Blake swallowed something the size of a fist, the organ in his chest tightening like a drum. That sweet gesture directed at him when he was at his ugliest? That was once in a lifetime shit. It would never happen again—especially not from an angel like Autumn—and he should be grabbing onto it like a lifeline. She’s leaving, though. She’s going to leave.
That reminder blew out his remaining fuse, powering down any sensitivity he’d mustered. It was a door slamming. A way to keep out any further damage to his soul. Accept this girl’s offer, soak up her compassion and tell her the fucked up things from his past…then watch her board a plane back to Melbourne? No. Not in this lifetime. Friends were things that came and went and left him in solitude, when all was said and done. This would be no different.
“I don’t need or want a friend, Blondie.” Hating himself but moving full speed ahead nonetheless, a train with the brakes cut, Blake reached out and gripped her jaw. “You gave me everything I want from you when you were on your knees.”
Autumn ripped her hand away from his arm, her face going pale. “Oh wow. Fuck you,” she breathed, turning for the door. Pausing in the door frame, Blake could see she was upset, but still trying to muster a decent parting shot. “You probably…poisoned the pigeons, you absolute dick.” She turned away. “This is over.”
“Autumn,” he rasped.
Blake didn’t know what the hell he was going to say. Forgive me. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make people stay or even like me, so I stopped trying long before you showed up and brightened things. Maybe he would just hand her the package on the coffee table. But she ignored him, the door rattling on the hinges as she slammed it behind her.
And Blake had never felt emptier.
CHAPTER 9
The worst part was that he lied. In the hours of sleepless irritation that followed her encounter-of-the-third-base-kind with Blake, Autumn realized her oversized landlord was lying about only wanting her on her knees. If old mate wanted a strings-free beej, he could walk into any singles bar in the tristate area and take his pick. The unmarried ladies of New York would sniff out his tall, hot, moneyed ass like bomb dogs, but throw in a dick that’d make a pornstar insecure? Forget about it.
No, he wanted something else from her. Didn’t change the fact that he’d been a cock. Made it worse actually, because he was the one who passed up casual sex, who was all like ‘we should go on three dates Autumn! You need to trust me! I’m not a perforated asshole like your ex! I’m super nice!’
“Fuckin’ whatever,” Autumn muttered under her breath. “Men. Can’t live with ’em, can’t hurl ’em all into the sun. Useless.”
“Did you, uh, say something?” Pauline’s usually cheerful expression was drawn and her gaze darted to the clinic door.
“Nope,” Autumn said quickly. “I’m just talking to myself. First sign of madness, I know, but I’m sure the patient doesn’t mind.”
She stroked the tabby she was examining along her fluffy sides. “You don’t mind do you, Maleficent?”
Pauline gave a little laugh. “I’m sure she doesn’t, but are you sure you’re okay, sweetie?”
Autumn didn’t blame her for her concern. Unable to sleep after her cunty landlord compared her to one of those inflatable lady dolls you put your dick in, she’d stayed up all night playing Arkham Asylum and awoken on her couch thirty minutes before her shift, looking like deep fried ass. She’d attempted to combat the damage with an icy shower and liberal applications of green concealer, but she still looked like ass.
To make matters worse, the clinic was booked solid and additional walk-ins appeared every fifteen minutes to demand someone heal their beloved family pet, or else. She hadn’t eaten in hours, had barely had time to take sips of water. Ordinarily, this might have kept her mind off her problems, but memories of Blake seemed immune to distraction. When she wasn’t coming up with better lines to have thrown at him on the way out, she was remembering the way he’d looked as he came down her throat.
She’d never been the world’s biggest blow job fan. She did it because that was what you did if you wanted to get eaten out; no pussy taxation without cock representation and all that. Yet, when she’d gotten on her knees for Blake, she’d been trembling with excitement. Fucking trembling.
He’d looked beautiful standing above her; his thick brows drawn together, his teeth bared in a snarl that was both scary and somehow vulnerable, a powerful man brought low by pleasure. She’d come approximately six seconds after he had and the memory had been making her insanely horny ever since. She’d refused to do anything about it last night though, she couldn’t decline to be Blake’s summer slam-piece then immediately go back to fucking herself senseless over him. A girl had to have some self-respect.
“Got anything on for the evening?” Pauline asked, clearly trying to bring her back to the realm of the aware.
Autumn decided not to tell her colleague she’d likely be rescuing more pigeons or drawing a sex-comic about Blake and then setting it on fire. “I have to Skype my parents. It’s my mum’s fifty-fifth birthday.”
Another task that would challenge her sleep-deprived brain. Knowing her mother, the conversation was going to run smoothly from ‘happy b’day mum, what did everyone get you?’ into ‘how’s Ian? Has he proposed? Are you two coming home?’ and then she would have to lie or say something like, ‘no mum, I’ve not heard from Ian since I kicked him out for cheating on me, but you’ll be happy to know I am acting out my niche sexual abduction fantasies with my landlord. At least I was until he revealed himself to be a colossal fuckstick.’
Yeesh.
She should have ripped the Band-Aid off the Ian break up thing when it first happened but her parents didn’t make it easy. She was their only daughter, and when they weren’t demanding she make them all proud, they treated her as though she were a stained glass window. Never mind that all three of her brothers had been arrested and one had done time, if she told them she was living alone in New York, they’d be terrified. Who was going to defend her from all the guns, gang violence and all the other Hollywood-inspired problems they imagined taking place in NYC?
Her mother would also state the obvious; without Ian’s dream keeping her there, why wouldn’t she just tear up the work visa form, come home and buy into her uncle’s business?
“We’re out of doggie lorazepam,” a loud voice said from the door. “I’ve put in an order but it won’t be here until tomorrow. The anxious doggies of Manhattan will just have to drink chamomile tea or say a little mantra when they get angsty, instead.”
Autumn looked up to see Owen lounging in the door frame. He looked insultingly perfect with his freshly shaved face and styled hair, his lower lip all plumped out with whatever serums the FDA hadn’t succeeded in getting banned. She instantly felt ten times rattier in comparison. “Are you sure the doggie lorazepam is gone? I could definitely use some right now.”
Owen grinned. “I’m afraid it’s true. Lunch in ten? Isa’s still trying to get that Pitbull owner to stop letting Fido lick his lipstick raw and I ordered way too much Chinese. If you’re there, I can tell myself I only ate half of it.”
Autie glanced at Pauline, desperately longing for free egg rolls but unwilling to abandon her post. “Would you mind if I…?”
“Not at all. I’ll get Maleficent in the back before Mrs. Beech comes back. Go.”
Autumn didn’t need to be told twice. She tore off her gloves, scrubbed out of the examination room and bolted toward the direction of food. Thankfully, Owen didn’t appear any more eager to chit chat than she did. They picked up their chopsticks and Autumn dipped her head into a takeaway container of moo-shu pork and didn’t resurface until her belly stopped making angry yowling noises. “Thanks, I really needed that.”
“No problem.” Owen shoved a can of diet coke at her. “Now that your sodium levels are restored, can I ask; did you have a rough night?”
Autumn cracked the can and gulped half the peppery drink down. “Is it
that obvious?”
“Yes, quite frankly. You look like you spent the night wrestling a horde of WWE fans. In a bad way.”
Autumn winced. “Shit. I knew I should have gone to a department store and pretended I wanted to buy a heap of make-up, so they’d do my face and then lie and say I left my wallet at home.”
“It’s not that bad, just don’t keep me hanging. I want to hear the latest about your bestial landlord, which I’m guessing is what your bad night was about.”
Autumn’s mood, which had spiked during her rapid sugar and carb intake, instantly crashed. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Not this again! Just pick a place and go from there! I just watched you inhale the best fake-Chinese food this city has to offer without tasting it. You owe me.”
She grinned, not in the least bit offended by his brusqueness, which she’d learned was part and parcel of Owen, and not to be taken seriously.
“I mince my walk, not my words,” he’d told her during their coffee date. “Just tell me to shut up if you think I’m being too bitchy.”
But Autumn never did. Paying out your mates was a treasured Australian pastime and even if she and Owen were only work acquaintances, it was nice to experience it again. Still, telling Owen the latest on Blake was problematic. He seemed heavily invested in them having a happy ending. When she’d told him Blake had demanded to take her on three dates so she could trust him, Owen had slithered onto the floor in a mock swoon.
“It’s a modern day Beauty and The Beast,” he said. “God, I wish it was happening to me but since it’s happening to you, you have to let me live vicariously through you. I want all the details of this man-beast love connection, live as they unfold.”
Autumn had agreed, thinking that it was fun to have a secret to gossip about, but that was before. She didn’t relish telling Owen that the strange-but-loveable Beast had told her she was good for nothing but sucking his cock. It made for a very disappointing ending. Disney certainly wouldn’t be optioning the rights.
“So last night.” Autumn cleared her throat. “He…”
Owen frowned. “The beast fucked up?”
“Yeah,” she said with relief.
“Typical. Nothing gold can stay and what have you.” Owen twirled his chopsticks in the universal signal for ‘go on.’ So she told him about the incident in the lobby and how Blake had dragged her upstairs for an afternoon delight gone bad. Recapping the incident had hurt more than she’d thought it would. Describing the scene had brought back details she’d forgotten; the appalled curl of Blake’s lip, the way he’d talked to her as though she was the dumbest person on earth. At least Owen was a wonderful audience, the perfect blend of scandalized and intrigued and punctured every third sentence with ‘oh my god’s’ and ‘what a dick’s!’ When she was done, he shoved his Peking duck at her. “Here, you need it more than me.”
“Thanks.” She picked up her chopsticks and transferred a chunk of duck to her mouth, hoping the sticky-sweetness of it would fill the cavern that had opened up in her chest.
“What a complete disappointment,” Owen mused. “Who knew the modern Beast was just some New York douche with man-pain issues.”
“Yeah.” Autumn had only taken one mouthful of duck but she put down her chopsticks. She felt mildly ill and not because of the takeout. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she’d been hoping Blake was the modern Beast, too. Yet, like a newer, burlier version of Ian, all he turned out to be was some entitled asshole.
“Do you think he’s just an asshole,” Owen said, apparently able to read minds. “Or do you think he’s nuts? Or both? Or neither?”
Autumn shrugged. “I don’t know him well enough to decide. I think he’s been hurt pretty bad, though. That’s what the guy, his friend who came to see him, wanted to talk about.”
Owen nodded thoughtfully as he toyed with a lone beef wonton. “Well, whatever his deal is, you can’t keep seeing him. When a man says you’re only good for fucking and doesn’t immediately follow that statement with ‘I’m sorry I just racked a big line of bath salts, which way to the emergency room?’ it is game over. The question is, what now?”
“I guess I go back into hiding. Maybe expand my harmonica repertoire. I can do almost all of ‘Love Me Do’ now.”
“What?” Owen looked utterly disgusted. “No! No. You are not becoming a second beast, only much smaller and a female. Not on my watch.”
“But I already have the hair for it?” Again Autumn gestured to her scalp. “See?”
Owen slapped her hand away. “I said no. What you need is to find some revenge dick to get over your revenge dick. Double revenge dick.”
“I think I might be all dicked out.”
“Bullshit.” There was a steely glint flickering in Owen’s eyes. “You need to get back out there and move on. And I don’t mean sleazy tete-a-tete’s with your landlord. I mean real dates with classy men who know how to treat the woman who are so generously swallowing their body fluids.”
“But—”
“But nothing.” He whipped out his phone. “What’s your type? Your exes swing from model-pretty to papa bear. I have no idea what direction to go in. Enlighten me.”
About six-foot-four, dark-haired, handsome, reclusive…Oh and if he manages my building, so much the better…
“I don’t think I have a type but I really don’t think I should be dati—”
“Dealers choice, love it,” Owen muttered, tapping frantically at his screen. “I’ve been waiting for this, Ryan knows so many hot straights who are trying to find the one and Isabella refuses to have sex with anyone who doesn’t sell chronic or play the fucking ukulele. How do you feel about men in their late thirties? And are you free tomorrow night?”
Autumn closed her eyes in an attempt to combat the chaos churning in her head. She didn’t really want to mope around her apartment pining for Blake but she didn’t see how going out with another dude was going to help. In fact, the very idea was making her feel nauseous.
“Am I going too fast?”
“Uh, maybe,” Autumn said, opening her eyes. “I appreciate the effort but this is a bit much.”
Owen put down his phone, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry, I just like fixing things.”
“That’s okay, that’s why you’re an amazing surgeon. I appreciate the effort, I just feel weirdly guilty about dating someone else so fast. What if Blake finds out about it?”
“Why does that matter?” Owen’s eyes narrowed. “You think he might pick a fight with you if he saw you waltzing in with a new and improved Beast?”
“Yeah, he’d probably throw him through a wall.” Autumn hesitated. Was she giving herself way too much credit? Maybe he wouldn’t give a shit. God she wished she wasn’t so invested in knowing what Blake was thinking. How had she come to care this much this fast? If she didn’t know better, she’d think she was falling—
Nope.
Not going there.
“I don’t know,” she corrected. “Maybe he wouldn’t care. He’d just…look at me all frustrated and disappointed and I’d feel like my organs were being squished into pâté.” She shivered. “Just imagining it is making my organs feel like they’re being squished into pâté.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” But as soon as she said it, Autumn did know. She knew exactly how Blake would look if he saw her with another man. She’d seen it before, when she was with Ian. She hadn’t understood what it meant back then, but she did now. He’d been jealous. Or maybe just disappointed that she had such terrible taste, the way he’d been disappointed that she wouldn’t do stand-up. Maybe that was why he’d said she was only good for blowing him; because real-world Autumn was no match for the fantasy girl who lived in his head. That idea should have pissed her off. Instead, it just made the hot ache in her chest even worse.
“Girl.” Owen’s expression was serious. “Do you like the Beast? Really like him?”
Autumn shook her head so hard
that grains of rice she hadn’t known were lodged in her hair flew out. “How could I? We’ve only gone on one date!”
He gave her a look. A ‘don’t-lie-to-me-bitch’ look.
“No, I don’t like him. I mean I like him of course. He’s funny and nice and sexy and it’s kind of adorable in the way he pretends like he’s so mean when really he’s a pigeon feeder…”
Owen raised a brow and Autumn realized she was making a mess of her argument. “But underneath it all, he’s a huge withholding dick,” she said, with all the conviction she could muster. “But we have this really intense sexual chemistry. It’s completely fucked. He’s like the living embodiment of all my most psycho fantasies and he does things to me that no one has ever done. Ever. I mean, just thinking about him touching me…” She remembered the feel of Blake’s cock in her mouth, the way he’d looked towering over her, telling her she’d suck him off enough to pay rent for the whole building.
“You’re blushing.” Owen patted her hand with his lovely, turquoise-tipped fingers. “Look, you’ve danced around what these ‘psycho fantasies’ are, but if you want a freak, I can find you a nice respectable freak. Your nutty landlord isn’t the final word on men who do weird shit in bed.”
Autumn smiled, but privately she disagreed. She’d walked the earth for twenty-six years and never come close to meeting a man who compelled her sexually the way Blake did. If she were the kind of hippie who believed in soulmates, she’d have thought their meeting was more than coincidence. That the universe had pulled two perfectly suited people together from opposite ends of the globe. After all, how many places were there to rent in New York City? And how many were owned by the personification of all her secret longings? Yet they’d found each other in a city of millions. Maybe Blake was the final word on her fantasies, the only guy who’d make her feel so utterly depraved and yet safe at the same time.
Captivated Page 13
