Chapter 16 Zoe #2
He shook his head, his mouth curling in one of those dangerous grins and his green eyes glinting in the dim light. “No. My attorney told me I had to behave.”
This should’ve bothered me. Instead, I wanted to kiss him. God, a man shouldn’t be allowed to have a mouth like his. He had generous, mobile lips. I knew how they felt on mine, and I wanted them there. Now. Instead, I stumbled slightly again.
Ethan gathered me against his side and somehow maneuvered us through the door.
Everyone but Liam and Olivia was gone. They were waiting just outside the restaurant.
Liam was lifting her palm and dropping a kiss in the center of it, his eyes locked to hers.
For a beat, I felt lonely. I wanted someone to look at me like that.
The moment snapped when Olivia looked our way.
With her porcelain skin, dark curls and green eyes, she was lovely, just lovely.
I liked her and could imagine being friends with her.
She was brilliant and also focused on her career as an orthopedic surgeon.
I wanted to ask her how it was to fit a man like Liam into her life and make it work.
That would have to be a conversation for another time though.
“Zoe, I’m glad you came tonight. We do this almost every weekend, so please join us anytime,” Olivia said with a warm smile as Ethan essentially dragged me to them.
If she noticed how tipsy I was, she didn’t let on. “I shall invite her for next week,” Ethan said.
Olivia glanced between us before narrowing her gaze at him. “Zoe might be too good for you. You’d better treat her well.”
My heart gave a hard thump at that. Ethan tightened his arm around my waist, and I sensed a thread of defensiveness in him. “I’d never do anything otherwise.”
Liam said something just before a cab rolled up.
They said their goodbyes, and then I was standing on the sidewalk with Ethan, fuzzily wondering what to do.
I needn’t have wondered. He hailed a cab and bundled me into it.
Before I knew it, he was walking beside me in the hallway to my apartment and scooping up the keys I dropped on the floor.
Once we were inside, I tackled him. All I wanted was to kiss him.
His tongue slid against mine before he drew back quickly.
“Bed for you,” he announced.
That wouldn’t do. I wanted him. All of him.
“No. I want…”
I leaned toward him to kiss him again, but miscalculated with my lips landing on his jaw.
He caught me and turned me around. “Trust me luv, I want you. Badly. But you’re drunk, and I don’t do drunk.”
I was too drunk to argue much, so I allowed him to drag me to my bedroom and help me out of my clothes.
His eyes grew dark, and I could see the ridge of his cock behind the jeans that hugged him like a lover.
My knees gave out and I plunked on the bed in nothing but a scrap of silk thong.
Next thing I knew he was pulling his t-shirt off and dragging it over my head.
“Ooh, this smells like you,” I announced.
I grabbed for him. “When did you become so uptight?” I muttered. “I bet you’ve had plenty of drunk sex.” I reached out and roughly dragged my hand over his cock, grinning when his breath hissed out.
He’d been in the midst of kicking off his shoes. His gorgeous green gaze swept over me. “I don’t do drunk with you.”
I reached up to stroke his cock again, but he grabbed my hand.
I glared at him. “Why?”
He gave his head a little shake, something flickering in his gaze. “Because,” he said firmly.
He felt oddly protective. I didn’t know what to make of that, and I felt funny inside. In short order, he tucked me in bed and climbed in beside me. He removed his jeans, so I could feel the heat of his cock against my hip.
I meant to say something, to argue my point—whatever my point was—but I fell asleep.
Hours later, I woke in the darkness, momentarily disoriented.
I wasn’t used to having anyone sleep with me, so it was strange to awaken and feel a presence beside me.
After a beat, I remembered it was Ethan.
I could’ve really gotten used to sleeping with him.
I tended to get chilled at night, but not with him beside me.
He was so warm, my own personal furnace.
I apparently liked to drape myself all over him.
I had one leg thrown over his with my foot hooked between his calves and was lying half atop his chest. And what a chest it was.
Even relaxed in sleep, every inch of him was hard, honed muscle.
I breathed in his scent and sighed. His arm was curled around me. His palm slid up my hip in a sleepy caress, and I burrowed closer because it felt so good.
“Mmm…Zoe?”
“Uh huh.”
“You awake?” he asked, his voice gravelly from sleep.
I laughed against his chest. “Uh huh.”
“Go back to sleep,” he murmured with another sleepy caress up my side.
My heart squeezed and emotion rocked me. His hand stilled after another pass and his breathing evened out. I fell asleep with him warm and strong beside me.