29. Addy
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Addy
I don’t think I’ve ever been this exhausted in my entire life.
Which is impressive, honestly, because I once worked for twins who communicated exclusively through screaming and sticky hands.
But this?
This feels different.
Heavier.
Like my nervous system has simply decided to clock out for the evening.
The penthouse is quiet now that Bryce and Celeste are gone. Too quiet, almost. The kind of silence that settles after a storm passes, where everything looks intact until you notice the cracks.
Captain seems to sense it too.
He’s lying directly across my feet beneath the kitchen island like an emotional support rug, occasionally sighing dramatically enough to suggest this evening has also been difficult for him personally.
I’m still standing in exactly the same spot where Ethan left me a minute ago, trying to process the fact that he actually did it.
He threw Bryce out for me.
The thought keeps short-circuiting in my brain.
Because Bryce always made me feel like accommodating me was exhausting. Like my emotions were dramatic, inconvenient things people had to tolerate.
And Ethan just… handled it without hesitation. Without making me beg for it. Without acting like I was unreasonable for being upset.
It shouldn’t feel revolutionary.
And yet…
“You’re thinking too loudly again.”
I glance up to find Ethan leaning against the counter across from me, sleeves rolled to his forearms, tie loosened slightly from earlier.
Still unfairly attractive. Still somehow composed despite the absolute social nuclear event that just detonated in his dining room.
“I didn’t realize my thoughts had volume.”
“They do when you get that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The one where you appear to be conducting emotional forensic analysis.”
I let out a tired laugh. “That sounds concerning.”
“It probably is.”
He moves toward me then, slower this time, like he’s still making sure I won’t bolt again.
Reasonable, honestly.
I nearly did.
Ethan studies me before saying, “You should sit down.”
“That sounded dangerously close to an order.”
“You look like you’re about thirty seconds from collapsing.”
“That’s because my life has become a psychological thriller.”
“Sit, Addy.”
The low firmness in his voice sends an annoyingly warm shiver through me, which feels deeply inappropriate considering I had a near breakdown less than an hour ago.
Unfortunately, my body has never once respected timing.
“Bossy,” I mutter.
“Exhausted,” he counters immediately.
I slide onto one of the stools by the island while Captain immediately adjusts his position so that at least half his body remains touching my feet.
Ethan brings me a glass of water.
I stare at it suspiciously. “That’s not wine.”
“No.”
“You’re ruining my coping mechanisms.”
“You’ve had enough emotional instability for one evening.”
I narrow my eyes slightly but accept the glass anyway.
Our fingers brush. It sends heat crawling up my arm like my nervous system has developed a deeply inconvenient crush.
I take a sip of water mostly to avoid saying something humiliating.
Ethan leans against the opposite side of the island, watching me carefully. “You okay?”
And the thing is, it’s such a simple question. But nobody’s asked me that tonight like they genuinely wanted the answer. Bryce certainly never did. So somehow that tiny bit of sincerity nearly undoes me all over again.
“I don’t know,” I admit finally.
His gaze softens immediately.
“I feel stupid,” I say quietly. “And embarrassed. And weirdly angry at myself for still caring enough to react like that.”
“You cared about someone,” Ethan says calmly. “That isn’t stupidity.”
“It feels like it.”
“It shouldn’t.”
Easy for him to say. He didn’t get publicly dumped beside an Auntie Anne’s. I groan softly and cover my face with my hands.
Ethan’s brows pull together immediately. “What?”
“I just remembered the Auntie Anne’s part again.”
For half a second, he looks confused. Then understanding hits, and he exhales a sound dangerously close to a laugh. “You’re thinking about pretzels right now?”
“I’m thinking about how every time I smell cinnamon in an airport for the rest of my existence, I’m going to remember getting emotionally assassinated beside baked goods.”
His mouth twitches.
“There’s no dignified way to recover from that.”
“I disagree.”
“Oh yeah?” I peek through my fingers. “How?”
“You move into a billionaire’s penthouse and make his life significantly harder.”
There’s a warmth unfolding beneath the surface. “You don’t seem to hate that very much.”
His eyes hold mine.
“No,” he says quietly. “I don’t.”
Oh.
My pulse stumbles slightly as his lips edge closer toward me, and the air between us condenses, syrupy and electric.
Ethan sets his elbows on the island and, with an ungodly amount of self-possession, just waits for me to close the last inch.
I lunge across the space like an idiot and nearly smack foreheads with his, inhaling a startled yelp against his mouth. It takes less than a second for him to recover, one hand flat against the small of my back, the other cupping my jaw like I’m breakable.
But he kisses me like he’s starving.
I can taste salt and want. Kissing Ethan is nothing like kissing Bryce. It’s nothing like kissing anyone. It is, to my horror, exactly like stepping off an elevator and realizing the floor is missing.
Gravity claims me, and apparently, I like it.
“I want you, Ethan, so bad it hurts.”
The words tumble out of me, desperate and raw, as if dragged up from somewhere low and animal that’s been caged most of my adult life.
Ethan’s hand tenses, fingers unconsciously digging into my back, as if the force of his restraint is the only thing keeping him from shattering on the spot.
His lips, already bruised from my gracelessness, part on an inhale so sharp it cuts me, and we hover there, radiating pure need like some obscene battery.
“Addy,” he growls, my name already broken down to its bones, as if speaking it costs him.
I slide off the stool and kneel between his legs. There’s something specifically intoxicating about this setup: Ethan flushed and rigid against the island, braced by his own granite arms, like every ounce of willpower has been reluctantly reassigned to holding back.
I press my cheek to the inside of his knee, inhaling the absurd cleanness of his cologne; he smells like dark blue and ozone and cardamom, and I swear, if I ever get to do this again, I’ll bottle it and huff it like a creep.
The suit pants are stretched obscenely over his thigh, but it’s the tension in his hand, white-knuckling the edge of the counter, that undoes me. Nobody has ever wanted me this much… not even close.
He must sense the rubber band snap in my head, because his fingers find my hair in a slow, hungry tangle. It’s not possessive, more like a permission slip. I mouth the fabric. He’s burning under it even through the wool.
“Ethan,” I say, looking up through my lashes.
I don’t recognize my voice. I sound like I’m getting away with something. Like I’m gleefully, sinfully about to ruin him.
He swallows, jaw flexing, pupils full dark now. The look in his eyes is so explicit that I want to fold in half, to become small enough to hide from desire this big.
But I don’t.
I press my lips to the straining outline of his cock, still caged in his pants, and I love the way he twitches like I’ve shocked him with a live wire.
There’s nothing graceful about the way I fumble with his belt and button, hands shaking so badly I miss twice, which would be embarrassing if he weren’t watching so intently, like every second is foreplay.
By the time I get the zipper down, his breathing is fucked, ragged and uneven, like he’s been running sprints with a collapsed lung.
Ethan’s cock is thick, flushed, and weeping at the tip, and the expression on his face is so fucking desperate that it’s almost pained.
I take him in my hand, thumb already slick, and stroke once, slow, just to see what it does to him. The answer: he bites down so hard on his lip I think he might draw blood.
He doesn’t say anything. Just waits, hovering at the edge, making me burn for it. It’s unfair, honestly, how patient this man is. Like he wants to see exactly what I’ll do when nobody gives me instructions.
I lick the taste of him off my thumb, and he makes a noise, soft, involuntary, astonished. Like nobody’s ever done that before. I want to laugh, or maybe cry, because I want the devastation. I want the power. I want to know I can unmake him with a flick of my tongue.
So I do.
One long, slow lick up the underside of his cock, then I circle the head, tasting salt and pre-come and something uniquely his; expensive and electric and impossibly soft under my tongue.
I hollow my cheeks and take him deeper, as far as I can in one go, hands braced on his thighs for leverage. Ethan chokes on a curse, all the careful composure burned to ash as his hips buck once, helpless.
I look up again, and I wish I had the bandwidth to process the way he’s watching me, head thrown back, throat exposed, eyes glassy as if he’s been stunned.
I almost doubt I’m doing this right; then his palm fists in my hair, gentle but definite, and I realize that I am absolutely destroying him.
I move slow at first. Savoring. Letting the salt and vibration of his need fill my mouth like I’m dying of thirst, like if I can just make him come undone, I’ll finally fix the ache in my own chest.
The need to please him is a more urgent hunger than anything food ever solved for me. In this moment, Ethan is the only planet in my solar system, and I want to orbit closer, to burn up in his gravity.
“Jeez, Addy,” he grinds out.
He’s the one bracing now, his knees and thighs clenching as if he can’t decide whether to pull away or fuck my face until I’m ruined for every other man on earth.
The thought makes me wetter.
“Touch yourself, Addy. I want to see you.”
His voice shouldn’t work on me, but it does. My hand is between my legs instantly, shoving aside cotton and heat and every last ounce of self-respect I’d been hoarding for an emergency.
Instinct takes over, and then the only emergency is how fast I’m about to lose it.
Ethan’s cock throbs against my tongue, and my own fingers match the rhythm, circular, desperate, helpless. I rock against my palm, shameless, meeting my own need because the idea of him wanting that has turned my entire body into a live wire.
He’s panting now, sweat inked at his hairline, eyes locked on me with a ferocity I’ve never felt from another human being.
His thumb drags across my cheek, grazing the corner of my mouth wet with him, and I’m so gone for him that even the humiliation tastes sweet, like victory instead of shame.
I smear saliva down his length with my tongue, circling the head, and it’s nearly enough to make him lose control, but he steadies himself, groaning my name over and over until it’s not a name at all, just a helpless sound.
He pulls out, just enough to look at the swelling helplessness of my mouth, the way my lips have gone slick from him, and maybe from biting them too hard in anticipation.
“Addy, fuck, you’re going to be the death of me. I need you.”
He hauls me up, hands everywhere, mouth frantic against mine, tasting himself on my lips, urging me back against the cool granite of the kitchen island. It’s like he’s forgotten everything but the need to be inside me, and honestly, good. I want to be the only thing he can even remember.
He spins me so I'm at the edge, hiking up my dress, and when his hand finds my soaked underwear, he curses so filthy I feel it in my teeth.
He rips the fabric aside, not bothering with finesse. A short, guttural sound, a snag, and then he’s inside me in one punishing thrust that knocks the air out of my lungs. My nails dig into the counter for purchase, and I moan, half pain, half the sweetest lightning bolt of relief I’ve ever known.
It’s so fucking good, the way we fit together, the way his body seems engineered to fill every space that’s ever been left empty in me, as if some algorithm coded by a horny cupid matched us input to output, down to the decimal.
He fucks me so deep and hard I think I’m going to lose consciousness, not from pain but from the insane, sustained overload of pleasure. There’s nothing gentle about it anymore.
This is raw, unbuffered want, the kind that cauterizes me. I’m nothing but nerve endings and the animal, clutch and pull of his hands digging into my waist, his cock stretching me open, every thrust a stake driven deeper until I’m not sure where he ends and I begin.
I want to scream. I want to weep.
Instead, I come so violently I nearly pass out.
It builds like a migraine behind my eyes until it detonates, my body locking into a bowstring, my thighs shaking so hard they might snap off at the hip. I hear my own voice before I realize I’m the one making that obscene, torn-up sound.
Ethan doesn’t stop; he can’t, or won’t, and I’m so fucking grateful he doesn’t.
He’s relentless, fucking me through it, letting himself go for the first time tonight, until his breaths blister my shoulder and he groans my name rough and wild and unrepeatable.
He stills, shuddering, and I feel him pulse inside me, thick and hot, and only then does his grip ease, the fingers at my waist going gentle again, tracing lazy zigzags against my skin like he needs to mark me.
This man is the one for me. Bryce was nothing compared to him.
Nothing at all.