Chapter 32 Admitting Defeat Never Felt So Good #2
Ethan’s order was gruff and impatient, and as severely as I wanted to reach that finish line, I wanted to please him so much more. So I did. I pulled my head up until my eyes found him, head between my legs and my arousal shining on his reddened lips.
Ethan watched me closely as his fingers moving inside of me curved until they hit a spot that made me suck back a shaking breath. He did this again and again, the pleasure he was building in me blinding, and my eyelids grew heavy with the need to close but I forced them to stay open for him.
A proud expression spread across his face and he nodded, as if telling me I’d done good.
A cry broke out of me, sounding anguished as Ethan’s thumb pressed against my hyper-sensitive bud, spiking everything I was feeling higher than I was sure I could handle.
I felt like I was going to shatter at any moment, explode at the seams into a million little pieces for Ethan to put back together at the end of it all.
“God, you’re beautiful,” Ethan spoke, eyes tireless and entirely devoted to catching every forbidden moment between the two of us.
His fingers built me up, massaging faster while his thumb ran vigorous circles over me that had my body squirming against the couch and incoherent sounds falling from my lips.
“ Ethan .” Oh God. I was there, dangling over the precipice, and all I needed was to be cut loose.
“Fuck, the way you say my name is like honey,” he groaned. “So sweet and pure.”
The heaviness over my eyes was waning stronger as my pleasure built into this thing, this entity that seemed unfathomable, unreachable.
It wasn’t until the lips of the man bringing me to such an impossible place brushed my ear and said, “Let me hear you, Slim,” that my eyes slammed shut and the release I’d been waiting for finally hit— hard .
I cried out his name as the pleasure building inside of me erupted, shooting down my legs and curling down into my toes as I rode out the highs of the wave.
A hand wrapped around mine and squeezed tight as I relished in every delicious feeling sparking through my body until those feelings died down and finally, the haze of lust evaporated across my mind.
I was left panting, my hair damp with a layer of sweat, and as clear-minded as I’d ever been before.
Holy shit.
Before I had too much time to think, arms were pulling me down and off the couch, landing in a straddle across Ethan’s lap.
His hands were on my face, stroking his thumbs down my cheeks as I tried to catch my breath.
My vision was still foggy, but I felt Ethan everywhere around me, his affection as palpable as his actual touch.
Weakened, I allowed my head to come forward until the warmth of Ethan’s forehead pressed to mine and there, I relaxed.
“I can’t stay away from you anymore.” On his breath, I smelled my own arousal, and it was at that moment that the first slap of guilt hit.
In response, I sighed, “But you still should.”
“Why? Why do we have to stay away from each other if Monica and I aren’t going to be together anymore?”
The certitude of his expression was convincing enough that I almost gave in. I nearly fell into his arms and told him he was right and that we should run away together. He made me want to say and do all sorts of things that would destroy my life without a second care.
“Because it’s still wrong. It’s still my sister, and I’d rather die than have her thinking I was the reason her wedding fell apart.” Even if it’s the truth.
Even if she and Ethan didn’t get married, it wouldn’t change a thing. The collapse of their engagement wouldn’t give Ethan and I the go ahead, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he must have known that.
“It’s not just you though, Alice. Even if I had never met you, Monica and I are still wrong. We don’t make sense. Everyone around us wants to believe that we do but, even she knows it’s a lie.”
Hesitance cut down the middle of my mind, and I thought back to all the small things Monica had said to me over the months about the wedding and about Ethan.
“I’m not sure that’s true…”
“It is. Trust me. Every day between us feels like both of us are waiting for the other one to finally pull the plug on the whole operation. She’s only going through with it for the same reason that I was.
People expect us to. Especially my mom. She’s been breathing down both our necks ever since she got the save the date, and I know I’ve told you how stubborn she can be. ”
“Oh, I got to see that first-hand when they came by the bar. She’s nothing short of terrifying,” I said with a careful laugh.
In what I thought was a mood-lifting thing to say, I received the most perplexed look from Ethan in response. And then, his eyes went comically large with shock stretching them wide.
“ That’s where they went for lunch the other day?”
“You didn’t know?”
Ethan shook his head. “No. Monica only told me that my mom had asked to take her out to lunch to talk about the wedding. That’s as much information as I ever knew.”
I felt my mouth form an ‘O’ and an uncomfortable ball twist around inside my stomach. He had no idea I’d ever even met his mom, which meant that the chances he knew that she outright threatened me if I ever saw him again were pretty slight.
“What did she say to you?”
“Oh, um—” How to put this delicately? “She just told me that you called her the day after we, uh, kissed that first time and that you told her about us and—”
“I never told her about you.”
His words stopped my recollection dead in its path. “What?”
With eyes as serious as the tone of his voice, Ethan said, “I never told my mom about you and I. The kiss, nothing.”
“Well… she knew.”
“That makes no sense. I only ever mentioned you once to her and it was weeks ago when I told her about going back to our old spot at the lake.” Funny. His mom told me Ethan had never mentioned me, not even once. Though, I supposed that wasn’t the most important thing to harp on right now.
“You didn’t say anything when you called her the day after we kissed?”
“Not about you specifically, no. I called to tell her I didn’t want to go through with the marriage anymore because my heart wasn’t in it.” A softness settled over his face, and I knew even before he said anything that it was going to take my breath away. “I told her my heart was somewhere else.”
‘ With someone else’ was a clear undertone of his words, and it turned out that I was right in my assumption.
Breathless like I knew I would be, I placed my hands flat against his cheeks and drew his forehead back down to mine. We were only inches apart, but it felt like miles between us to not be touching him in every way while we could.
“It’s okay,” I brushed off. “She was just being protective over you.” And then some.
“No, there’s being protective and then there’s guilting someone into a marriage they’ve told you they don’t want to be a part of. No one wants this wedding to happen except her. Not even Monica.”
“Do you really think so?”
Sincerity shone bright in his eyes. “I do, yeah. I think that when I go home and tell her the weddings off, she might actually be a little relieved.”
“Woah, what? You’re telling her tonight ?”
“I’ve already waited too long as it is,” he tried.
“You want to tell her the day before all three of us are supposed to get in a car together to go to my parents for Thanksgiving where your family will also be?”
His shoulders sunk below my encircled arms.
“Alice, I see where you’re going with this, but please don’t ask me to wait any longer.”
“You have to wait. You can’t break up with her right before a planned holiday. That’s just awful.” Almost as awful as a sister planning the downfall of her older sister’s engagement.
“Slim—”
“Please?” I cut him off, running the patch of my thumb over his still plumped bottom lip. “For me?”
Displeasure wrote itself in along the edges of Ethan’s eyes and once again, he sighed loudly. “Fine. But the day after we get back from Thanksgiving, I’m doing it.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m at least going to hint that it’s coming tonight so she’s not taken completely off-guard when I do it.”
“And you’re positive that this won’t break her heart?”
If Monica was even slightly heartbroken over the ending of her engagement, Ethan and I could never happen in the way both of our undertones were hinting at. This would only work if Ethan was right, and that Monica was just as anxious for the wedding to be called off as he was.
“I’m absolutely 100% positive.”
He smiled a soft smile at me and in return, my heart melted to the bottom of my stomach, sitting there like a pile of mush—which is exactly what Ethan made me. Every affectionate touch from him or adoring look created just for me turned me to absolute mush.
Ethan’s gaze followed his fingers up to my hair where he pushed a strand back behind my ear, all the warmth in the room held in his eyes.
“I want to be with you.” And again—mush.
“We’re right together and I know we’re right.
But I also know we’re going to have to wait.
And it’s not going to be easy to wait knowing that what I’m waiting for is the thing I’ve wanted my entire life.
I told you back at the lake that I believed in soulmates and I always have.
I was just scared that I’d never find her… ”
The notion that Ethan was implying wrapped around my heart, coaxing it out of its hiding place, squeezing it back to life with the promise of love and safety and a permanent home. The promise was written in permanent ink across Ethan’s expression and dotted for finality in his expressive eyes.
“And now I have found her, but I can’t have her. Not just yet.”
The veracity of his words made me want to break down right there because there was no fighting it. We were lovers in waiting with no idea of just how long we’d have to wait. As devastating as that conclusion was, Ethan didn’t look the least bit sad.
“But I know when the right time comes and I can finally hold her and kiss her and love her like I want to…”
Truth revealed itself in the ghost of a smile kissing his lips as he brushed his nose against mine, his eyes shining brighter than the crossed stars we’d stolen from the sky for one another.
With stars in his eyes and my heart in his hands, he spoke, “I am never letting you go, Slim.”