14. All Too Sudden （Ethan） #3
Her nails stab my shoulder and her mouth sucks at mine.
Her legs grip my ass and my body pummels her into the bed.
Hot and hard.
Wet and willing.
Fucking relentless.
The only thing that keeps me from blowing right now is the sound of her pleasure.
Her eyes meet mine then and I know she’s lost it.
Pure magic.
A spell of otherworldly fuckery I never want to end.
But I also want her to come, so that’s why I focus.
I’m only human, and there’s only so much a man can take with these punishing strokes and soft whimpers serenading my ears.
Only so much of us.
Only so much of her .
Growling, I reach down between us and find her clit.
Not slowly, not gently, but hard, pressing where she needs me most.
Her eyes widen.
Her head falls back.
Her fingers shake as she grips my shoulders.
“Ethan!” Her voice is all raspy seduction. “ Holy sh—yes!”
And then she’s gone, coming her soul out under me, squeezing my cock so hard I see stars.
A mountain couldn’t hold me back.
Seeing her like this, totally broken by pleasure, hips crashing into mine and out of control, lost in soft, sexy moans as she comes on my dick, it’s officially too fucking much.
I come so hard I’m temporarily blinded.
Nerve endings I didn’t know I had light up like fucking Christmas, slashing down my spine, pouring fire into every extremity.
Feels like my hair’s burning, standing on end.
And my balls go off like live grenades, pouring their heat into her, claiming her raw pussy for the first time.
I come so hard my brain inverts.
No, I didn’t grab a condom in the rush.
And she didn’t protest one word.
We’re past barriers now, dangerously close to some animalistic union that might ruin every future hookup.
This is it.
The pinnacle.
Nothing else will ever compare.
And when I collapse and roll off her, Hattie’s there with her buttery gaze, smiling as she kisses me.
I think I’m holding an angel as she laughs softly, tracing my face with her fingers.
We spend the afternoon fucking, eating, and fucking some more.
Finally, as the yacht heads back to the harbor, we lounge on the ship’s deck to enjoy the sunset and our own simmering afterglow.
The stars come out full force, sprawling across the night sky in glittering swirls and constellations.
Call it cliché, but I wish this day didn’t have an end.
Not because it had more hot sex condensed into a few hours than most men get in a month—not just because of that—but because Hattie talks to me.
Not like I’m Ethan Blackthorn, heir to a powerhouse real estate magnate and someone people fear when I enter a room.
We’re just Ethan and Pages.
She gives a damn about my hopes, my woes, my wisecracks about Ares.
Before, I couldn’t fathom how much I needed that.
And she rolls on the blanket we’ve spread out on the deck, trying to pull it tighter around us and the lump of Ares at our feet as she looks up at me.
She’s wearing an oversized cardigan over her dress and her hair is in a messy bun. No makeup.
Freckles everywhere.
Goddamn, I love the freckles.
I love that she doesn’t race to the nearest salon to eradicate them whenever they pop up like some of the women I’ve been with.
I have the absurd urge to count them and commit them to memory, just so I can know how many she has.
“You know,” she says with a half laugh, “I don’t think I’ve seen you happy.”
“Terrible news.” I wave a lazy hand. “I have a reputation to keep as Leonidas’ asshole grandson.”
“No, I mean… I don’t think I’ve seen you this happy ever since you skipped town. You haven’t smiled like this for years.”
The temperature drops a handful of degrees. I sit up.
“You’ve barely seen me since then. Recent times aside, obviously.”
Her eyes search mine, hunting for whatever she thinks she’ll find.
Of course, she knows it’s there, locked inside my head like a demon in the attic.
I wish she knew how important it is to keep it chained up.
There’s no way around her knowing something must have happened to drive me away.
Why else would I have gone so quickly and never returned to Portland again until the eleventh hour of Gramps’ life?
But that’s just it—nobody knows the truth.
No one can find out.
It’s a pitch-black nightmare I’m not ready to speak back into existence, let alone relive.
Especially not with this green-eyed soft woman with the smiles.
If she knew what I did, would she give me those glittery green eyes at all?
Would she ever look at me again like I’m lovable?
Or would she just flee, breaking the contract and cursing my name?
It hasn’t been that long. She’s only started looking at me like I’m not the scum of the earth.
I don’t want to lose that now.
I don’t want her to know the childish antics I’ve outgrown didn’t end with punking her and Margot.
What I left years ago, what I caused—fuck, there’s no outgrowing that.
No outrunning it either, apparently.
But God knows I’m going to try when it’s all I can do.
Maybe that makes me a coward.
I don’t care.
A man can make peace with that, but he can never undo the past.
“It’s nothing,” I clip, breaking her gaze. I’ve had a lot of practice with that line, yet when I rattle off with her, it feels like lying. “You keep wondering why I left? No big story there. Just some moody teenage drama. That dumb urge to get out in the world and find myself.”
“Teenage drama,” she repeats skeptically.
“Yeah. You know, the kind of shit every spoiled kid with a chip on his shoulder goes through.”
“Do you really think every rich kid has drama that chases them away for years? Margot said you didn’t come back once until last year.”
My face heats.
“Nothing ran me off, Hattie. I left for the military because I was fucked in the head. I needed a few drill sergeants screaming in my face and dangerous patrols to straighten me out. It was good for me.”
Her lips twist as she studies me.
“But you said you left the military because it wasn’t so good, right?”
Damn. I’m not normally this shitty a liar.
“I stayed too long. Wound up getting tangled up with private mercs I had no control over. Big difference. Part of me didn’t want to come back and face life without a uniform by then, I guess.
You get used to a different life overseas.
Doesn’t take long before it’s the only one you know.
Army responsibility, I could hack. It was easier than coming back here, facing the music, taking over Gramps’ company, even though he begged me every damn time he wrote.
And you know the rest. Eventually, I cracked.
I came around. But it served its purpose all the same. ”
She frowns, staring at the black water, gold flakes in ink from the lights of the yacht and the swirls of stars above.
“Okay,” she says.
She doesn’t push it, but it makes me feel like shit.
Yes, I’m frustrated, but it’s for her own good.
Certainly for mine.
I’m not ready to have Hattie Sage look at me differently.
What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her, and it won’t explode in my face like a screaming rocket.
I hate that a tiny part of me feels like she deserves to know, if there were some way to tell her without opening the gates of hell.
But in six months, we’ll go our separate ways.
And if I have anything to say about it, we’ll split without her ever knowing she married a monster.