Chapter 43
OLIVIA
My stupid heart accelerated so fast it felt like I was pulling negative Gs. I was in big trouble. Ethan was just piling on the feelings now, until I was drowning in them.
He kneeled between my parted legs, and we made out for an embarrassingly long time.
I let it happen. It felt like we’d been apart for months and not just a week.
At one point, he grasped my waist and yanked me down so I was slumped in my seat and encouraged me to wrap my legs around him, our lower bodies pressed together.
His hands settled on my stomach, just below my breasts, and his thumbs lingered dangerously close, filling me with torturous anticipation. I should have cared that my potential future coworkers might see, but I was mindless with desire.
“Have I mentioned you make me crazy?” he said in a low, hurried voice when I shifted to get his hand where I wanted it, the warmth of his palm soaking through my thin sweater.
“Yeah, right back at you. You wouldn’t come home with me last night, and it’s been forever, Ethan.”
“I’m aware.” He nibbled on my ear, giving me delicious chills.
“Forever,” I groaned, moving my hips and grinding against him to momentarily satisfy the tension in my body, “and no use of my right hand.”
“Fucking hell.” His eyes went black and he kissed me roughly. Aggressively. It tasted like desire and lust, and I drank him in—
Abruptly, he pulled back . . . all the way back so he was in the chair across from me, his head in his hands and breathing heavy.
I straightened in my seat, suddenly cold in his absence. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re not the only people on this plane, and I can’t do any of the stuff I’d like to right now.”
I wanted to give him a winning smile, but the ache for him was getting unbearable. It had nothing to do with him throwing the word love around.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
Under his intense gaze, I worried that he was seeing what I could not.
His phone chimed, and when he glanced at the screen, he looked thrilled.
“What?” I asked.
He passed it to me. It was a series of pictures from Shawn and Kara’s wedding. The last image was me and Ethan on the dance floor, his head bent to mine, his lips delivering that nuclear kiss.
I swallowed thickly. We looked very much in love. And like the moment I’d seen the giraffe in Africa, the words spilled from my mouth without thought. “God, that’s beautiful.”
His head tilted, his smile deepening. “You think so? I agree.”
When we landed, I peered out the window and realized I had no idea where in Kentucky we were. The airport was much too small to be Louisville. “Where are we?”
“Owensboro.” I skewed my lips to the side to let him know that didn’t help, so he added, “Western Kentucky.”
The cabin door was opened, we slipped on our coats, then descended the stairs to the tarmac. It was warmer than I’d expected, but it was also a bright, sunny day. Ethan pulled our bags from the cargo hold, and I let him because I only had one good hand and it’d be faster that way.
I pressed my cast to my forehead, using it to shield my eyes from the sun, and spied a woman waving to us from the parking lot just beyond the fence.
“Someone you know?” I teased.
He glanced over. “My sister,” he said. “Natalie.”
I grabbed the handle of my bag and followed him as he began to move toward the gate. “You’re related to that tiny woman?”
“I can hear you,” she said, grinning. “I’m normal-sized. He’s the giant.”
Once we were past the fence, she threw her arms around her big brother in a hug that was so energetic, it nearly knocked him sideways.
Natalie was two and half years younger than Ethan, so she was either thirty-two or thirty-three. Pretty. Fit. She had warm honey highlights in her hair and lighter brown eyes than his, more like the color of maple syrup.
When the hug ended, she turned her focus to me, and her eyes lit with an emotion I struggled to place. Excitement? Disbelief? She looked at me like I might not be real. How many women had he brought home to the family before?
His sister made it seem like none.
When I extended my hand for a handshake, she flashed a look that said I was silly and pulled me in for a tight hug.
“Bless your heart.” She motioned to the cast on my wrist. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story, and one I don’t want to repeat,” he said, “so I’ll tell it when we get to Mom and Dad’s.”
We loaded our luggage and piled into her mini-van.
He sat up front, pushing the passenger seat back as far as it would go so there was room for his legs.
I tucked into the back seat beside a child’s booster seat, my feet resting on the floor littered with fruit snack wrappers.
The CIA operative’s sister was a high school math teacher and mother of two.
We’d just begun the drive when she asked Ethan something in a language that sounded vaguely Italian, but I knew it wasn’t.
“Is that Croatian?”
“Yeah,” he said.
He answered her, and whatever he said, she found it amusing.
“How about English?” As much as I liked hearing him speak other languages, I didn’t want to be left out of the conversation.
“She told me you’re very pretty.”
I chuckled. “You know I can tell you’re lying, even when it’s in other languages.”
Natalie glanced at her brother to deliver an epic grin. “Oh, I like her.”
I sat in the queen-sized bed of the guest room, his mother’s beautiful handmade quilt gathered around me, and I glared at the morning light pouring in through the open blinds.
Apparently, the spy’s parents were conservative and rather strict about our sleeping arrangements, and I was sure Ethan was serious when he’d told me to get my stuff together because we were going to a hotel.
That hadn’t gone over so well with Randall and Hana Foster.
In fact, after I’d talked Ethan into staying, he’d lingered in my room last night and a floorboard creaked, revealing his dad’s position outside the door.
“I am thirty-five goddamn years old,” Ethan had declared loudly.
“Don’t say goddamn in my goddamn house,” Randall had answered back.
We’d had dinner with the entire family last night, including Natalie’s adorable and rambunctious children who talked non-stop through the meal.
When it was over, Hana set them loose in the basement and we adults finished our wine in the sunroom overlooking the Ohio River that snaked below.
In the distance, a blue iron bridge crossed the river, twinkling in Christmas colors.
Ethan gave his family an extremely edited version of the events. They knew he was CIA and worked in Europe, and little else. They hardly ever saw him, and their support of his work was impressive. He’d sacrificed his personal life for the job, and they had sacrificed right along with him.
He hadn’t been home for Christmas in at least five years, and I wondered if that was why his mother had gone all out with the decorations. But maybe the enormous tree and the glittering garland that hung from every banister was typical for the Fosters.
This morning, I allowed myself a moment of selfishness and regretted not going to the hotel.
It had been a millennium since I’d truly been with him, and every inch of me craved that.
I missed his touch. I missed everything about him, and I knew if I called for him, he’d do everything he could to get to me.
Did he know the same was true of me? If he called for me, I’d come running.
Then, without calling for him, the door to the guest room burst open and Ethan flew in, determination fixed in his intense eyes.
“This is unacceptable. Get dressed, we’re going out.”
No hello, or good morning . . . nothing.
These were orders from him, and I made sure my displeasure was clear. His expression adjusted and filled with need.
“I’m sorry I didn’t knock,” he said. “Good morning. Please, for the love of God, put on some clothes so I can take you somewhere where I can take those clothes back off.”
Yes. I scrambled out of bed, just as eager as he was, but he gave a sudden noise of satisfaction that made me pause. His gaze was on the oversized white undershirt I was wearing.
His shirt.
My voice was tight. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” he said. “I thought you liked the way I look at you.”
I reached for the pair of jeans I’d discarded last night on a chair. “I do, but not when you’re being all smug about it, like you’ve just won some battle.”
“Get used to it.” His smile was infuriating and sexy. “You think you’re not in love with me? I’ll be accepting your surrender by lunchtime.”