Chapter 26 The Break #2
He turned from me without any of his tools and disappeared into my bathroom. The sound of the bathroom fan kicked on as the light fluttered to life, and in the blink of an eye I didn’t register, I found myself standing right behind Ethan who was crouched inside of my shower.
“Ethan, it’s fine. Please .”
I tried harder and harder still, but he wasn’t listening anymore and I needed him to listen more than ever before. He needed to leave now, because I could feel it. As strange as it sounds, I felt us in the air. Threatening, imposing, and cataclysmic to the world we both cherished.
And us couldn’t happen.
“The shower works fine! It’s not even a big deal!”
In a hopeless, last-ditch effort, I reached out to the shower handle.
No logic or consequences in my head, I latched my fingers around that handle and I jammed it all the way to the side.
Water shot out from the showerhead above, sputtering to life before raining down just like gravity intended and right on top of Ethan’s head.
The moment the water hit him, Ethan’s body froze in time with my heart.
Petrified in place, I watched Ethan just sit there, letting the water from above pour down and drench him head to foot. His light blue T-shirt was painted dark by the spray of the water, and his hair sank flat atop his head, bits of it sticking across his forehead.
“I’m-I didn’t—” Any words I was attempting to say evaporated into the damp air as Ethan stood up inside the shower. From the tip of his nose to the jut of his chin, water dripped and splashed across his chiseled face.
Slowly, he turned that face towards me.
The water droplets falling down his face could have evaporated off his skin given the extremity of his visible outrage.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I— No. Ethan—don’t!”
But it was too late.
By the time I turned on my heel to run, both of Ethan’s arms landed right around my waist, gripping down tight as he pulled me back.
A yelp tore past my lips as the first cascade of water hit my body, soaking my thin shirt through to the skin.
The water was as warm as Ethan’s chest that my back was flush up against, feeling the water pour between us.
It suctioned our bodies together even as I twisted and I turned and kicked out.
Nothing worked. I didn’t budge until Ethan himself plucked me away from him, wrapping his large hands around my upper arms.
My heart slammed against my chest as Ethan slammed my back up against the shower wall.
A whimper fell from my parted lips, and my eyes jumped straight up to his. That alone was my first and fatal mistake.
Behind his tumultuous anger and shadows of pain, I saw a glimpse of it. I saw a shining glimpse of the thing that brought him to hate, to guilt, and to lie to himself and everyone around him.
I saw the reason he came here today. He came here with a purpose and a plan and absolutely no second-guessing. The closer Ethan leaned into me, the more vivid the intention he decided on became and the faster my heart beat.
“Ethan…”
Water coated in his thick eyelashes, dripping and falling against the rise of his cheekbones as he blinked, and the treacherous thought that I could stand here marveling at him all day long passed my mind.
Even drenched from head to toe, Ethan was still the most beautiful mark of a man I’d ever laid eyes on.
Ethan was a man untamed and decided, a dangerous combination for the space left between our bodies as he erased it from existence, leaving only inevitable regrets between us.
My head knocked back into the wall behind me as he closed in, his face hanging just inches above mine. An embarrassing, faint noise slipped from my lips as his fingers grazed against my skin, rising a pathway up the sides of my neck.
Ethan watched me as he touched me, his eyes hooded and entrancing.
In the humid air that surrounded us, I felt the thing I had been running away from and finally, it had me trapped, back against the wall, defenses dripping down and disappearing into the drain below my feet.
It consumed Ethan and I whole, growing so big I could see it in the mist around and between us, dark and overpowering to any willpower either of us had left.
Anticipation thrummed my heart to a wild beat as Ethan inched closer, the taste of his sweet breath heating my lips.
A pinch in the center of my chest warned that my rising excitement and willpower were battling one another, both clawing their way to the front line for the chance to be the one to make the final call.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to whimper. I wanted to beg him to go and to never leave me ever again at the same time. His stare caressed down my face, touching my lips as he spoke straight to my heart.
“Slim…”
By the steadfast look in his eyes, I knew he came here today for me. He walked inside this apartment today with his mind already made up. He was done playing around. He was done fighting the impossible fight.
With his lips so close and my mind so heady, I gave one last, feeble attempt to keep on fighting.
“We can’t,” I breathed.
Against my lips, he whispered, “I know.”
And then he went ahead and did it anyway.
The soft touch of his lips shaped against my own, and the second they did, I knew I had lost. The feeling of his mouth on mine spasmed my heart and exploded my willpower into shards that flew out in every direction, shredding holes through my last-standing defenses.
I sank into Ethan like he was the ocean, and I was a rock thrown in without any say so. I was sinking, falling, and diving faster and faster into him with nothing to help pull me out and my surroundings were only growing darker and isolating.
His kiss undid every last stitch of my good-will with every pull of his lips with mine.
When he was done with me, I would be empty of decency and deprived of self-respect, but I couldn’t find the energy to care.
For the next several moments, all the worry to care would slink into the back of my mind in exchange for five minutes of deniability.
Five minutes of telling ourselves a good lie. Five minutes of no consequences.
Just us in this shower and all of our desires for each other combined and released for as long as both of us could pretend it was okay.
Water dripped in between our mouths as they moved together, diluting the taste of him I’d been so desperate for, and I wouldn’t stand for it. I pushed my hands up over his sopping wet shirt and threaded my fingers through his mess of hair, pulling his lips down on mine even harder.
A moan I didn’t expect came from Ethan, deep in his chest and just for me.
I wanted that sound again and again, composing his desires into the most superlative symphony playing only for me.
His hands that had cupped the sides of my face ran down my body, burning hotter than the water coming down on us until they’d reached my waist.
In a quick movement, Ethan lifted my body up, and as if they’d done it a hundred times before, my legs wrapped around his waist. Our lips parted as he lifted me, ripping apart like tearing hearts.
My eyes went to his and my heart gripped itself inside my chest as we found each other.
From just centimeters above him, I witnessed the full acceptance of what we were doing solidify in his eyes as he looked up at me.
In that same sight, I saw not an ounce of regret or anything of the sort.
All I saw in his eyes was adoration and fire.
And in mine, I knew he was seeing just the same. A powerful surge of devotion pulsed through me and I whimpered out his name.
“ Ethan .”
It was a cry for him, and for everything we were about to do.
It was the only admittance I would give out loud that I knew what we were doing and that I wasn’t strong enough to stop it by myself.
I needed Ethan to understand how unfair this was and how sorry I was for it all. I had tried. We had both tried so hard.
In the end, trying was pointless. We both lost to our worst selves anyway, and now we would burn for it.
“I know,” Ethan spoke, nodding with understanding closing in around the weakness in his eyes. “Trust me, I know.”
And then he pulled me down to him once again.
His kiss knocked the ground out from under me and I fell, and I fell, and it didn’t feel like I would ever stop falling. Ethan was the sky and I was nose-diving through him to a certain and magnificent death.
He walked us out of the shower, our lips tireless on one another’s.
The air hit cold against my skin, but anywhere that goosebumps rose, Ethan’s own hot skin soothed them down.
There was nowhere that he wasn’t touching on my body and soon enough, I was engulfed in flames made up of Ethan’s illicit touch.
Both of his hands slipped beneath the wet shield of my shirt, skin touching skin and a moan dripping with need vibrated in my throat. I needed more of that. More of him. I needed more of everything I shouldn’t want.
With my sense locked away and my lust calling the shots, I reached down and grabbed the hem of my shirt.
Our lips broke apart for just a second to allow my shirt to rise up in between us before I discarded it to the floor.
Something beautiful flashed in Ethan’s eyes but disappeared as quickly as my eyes shut black, and my mouth was back on his and greedy as ever.
In the next second, Ethan was lowering us down until my back pressed into the soft embrace of my mattress. My eyes shot open in upset as I didn’t immediately feel Ethan’s body cover my own. Yet the image I was met with as I opened my eyes dashed it all away.
Kneeling right above me, I caught the last few precious moments of Ethan pulling his shirt over his head, revealing his naked torso to me and just for me.
His wet hair stuck across his forehead, Ethan’s eyes fell to mine, hooded and stunning and proving themselves the only eyes with the ability to stun me speechless.