19. Amelia
Chapter nineteen
Amelia
I hated Mia Blake. I’d hated her from the first moment I realized those injuries Ethan was always saying came from climbing trees or roughhousing actually came from his mom and the men she brought into their lives, and that hate had grown from that of a child to the hate of an adult who better understood the responsibilities of an adult for a child.
Seeing her lying in a hospital bed, bruised and battered, with a broken wrist and cracked ribs, probably should’ve made me feel sorry for her, but all it did was remind me of all of the times I’d patched Ethan up and promised not to tell anyone. All the times I should have told someone even though I’d promised I wouldn’t. I just hadn’t wanted one of my best friends to be mad at me.
I glanced over at that friend now as we left Mia’s room. The smile he usually wore hadn’t shown up since we left Fort Collins, leaving in its place something serious and thoughtful, though if he was thinking something specific, he didn’t share it with me.
As we got on the elevator, I reached over and took his hand. While we were with his mom, I’d stayed close to him, but I hadn’t touched him. Mia didn’t recognize me, but the look she gave me wasn’t a friendly one. My gut said that she had hoped to talk to Ethan alone, to try to con him into either moving back home with her, taking her back to Fort Collins with him, or most probable—giving her money.
I’d shared my lunch with him too many times as a kid when the money from his paper route had mysteriously “gone missing” to think that she’d just wanted to see him.
The whole time she was awake, she kept giving me this look like she expected me to excuse myself, but I ignored it. Hell, I’d basically ignored her entirely. If Ethan had wanted me to go, he would’ve asked, and Mia had been coherent enough to realize that if she sent me away, her intentions would be too obvious. Instead, she’d just dropped not-so-subtle hints that Ethan left where they were.
And she hadn’t asked a single question about him. Not about how his senior year was going. Not about his friends. If he had a girlfriend. Who I was. If he planned to come home for Thanksgiving.
It’d all been about her, and that was pretty much par for the course when it came to Mia Blake. She had always been her number one priority.
When we reached Ethan’s car, he stopped me before I could walk around to the driver’s side. Instead of asking for the keys like I thought he would, he just pulled me to him and wrapped me in his arms, his face pressed against the top of my head. I held him back, letting the embrace tell him all the things I didn’t know how to say. We stayed like that for a while before he took a step back and got into the passenger’s side of the car.
Neither of us said a word during the drive to my parents’ house, and that worried me. If it were Ryan, I would expect silence. Ethan had been quieter tonight than I’d ever known him in all of our years as friends. I didn’t need him to confide in me, but I needed him to say something. Anything. I didn’t know how to help an Ethan who didn’t talk.
I hated this feeling. I was helpless to do anything about the rumors, and now I was helpless to do what Ethan needed me to do because I had no clue what that was.
I waited to speak until we pulled into the driveway of the little house where I’d grown up. “I texted my parents from the hospital to let them know we’d be staying here at least for the night. They said we’re welcome to whatever food they have, but they didn’t leave any perishables. I can go get—”
“I’m not hungry,” Ethan said, his voice strangely flat. “But if you want anything, don’t let me stop you.”
He got out of the car before I could respond, making it all the way up onto the porch before he realized he didn’t have a key. I took a few extra seconds to grab his bag from the back seat, and handed it to him as I joined him on the porch.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be short with you.”
I stretched up on my toes and kissed his cheek. “Whatever you’re feeling right now, it’s okay.”
He nodded as I moved to the door and unlocked it. I felt him following me inside and I flipped on the entryway light, casting a dim glow across the familiar living room.
“Do you want to stay in our guest room?” I asked, hoping my tone sounded a little more casual to Ethan than it did to me.
“Is there another option?”
I startled, spinning around. “I didn’t realize you were that close.”
He reached down and tucked some hair behind my ear. “Is that okay?”
I nodded, my heart suddenly thudding against my rib cage. “Like I said, whatever you’re feeling right now.”
“I’ve had a lot of feelings today,” he said, letting the backs of his fingers run down my cheek. “Good and bad.”
“And now?” My voice was barely a whisper.
“Now, I’d like to focus on feeling you,” he said, a small quirk of a grin offering me hope. “If that’s just sleeping, I’m okay with that.”
“And if I’m okay with more than sleeping?” Arousal had my stomach twisting into knots.
Ethan’s eyes looked almost black as they met mine. “Then I’d ask if you want me to undress you here, or somewhere else?”
Heat flooded my body and I reached for his hand. I didn’t need lights to make my way to the stairs and then up them and into the short upstairs corridor. A night-light in the bathroom showed nothing between me and my bedroom door, so I didn’t linger. Even though I knew my parents wouldn’t be home for several days, as soon as both Ethan and I were in my room, I closed the door behind us.
And then Ethan was there, pushing me back against the door as he claimed my mouth. His hands were desperate as they tugged at my clothes, searching for the way to get my dress off. The teasing we’d had between us at the party when he got me off didn’t exist here, and I understood why. I didn’t want him to change things though. This side of him was as much a part of who he was as the humor, and I wanted all of it. All of him.
I followed his lead, letting my hands move over the hard planes of his chest and across his shoulders. He wasn’t as bulky as Ryan, but he was a little bulkier than Logan. Comfortably in the middle, which described a lot of Ethan’s traits.
I didn’t spend too much time comparing. He felt too good, all that hard muscle pressing against me, the wet slick of his tongue tangling with mine. His fingers twisted in my hair, pulling my head to the side as his lips left mine and burned a trail across my jaw and down my throat.
Somehow, we made our way to my bed, losing our clothes in the process. It wasn’t until I was on my back, staring up at Ethan as he knelt by my feet, that I realized he was seeing me naked for the first time. Despite what I’d already done with the other guys, this was the first time I’d been completely nude with any of them. I waited for the inevitable embarrassment, the apologies I felt like I needed to make because my breasts weren’t bigger, my hips a little curvier, but it didn’t come.
It never came.
The heat from Ethan’s gaze warmed me, and the unmistakable desire in his eyes fed the warmth inside me that turned my nipples into hard little points and made my core ache.
And then I let my own eyes roam, and everything in me tightened.
He was perfect.
And I didn’t mean that his skin was unblemished, but rather that the scars on his sculpted body turned him from a flawless work of art to something even more beautiful. They wrote his strength on his skin in a way that even his defined muscles couldn’t. As he got older, no matter how hard he worked to keep his physique, he’d eventually lose that definition, put on some weight, but those scars would always be there, showing that he had survived.
“Touch yourself,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know how long I’ll last this time.”
I immediately obeyed, cupping my breasts with both hands and lightly pinching my nipples the way I liked. Then I moved one hand, sliding it down my stomach to the curls between my legs. If Ethan had a problem with the fact that I wasn’t completely bare, he didn’t say anything.
In fact…
My eyes dropped to where he slowly fisted his cock. Like with everything else, he was right in the middle when it came to size. Longer than Ryan, but a little thinner. Shorter than Logan, but a little thicker. My pussy clenched as I imagined what it was going to feel like to have him inside me.
I parted my lower lips with two fingers, opening myself up to his gaze. He muttered a curse, his fingers stopping on the base of his shaft as he squeezed it. Taking that as encouragement, I ran my middle finger down my slit, dipping inside before taking that moisture up to my clit. My eyes fluttered closed as I teased that sensitive bud with light circles, just enough pressure to send little ripples of pleasure dancing across my nerves.
“Don’t ever fake it with me.”
Ethan’s words had my eyes opening. “What?”
“If I get off and you haven’t come yet, you tell me.” He picked up a condom he’d gotten from somewhere. “I’ll make sure you get there. I don’t ever want you feeling like you have to pretend to soothe my male ego. I want you to be honest with me, no matter what.”
Something that felt like a hell of a lot more than affection squeezed my heart.
“I promise,” I said as I spread my legs wider and moved my hand lower to slide two fingers inside me.
I made a soft sound at the slight stretch but kept working them in and out, knowing I’d take him easier that way. I hadn’t done anything in the way of prep before having sex with Ryan and I’d been sore afterward. I had a feeling Ethan and I were going to go more than once tonight, so I needed to be smart about it.
“You ready for me, baby?” He inched closer. “That pussy nice and wet?”
I pulled my fingers out, moving them up to my clit to start playing with it. “Why don’t you come find out?”
He grinned and I saw the last of the shadows leave him. When he leaned over me, propping himself up on one arm, I only saw good things in the dark depths of his eyes. Holding himself steady with one hand, he eased his way into me with a single smooth motion that suggested he had more control than he’d claimed.
As he filled me, I reached up and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. We found our rhythm quickly, bodies moving in that perfect point and counterpoint that pressed in all the right places. Luck or coincidence or fate, I didn’t know, but as I rushed toward release, I wasn’t going to complain.
“Close,” he gasped against my lips, his hips starting to fall out of sync.
I nodded, squeezing my eyes closed as I tried to keep up. I was almost there when he jerked against me, his cock swelling inside me. His words echoed in my head and I resisted the urge to pretend that I was already there. Instead, I kept moving against him, taking him deep as I locked my legs around him. Using the leverage, I ground up against him, getting the extra friction I needed on my clit to tip me over edge just as he finished spending himself inside me.
He held me as I came apart, murmuring my name and running soothing hands over my body. When we collapsed in a tangle of limbs, he rested his head on my chest and I found my hand automatically moving to stroke his hair. Maybe I should’ve felt guilty for having sex with him in my childhood bed, but as the sweat cooled on our bodies, the only thing I could really think was how glad I was that I’d been able to be here for him when he needed me.