32. Thirty-two
The last thing I need is more heat, but Ethan builds a fire in the yard with two chairs next to it.
“Marin’s already sleeping on a couch,” I say as I drop into one of the chairs. “And my guess is the boys are going to fall asleep with game controllers in their hands the way they were yelling at each other.”
He laughs, standing across the fire from me poking a log with a stick.
“I’m sorry about my mom. And my awkward confession.” I stare at the growing flames. “Turns out making people uncomfortable is genetic.”
“I liked listening to your mom,” he says, his voice overly serious. “I think she made some very valid points I would be more than happy to help you with.”
I slap him on the arm as he sits next to me. “Funny.”
“And I liked your confession.” He smiles, dropping his elbows to his knees and looking at me with an intensity that makes me look away.
Again.
“You looked away, Penelope,” he says in a teasing hum as he taps my boot with his.
“Well, you know. The whole soul-seeing thing and all.” I blow out a half breath-half laugh.
I drop my head back and look up at the sky, the heat from the fire warming the already scorching skin from my chin to my chest.
He pokes at the fire with a stick. “Do you ever filter yourself?”
“Sources close to me would say no.” I laugh, looking at him. “Do you?”
“Maybe.” He shrugs. “I like saying what people want to hear.”
My eyes narrow. “Do you think you’d filter the answer to any question I’d ask?”
I search his face as the reflection of the fire dances in his eyes. My urge to touch him—feel him—is as strong as my resistance against it. It’s as though I’m tied in a straitjacket with the laces pulled too tight.
“What would you ask?” he asks, throat moving with his slow swallow, pulling all the moisture right out of my mouth at the sight of it. Is swallowing attractive? I’ve never considered it until this moment where I find myself staring at the column of his throat, watching his Adam’s apple bob along the length of it.
I shift in my seat, feeling a friction in my bloodstream. “I don’t know. Nothing…”
“Oh really, Penelope?” he asks, smirk tugging at his lips. “There’s nothing you want to ask me?”
“Is there something you want me to ask you?” I try to ask it defensively, but my voice is suddenly thick and my breathing shallow. Like we”re playing some kind of game and I don’t know the rules.
His eyes drop to my throat and linger. On instinct, my hand grabs the ring that hangs there.
I flinch.
He notices. Another moment is split in two.
His head slowly turns back toward the fire, and his jaw clenches before he leans back in his chair and faces the sky.
“Do you know the constellations?” he asks.
“No? Not really? Just the basics, I guess. Love me a good dipper.” I hide my smile with a sip of wine before angling my face back to the sky. “You?”
“Not really.”
He looks at me, and I laugh at the ridiculous subject change.
Our arms drape on the armrests of the chairs, the closest they can be without touching, and I hate the distance and need more all at once.
I hook my pinky around his. I can’t not.
Setting my wine down, I face him.
“Ethan.” His name barely makes it out of the tightness of throat. “If you don’t kiss me, I think I might die. Like not in the melodramatic way, in the actual way. My body is physically aching, and I know that sounds…”—a breath whooshes out of me— “crazy or desperate or something. Maybe I am, but I just can’t leave without—”
He doesn’t let me finish my ramble before he cups his hands around my face and presses his mouth to mine. I freeze for a split second before wrapping my fingers around his arms and softening. His tongue swipes across my lip, and mine does the same, testing the waters before diving so deep into the kiss I don’t know if we’ll ever come up for air again. The way every cell of my body reacts to his mouth on mine is a bone-melting, life-altering experience.
The taste of the wine and smell of the campfire engulf me, and I know it will be a very long time before I can ever have either of those things without thinking of this kiss being permanently imprinted on my tongue.
He drops a hand from my face and traces the line of my neck before it rests across my throat. My pulse ricochets between my body and his palm.
When we finally pull our mouths apart, we’re panting. We’d run a marathon without leaving our chairs. I drop my forehead to his with a breathy laugh.
“That was—Wow. I didn’t know.” I shake my head slightly. “Thank you.” I close my eyes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been thanked after a kiss before, Penelope,” he says, kissing my bottom lip and smiling against it.
I want to crawl on top of him and spend the night feeling him kiss me like that, over and over again. I need it. My body really needs it.
Instead, I sag back into my chair, my lips still tingling from where his just were.
“So, you haven’t dated anyone since your husband died?”
I snap my head in his direction at the unexpected question.
“Do people that date usually have to beg other people to kiss them?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.
“Why not?” He traces the lines of my palm with his finger.
“Guilt, grief. The fact every man I know is either happily married or a skeevy friend of my brother. It just hasn’t been on my radar.”
“Is it on your radar now?”
I look at him until I can”t and this time, I deflect. “It’s late, and I have an early day tomorrow.” Like a coward, I stand up without answering him.
He follows me to the Avion and leans against it, arms crossed over his chest.
“Nel—”
I don’t let him finish.
With two fistfuls of his shirt, I yank him to me, pressing my mouth to his. When we collide, I know I’m not saying goodbye—I’m ignoring it. I need to feel him one more time.
He takes a pivoting step that pins me against the wall with a force so strong it takes my breath away. His knee spreads my legs until they’re far enough apart for his thigh to wedge between them. When I move against it, the most sensitive and aching part of me I’ve been desperately trying to ignore flips on like a switch.
Like I need the kiss, I need the relief of his body against mine. One rub is all it takes for my hips to buck instinctively against him, rushing after a feeling I haven’t felt in so long. Too long.
“Ethan, you can’t touch me like that.” I pant as he runs a trail of kisses along my neck.
“Like what?” His thigh rubs me there—again—and I can’t control the whimper that passes my lips.
“Like that,” I say through clenched teeth. “I haven’t had a… I can’t… I won’t be able to...”
I can’t form a complete sentence.
It just feels so good.
The way his thigh rubs against me and how my hips move against him is without any instruction from my brain—it’s all instinct and unfiltered desire, and I don’t think I could stop it even if I wanted to.
“What are you doing to me?” he whispers, and I feel it on every inch of my body like coarse sandpaper.
His hands drop to my hips, fingers digging in tighter. He rocks me against his thigh as his mouth devours mine. Between the pressure of me grinding on his leg and the way his hands grip my hips, I’m on the brink of going up in flames.
I moan into his mouth as my hips rock faster.
I drop my head back as my thighs clench around his leg. I’m so close to plummeting over the edge that I can barely control my movements.
He pulls my bottom lip between his teeth, grips my hips tighter, and then tugs me down forcefully onto his muscular thigh as his rocking rhythm matches mine.
I’m embarrassingly close.
So close I can feel the release swirling from the base of my spine to the back of my throat.
“Ethan...” His name is a gasp or a plea or both. “I can’t… I haven’t…”
I want to stop.
My first orgasm in over a year can’t be against a leg. His leg. I refuse.
“Penelope.” My name is so deep on his lips that it hits straight between my thighs. “Let go.”
Against every logical thought, I do.
Fully dressed.
Against his leg.
In his yard.
Like a horny teenager.
The orgasm screams through me, and the fireworks that explode in my eyes put the town of Bethel’s display to shame.
I gasp for air, barely standing upright, while Ethan cages his arms around me, not bothering to hide how how hard he is pressed against me.
Tomorrow, I’ll be embarrassed over the fact I just got off on his leg, but right now, I feel like a goddess that’s just been released from captivity.
I’m a panting puddle being held together only by my skin, and it feels fucking amazing.
“I haven’t been touched like that in a really long time,” I say between shallow breaths. “Actually, ever. I’ve never ever done that.”
My laugh is a husky sound as he ghosts a kiss on my neck and chuckles against my skin.
This time, when his lips find mine, it’s long and slow, like we have all night. Like there’s nothing more important than the way his tongue moves against mine. Like we are going to stand here forever with our mouths melting together.
He pulls away slightly, my body still coming down from the high, and then touches me softly, rubbing his nose against my cheek.
“No filter. If I wasn’t driving away tomorrow and I didn’t live 1,723 miles away, what would you do about this,” I ask, even though I know the answer will be a curse on my heart no matter what.
His fingers trace the line of the chain around my neck before stopping at the ring in the center of my chest. He holds it in his hand and stares at it as my chest rises and falls with my breath.
His eyes meet mine, and there’s an unexpected turbulence in them. “Nothing,” he says, voice guarded as he drops the ring and takes a step back with a shrug. “If you weren’t leaving tomorrow, I wouldn’t do anything. It’s not who I am.”
His words dump over me like a bucket of ice-cold water. “Right.” My stupid heart crumbles. “Of course not.”
Ethan is a man who dates pretty women late at night. There would never be a future, even a hypothetical one, between someone like him and someone like me.
Even knowing that, he’s still shocked me.
I fumble to get the door open and force myself to smile, though my lips feel like lead. “Goodnight, Ethan. I’ll see you in the morning,” I say softly.
“Night, Nel.”
He shoves his hands into his pockets, taking another step back.
I close the door and press my back to it. The only sound is my heavy breathing and pounding heart in the darkness of the Avion.
The man who just gave me my first orgasm in over a year would never want anything more. I grab the ring in my hand and let every opposing feeling rip me apart as I slide down the door and land on the floor.
I don’t bother wiping the tears that fall next.