Austin Read online

  “You’re the woman I was born to love.”

  “Austin,” I sigh, my lips against his. “I love you.”

  He places a kiss on my forehead quickly, then looks me in the eyes again. “I love you, Jules Weston.” Moving to stand in front of the painting, he admires it with a smile on his face. “Yes, I prefer yellow too. Good choice.”

  As I watch him, my heart races. He’s always been the one. I was just too caught up in the past instead of the future that stands before me.

  “I see the change in you. I see the woman I fell in love with.” Holding his hands out, fisted with his wrists together, he says, “You might as well have me arrested now.”

  “What?” I frown. “For what?”

  “For stealing your heart.” He laughs. “Don’t think I don’t see those lovey dovey eyes you’re giving me.”

  I roll my eyes. “Yellow may be my new color, but cheesy looks damn sexy on you. C’mere. I want to show you something.” I walk into the kitchen, and ask, “Latte?”

  With raised eyebrows, he asks, “Lattes now too?” He rushes to me, grabs my shoulders and squares me to him. “What have you done with Jules?”

  Fighting a hardy laugh, I say, “Progress is happening. You might want to stand back.”

  He kisses my cheek, and says, “No way. I’m gonna be right here next to you for all of this progress. I’m digging this new sunny side perspective.” Leaning against the counter, he smiles. “What brought all this on anyway?”

  Leaning back against the counter next to him, I reply, “I woke up and saw my life packed and I was without you. I knew that wasn’t the life I wanted. Everything I’ve been holding so tightly to over the years is just stuff. It was easier to grab a hold of these things and what I was missing than to let it continue and be alone. I don’t want to live like that anymore. That’s not living at all.”

  He nods. I see the love through his gaze, but he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t need to. I feel it. Instead, he asks, “You ready to go?”

  “Yes. Let me grab my bag from the bed.”

  “I’ll grab it,” he offers.

  “Thanks.” I take a moment to look around the place. With him behind me, I say, “This place may feel more me after all these years, but a lot less like home.” Laughing, I lean back on him. “I sound silly.”

  “You don’t sound silly. Sounds like you’re growing.”

  “Growing up, I think.”

  Taking my hand, we walk out. I turn the key and suddenly it feels very much like the last time I’ll be doing this.

  Sensing my mood in the car, he asks, “You okay?”

  Sliding across the seat next to him, I lean my head on his shoulder and smile. “More than okay. Better than I’ve been in forever.”

  His arm wraps over my shoulders and we watch the world go by together, Austin feeling very much like home these days.

  THE NEXT TWO weeks are spent between the gallery and Austin’s apartment. He doesn’t leave town or work late. He cancels dinners to spend time with me. When I have an exhibit, he shows up to support me. Everything is perfect. I’m still not used to how well he treats me, so I decide to show him just how much I appreciate him.

  Whispering, I say, “Follow me.” Leading him into my office, I shut the door and lock it once he enters. “Leave the lights off. No one can see in here when it’s dark.”

  “Ms. Weston, I have a feeling you’re up to no good.”

  “Is there any other way to be when we’re together?”

  He chuckles. I plant my mouth firmly to his and kiss him. Sliding my skirt up on the sides, he exposes my bare ass. His hand slides under the silky material and between my legs. His lips cover my neck in sweet sucking kisses as his fingers know exactly where to touch to get me off.

  I spread my fingers over his erection, evoking a moan from both of us. Sliding up to the top of his pants, I move my hand inside and down, wanting to feel the warm skin over his hardness. “Fuck,” he groans. “Move to the desk.”

  Removing my hand, I turn and back up until the back of my thighs hit the front of my desk. His eyes are locked on mine until someone laughs loudly from the gallery floor, a reminder we’re not alone, a mere wood door separates us from a hundred other patrons. A couple walks by outside the large window, but when I turn back to Austin, it’s as if he doesn’t see anything but me. His expression is one of want, lust, and possession. He says, “Turn around and bend over.”

  My lips part from the shock of his demand, but the sexual tension is building as well as my craving to feel him inside me again. I taunt by dragging my skirt up on just one side and smirking at him.

  With purpose, he walks steadily to me. Taking my ponytail in one hand, he twists it around his hand then slowly pulls down until I stop resisting and drop my head back. His tongue finds my neck again and slides his teeth lightly up until his lips are against my ear. His words are just breaths against my heated skin, “Turn. Around.”

  My mouth drops open and I look up at him.

  His voice is harsh and demanding. “Now.”

  I’d love to be sassy and talk back but I’m too hot and bothered to argue. I want this as much as he does. Turning around, I bend over my desk, the glass cold through the thin material of my blouse. I press my cheek down and close my eyes as he caresses my ass several times, teasing me. My breath quickens as he slides down the middle.

  The metal of his belt clangs, then the teeth of his zipper. “I love how soft your skin is, Jules, and how wet you get for me.”

  Squirming, I say, “I’m on fire for you, Austin.”

  His laugh hits the back of my head, but it’s not playful. Instead there’s a heaviness to the sound just like the air around us. The weight of him moulds to my body and his cock slides between my legs. More teasing. My weakness for him, my desire voiced. “I want you inside of me, Austin. Please.”

  “Why does a please from you sound so fucking hot? Say it again.”

  I hate games, but for him, I’ll play. “Pleeaase.”

  Heat. Steel. Silk. Wet. I’m filled, my cheek pressed harder to the glass top as he thrusts back out and in rapidly. Gripping my hips, using them as leverage, he swears. “Fuck! God. Fuck, Jules.”

  Pressing my palms against the desktop, I lift up, focusing on the chair in front of me. He picks up his pace. Deeper. Harder. Unrelenting and I take it, loving the feel of his power as he takes me.

  His hips slam against the back of me, his large cock hitting that spot deep inside that only he presses. A groan of pleasure escapes me every time he thrusts in. He frees his in conjunction with mine. When his hand snakes around my thigh, he touches my clit and the sensation mixed with him inside of me, sends me falling into a darkness where our love lights my way. Two more thrusts punctuate my ecstasy and he’s there with me, then we both drop onto the desk. My arms are spread, his on top of mine. He says, “I want you, Jules. I want you with me. I want to wake up to you and fall asleep holding you after making love to you—”

  “Or fucking me?”

  “Yes, or fucking you. I just want all of you all of the time. Call me greedy, selfish, or whatever, but I’m in love with you.” He lifts and helps me up slowly before turning me around. When our eyes meet, he says, “If you’d marry me, I would ask.”

  I feel the genuineness in his statement. Glancing down, then back up, suddenly feeling vulnerable around him despite what we just did, I say, “Ask me then.”

  With a slight nod, he smiles softly before kissing me on the lips. “I promise.”

  As much as I don’t want to get hurt, I realize whether he asks me to marry him or not, I’m in too deep to save myself. That’s what love is—it’s sharing burdens, trusting in a future that isn’t guaranteed, and faith that it all works out. Good in concept, but one that can go awry so easily if not safeguarded. So that’s what I plan to do. I will safeguard our good and when we fight, I’ll keep the faith and trust in him. He deserves that and more. I deserve all of that too.

  BEFORE AUS
TIN AND I take that next step in our relationship, I’m surprised in an entirely different way. Returning to my apartment after a week spent at Austin’s, I open the door and find a small box, about the size that would fit a ring. But when I lift the lid, there isn’t a ring inside. There’s a key.

  Holding it up, it dangles from a numbered keychain. 27. In the box I find a folded piece of paper. Excited to see what Austin has in store for us, I grab it and read:

  Here is the key to our life. It’s all the belongings and memories that made us and our apartment together a home. If I could change my mistakes and make it better, I would. Believe me. I would. I screwed up, and for hurting you, I apologize. I will always love you, just like you’ll always be my sweet Juliette.

  Dylan

  The address of a storage unit in the Bronx is listed under his name and I exhale heavily.

  The key.

  The key to our life.

  The key to our stuff.

  My stuff?

  Dylan’s giving me my stuff back after four years. I pull my phone from my pocket and call Austin. “You miss me already?” he asks in that way that I can hear his smile through the phone.

  “Yes. Always.” My heart races dragging my past into our future, but I need him now. I need him to do this with me. “I have a favor to ask.”

  “Anything.”

  “Will you go to the Bronx with me?”

  AUSTIN HOLDS THE door open for me and I walk in. “Hi,” I say to the man behind the counter who’s reading the paper.

  The older man looks up and smiles. “Hi. How can I help you?”

  Holding the key up, I say, “I have a key to a unit here.”

  “Number?” He starts typing on his computer.

  Austin rests his hand on my shoulder, and I reply, “Twenty-seven.”

  His eyes leave the screen and meet mine. “Ms. Weston?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Somers told me I should expect you.”

  “Yes, he gave me the key.”

  Austin’s hand squeezes gently and I’m not sure if it’s a reaction to hearing Dylan’s name or in support of me. Either way, I’m grateful he’s here, so I cover his with mine.

  The man stands up with a clipboard in hand. “He left you more than the key. He left the unit in your name and paid for a year’s worth of rent.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” he says, pointing. “Right here.”

  While studying the document, I reply, “That was nice.”

  “Mr. Somers is a good man. I miss our chats now that he’s handed over the unit.” He sits back down. “We talked Yankees versus Mets. We may not have agreed on baseball, but seeing you now, I see we agree on women.”

  Austin cuts off this conversation, obviously uncomfortable with the details of Dylan’s feelings toward me. “Austin Barker,” he says, introducing himself. “Ms. Weston’s boyfriend.”

  The man shakes it, his expression friendly. “I’m Joey.”

  Austin asks, “Nice to meet you, Joey. Can you direct us to the unit?”

  The man smiles, then points to his left. “Down there. The end unit on the right hand side.”

  “Thank you,” Austin responds and walks ahead of me. When he looks back, his smile is tight. “We should get going. We have a reservation at eight.”

  I tell Joey, “Thank you,” and follow Austin down the hall. The corridor is wide and we pass a loading garage door on the way.

  When we reach number twenty-seven, Austin takes the key and unlocks the large padlock, then removes it altogether. Looking at me, he asks, “You ready?”

  Standing here now, my nerves start to take over, but I nod anyway. The five foot wide garage-style door is lifted, a light pops on, and my mouth drops open. I was excited. I thought. I was prepared. I thought.

  I wasn’t. At. All.

  Everything is here—everything from the couch to the dresser to my grandmother’s crocheted throw. My eyes can’t settle on any one item when there’s so much to see. My heart begins to race as I step inside. “I never thought I’d see any of this again.” It’s like stepping inside a time warp of my life before Austin.

  “Why’d he take it?” he asks.

  Over my shoulder, I see Austin with his hands still holding the door up. I shake my head. “I don’t know really… to hurt me?” Opening a box in the corner, I say, “Maybe if he didn’t want our life together anymore, he didn’t want me to have it either. I’m not sure I’ll ever really know.”

  The dresser in the corner holds our framed pictures, all set upright on display. I remember we had ten. I used to count them when I was cleaning. I step up on the loveseat and count them now. Nine. Sighing, I realize I can live with nine. A memory of seeing a frame on his desk the one time I visited him at work comes back to me and curious, I wonder if that might be the missing photo. Honestly, it would make me sad if he hadn’t keep any mementos at all. I’m not worried what else he took. Suddenly standing here in the middle of all of this stuff, I realize like the coffeemaker and prisms, none of it holds any power over me anymore, just like he doesn’t. My future matters more than my past. Austin matters more.

  I spend the next hour rifling through everything as Austin sits on the couch watching while giving me the time I need. With a shoebox of college memorabilia in my lap, I rub his leg and say, “You never finished your story about Christina.”

  His brow furrows as he leans back. “You want to hear about that now?”

  “Seems apropos to be amongst the skeletons and ghosts of my past.”

  He sets a book down on the side table and says, “Our senior year at college, we were so busy making plans for the future that we forgot to live in the present. Cliché, but true.”

  I set the shoebox down and give him my full attention. “We all do that.”

  “We worked together. One day, she was late. I kept calling her because I thought they would fire her if she didn’t show up soon, but she never answered.” He drops his head into his hands and scrubs harshly as if the thought itself is hard to have. “I finished my shift,” he sighs, then continues, “apologized for her missing her shift. I made up a story about her going to the health clinic or something. I can’t remember now.”

  Austin is so handsome, one of the most attractive men I’ve ever seen, but right now in this small space full of mine and my ex’s clutter, he’s telling me his darkest secret. It’s a story that pains him so much that he looks exhausted under the harsh fluorescent light. The story itself contorts his beautiful features into anguish. “I found her passed out. Something about meds mixing together. That’s what her parents told me the doctors told them. It wasn’t the meds. It was her. They knew. They thought she would be happier after she graduated. They convinced her of that and in turn, she convinced me. She said she wanted New York and I believed her, so we moved.”

  Leaning forward, I run my fingers through his hair, then turn his chin toward me. “If this is too much, you don’t have to talk about it.”

  “I want to. You should know.” He looks around, then back to me. “You shared your past with me and I should have told you a long time ago.”

  “There’s a difference. My past forced itself on you.”

  He takes my hand. “I want you to know.” Then he stands and walks to the doorway. Leaning on it with his back to me, he says, “She killed herself three months later. In our apartment.”

  My gasp echoes between the cinderblock walls. “Austin.”

  “The neighbors found her when they saw the front door open.” Turning around, he peeks up at me. “By the time I was called, the police were in my apartment. I was interrogated as I stood next to her body. She still had some color to her face and I remember leaning down and listening for air, feeling for a heartbeat. They had declared her dead an hour earlier, but… yeah…” He sighs and sits on the arm of the couch.

  “You’re not to blame. You know that right?”

  “Logically, yes. But I was there. I saw the changes in her. I th
ought she just needed more time to acclimate to the city. I found out later that her parents talked her into giving the move a try. They thought the change would be good for her, but she didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want to be with me.”

  “You don’t know that. You’re filling in the blanks to find answers, but those answers aren’t necessarily the truth. I know this firsthand. I don’t think she would have moved if she didn’t love you. I do think she needed help after the first time. Her parents probably know more than they’ve told you.”

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference if I knew or not. She killed herself. She took pills that were supposed to help her and killed herself instead of talking to me.”

  “That’s on her though, Austin. Not you. You can’t shoulder the blame for her decision.”

  Wanting to make him feel better, wanting to remind him of the good he’s had in the past, I ask, “What did she look like? Describe her.”

  He pauses, looking at me curiously, but eventually concedes. “She was beautiful. Long blonde hair, big blue eyes. When she smiled, everyone smiled. It came from within and she shined. She fell for me before I grew into myself. I was awkward and kind of geeky, but not fully. I was still kind of sexy, so I was told.” I smile, imagining him scrawnier but charming.

  “Oh, I just bet you were.”

  He chuckles. “She was Miss Harvest Fest our senior year. Gotta love the Midwest.”

  Pieces begin falling into place and my smile dissipates. “At the end… she was like me when we met.”

  No traces of the lighthearted are left. “A little.”

  “You can’t save the world, Austin.”

  “I wasn’t trying to save you. I didn’t need to, Jules. You’re doing a damn fine job all on your own, just like I knew you would. You’re stronger than you think.”

  I want the happy that we’ve had back, so I stand up in the middle of the ten by fifteen unit. I do one last turn, scanning everything, then grab my jewelry box, and say, “We can go.”

  “What are you going to do with everything?”