Chapter Seven
“We are the champions!”
Hannah sang more than a little off-key, her body swaying to the music in her head as Ethan unlocked the front door to his house.
“Only because Mrs. White and her friends weren’t there tonight,” he said.
“I told you I’d win.”
“It was a lucky guess.”
He held the door open for her to go through ahead of him. Her hips swayed as she walked past, her eyes bright with laughter.
“We beat you by twelve points. That’s a whole category, my friend.”
She adjusted the dollar-store tiara the girls had been presented with upon winning. It was clearly meant for a child and the plastic gem in the center bore the logo of last summer’s blockbuster animated kids’ movie, but she’d accepted it with a seriousness as if it were the real thing.
“Traitors, the whole bunch of you,”
he said, but there was no heat in it.
She laughed and stepped out of her heels. When she bent to pick them up, Ethan’s gaze snagged on her ass, the fullness of it taunting him. Just as her laughter and the easy way she’d fallen in with his friends had been taunting him all evening. Just as that phone call and the way she’d gone pale at the sight of his name—Jackson—had been driving him slowly insane.
She turned, a question on her lips, and he looked away quickly. “Did you want something to drink?”
he asked, heading towards the kitchen.
“Ethan Hart!”
she gasped in mock offense. “Were you staring at my—”
“Nope.”
The tips of his ears grew hot, and he flung open the refrigerator door. She hadn’t had much to drink at the bar, so he was confident she wasn’t drunk, but she seemed far more relaxed than she’d been since she arrived in Aster Bay. “I’ve got hard cider, beer—”
“No more alcohol for me,”
she said, sliding onto a bar stool at his kitchen island. “I get cut off after two glasses.”
“What happens after two glasses?”
“Uh uh,”
she said, shaking her head. “You can’t trick me. My lips are sealed.”
She mimed zipping her lips, turning the lock, and throwing away the key, her hand knocking her tiara off in the process.
Okay, maybe she’s a little drunk.
Now that he thought of it, he’d never seen her have more than one glass of wine, and she hadn’t had much to eat at the bar either.
“How about something to eat? I think I have some leftover lasagna that’s still good.”
She leaned her chin on her hand and sighed dreamily. “We should have stopped for milkshakes. Small towns like this always have good milkshakes.”
“What do you know about small towns, city girl?” he asked.
“I love small towns!”
She wobbled on her stool, catching the end of the bar to steady herself. “When I was touring with The Little Mermaid, the girls and I would always find some small town not too far from the theater for our day off. There’s always quirky shops and diners with the best milkshakes.”
He reached for the milk and a jar of Tessa’s homemade chocolate sauce, letting the refrigerator door close behind him. “Closest I’ve got is chocolate milk,”
he said, retrieving two glasses from the cabinet.
“I can’t remember the last time I had chocolate milk.”
“Do you like it?”
“Who doesn’t like chocolate milk?”
she scoffed. “If anything, I like it too much.”
“No such thing.”
Something like disbelief flickered across her face. “I make a mean glass of chocolate milk.”
“Oh yeah? What makes it so special?”
He repeated her lip-zipping gesture and she laughed, her head thrown back, hair dancing about her face. She was beautiful, and he liked her there, in his kitchen, with his friends.
She’s not here for you. She’s here to hide. She lied to you.
Did she? Or did she just not tell you everything?
He poured them each a glass of milk, spooning in the chocolate and stirring, the tinkling of the spoon against the glass the only sound in the room.
“When were you in Little Mermaid?” he asked.
“A few years ago. That’s what I was doing in Boston the first time we…”
He watched her, waiting to see how she’d finish that sentence, and tried not to be disappointed when it became clear she wasn’t going to. “What part did you play? The whiny one who collects forks?”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Ariel? No. They don’t cast women who look like me to play Ariel.”
“Why not?”
She shook her head, still chuckling to herself. “I was Ursula. The sea witch. They put this purple makeup on my—”
“Collar bone,”
he said as her fingers traced the spot in question. “I remember.”
Her eyes went wide, fingers falling away from her clavicle to rest on the countertop. At the time Ethan had wondered about the deep purple contouring. But it was another one of those things they hadn’t talked about.
“If I remember correctly, there were purple streaks across the sheets in the morning.”
What was he doing?
Watching the way her skin flushed pink, that’s what.
She laughed. “You remember correctly. I still can’t believe you were interested in me that night. I must have looked ridiculous.”
“You looked beautiful. And only a little ridiculous. The Dockside makes a great milkshake. We can go for milkshakes tomorrow.”
He set a glass in front of her. “But that is the best chocolate milk you’ll ever have.”
She eyed the drink skeptically. “Looks like ordinary chocolate milk to me.”
He raised an eyebrow in challenge and took a sip from his own glass, his eyes locked with hers the entire time. A blush crawled up her throat and his body hummed in recognition. He was fairly certain that if he kissed her, she’d let him. More than that, she’d kiss him back.
Stop. You’re not supposed to be kissing her.
Why does she have to be so goddamn kissable?
He set his glass down on the counter and waited for her to drink. She rolled her eyes, the corners of her lips tugging up into a smile, and took a sip from her glass. “Oh my God.”
Her eyes fell closed. “Why is that so good?”
she moaned, the sound going straight to his cock.
“It’s Tessa’s chocolate sauce. She adds espresso powder and I don’t even know what else.”
“You win. That is the best chocolate milk I’ve ever had.”
He leaned his forearms on the counter between them so his eyes were level with hers. “What exactly do I win?”
The air between them hummed with the electricity of three years’ worth of one-night stands, three years of meetings that ended with her writhing beneath him, screaming his name.
But that couldn’t be the way things worked anymore, not when she was publicly involved with another man. Some boy band punk who had publicly humiliated her and left her to deal with the fall out. It was hard to maintain those boundaries when she was sitting in his kitchen, though, her bare feet dangling from the bar stool, her eyes hooded as they roamed his face.
“What do you want?”
she asked.
Your thighs around my head. Your taste on my tongue.
Not helpful.
“What happens after two drinks?”
She blinked, the lust clearing from her expression as she processed his question. “After two drinks, I tend to make decisions that aren’t very good for me.”
“What kinds of decisions?”
She hesitated, then took another sip of her milk. Finally, “That information will cost you more than chocolate milk.”
“Yeah? And what is it you want, sweetheart?”
he asked, leaning closer and taking a sip of his own milk, watching her over the rim of his glass.
Her eyes dropped to his lips, and she got to her feet. “You have some chocolate…”
She swiped a stray bead of chocolate from the corner of his mouth with her thumb and he grabbed her wrist, holding her there for a moment, feeling her pulse jump beneath his fingers. He could kiss her. God, he wanted to.
He let her wrist fall from his hold and dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans, balling them into fists to keep himself from grabbing her again.
Like a freaking caveman. She came here to get away, to feel safe, and you’re grabbing her like you have a right to.
Hannah held his gaze as she lifted her thumb to her own mouth, sucking it between her lips to lick the chocolate from her finger. Heat seared down his spine, gathering in his groin with a demanding pulse as he tracked the flick of her tongue, the scrape of her teeth, over the soft pad of her thumb.
“Ethan…”
He stumbled back a step, even though every part of him was screaming to get closer. He wanted to lift her onto the counter and kiss her until she remembered how good they were together, until all the tension in the lines of her forehead was replaced by the soft, languid expression of a woman who had been well pleasured.
After two drinks, I tend to make decisions that aren’t very good for me.
He took a step back, dumping the rest of his milk down the sink so he wouldn’t have to look at her while embarrassment clawed its way through his stomach. She was a guest in his home, a woman in need of sanctuary. And she’d already rejected him once, mere days ago. The sting of it still prickled at the back of his neck.
“You have a boyfriend,” he said.
“It’s not real,”
she whispered, as though that made it sting any less.
He leaned against the apron of the sink, crossing his arms over his chest. “Real enough.”
Maybe it shouldn’t have mattered to him, this fake relationship of hers, but he couldn’t shake the sense there was more she wasn’t telling him.
She took a step towards him. “No one would know.”
Something cold and heavy congealed in the pit of his stomach, clinging to his bones and making everything feel wrong. He stared her down, stepping so close to her she had to tilt her head up to look at him. When he spoke again, his voice was darker, deeper than he’d intended. “I’d know. And I won’t share you. Not even with a lie.”
Her eyes went wide, darting between his like she was trying to puzzle something out. At last, he broke the connection, clearing the gravel from his voice and tilting his head down the hall. “There are towels in the hall closet. Help yourself to anything you need.”
“Ethan—”
“Goodnight, Hannah.”
He left her standing there in his kitchen, her cheap plastic tiara forgotten on the floor.
From The Lady’s Knights by A K Wild, narrated by Slade Hardcastle
Sir Llewellyn kept watch from the tallest rampart of the keep. Somewhere in one of the stone rooms below, with only the vicar and one of his knights as witness, Lady Windtorn was taking her wedding vows, not to that despicable oaf who had so misused her, but to Lord Havenbrook. A kind man. A gentle man. Misunderstood, seeking his own sort of refuge in the loveless marriage Lady Windtorn offered.
Still. It rankled.
Sir Llewellyn could offer her the protection of his body, his life and the lives of his men, but he could not stop the coming war. He could not secure the safety of her family. Only a union to a man such as Havenbrook could offer her those things. It mattered not that theirs would be a chaste marriage, a marriage in name only. It mattered only that in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of a god Sir Llewellyn wasn’t even sure he believed in, she belonged to another.
He heard her footsteps approaching long before she knocked, the soft patter of her slippered feet on the ancient stone. He wanted to send her away, to reject the tender caress of her gloved hand on his chest, the softness in her eyes.
“It is done?” he asked.
“Aye.”
He slid the glove from her hand, a pained noise rising in his chest at the sight of the gold and garnet ring on her finger. “You belong to another. All will know he owns a part of you I do not.”
“It is a lie.”
The pain in his chest curdled, calcified, drawing anger from his breast. Not at her. Never at her. Only at himself.
“Is it? I own you here,”
he said, roughly pressing their joined hands over her heart, even though the glint of her wedding ring mocked him still. “And here.”
A knee between her legs, backing her against the rough-hewn stone wall, the monster in him delighting in her startled gasp, the rise and fall of her bosom. “Tell me, my lady,” he snarled, grinding his thigh against the heat at the apex of her thighs, “am I to trust that you lie only to them, and not to me?”