Because nothing mattered more to me than being with Manning. I’d lusted after him since the first moment we’d met: me eleven years old, unprepared for the sledgehammer of desire that would grip me from that night on. Him sixteen, but already built like a man, strong and muscled and so handsome he hurt me in my dreams.
I dreamed about how it would feel to be kissed by him, touched by him, held by him, but nothing could have prepared me for the reality. The way he’d been rock-hard through his clothes, his body cleaved to mine so that I could feel his cock pressed to my belly. I groaned with the strength of my wanting him. The way he spread my legs apart, hovered over me for a second, his breath snagged, just like mine, as though we both knew we were on the precipice of something world-changing. Our eyes locked, all our promises and our pasts passing from one to the other, and then he drove into me, his cock so hard, so big, that even the instant flash of pain didn’t last longer than a millisecond before extreme pleasure usurped it, spreading within me like wildfire through a forest in summer.
His eyes flared with surprise—betrayal, even—at that moment when he realised that I was untouched, that he was my first. But then he was as lost to pleasure as I, swallowed by the flames of a desire finally being fulfilled.
I had wanted him forever.
I’m not that girl any more—don’t get me wrong. Waking up the morning after we’d slept together, with a smile on my face and certainty deep in my heart that he would finally see what we were—see what we could be—I was quashed beyond repair when I discovered him gone.
Nowhere to be seen.
He’d left a note—because Manning Brown-Hadden is nothing if not appropriate.
A – it shouldn’t have happened. I’m so sorry.
MBH.
For fuck’s sake! I was livid. Furious. And then I was resilient. Strong. Determined. Determined to forget him and move on. To push him from my mind. Because finally I realised he didn’t belong there.
He slept with me and walked away. He took my virginity and left as though it were nothing. He dodged my calls and avoided family functions.
As if I meant nothing to him.
As if I didn’t matter—we didn’t matter.
But I remember the way he touched me. The way his body was so hard for me. The way he was so consumed by our desire, the way he swore as he kissed my neck, his teeth sharp against my collarbone, his fingertips digging into my thighs.
Still, he left. Still, he left me—as though I was a meaningless hook-up rather than the woman who knows him best in the world
Well, maybe he was right. Maybe this isn’t important. But to me his complete desertion has been the breaking of my world.
I’m no longer in love with him. But I sure as hell still want him. And now that I’m in Paris, where he’s living, I’m determined to show him that he still wants me. I’m going to make him want me. Make him beg for me. And then I’m going to walk out the door without a backward glance, letting him have a taste of his own medicine.
One night wasn’t enough for me, but two ought to do it…
I haven’t come straight to his luxurious penthouse from the performance. I don’t want him to see me as Astra James, prodigy. I want him to see me as a woman who is intent on one thing and one thing only.
So I’ve ditched my black couture dress and the heavy concert make-up, replaced the former with silky underwear and a sheath-like dress and the latter with bright red lips alone. My dark hair I’ve brushed loose around my face, the way I know he likes it.
I’m ready for this—ready for him.
Manning Brown-Hadden isn’t going to want to let me go this time. But that’s too bad: he’s not going to have a say in the matter. This is my show, my rules, my game. And I’m playing to win back my pride.
THE CONCERT WILL BE over by now. I imagine Astra in her beautiful dress, chatting to the other musicians backstage, and my gut clenches. I stare out of the window towards the Maison de la Radio, straining to see what I can.
There is a thick fog, the distant passage of headlights and the glowing Tour Eiffel.
Where is she staying tonight? In what bed and with whom?
One year. Almost, not quite. But it might as well be ten.
Fucking my stepsister was a dick move—but not just because she’s younger than me and I’ve known her since she was eleven.
My father would kill me. Kill her. He’d be beyond livid. Yet, his anger I can wear. I don’t like to upset him, but I would. For Astra I’d do just about anything. It’s not his anger I seek to avoid but his distress. He’d be devastated. He’d feel betrayed—by me. And, having seen Carter weather two bad heart attacks in the last three years, no way am I going to risk inflaming him further.
‘I’ve adopted her, Manning. She’s part of the family now. Not a stepdaughter, not your stepsister. She’s my daughter. Your sister. She’s ours. Your job is to look after her, you hear me?’
I looked after her, all right. I made her come again and again. My ‘sister’.
I remember Astra the way she was that night, tangled in bedsheets, her long, tanned legs with those brightly painted toes making me ache for her anew. I dressed silently, watching her the whole time, half willing her to wake up, wanting her to see me, wanting her to ask me why I was leaving. Wanting her to look at me with those huge caramel eyes of hers, to smile at me, to tell me she understood.
She didn’t wake. Why would she?
She was exhausted.
Despite her innocence and inexperience I’d taken her again and again, pleasuring her until she was shaking and moaning, her face pink, her breath rushed. I’d taken her in the kitchen, in the lounge, on my bed. Her eyes had grown heavy at some point and I’d watched her fall asleep.
I’d still wanted her.
My gut twists as flashbacks of that night haunt me, dancing on the periphery of my mind, so real I could reach out and touch them, so cloud-like and intangible that I can’t.
The moment I thrust into her, taking her hard because I’d been waiting for her sweetness for as long as I could remember… How many of my teenage fantasies had featured my stepsister in the lead role? It was fucking wrong how I lusted for her, but I had never been able to help myself.
Besides, they were only dreams. Dreams that I could pretend weren’t happening; dreams that didn’t mean anything.
Lies I told myself again and again.
I craved her, all right. I craved her when she came to live with me in New York for a year, parading around my apartment in my own goddamned T-shirts, so when I went to pull them on they smelled like her.
I craved her for all those years until, at twenty-one, she invited me to her place for dinner and I was weak. I was weaker than I should have been.
Even then I knew the tension had been building between us for months—years. Sweet, hot, demanding, captivating, suffocating need. But I’d fought it so fucking hard, with every fibre of my being. Then I went to her place and she answered the door in just a floaty dress and a huge smile. Our eyes met and everything inside me broke down with the utter certainty that we would be together.
I took her hard, just like I’d wanted to for so long, and I broke through the barrier of her inexperience, that testament to her sweetness, and I made her mine.
I