely they’d just heard
fighting, just knew there had been some kind of drama and were now gathered
together, gossiping and speculating about what it could be?

I didn’t care.

It wasn’t my problem anymore.

I walked down the corridor and out of the
building.

But even when I got outside, I could
still feel their eyes on my back.

***

Once I was out on the streets of New
York, I lost it.

I’d been holding myself together by the
thinnest of threads, and once I was outside, that thread snapped.

The sun was shining bright and hot, the
sky a brilliant shade of blue.
 
It
was the kind of day that made everyone want to be outside, the kind of day that
caused tourists to flood the streets, for people to slow down on their walk
back to the office, the kind of day that caused the lines in front of the
pretzel carts and hot dog stands to stretch three or four deep.
 

The deluge of people and sounds, car
horns honking, the smells of exhaust and the sun beating down on me, caused me
to lose my grip on what little sanity I was holding on to.

I collapsed onto a bench and put my head
in my hands, my eyes squeezed shut tight as I started to cry.
 
I tried my best to keep my shoulders
from shaking as the tears came in shuddering sobs – the last thing I wanted
was someone asking me if I was okay.

I sat there for a long time, right in
front of Cole’s office, crying for what felt like forever.

Finally, I couldn’t cry anymore.
 
My eyes were raw, my face swollen, my
insides withered into a husk.

You
should have told him.

It was the first coherent thought I’d had
since Cole had seen that video, and I instantly hated myself for it.

I should have told him?
 
Why?
 
So he could have kicked me out faster, so he could have
blamed me for not telling him sooner?
 
It wouldn’t have been enough for him.
 

Not to mention the secrets he kept from
me.
 
For that reason alone, I
didn’t owe him anything.

It was a double standard, one I’d been
willing to put up with because I craved his touch, his kiss, his promises.
 
I’d thought I was falling in love with
him.

You
are
falling in love with him.

I hated the voice in my head, hated the
pull I felt back toward him, toward his arms, his mouth, his soul, his
everything.

I’m not falling in love with him, I
scolded myself.
 
How could I be
falling in love with someone so callous, someone so willing to just throw me to
the side like I meant nothing to him?

He hadn’t even come after me to make sure
I was okay.
 
He knew I had nowhere
to go, knew I had no cash, no credit cards, nothing.
 
I didn’t even have an ID since my purse had been stolen.

And yet he just sat up there in his fancy
office.

I turned around and glared at the
building.
 
It stared back at me,
unfettered, shiny and intimidating.
 

I hated him.
 
I hated that he was up there in his office, probably moving
about his day as if nothing had happened.
 
I imagined him barking orders at Kalia, going into damage
control mode.
 
He’d never cared
about me.
 
All he’d cared about was
his sick obsession with dominating me.

And who even knew if that was even about
me?
 
He might have wanted to
dominate anyone.

But
he has your initials tattooed on him.

Stop!
 
I wanted to scream at the voice in my
head, the voice that was a traitor, the voice that wanted me to go back to
Cole.
 
Stop defending him.

Rage pumped through my body.
 
How was it that Cole was allowed to
treat people like garbage, and yet he was so successful, so rich, so
adored?
 
He could have anything he
wanted – any house, any car,
any
woman.
 

And here I’d been trying to play by the
rules my whole life, and where was I?
 
Sitting on some bench with no money, no family,
no
home.

I bit my lip to keep from screaming and
the bitter taste of blood filled my mouth.

Take
responsibility for your part in it.

The voice was back, only this time, it
was right.
 
I
did
 
have
to take responsibility for where I’d
ended up.
 
I’d made choices to get
me here-- I’d chosen to stay with my mom even though I knew my home environment
was toxic, I’d chosen to come to the city with Cole, I’d chosen to allow
Jeffrey to make that video of me.

I’d chosen to be a victim, to let my fate
be determined by other people.
 
I’d
been so afraid of what could happen that I’d given up control of my life.

And where he had it gotten me?

“Nowhere,” I whispered out loud.

My rage burned brighter.

I stood up.

It was time to take my power back.

It was time to go see Jeffrey.

***

A quick search on google maps provided me
with the address of Jeffrey’s company.
 
It was a little bit of a walk, and even though it was only seventy
degrees out, the sun was beating down, turning the pavement gritty and hot.
 
By the time I got to Jeffrey’s building
I was a sweaty, disheveled mess.

I caught sight of myself in the
reflection of the windows, my clothes too small, my hair a frizzy halo around
my head, my cheeks bright with color.
 
My eyes had a crazed look I’d never seen before.

Usually I’d have been self-conscious
about the way I looked, would have stepped into a bathroom to fix my hair and
wash my face.
 
But today I didn’t
care.

Today I felt fierce.

I marched into the high-ceilinged lobby
and tried to blend in with a pair of
smartly-dressed
women as they pushed through the turnstile toward the elevator bank.

But
I was stopped by a
barrel-chested security guard
.

“Excuse me, miss?” he said.
 
“Can I help you with something?”

“No thank you,” I said, giving him my
best reassuring smile.

But he wasn’t having it.
 
“Miss, you need a badge to be let
through security.”

“I have a meeting,” I tried.
 

“With who?”

“With Jeffrey Adams,” I said, raising my
chin in the air and daring him to contradict me.

The security guard frowned and picked up
the phone.

“Yes,” he said into the receiver.
 
“I have a young woman here who says she
has a meeting with Mr. Adams.”
 
He
looked at me.
 
“Can I have your
name please, Miss?”

“Avery Buchanan.”
 
I almost expected him to have a
reaction when I said my name, like I might already be infamous as the girl
who’d made a sex tape with Jeffrey Adams.

But nothing registered on the guard’s
face, not even a flicker of recognition.

“Yes, okay,” he said, nodding.
 
“Thank you.”

He hung up the phone.
 
“I’m sorry, Ms. Buchanan,” he
said.
 
“But Mr. Adams is
unavailable.”
 
His tone was cold,
final.
 
He’d doubted my story from
the beginning, but he’d been willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.
 
Or at least, he realized he couldn’t be
too harsh on the off chance I was telling the truth and did have a meeting with
Jeffrey.
 
But now his whole
demeanor had changed.

“That’s impossible,” I said
snootily.
 
“Call them again,
please.”

“I’m sorry, Miss,” he said, and now his
voice was laced with the thin thread of consequence, making it clear that if I
didn’t leave, he was going to have to take further action.
 
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave
the building now.”

“No.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“I need to speak with Jeffrey.”

“Mr. Adams is not available,” he
repeated.
 
He began to step out
from behind the security desk, and that same rage poured through my body,
liquid hot, like a volcano spilling from my soul.