by Chloe Cox
“Please,” she begged. She almost wanted to cry. This wasn’t fair. Jackson took one look at her face and released her, and they both tried to catch their breath.
“Will you still—?”
“I promised,” she said.
He removed the rope, and they climbed the stairs in silence.
The lofted area above the party was dark, and the noise of the party felt as though it were coming from far away. The feeling of being alone, together, descended upon Ava much too quickly. She wasn’t prepared, and she found herself afraid to speak for fear of what she might say, and afraid to move for fear of what she might do.
Jackson looked at her and saw that she was paralyzed. This time, he took her hand.
“Ava, look,” he said, and pointed below.
On the far side of the loft from the entrance, on a central, raised sort of stand, stood the portrait that Ava had painted of Jackson on that night ten years ago when he had broken her heart.
Ava stared at it dumbly, not knowing what to think or feel. The sight of it brought back everything from that night, from the way she’d discovered how she felt about him, truly felt, as she painted, to the disbelieving joy she’d felt when he kissed her, to how alone and broken she’d known herself to be when she’d told him her darkest fantasy and he’d only looked at her in horror.
Jackson was grinning, but there was sweat on his forehead. “All of New York is gonna think I’m one egotistical S.O.B., putting my own portrait up like that.”
“Why did you?” Her own voice sounded tinny, hollow.
Jackson took a deep breath.
“Because that is the reason I owe you everything,” he said. “Look at that portrait, Ava. You painted me as…just look at it. You made me look kind, and gentle, and… Look, no one had ever—man, I’d never even thought of myself that way.” Jackson made a strangled noise, and Ava was surprised to see he was trying not to tear up. “This is going be hard to explain, but I’m just going to go with it.”
She squeezed his hand. The current that always ran between them surged, and it seemed to propel him forward with his story.
“That picture might look ordinary to you, Ava, but holy God, did it get me through some stuff. My daddy was a mean, drunk, violent man, and he used to beat the shit out of my mother and me. I mean, he really… She still has a limp. She’d kick him out, he’d come back, and there wasn’t anything we could do. And when I say ‘mean,’ I mean I think the man was truly evil. He could be charming, and she only married him to get away from home…but that doesn’t matter. ‘Son of a bitch dick dad’ is the long and short of it. And I was terrified—terrified, Ava—that I was gonna be like him.”
“Jackson—”
“No, let me finish, please. I’ve never told anyone this, and I don’t want to clam up again before I get it all out.”
Ava had never seen him like this, and she was pretty sure no one ever had. One hand gripped the railing in front of them with white-knuckled fury, his whole body wired with tension. Only the hand that held hers looked gentle. She squeezed it again, and nodded.
Jackson set his jaw and started talking again.
“I wasn’t just terrified I was going to be like him, I was terrified I was like him, deep down, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I knew for a long time what I wanted in the bedroom, and Ava, holy shit, it scared me. I thought I was a goddamn monster. I thought the best thing I could do was just stay away from all women. I thought about the seminary, for Chrissake, and I’m not even Catholic. Just to…
“And then you painted that picture, Ava. I don’t even remember how we got into it, you deciding to paint my portrait, do you?”
She shook her head. “It just seemed…”
“Right. Yeah. It just seemed…inevitable. You painted this picture that looked like me, but…it was like you saw something completely different in me. Like I was good. Like I wasn’t a monster. Every moment with you was like that, Ava,” he said fiercely, turning now to face her completely, grabbing her other hand. He stared into her face, like he was determined to have this one moment when they faced nothing but each other, when he was totally bared to her, as she had once been to him.
“Do you get that?” he asked her. “Every moment with you, the way you just seemed to understand me, I got a little better at seeing myself through your eyes, and believing I could be different. That maybe there was something in me worth…”
He stopped, unable to finish that last sentence. Ava was stunned. It had never once occurred to her that the understanding and connection she felt from Jackson might have been reciprocal, and been just as important to him. She’d just taken it for granted that she’d needed him more than he’d needed her, and she been on her guard because of it.
“Anyway,” he said. “Then that night, when you told me you wanted to be tied up—I mean, shit, Ava, it was our first time together!”
Ava said very quietly, “I might have been overly exuberant.”
“It just made me think…I don’t know, I freaked out, and I took it out on you with my attitude, and by the time I figured out how dumb I was being, it was too late. All I had left was that painting. So…I kept it. That painting, Ava, has been like a beacon for me. Actual, real, physical evidence that someone believed in me as much as you did. I just worked toward it, these past ten years.”
Jackson paused. He let go of one hand and hesitated, just for a second, which was so unlike him, and then the familiar, dominant posture was back, and he put his hand on her cheek, his fingers threading through her hair, and wrapped his other arm around her waist.
“I do not exaggerate when I say this, Ava, so listen very, very carefully: everything I am today, I’ve become because of you. For you. For right now, this moment, when I can tell you that I love you, that I’ve always loved you, that I always will, and that I am not done becoming the man you deserve. I fucked up horribly, Ava, and I never should have hidden any of this from you, and I will probably fuck up again, but I promise you, promise you, that I will never stop trying. I promise you—“
“Shut up,” she said, and her voice cracked.
Jackson opened his mouth, then closed it again, speechless for the first time.
She said very quietly, “I’m not entirely sure I deserve you, either.”
For the first time that night, Jackson smiled a big, gleaming, boyish smile. “Shut up,” he said.
And he kissed her.
epilogue
Jackson surveyed his company’s office space with supreme satisfaction. Once more it had been turned into a gallery, but a better one this time. It was Ava’s first show.
So, of course, she was hiding up in the loft.
She’d made it all of ten minutes before the anxiety of putting her work—her self, as she had explained impatiently—on display, and for actual sale, had become too much for her. She’d been determined to experience all of this without resorting to her usual defenses, but it was proving more difficult than she’d thought.
“Either I get five minutes in the loft, or I lose my mind,” she’d said when he had begged her not to miss out. “You stay here, and make sure…I don’t even know. Make sure nothing gets set on fire.”
And then she’d fled.
Which is why she had no idea that she’d already sold three portraits and been commissioned for two more. Arlene’s boyfriend, Charles Borsa, was handling it. Borsa had been as amazed as anyone at Ava’s hidden talent, her weird genius in painting people not necessarily as they appeared, but as they were. She used a bunch of styles to do it—all of them beautiful, in Jackson’s opinion. She’d actually gotten better since college.
And she was freaking out up in the loft. That wasn’t right. She deserved triumph, and he knew she could handle it. And Jackson didn’t want anything to sully this day, in particular.
She needed to relax. Jackson’s plans could be brought forward a couple of hours for that. He was a flexible guy. He went and got the package he’d hidden in his of
fice and went up to the darkened loft.
Ava was there, all the way in the back, sitting in the shadows on an old packing crate with her knees bunched up around her. Her fingers drummed nervously on her knees, but as soon as Jackson approached, she had questions.
“Do they like them? Oh God, they don’t. Have any of them sold? No, don’t tell me, it’s fine. It’s ok. I can always do something else. I don’t—”
“Quiet,” he said in his Dom voice. He loved watching her snap to attention like that. “You have sold three portraits. You have been commissioned for two more. The word ‘genius’ is being thrown around a lot, which, I’m going to point out, means I’ve been right the whole time.”
She put her legs down and leaned forward. “You’re not always right.” She grinned at him. “Wait, really?”
“Yes, really.”
She giggled, then covered her mouth and tried to look dignified. “I feel like such an idiot.”
“You are an idiot right now. An adorable, beautiful, lovable idiot. And I’m going to take full advantage of your temporary idiocy.” Jackson produced a little package, which he’d been hiding behind his back. It was a small, unassuming pastry box. He was trying very, very hard not to shake.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asked, taking it from him with a big smile.
“Probably not.”
Ava frowned and opened the box. It was, as she’d expected, a red velvet cupcake with buttercream icing. The surprising part was the diamond solitaire ring poised on a whip of icing.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Jackson’s stomach was doing flip-flops, something he remembered as a symptom of nervousness. He preferred to think it was adrenaline. Adrenaline, definitely. Christ, why hadn’t she said anything?
“Ava?”
She popped the ring in her mouth.
In all the many ways Jackson had played this out in his mind, he’d never, ever, ever thought about what to do if she ate the damn ring.
“Ava?” he said again, this time with bewilderment.
Ava’s cheeks hollowed out briefly, and then she took the ring out, now clean of icing, and slipped it on her finger. “Yes, you dummy,” she said shyly. “Now please kiss me before I start crying.”
Jackson did more than that. He pulled her to her feet, kissed her thoroughly, and unzipped the back of her dress.
“Jackson!” Ava laughed.
He put one finger under her chin and tilted her face back up to his. Then he slipped her shoulder straps down, and the dress fell to the floor. “That wasn’t just a proposal, sweetheart,” he said, grinning. “It was also an order.”
She smiled, shivering as he ran his hands over her naked breasts and then bent to pull off her panties. “Yes sir,” she said.
THE END
OTHER CLUB VOLARE BOOKS
Sold to the Sheikh
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Hi! Thanks so much for taking a chance on this book! I hope you enjoyed Jackson and Ava’s story, and that it brought you a bit of happiness. If you want to know about the next release in the Club Volare Series, Disciplined by the Dom, as soon as it comes out in February 2013, you can sign up for my New Releases list. I only use that list for new release announcements, because spam is basically the worst. You can sign up for that list here.
Also! Feel free to lend this book to a friend you think might like it. I put my books out without DRM for just this reason, so g’head. :)
And if you liked Tied to the Tycoon, please consider leaving a review here. It’s the easiest way to help match my books up with other readers who might like them, and it helps me out a bunch. If you do choose to leave a review, shoot me an email at [email protected] with a link and I’ll add you to my ARC list, so you’ll get a free advanced review copy of the next book before it’s even on sale. Other than that, the best place to catch up with me is my Facebook page or on Goodreads—drop by to see if I’m doing any giveaways or if I’ve got any excerpts from the next book up, or just to say hi. :)
‘Til the next book!
Chloe
Table of Contents
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
chapter 16
chapter 17
chapter 18
chapter 19
chapter 20
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 23
epilogue
