Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
“ T his doesn’t exactly make up for taking you out but I wanted to make sure that you were fed before this night was over.” Ethan laid out the food, he purchased on the coffee table of Amina’s living room.
Amina laughed uneasily. “No this is fine. I’m not sure if I would have been able to give that restaurant the full attention it deserved. And this is probably the best place to talk without anyone overhearing us and thinking we’ve both lost our minds. Ugh, I’m going to get something to drink to go with the food. I have bottled water, cranberry juice and lemon lime soda.”
Ethan inclined his head in a grateful nod. “A bottled water is fine, thanks.”
“One bottled water, coming right up.”
Amina scurried to the kitchen happy for a reason to put some distance between herself and Ethan. She was just coming to terms with her own reincarnation of sorts, or whatever it was called. But to learn that Ethan had come back from the dead as well, was more than she could process.
Logically, none of this made sense. When a person died, they moved on to some sort of afterlife. But this wasn’t it. Why were they both brought back five years in the past. Was their deaths somehow connected?
After his revelation, there was no way either of them could sit at a restaurant calmly and pretend everything was normal. Ethan suggested he cancel the reservations and pick up something to eat on the way home.
Amina readily agreed but now that he was here in her home, her heart wouldn’t stop beating. There was something about that man that made her nervous. Not in a scary way, but he made her pulse race, and she’d get tongue tied around him. Besides, Mark, she’d never been alone in her home with a man.
If someone would have told her that Dr. Ethan Han would be in her home, she would have laughed in their face. But then again, she had literally died and had somehow gone back in time so was anything really beyond the realm of possibility?
Amina stalled with the drinks as long as she could because once she faced Ethan again, a real conversation would need to be had. It was one thing when she was just dealing with her own reincarnation but now, she had to factor in his on top of this entire weird situation.
“Come on, Amina. Get yourself together. He’s just a regular guy,” she said under her breath to pump herself up.
She took three calming breaths, grabbed the drinks, plates and napkins, and headed back to the living room.
Ethan had stacked the magazines that had been in the middle of the coffee table, neatly to the side and spread the food out. He sat on the floor with his legs stretched beneath the table. His jacket was off and the top two buttons of his shirt was undone. A stray lock of dark hair rested on his forehead.
Amina’s mouth went dry. It wasn’t fair for any man to be this good looking. “Ugh, here’s your bottled water.” When she handed him the drink and he reached out for it, their fingers touched.
She quickly yanked her hand back when a spark of electricity coursed through her body.
“Thank you. I hope you don’t mind me being sprawled out on your floor like this. If you’d rather we move this to your dining room table we can do that.”
“Oh, no this is fine. I sometimes eat my dinner just like this in front of the television. Uh, do you want me to turn on the tv?”
“It would probably be too much of a distraction. We have a lot to talk about, don’t you think?”
Amina nodded. The car ride home had been in awkward silence. It seemed that they were both at a loss for what to say but now there was no more dodging the subject.
She placed the plates on the table and sat down next to him, putting as much space between them without appearing as if she was avoiding him.
“This isn’t exactly the nice dinner I promised you. But hopefully this will do in a pinch. I don’t get to eat like this that often so I couldn’t resist when I saw the deli on the way back to your place.”
Amina took the cheesesteak she ordered and unwrapped it. To her embarrassment, her stomach growled. She laughed. “Sorry. Honestly, I’ve been nervous about our date all day that I didn’t eat anything.”
“As a doctor, I’d say it’s not healthy to skip meals like that, but as a man I’m flattered. How about we eat first and then we can talk.”
Amina grabbed her sandwich, grateful for a little more time. She bit into her cheesesteak with grilled mushrooms, onions, mayo, ketchup and provolone. The sandwich was still warm and all the ingredients blended together perfectly. She took a few more bites before returning it to her plate and chasing it down with some water. “Mmm, I haven’t had one of these in years. Mark says…”
Ethan put his food down. “Go ahead. What were you about to say?”
Amina waved her hands. “No, I don’t think I should bring him up. And really, it hasn’t been years, has it? We’ve lived in this timeline before haven’t we?”
“Maybe but I want you to finish what you were going to say. If we talk about what happened to us, we could possibly make sense of all this.”
“I guess.’’ She took another swig from the bottled water. “All I was going to say was, Mark didn’t really care for them. I think he got food poisoning from eating one as a kid and he has an aversion to them. I wasn’t allowed to have one around him.”
“Considering the area we live in, they’re pretty hard to avoid.”
“He couldn’t control what other people were eating but he could with me. I love these things. Me and my grandmother would get a 12 inch with all the extra fixings and split while watching a Sunday Matinee. I know some people may think it’s tacky to sneak food in the movie theater, but it was our thing.”
“That’s not horrible. Whenever my mom would treat me to a movie she would pack snacks for me and her. Being the snotty brat I was, I wanted popcorn and candy from the concession stands like the other kids but I matured and realized she was doing the best she could raising me on her own. She’s always found a way to make sure I didn’t go without even when she had to.”
Amina couldn’t help but smile at how fond Ethan sounded when speaking about his mother. “She sounds like a wonderful woman.”
“She really is. So when I was dying…” His voice trailed off and his eyes wandered off into the distance.
Amina placed her hand on his, encouraging him to continue. “Please, go on.”
“I was worried that I wouldn’t be around to take care of her. But you know what else, I thought about Amina?” He turned to stare at her with an intensity that robbed her of breath.
She withdrew her hand and held it against her chest. “What?” she whispered.
“I thought about you. You know, the day I died was the day of your viewing. When I saw you in that casket, I had so many regrets. I wish I could have stopped that bastard from hurting you. I wish I had made you feel comfortable enough to come to me when you were in trouble. And most of all, I wish I would have told you how I felt.”
Amina gasped and then shook her head. This had to be a dream. “How you felt? What do you mean?”
“We never got to talk much beyond work related issues in our previous life because I assumed you were happy in your relationship. But by the time I realized something wasn’t right, and you were changing right before my eyes, it was too late. You had left and the next thing I heard about you was that you’d died.”
A shiver went up her spine. “You actually sound like you cared that I died.” One of the last thoughts that ran through her mind before she gave into the darkness was that no one would care when she died. Her grandmother was the last person she believed loved her. Not her aunt, cousins or even her own husband.
Without warning, Ethan gripped her by the forearms. “Of course I cared. I hated that I was so helpless to save you. I should have done something. I should have told you how I felt.”
A gasp tumbled from her lips and her heart pounded against her ribcage with such force it felt as if it would burst through her chest. “How…how you felt?”
Their eyes locked and the intensity of his dark gaze made her insides warm. “I don’t know what to call it. A crush? An infatuation? Unrequited love, maybe? All I know is when I first saw you, I fell for you, but you belonged to someone else. At the time, I thought you were happy so I wanted to respect your relationship. If I knew then what I know now, things would be different. I know I sound insane confessing to you when we’ve barely gotten to know each other but I want to change that, Amina. Am I wrong to think, you’re attracted to me as well?”
Amina felt like she was in the middle of a dream. Dr. Ethan Han was quite possibly the star of many women’s fantasies, including hers. He spoke of regrets in his last life, but she too had just as many.
She didn’t want this life to be wasted on wondering what if. Amina never considered herself an impulsive person but being held by Ethan, and staring deeply into his eyes, something came over her.
Amina leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. She’d never been bold enough to take the initiative in a kiss before but the proximity of Ethan being so close did something to her psyche.
Almost immediately however, she pulled away, embarrassed that she’d acted so impulsively. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”
Ethan ran his tongue over his bottom lip, almost as if to savor the kiss. “Don’t apologize. I liked it. In fact, I’ve been wanting to do that since you first opened the door. And I’d like to do it again.”
He cupped her face in both of his hands and leaned in until his lips hovered over hers. “Tell me you want this as badly as I do.”
She opened her mouth but all that came out was a soft moan. Amina desperately wanted to continue what she’d started but she was too scared to say the words because if they kissed again, she’d wake up and this would all just be a dream.
“Say yes, Amina. I want to hear the word. Say yes, Ethan.” The warmth of his breath tickled her lips.
“Yes, Ethan.”
She barely got the words out before he captured her mouth with his. His lips were soft and warm. Ethan’s kiss was a gentle exploration at first, sending waves of pure delight throughout her body.
He angled his head to deepen the kiss, pressing his tongue against the seam of her mouth. “Open up for me, beautiful.”
Amina parted her lips under his husky command accepting the invasion of his tongue. She could taste the flavors of the food he’d recently consumed but it wasn’t unpleasant. He explored the deepest crevices of her mouth with an expertise that took her breath away.
She wasn’t very experienced, having only kissed a few men but Ethan by far was the best kisser out of them all. Amina shyly pushed her tongue forward to meet his.
Ethan sucked it into his mouth, gently as first and then then a shift occurred. His kiss grew, hungrier, more aggressive.
He guided Amina backward until she was lying on the floor with him on top of her and his lips still clinging to hers.
She clutched his shoulders and arched her back, pressing her breasts against the hard wall of his chest.
Amina’s body was on fire from just a kiss, and she wanted nothing more than to be naked beneath him. She tore her mouth away and buried her face in his chest before whispering, “Make love to me, Ethan.”