panties and stroke myself into coming as I read. But

it's not quite enough, it's not what I really want. Or it's

not enough of what I want.

I pull away, leaving Austin muttering a complaint. I

I pull away, leaving Austin muttering a complaint. I

roll onto my back and hold him off me with a foot on

his chest. His cock is huge and wet from me, and I

think about taking it in my mouth. Right now. He'll

taste like me, and I shudder at the thought as my

fingers move to cover my cunt. I press my palm

against my clit and pleasure jolts through me.

I get out of bed and he follows when I crook my finger.

We've fucked in the living room before. I stand in the

cool air with the windows open and without blinds,

showing me off to anyone who might look through. We

live on the third floor, which make voyeurs unlikely,

but I'm still aroused at thinking we might be giving

someone a show.

Austin smiles and moves toward me. Step and step and

one more, and my back hits the old plaster walls we've

never painted. His hands fit my hips just right. His

knee nudges my legs apart, and his thigh presses

between mine. He kisses me.

"What are you doing?" Austin says, laughing.

"Fuck me." My voice shakes.

His brow furrows for a minute, but only that briefly. Then

he's got his hands under my ass and has lifted me, my legs

around his waist, my back against the wal. His mouth

seals mine before I can take a breath, and I can't breathe.

His kiss steals my air.

My heart beats fast in my ears and the world rushes

around us. Austin fucks me and I try to take another

breath but his lips are closed tight over mine, his tongue

fucking my mouth the way his prick fucks my pussy. I'm

drowning in him. In this. In us.

I break the kiss with a gasp and now I understand more

about the alure of pain. "Put your hand on my throat."

"What? No." Sweat gleams on his forehead.

"I want you to do it, Austin."

Both of us can barely speak, our bodies using al their

energy for the fucking and leaving little for conversation. I

dig my nails into his shoulders and rock my hips, getting

closer. I close my eyes. I want him to do this, give me

what I want. What I think I want, anyway. What I want to

try.

"Put your hand on my throat!"

"Fuck…Paige…" He's getting close, and soon it wil be

too late. He'l come, I won't.

My eyes open and I bear down on him, my legs around his

waist. "I want you to do it!"

"I don't want to hurt you—"

"It's sexy," I argue.

He'l have to put me down soon. He's got me braced

against the wal, but even Austin isn't that strong. I bring his

face to mine and kiss him. And then I make him give me

what I want.

"If you don't, I can find someone who wil."

"What?" His eyes fly open, the pupils wide and dark. He's

so close he can't keep his hips from moving, even though

he wants to stop. I see it in his face. "What do you mean,

you'l find someone—"

"Maybe I already have. Did you think of that?" The lie,

cruel, pushes from my mouth.

cruel, pushes from my mouth.

I see him thinking about it, as best he can anyway with the

blood pooling in his cock and orgasm clouding judgment.

How things have changed lately. How I've wanted

different things…and where I might have learned to want

them. From who.

He doesn't know about the books I've found, ordered

from overseas, or the Internet chat rooms where people

address each other as Master and Mistress or Slave.

Austin doesn't know this part of me that wants to explore.

"Maybe I've been—" pleasure chokes me "—fucking

around."

"Have you?" He's angry in an instant.

Oh, how wel I know him.

I don't answer, but my head tips back again. My eyes

close. I'm going to come. My back skids suddenly along

the plaster as Austin shifts.

"Paige! Goddamn it!"

"Put your hand on my throat," I whisper.

"Put your hand on my throat," I whisper.

And Austin does.

His hand can't close al the way around my neck, but it's

big enough to come pretty close. We move together,

sliding as sweat makes us slick and fucking leaves him

unsteady. Something rips into me. A nail left from a picture

knocked off the wal when once I slammed a door. I can't

cry out, I can't breathe, he's done what I asked and taken

my breath again.

Austin's fingers close tighter and my fingernails dig deeper

and we both come at the same time. Only after that does

he put me down, his hands shaking, and then sink to the

ratty tied-rag rug that always manages to slip out of place

on the dirty hardwood floor. I don't quite fal, but I

colapse into a crouch.

My back stings. Hot blood drips steadily down my back,

over my ass and down my leg. I sip in the air and wait for

the world to stop rocking and my body to stop pulsing. It

seems to take a very long time.

He won't look at me.

He gave me what I wanted, but it's the last time I'll ask

Austin for anything for a long time. I move out the

next day, letting the bruises on my neck and stitches

on my back speak when I will say nothing. He gave me

what I wanted, what I needed, but the price was high.

Too high.

Someone came into the bathroom and entered the stal at

the far end. I couldn't stay there, holding back sobs and

trying not to breathe. I washed my hands and face again,

and looked in the mirror to be sure nothing was out of

place. I went back to my desk and got back to work,

wishing for a list to take up al my attention so I didn't have

to think about the past.

I was realy going to leave Paul. Move on. Move up.

But what about the rest of my life? Was I going to move

on and up from it?

Chapter 35

"Thanks for taking me." I gathered up my purse and

sweater while my dad puled into the spot next to my car.

"I appreciate it."

"No problem." He drummed the steering wheel with his

fingertips and stared out the window at the hospital. "So.

Your mom's in there, huh?"

I sat back against the leather seat of his BMW and

nodded. "Yes. She has breast cancer, and there were

complications with the surgery."

He flinched, his cheeks paling. My dad swalowed hard.

His fingers stiled and gripped the wheel. He didn't look at

me. "How does she look?"

It wasn't exactly the question I thought he'd ask, and it

annoyed me. "She looks like someone who's sick and who

almost died. How do you think she looks?"

"I meant how is she," he said, but I didn't quite believe him.

"You could go see her yourself." I knew he wouldn't. My

parents weren't enemies, but in my entire life they'd never

been anything like friends.

"Yeah. Yeah, I could do that." He licked his lips, then

turned to me with a bright, hard grin. "I don't think she'd

see me, do you?"

"I don't know." I shrugged. "Maybe you could just send her flowers."

The easy way out. He nodded and hunched forward,

looking upward to the hospital building as though he was

trying to pick out which window was hers. Her room was

on the other side, but I didn't mention that.

"Thanks again for the ride," I said.

"You know, I did love her, Paige. Your mother. I'm sure

she's said otherwise—"

"She's never said, either way." I shifted, my hand on the

door handle. I wanted to escape this conversation before it

happened, but I didn't get out.

"She hasn't?" My dad looked surprised.

"She never realy talked much about you at al, Dad."

This didn't make him very happy, and his eyebrows

beetled down. I caught a glint of silver threads in them,

too, against the blond. He sat back in his seat and turned

toward me.

"She had to have said something. I mean…I'm your dad."

"She never gave me details," I told him as gently as I

could. "It realy wasn't my business, was it?"

Not to mention how squicky it would be to hear details

about the affair that had resulted in my birth. I'd known my

whole life who my dad was, and that I only saw him

sometimes. That he had a couple other families more

important than mine, and that he always had more money

that somehow never made its way into my mom's walet

the way it should've. But I hadn't ever asked for details,

the wheres and whys and whens. I'd assumed she loved

him. I'd never considered that he might have loved her.

"I did, though. Love her." My dad cleared his throat. "You look like her, Paige. So much now."

He hadn't seen her in years, and I looked like him, but I

He hadn't seen her in years, and I looked like him, but I

smiled. "Thanks."

"She was so beautiful, you wouldn't believe it. She knew