I’M HIGH FROM THE applause. As always, the sound of an audience’s appreciation for what I do, for the music I create, the songs I play, fills me with pleasure.
But that’s not why my heart is rabbiting about in my chest, beating against my ribs in a frantic tattoo.
It’s because of him.
Manning Brown-Hadden. Or, as I like to think of him, my first lover. My only lover.
A frisson of anticipation runs down my spine. Flashes of memory lance me, memories of our night together that are crystal clear despite the passage of time. The way his fingers, tentative at first, lifted my dress, tracing the flesh of my thighs with such reverence, as though I were his precious objet d’art and he my owner.
I stifle a groan as the recollections sear me with their intensity.
Manning is not just my lover. He is not just the only man ever to touch and kiss me.
He is also my stepbrother.
It’s been almost a year since that night in New York. The night we slept together. The night I seduced him. The night I brought him to my bed, knowing he had no knowledge of my innocence, knowing he would never have slept with me if he had, knowing and not caring.
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.