Chapter 17
Maggie couldn’t stop shaking. It was like the cold had slipped into her bones and was rattling her frame.
Part of it was probably shock. It had to be.
She was wearing Ethan’s large sweatshirt, had a blanket over her legs, and the heat in the truck was on full power.
She was surrounded by warmth. But she didn’t feel any of it.
Ethan pulled up in front of a wooden-framed house.
“Is this where you live?” she asked.
They’d barely spoken the entire drive. But he’d been watching her. His eyes had felt like a physical touch sliding over her skin.
“It is. Wait here.” He climbed out of the truck and jogged to his front door.
The house was surrounded by trees and mountains, but that didn’t surprise her. Ethan had always said he’d be happy to be stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no neighbors and no one to bother him.
When he came back, he opened her door and moved to lift her out, but she shook her head. “I can walk.”
“You don’t have shoes on.” Before she could respond, he scooped her up and carried her to the front door.
There was no arguing with him. He was in that something-bad-happened-and-now-I-need-to-take-charge mood. And it felt good to have someone take care of her, especially when she felt such bone-deep exhaustion. Again, it had to be partially shock.
When he stepped inside the house, she took in the large living area to her right. The stone fireplace. The exposed wooden beams and almost floor-to-ceiling windows. The home smelled like cedar and coffee and felt rustic and homely in the best way.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“Thanks.” He lowered her to her feet but didn’t step back right away, as if he was scared she’d fall. “We need to get you warm.”
On cue, a shudder ran down her spine. “I’d love a shower.”
He took her hand, and the heat and strength of his fingers around hers made a bit of the cold flow out of her body.
Inside his bedroom, a large bed with a wooden headboard centered the space and an antique dresser sat beside the door. The room was big and masculine and comfortable. They moved through it into an attached bathroom.
“What else can I do?” he asked, turning back to her, gaze full of concern. “Food? A hot drink? Do you—”
“Ethan.” She touched his chest, feeling a million muscles flicker beneath her fingertips. “I’m okay. You go and check in with your team. I know the missing woman is on your mind. She’s on mine too. Find out if they found her.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
She cupped his cheek, running her thumb over his warm skin. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
He turned his head and kissed the inside of her wrist, making a tingle run straight into her belly.
“I’ll be back.”
She nodded and watched him leave. When the soft click of the door closing sounded, she wrapped her arms around her waist and caught her reflection in the mirror, finally letting the mask slip.
She’d almost drowned tonight. For a few seconds, fear and shock had rendered her completely helpless in the river, and the stream had pulled her down with such relentless aggression that she hadn’t been sure she’d make it out.
How she’d grabbed the tree root, she had no idea. Desperation? Sheer will to survive?
She quickly stripped, and when she stepped into the warm stream of water, her eyes closed.
It felt so good. But it also wasn’t enough. The cold was still inside her, bleeding out.
She took in deep breaths, but the memory of the waves pushing and pulling at her body felt real again. Like she was back there, completely helpless to the onslaught of the water.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there before a knock sounded. Then the door cracked open. “Maggie? Just checking that you’re okay.”
“Can you come in here?”
He stepped inside but didn’t look at her. His eyes were on his feet as he stopped on the other side of the glass. “What do you need?”
Maggie opened the shower door.
Finally, Ethan looked up. His eyes darkened to a green so deep, they almost looked black. “Maggie—”
“You. I need you.” Her words felt like whispers in the water.
“Are you sure?”
She stepped forward and pulled at the base of his shirt. He helped her, yanking it over his head with one hand. Then together, without taking their eyes off each other, they shoved down his jeans and briefs.
Her abdomen flared to life. He was the same as she remembered, but also different. There was more power in his body. His shoulders were wider. He was just…bigger, in every way.
He pulled the glass door closed after himself, taking up so much space that she couldn’t move without touching him.
He gripped her hips. “Are you warm?”
She leaned her cheek against his chest right over his heart. The steady thumps brought her back to the present. Away from the river and the water and the cold. “I am now.”
His arms came around her, and God, the safety that was this man was like nothing else. She’d lived over a decade not knowing if she’d feel these arms around her again. How had she survived that? How had she thought that life without him would be even remotely okay?
“Did they find the woman?” she asked quietly.
His arms tightened. “No.”
Her eyes scrunched closed. “I’m sorry you had to look after me instead of searching for her. I didn’t think. I saw the crashed car and the footprints and wanted to help.”
“I understand that. But, Maggie…” He touched a finger to her chin and tilted her face up. “Don’t ever do that again. Okay? Next time, you get back into your car and drive to safety, then you get help.”
She swallowed and nodded. His green eyes were so intense. It was like they saw a part of her, knew a part of her, that no one else saw or knew.
“I missed you so much.” The words fell from her lips, raw and reckless, but so powerful.
“You never left me. Not for a single day. You lived here.” He took her wrist and lifted it so her palm sat over his heart.
And something inside her cracked. Maybe some armor. Maybe her last hold on the version of herself that thought she could live without him. “I spent so long, so many years wondering if I was enough for you.”
His brows drew together. He lowered his head, his mouth so close to hers she could feel his breath on her lips as he cupped her cheeks. “You were never just ‘enough.’ You were all the best parts of me.”
Her heart squeezed. And the next beat belonged to him. Only him.
His head lowered that final fraction, and he swiped his mouth against hers. A light graze of lips against lips. He did it again. The kiss was healing and soft and had a part of her aching for him that hadn’t ached for anyone in so long.
The third kiss was hers to initiate. She lifted to her toes, parted her lips, and slipped her tongue against his. His taste was so familiar that she felt eighteen again. That dizzy, first-time-love kind of dizzy, as if she was falling all over again.
She moved her hands up, sliding them into his hair and tugging at the locks.
He shifted her closer and gently pushed her against the shower wall, caging her in place. Everything about Ethan made her feel small and fragile against his large, powerful frame. But also safe.
He lowered a hand to her breast and cupped her.
She groaned, a long, deep groan that tore through the sound of the shower.
When he flicked the tight bud of her nipple back and forth, she arched, the sensation lighting a fire in her belly. Then his hand started to lower. To creep toward her core.
Her breathing shifted. Shortened. Tightened.
When he was between her thighs, he swiped her clit.
She threw her head back and cried out. His mouth only lifted from her body for a second before taking her nipple between his lips.
Suddenly, he was everywhere. Like he was touching every inch of her body, and she was incapable of moving or breathing or thinking.
All those colors, those shades that Ethan had lost when Maggie had disappeared, flickered back to life inside him. In her kiss. In the way she touched him. In the soft noises that filled the air, swelling into the previously hollowed spaces in his chest.
He switched to her other breast, taking her nipple between his lips and sucking. Rolling the bud with his tongue, tasting her like she was candy. Her entire body bowed, her fingers tangling with his hair, grabbing and pulling.
She was so damn responsive, like she was made for him.
When she’d left him, there had been moments so dark that he wasn’t sure he’d make it. It had felt like he might fade away. Cease to exist. But now, having her back, all the hard years almost disappeared.
He gripped her thigh and tugged it up around his waist, his other hand still between her thighs. Stroking and playing with her clit.
She cried out, louder this time. More breathless and unrestrained. It was all so fucking beautiful he wanted to bottle it up.
A few more strokes before he touched two fingers to her entrance. Then slowly, achingly so, he slipped inside. So deep, her walls clenched against him.
She gasped, and God, he’d missed that sound. Like his effect on her body still surprised her.
Gently, he ran his teeth over her nipple, and as he did, he pulled out of her before thrusting those two fingers back in.
She whimpered, the sound making him so fucking hard he felt like stone.
Shit. What did she do to him? She was the only woman who’d ever made him feel like he’d rather die than stop touching her.
“Ethan, I need to touch you.”
Her words had barely registered before she shimmied out of his hold. Then her mouth was on his chest, pressing kisses across his skin that felt like little sparks of electricity. When she wrapped her fingers around his cock, he damn near lost himself then and there.
His entire body froze, like for a moment, his muscles forgot how to function. She slid her palm up his length and rolled her thumb over his tip.
He growled low in his throat, pushing his head into the nook of her shoulder.
She continued to kiss him. Gentle whispers of kisses across his neck and shoulder while she stroked him. Tormented him. Pushed him closer to that ledge.
Fuck, this woman owned him, body and soul.
One more stroke and he couldn’t take it anymore. He lifted her, her loud gasp echoing off the tiles.
Quickly, he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel on the way and draping it on the bed.
When he laid her atop the towel, his heart thumped painfully against his rib cage. Her skin glistened with drops of water. And her eyes—they were wide and trusting and stared at him like he was it. He was her whole world.
He reached into the bedside table and grabbed a condom, then quickly rolled it over his cock before returning to her. He pressed soft kisses across her ankle. Then her calf. When he reached the inside of her thigh, her breathing audibly shifted.
He separated her thighs and tasted her, sliding his tongue over her clit.
She screamed, her back arching off the bed. He wrapped his arms around her thighs, anchoring her to the spot. Another taste, another slide of his tongue over her core. She shuddered violently, the tremors rolling through his body, too.
This time, he wrapped his lips around her and sucked. She whimpered and groaned. He didn’t stop. He wanted her as desperate as she made him. To want him, need him, like he needed her—with a hunger that bordered on ruin.
He knew the second she was on that edge. Her nails dug into his shoulders, her gasps so short she couldn’t be getting a full breath of air.
Finally, he lifted his head and kissed her hip bone. Then her belly. One suck of her nipple before he found her lips again, knowing that she was tasting herself on his tongue.
Her thighs curved around his hips, and his tip touched her entrance. It made him so hard he hurt. A physical pain he wasn’t sure he’d recover from.
She gave a small tug, inching him slightly inside her. He did the rest, sliding all the way in.
Air stuttered from her chest, and he felt it too. This was everything that had been missing the last eleven years. She was everything that had been missing.
“This is it now,” he whispered. “You and me.”
“You and me,” she repeated.
He kissed her again and began to move. To lift his hips and thrust back inside in even succession. She was tight and warm and felt like home.
He kissed down her cheek, finding a spot on her neck behind her ear and sucking. She gripped the back of his head, like she was scared he’d leave her.
He wouldn’t. He wasn’t going anywhere.
His thrusts grew deeper, faster.
He reached for her breast, rolling the nipple back and forth with his thumb.
Then he heard it. The sweet scream that cut through the room as her core pulsed against his cock. And he fell with her, digging his head into her neck as he lost it all and gave it to her.