Stripped (Travesty Book 2)

by Lawson, Piper

  I ignored him, stepping in first and waiting for him to follow. “Floor?”

  Nate hit the button himself, shooting me a look like I was babying him.

  The fluorescent lights in the elevator cast a harsh glow over his face, and I could see beads of sweat on his forehead. The fear was fading, and whatever monster had taken hold had retreated.

  For now.

  I followed him out of the elevator and down the hall.

  “This is me,” he said abruptly when we stopped in front of a door.

  I waited for him to open it. He waited for me to leave.

  “You’re not going to invite me in?” I prompted.

  “No.” Nate looked at me like I was crazy. It would’ve been funny under different circumstances.

  “What am I going to do, overpower you? Beat you into submission?” I held up the satin clutch the size of my hand, then opened it, peering inside. “Or are you afraid I’m going to draw on you with my lipgloss?”

  Nate watched me warily for a long moment, then unlocked the door. He stepped inside ahead of me. Once more he looked the way he had when I’d first seen him across the sweaty, sparkly club.

  Tall.

  Built.

  Handsome.

  But his brand of contained calm had been disrupted and the quirky, charming vibe from the club was gone. Impressing me wasn’t on Nate’s radar.

  It didn’t matter because it was off mine too. We both knew we weren’t going to have the kind of night we’d envisioned.

  Which is too damned bad, because I need something to keep my mind off tomorrow. And I’d really, really hoped you were it, Suit.

  Inside, Nate kicked off his shoes, shrugged his jacket onto the floor, and went straight for the balcony. I stepped carefully out of my heels and laid my coat on top of his. There was a closet, but I wouldn’t be staying long enough to use it.

  The apartment was gorgeous. Open concept, hardwood floors, and windows along one side. “You must sell a shit ton of underwear,” I breathed.

  “Huh?” Nate grunted from outside.

  “I said, ‘Great apartment.’”

  What am I doing here? Oh yeah. I wanted to get him talking. Make sure he’d last the night on his own before I took off back to Lex. Despite his surly assurances that he was fine, I didn’t want him doing a repeat of his childhood Superman stunt off the balcony. Or hurting himself any other way. My gut said he was too self-centered to ruin all that pretty, but I’d hate to be wrong.

  “Do you want some water?” I looked toward the kitchen.

  “Whiskey. Right-hand cupboard.” I paused. “I’m not getting drunk,” he said, reading my mind. “It helps.”

  I opened the cupboard door, finding glasses nearby.

  On second thought …

  When I joined him on the balcony, Nate was still staring at the skyline. He took the glass I passed him, turning his head to look at me with serious eyes. “I’m going to sound like an asshole, but why are you still here? You don’t know me, you’ll never see me again, and I just went all One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on you.”

  I took a breath. “Can I call someone for you? A friend? Family?”

  “A few friends know. About this,” he added, gesturing to his head like there was something on it. “They think I’m doing better. I don’t want to disabuse them of that notion. I’ve brought girls home before. It’s never been an issue.”

  I ignored the comment about his sex life. If I looked like him I’d probably buy Trojans in bulk too. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He took a sip of the whiskey. “No. But I want you to tell me one more thing.”

  I wasn’t sure how much more I wanted to share with him. “We agreed, remember? I gave you seals. You gave me shed. That’s all.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not much for rules. Besides, you’re in my home, drinking my whiskey—” he’d noticed I had poured one for myself too “—and you just watched me self-destruct in an embarrassingly intimate fashion. I think you owe me something else.”

  He wasn’t wrong.

  I should’ve left then. Ran as far as I could.

  Instead I took a sip of my whiskey, making a face as it burned down my throat.

  “Fine. Hit me, Suit.”

  “Do you ever feel like you’ve fucked up?” he asked. His eyes searched mine in the darkness like he was hanging on my answer.

  “All the time.”

  “No, I’m talking on a grand scale. Like, fucked up your whole life.”

  “No. But ask me again tomorrow,” I said honestly. The pressure of our plans for Travesty was eating at me. We were pitching to a big magazine editor the next day. Lex and I’d been working toward this for years and I was terrified I’d let her down.

  Nate smiled grimly.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Twenty-one.”

  A satisfied nod. “You’ve got time.”

  “Time to fuck it all up?” I snorted despite his dark mood. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.” He said it like he’d admitted to being fifty. Then he took a sip, closing his eyes as he swallowed. “And I have utterly and monumentally fucked all of it up.”

  I tried to tread lightly. I really didn’t know anything about him. Though I was desperately, morbidly curious. “How bad can it be? I mean, did you break the law?” The words were out before I could stop them.

  Good one, Ava. What if he says yes?

  But he shook his head. “My transgressions are beyond the grasp of the US justice system,” Nate replied cryptically.

  He was spiraling downward. I didn’t know how to handle this. But I knew self-indulgent. Nate was definitely upset, and probably had a right to be, but wallowing never helped. And if he hadn’t broken the law, that meant he hadn’t done something really bad. Like killed or hurt someone.

  So screw treading lightly.

  “You know what, Suit?” I set my glass on the table between us with a loud clink. “Here’s my naive twenty-one-year-old view of the world. You don’t have a monopoly on fuckups. You did bad things. I did bad things. We all did bad things and we can’t change them. But life can be pretty damn long, and if you’re lucky enough to have a pretty damn long life, writing it off for one mistake is both sad and ungrateful. Maybe it’s time to get over it and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

  When I came up for air, Nate’s expression was darker than the night that wrapped around us.

  His hands gripped the arms of his chair as he leaned forward. “You want me to stop feeling sorry for myself? You don’t even know me. You don’t know my family and you certainly don’t have the first fucking clue what I live with every day.” He stared me down, daring me to apologize.

  I stared right back, leaned in. I wasn’t some meek girl who’d take whatever shit was dished out to her. “Well you don’t know me, Suit. And if your Hugo Boss–wearing, Porsche-driving, zillionth-floor-penthouse-living life is such a cross to bear, I’m sure there are people less fortunate who’d trade with you in a heartbeat. No matter what’s happened to you.”

  Nate looked like I’d slapped him. His eyes moved angrily back and forth on mine.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Ava,” he said in a low voice that implied it was anything but. “I’ll call you a car.”

  Making him mad had been a risk. But at least he was angry instead of weak. Now, he could take care of himself, and if he couldn’t, it wasn’t for my lack of trying.

  Nate pulled his phone from his pocket and spoke a few terse words to the dispatcher. When he disconnected we stood at the same time.

  “Thanks for the hospitality, Suit,” I muttered.

  He hung back to let me go inside first, and I stepped through the doorway, my hand on the frame of the sliding glass door so I didn’t trip.

  “You don’t have to walk me—” to the door. My words cut off as I realized Nate was nearly on top of me. Neither of us had bothered to turn the apartment lights on, and his tall frame and broad sh
oulders were dimly silhouetted by the city lights.

  “Yeah, I do.” His voice had warmed a few degrees. “My manners seem to have abandoned me,” he murmured after a long moment. “I’m not used to being called out like that.”

  “Well, I’m not used to minding my own business.”

  Our fight had started, and ended, in a few moments. Now adrenaline was pumping through my veins like I was ready to face off against some unknown foe.

  But the threat had vanished, leaving me alert and vibrating.

  As I reached for my bag on the back of the couch, my hands shook. I realized I was even more worked up from our angry words than I had been from dancing with him, though in a different way.

  My head tipped back to look at his face. The angle of his jaw took shape as my pupils dilated, soaking up whatever light they could find in the dark apartment.

  The scan slowly revealed planes and angles. Deep eyes. Sculpted mouth.

  The scar on his brow from his childhood antics was just visible.

  Awareness hit me like a fist for the first time since we’d been kissing in the cab. Now that Nate had put whatever had come out of the box, raging, back inside, he was once again in control. This time he was close enough to touch. To smell. To feel the heat of his body. And this time, we weren’t in a club.

  I shivered as a gust of winter wind came in the open patio door to hit my bare arms. I rubbed my hands over my goose bump–covered flesh. Then jumped a mile when Nate’s hands settled over mine.

  “I’m sorry I made you sit outside. It’s freezing.”

  “You didn’t make me do anything. It’s fine.”

  Now that he’d recovered, it should’ve been simple to walk away. To put on my coat, shake his hand or whatever the hell you did after a night like that, and get in my cab.

  But his thumb stroking the flesh of my arm stopped me.

  “It’s not fine,” he murmured. “Most people wouldn’t do what you did for someone they’ve never met.”

  “Well, I’m not most people.”

  “I’m starting to get that.” His tone was unreadable. Then he bent down, haltingly. Brushed his lips over my cheek. Light. Grateful. “Thank you.”

  The memory of kissing him an entirely different way less than an hour before came raging back.

  “I don’t want your thanks,” I whispered without thinking. Nate froze, pulling back to meet my gaze.

  He paused, watching and waiting. “Then what do you want?” he asked softly.

  I didn’t know if he was being suggestive. But my mind grabbed it, stole it, ran with it. Instantly my brain was feeding me images of an imaginary performance, as dark as it was provocative.

  When I’d agreed to go home with him, I’d figured I knew the score. Knew what I was getting into. We’d have one night. Nothing personal. But he was changing all the rules and I suddenly felt unsteady.

  The backs of my eyes burned and I squeezed them closed. Fighting this madness that made me want him, despite everything.

  Because of everything.

  When I finally raised my gaze to his face, his lips were parted and his eyes were on mine.

  Nate was overwhelmingly and intoxicatingly close, and suddenly it was too much.

  I took a step back. A moment later, he followed. I took another step. So did he. The next step I took pressed me to the door, and I could feel the hammering of my heart through my back against the wood.

  “Ava?” His voice was low, coming from somewhere in the darkness inches away. My name wasn’t a single question. It was as many as I could conjure.

  The hum that bubbled up from the street, the perpetual noise the city wore like a blanket, all of it stopped while we stood.

  Nate’s phone buzzed in his pocket, startling us both. “That’s your car,” he said.

  I swallowed. And we watched each other. I could practically feel the heat crackle between us, but he didn’t reach for me. Just waited, that perfect composure back in place, creating a tenuous barrier between me and whatever lay underneath.

  “What do you want?” Nate asked quietly.

  I wanted those lips on my skin instead of spouting cynicism. Wanted those blue eyes glazed with heat, not pain. Wanted his sculpted body tight with passion over mine instead of with anxiety, haunted by some ghost I’d never know. And I didn’t want to spend tonight lying awake alone, thinking about tomorrow, when the rest of my life would be decided for me in a single meeting.

  “Can the car wait?” I breathed after what felt like a year.

  He expelled a long breath and it shook at the end. “Ava. Don’t get me wrong. I want you,” he said tightly. “I want you … every way. But I can’t be gentle. I can’t go easy. It’s not in me tonight.”

  I nodded.

  For a long moment Nate just held my gaze with his. Those eyes blazed into me fiercely, like he was asking me to be sure. I lifted my chin in response.

  With a groan, Nate fused his mouth on mine.

  It wasn’t a kiss. His tongue invaded, wild and mindless between my lips. Stroking, stoking.

  I reached for him. Felt the tie loosen, the top button undone.

  I was used to guys worshipping me. I liked it, being able to flirt and tease. To be treated like … well, like a girl.

  Nate hadn’t gotten the memo. He slammed his body into mine on a groan, my arms winding around his neck and my hands in his hair. He lifted my legs around his hips like I was weightless. Turned and set me on the back of the couch, pulling back to look at me.

  “Is this what you wanted?” he demanded, panting.

  “Yes,” I gasped. Whatever this was, I’d never felt it. But it was addictive.

  More.

  I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to me. Nate kissed me so hard I fell backward. I gripped his shirt for balance, and while my hands were there, unfastened the row of buttons and pushed the shirt off.

  I found his body, smooth skin over hard muscle. I wanted to purr just touching him.

  Nate pulled me off the couch, setting me on the ground and swiveling me. The top edge of the couch dug into my stomach as he pressed me into it.

  His hands unzipped the back of my dress, then he yanked it over my head in one tug. “Why are you still here?” he muttered into my neck, capturing my hands at my side so I couldn’t move.

  I pried my hands out of his grasp, spinning back to face him. “Why did you let me stay?” I volleyed back, running my hands up his chest, pulling off the tie that was dangling. His belt and pants went next.

  Wordlessly he turned me around so I was facing into the couch, and he pressed his hips into my lower back, like he was molding me to fit him. Nate unclasped my bra and pulled it off. Stuck a finger in the side of my panties and ripped them down.

  No ceremony, no patience.

  Shit.

  Nate was hard against me, his skin burning everywhere in contrast to the cool leather of the couch. One hand slid up my stomach, reaching to play with my breast, squeezing while his thumb brushed my nipple. What was left of my sanity spiraled off into another dimension. I moaned low in my throat, arching into his palm and grabbing the back of his neck with my hand. His mouth dragged along my neck.

  No matter what he said about checking his issues, he was showing me with his body that he was in control, of himself and of me. It was heady and terrifying in equal measure.

  Nate’s hot breath burned across my shoulder. I needed whatever this was. Needed it to stop, and needed the sweet relief from the agony his hands and his mouth and his body were creating.

  “Faster,” I told him, reaching back with my other hand, sliding it between us to wrap my hand around his cock.

  Fuck.

  He was impossibly huge and hard. I wrapped my fingers around him, barely, and he hissed out my name.

  “It’s not a race, kitten,” Nate ground out. “We’ve got all night.”

  I was going to explode in the next five minutes, with or without him. I squeezed him to say now, and his breath hitche
d.

  “No,” he muttered, reaching a hand between my thighs, fingers stroking where I was desperate. I cried out. When Nate’s lips dragged across the shell of my ear, I felt his words along every nerve ending. “You’re so wet. Is that all for me?”

  His words sent me higher. I bit my lip and twisted my head to look at him, pleading with my eyes. “Now. I can’t—”

  He slid a finger into me, stroking. Then another. “God, you’re tight.” His mesmerizing voice would have trapped me there even if his hands hadn’t.

  Yes. I started to position him at my entrance but he stopped me. Reached for his pants, grabbed a condom, and rolled it on.

  Shit. I’d nearly forgotten protection. That’s how gone I was.

  Then he positioned himself behind me and pinned my hips to the couch again.

  I squirmed back against him, almost sobbing with impatience. My body was strung so tight I thought I’d break, and he wouldn’t let me.

  “Stop it.” Nate’s voice was dark and authoritative in my ear, the teasing gone. He grabbed my ass firmly to hold me still, and new sensations shot through my core. “You wanted me? You’ve got me. And you’re not getting me over with. I want to feel you melt around me.”

  Sex was supposed to be fun and easy and not at all like this. This was agonizing. It was like I’d fallen off the edge of the world and into another universe. A universe where everything was this man. His voice, his hands, his body. All on a backdrop of velvet darkness that blinded me and heightened my other senses. I stiffened.

  Nate’s finger reached around and tilted my chin toward him, like he knew something was off. “Hey. I will make this good for you. I promise. Let me, Ava.”

  It was the softening in his tone that got to me. Nate was more experienced than me, that much was clear even before I’d followed him home. But would it be the end of the world if I succumbed to it?

  Did I have a choice?

  I stopped trying to match him and just let myself feel. His hands on me, his body pressed into me. Miles of skin and sensation I just lived.

  Nate grazed my opening, the faintest touch of his cock on my slick skin.

  A moan escaped. “Oh God.”

  He reached around and palmed my breast with his other hand. Let his cock slide against my ass. His fingers tugged on my nipple, erect from the cold and his touch. Nate had said he’d make it good, but he was torturing me, stroking his thumb over the swollen tip and making me arch against the unrelenting couch. I’d never felt this much, as if the air was suddenly alive and pressing on every pore of my skin, brushing over each nerve ending at once.