Chapter 3 #3
His steely blue gaze found mine when he said, “It’s not easier for me, Millie.
You have no idea how you’re affecting me right now.
I can feel you in my blood. Taste you on my tongue.
If you weren’t my best friend’s daughter…
” he didn’t finish his statement and just let it hang there tensely between us.
Electricity blitzed through my body. Was Ethan saying what I thought he was?
That he was turned on by me? That he lusted after me in a way that I’d been lusting after him for years?
I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but if there was a chance, I’d be willing to take it just to feel those large, calloused hands all over me just once.
We drove in tangible silence for a bit before I noticed we’d missed the exit for my apartment. “That was my exit,” I anxiously informed Ethan.
“I know,” he returned, making no attempts to rectify the gaffe.
“You can get off this next exit,” I told him, wanting nothing more than to get home and take a long, hot shower so that I could cleanse my skin of the filth of this night.
When Ethan once again blew by the next exit, I gave him a hot glare.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, my dream of a steaming hot shower evaporating before my very eyes.
“I’m taking you home,” Ethan replied, as he accelerated even faster, instead of slowing down for the third and final exit that would take us back to my apartment.
“My home is back at exit twenty-five in Havendish,” I reminded him, as he happily motored in the wrong direction. “We’ll have to back track a little, but if you get into the right lane right now, and take Buchanon to Havendish, it won’t be that far out of our way.”
Ignoring my advice, Ethan did not get into the right lane, nor did he take exit twenty-eight. “I’m talking about your new home,” he spoke, brooking no arguments. “You’ll be staying with me until we figure out a way to keep you safe.”
Were we talking about my “fertility” smell again?
Good lord, this was insane. I’d been fertile for quite a few years now, and I’d never been attacked like I was tonight.
Despite what Ethan said, I wasn’t a ware.
Garrett was an anomaly. A freak who liked to hurt women.
I wasn’t some honey trap that needed to be protected.
This wasn’t Alaska. I was safe in Montana.
None of the Tupilaq pack even knew I lived here.
If they had, surely they would have attacked before now.
“I’ve been taking care of myself just fine before you came along, Ethan,” I countered, this particular night notwithstanding. “I know you and my dad were close, but I’m not your responsibility. You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” Ethan asked befuddled.
“Take care of me. Bring me to your home like some lost, stray puppy. I appreciate everything you did for me tonight. I really do. Garrett was a monster and if you hadn’t showed up when you did, I’m not sure what would have happened.
But I can’t just give up my life and come live like some freeloading dependent at your house.
I don’t want to be that way with you,” I ended, looking away so he couldn’t see the hurt in my eyes.
“You think I want to treat you like my daughter?” He posed, his eyes becoming unfocused and distant. “That’s not what I’m doing, Millie. I promise you.”
No? Then what was this? Did Ethan see me as an equal? Or something more?
We drove for a few miles down the highway before Ethan turned off an exit I was unfamiliar with.
“What’s your girlfriend going to say when she finds out that you’re keeping your best friend’s daughter in your home for the foreseeable future?” I posed, angling for some information about the man’s private, social life.
“That’s not going to be a problem,” Ethan answered. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
I tried not to let that fact run happily away with my imagination.
Just because he wasn’t seeing anyone, didn’t mean he wanted to start seeing me.
Fertile scent or not, Ethan probably would always see me as my father’s little “princess”.
Not exactly a promising start when it came to significant others.
“Why not?” I found myself asking then. “I mean, it’s not like you’re unfortunate looking or anything.”
Ethan’s smirked and his gaze flicked for a second in my direction, then back to the dark road in front of us. “I can’t tell most women that I’m a shifter, and I don’t want to lie to someone about who I am. It’s not how I want to live my life.”
I couldn’t help but feel that comment came from a place of experience. “You don’t want a relationship with a human then?” I posed, feeling like my balloon of hope where he and I were concerned was deflating by the second.
Ethan might believe I was a ware, but I knew differently. I was a human woman. Sooner or later, he’d find out I wasn’t like him and that he’d never be able to trust me like he did one of his true pack members. That fact saddened me to the core.
“I’ve dated human women in the past,” he answered earnestly, “but it never works out long term because I can’t share my life with them like I want to. I always have to hold back and hide a piece of myself in the dark. To pretend to be something I’m not, less than I am.”
“I can understand that,” I sadly returned. Needing to change the subject, which was getting way too heavy for my liking, I said, “So tell me about your place. If I’m going to be staying there for a few days, I should know where it is and what I can do there.”
This question visibly cheered up my companion.
“I built a log cabin in the woods a few years after I moved to Montanna. There’s a lot to do there.
You can hike and enjoy the beautiful scenery and solitude.
There’s a swimming hole that you can swim in when the weather turns warm.
There’s even a sizable library lined with my favorite books.
If that doesn’t appeal to you, I have access to satellite TV with unlimited channels and a fully equipped gym. ”
“You built the place all by yourself?” I asked, in awe of the man even more than I already was.
“Not all of it,” he clarified humbly. “I subcontracted some of the stuff, like the electrical work. But the rest, yeah, I built it.”
Wow! I’d never even built a bookshelf, let alone an entire library and the house it was installed in. “Where did you learn that?”
“I apprenticed with the head of the group home when I was in my teens,” Ethan said.
“When I first got there, I was really young and didn’t feel like I belonged.
Laurence was an amazing carpenter and a jack of all trades.
When he saw how interested in carpentry I was, he kindly allowed me to learn alongside him.
Exactly what I needed when my world had been upturned.
Not only did he make me feel like family, Laurence taught me more about the trade than any school ever could have. ”
That was so sad. My heart ached for Ethan, being on his own after some family tragedy.
I might have lost my mom, but I’d always had my dad.
Growing up with one parent wasn’t easy, but it didn’t compare to the trauma of losing both parents and being thrust into the arms of complete strangers.
I wanted to ask Ethan how he’d lost his parents, but I didn’t want to dredge up bad memories and old wounds just to satisfy my curiosity.
Instead, I stayed with a safer line of questioning.
“Is that what you do for work now? Are you a carpenter?” I don’t think my dad had ever told me, and of course, I’d never asked.
“Carpentry is a passion of mine, not my profession. I’m actually in finance,” Ethan said, as we veered off what appeared to be an ATV path, but was actually a small, private, dirt road.
As built as he was, I’d have guessed Ethan worked outdoors all day long. Maybe his physique was a shifter thing. Or, maybe, just a hot-as-fuck Ethan sort of thing. The man had always looked absolutely heavenly to me. The few years we’d been apart hadn’t changed that at all.
This deep in the woods, without any lights from the city, it was obscenely dark. I’m talking pitch black. There were a million stars out, making the night sky look magical and distant compared to our lonely and desolate surroundings. Kind of like I felt, right about now.
“Are you hungry?” Ethan unexpectedly asked then.
To my surprise, I realized that I was. Ravenous, actually. “I definitely could eat. I skipped dinner earlier because Charlotte and I were already running late to meet up with her cousin.”
“You can’t do that,” Ethan lectured then. “Skip meals, I mean,” he clarified. “As a shifter, your body is going to require a lot of additional calories. If you don’t eat a lot, and often, you’re going to start dropping too much weight.”
I chuckled and patted my thick-ish thighs. “I’m not worried about losing a few pounds. I have plenty to spare.”
Ethan shook his head. “You look exactly how a woman should, and nobody better be telling you otherwise,” he returned with some real force behind his words.
His flattery warmed me all over. Ethan thought I looked good. Just like “a woman should”. That was nice to hear from anyone, but from someone I’d been drooling over for years, it was my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one perfectly gift-wrapped package.
Smiling to myself in the dark, I asked, “So what are we going to eat? I don’t see any takeout places around here.”
Ethan ruminated on my question. “What are you in the mood for?”
I suddenly had a hankering for a rare steak. Someone might falsely attribute that to my being a ware, but I knew better. I just loved steak, bloody and practically still mooing. Had all my life.
“Got any steaks?” I posed, thinking that would be divine with a tall glass of red wine.
It was Ethan’s turn to smile then. “Yeah, I got a few of those in the fridge. How do you like yours cooked?”
“Rare,” I admitted, waiting for him to tease me about it. But, to my relief, he didn’t.