Chapter 31 #2
“No. Just like I didn’t want you that night you kissed me in South Africa.” There was a sound of metal unzipping, and rustling as his pants dropped.
I smiled at the memory. His hands were on my waist then, and one of them slipped inside the back of my panties, squeezing me against him.
“Got your attention, didn’t I?”
His breath was hot in my ear. “You’ve always had it.”
That one wasn’t a lie.
He lifted me in his arms so I could wrap my legs around his waist, his taut abs against the inside of my thighs. He strolled to the bed, taking a knee and laying me down beneath him, my back against the sheets.
I ghosted my fingertips across the map of scars on his chest. Germany, he’d said about the one near his waist. Oh, God. Was this one the result of the knife he’d taken for Kara?
When he slanted his lips over mine, the thought was abandoned. His kiss drifted over my jaw, to my ear, the heat of it giving me a pleasurable shiver.
He pressed up on his arms, staring down at me and putting moonlight between us. “Do you want me to tell you my secrets, Olivia?”
“No,” I lied. “Not the slightest bit.”
His mouth twisted into a wicked smile as I lifted my hips and let him peel the lacy underwear away. He stared at my nakedness, and his obsidian eyes heated to a temperature that could melt steel. “My jacket’s all the way over on the floor. Do you have a con—”
“No,” I said, kicking off a shoe.
“Where?”
“Definitely not in that drawer.”
I gestured to the nightstand and kicked off my other high heel.
He reached out with one of his long arms and opened the drawer, finding the box of condoms I’d felt foolish buying earlier this week.
While he opened it and tore one of the packets off the strip, my hands massaged him through the thin cotton that was all that stood between us.
His deep, satisfied moan snaked heat through my veins.
The question formed in my mind, and I asked it before realizing how truly scary it was. “Am I going to wake up alone tomorrow?”
“Yes,” he all but growled. “Almost anything could get me out of this bed.”
He pulled down his boxers and tore open the wrapper.
Bathed in white moonlight, I watched him roll the condom on, and as soon as it was done, he came back to me.
His mouth claimed mine in a passionate kiss, not dominating or aggressive, but the one that made me tumble out of control.
The nuclear one that had now become my favorite.
“Choose your lies wisely,” he whispered. “You’ve only got two left, and I’m going to start asking the hard questions now.”
“Oh, the hard ones?” I gripped him fiercely, and he moaned.
“Fuck, you make me crazy.” He pulled my hands away, placing them on his shoulders as he positioned himself between my legs.
“Yeah? Right back at you—”
He slid inside me in one thrust, stealing my breath. He held still, letting me accommodate his size, and then, movement. Slow, unhurried, and so unbelievably good I was ready to explode.
“Why don’t you do relationships?”
No, this again? I wrapped my arms tight behind his neck. “Come on.”
Breaking away from my strong hold was easy for him.
He rose up on his arms, distributing his weight so he could find my knee and slip his fingers beneath the band of lace just above it.
“You know, I wanted you to keep these on. Such a shame.” He eased it down below my knee. “You can do the rest. I’m busy.”
He gave a deep, toe-curling thrust.
I gasped and my eyes threatened to roll back into my head. The effect of him was overwhelming. I felt delirious. My hand left his shoulder and yanked the rest of the stocking down, flinging the silk off.
“What is it? Baggage from some asshole in the past?” He kissed me, and it tasted like encouragement. Or persuasion. It was getting hard to think.
“No.” I wished it were that simple. That would be easier to deal with and get over. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why don’t you do relationships, Olivia?” His lips moved along my throat.
“Please.” I despised how weak my voice sounded.
Beneath me, the mattress sank as his knees shifted closer. It was so he could rise all the way up but stay connected to me and strip the last lie from my body.
“Ethan, don’t.” My frustration was red-hot and it threatened to bubble over, but beneath it lurked another emotion. A scary one he somehow knew I buried inside myself, because maybe he felt the same way. There was a desperation to put it into words, share it, and for once to not feel so alone.
“Tell me,” he half-demanded, half-pleaded. He moved inside me, and my traitorous body responded. I couldn’t talk like this, but dear God, I didn’t want him to stop either. “Tell me,” he said again, chanting it back to me like our first time under the mosquito netting.
“I killed those men on the mountain.”
He slowed to a stop. The only sound was our heavy breathing.
Then, he spoke. “You feel guilty about that? Shit, it was you or them.”
“No,” I snapped. “I know that. But since that night, something’s wrong with me. My heart doesn’t work like it’s supposed to. It’s just cold.” The words wouldn’t stop coming. “It’s empty. I don’t feel anything below the surface, like I’m not even alive.”
He took an enormous breath, his gaze unblinking. When I tried to slip away, he seized my waist. “Wait a minute.”
I was shaking, verging on overload. “For what?”
“What you said in the office. What you accused me of doing to you.”
My heartbeat came to a grinding halt.
“You said that I made you . . . feel different.” He shifted back over me, crushing his body to mine. There was no air left to breathe, nowhere else to look. He cupped a hand to my cheek. “Do you feel alive when we’re doing this?”
His nuclear kiss restarted my heart. Holy hell, I did, but only a fraction of that made it into my confession. “Yeah. I do.”
“Good. Me, too.” He pushed a lock of my hair out of his way. “So, let’s keep doing it.”
His warm skin was on mine, his mouth urgent and persistent, and the anger evaporated.
“Yes,” I cried when he began to move again, his steady rhythm building.
Desire poured through me, flowing everywhere and sweeping me away.
My ankles crossed behind his back. Fingernails coursed down his skin, digging in to his thick muscles, trying to get him closer.
I’d give him whatever he wanted, anything, as long as he didn’t stop. Maybe even my broken, useless heart.
Ethan had one hand under me, holding me in place as he drove into me, powerful and deep, each movement better than the last. His wet tongue stroked mine, sending a jolt of pleasure to my center.
Fuck, the things he could do with that tongue.
“I make you feel alive,” he said. His arrogant smile was sexy.
“Don’t be so fucking smug about it.”
I used his amusement to initiate a roll, getting him to turn onto his back. His jaw tightened like he was in pain.
“What is it?” I asked, sitting up on him.
“I’m going to last all of fifteen seconds like this,” he muttered, his hands fumbling for my breasts.
Oh. I smiled and covered his hands with mine. “Let’s make them count, then.”
I ground my hips into him, arching my back, and moaned at the sensation of having him this way. The hands beneath mine tensed.
“Slow. You’re gonna . . . ” he said, breathless.
I kept moving, faster and faster. Waves of pleasure shot up my spine, flowing outward as I drew closer to ecstasy.
Concern crept into his eyes. “Wait.”
No way. My heart was racing, my body aching for release, every last inch of me wanted him to give what only he could. These strange feelings, being out of control, it was so good. And . . . oh, God . . .
“Goddammit,” he moaned.
He wrapped his rough hand around the back of my neck and pulled me down to his mouth while his other hand latched on to my hip, guiding me to an even faster pace. We’d both crossed the point of no return.
“Olivia,” he groaned, his body tensing beneath and inside mine. My hands were splayed on his chest, and as he came, his heart pounded as if it wanted to break free from his body. The pulsing inside me, his reaction to me, it all sent me soaring.
Everything went dark and then light. Cold faded to warmth, and I didn’t feel quite so alone in that moment. It was a new kind of pleasure.
Connection.
My body collapsed on his heaving, sweaty chest. As I struggled to catch my breath, I noticed his head was tilted at an odd angle, and my aching hand revealed the reason. I’d grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head sideways during my orgasm. It had to have been painful.
I let go immediately. “Oh, God, sorry.”
He flashed a lazy smile. “For manhandling me? I don’t mind.”
When my legs started working again, I rolled off him and stared up at the sky through the window. The panic that had gripped me in the home office didn’t make an appearance, but I wondered if maybe it was just dormant. Waiting for the best moment to strike.
The bed shifted when he stood, and it was followed by an enormous bang.
“Fucking hell,” he said, rubbing the top of his head where he’d hit the low ceiling.
He went to the bathroom and reappeared a few moments later, his gaze wary of the ceiling when he climbed back into bed beside me.
“Did anyone ever tell you,” I asked, sliding under the covers, “that you’re freakishly tall?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’d better watch it.”
“Or what? You don’t scare me.”
Even though the bed was big, he eased up against me. His fingers skimmed across my stomach, lightly tickling me and making me squirm.
“Liar. I scare the hell out of you.”
And the wildest part was I was starting to like it.