Chapter 30 Leni
Leni
“I’m sorry, can you please repeat that?” Willow’s eyes are practically bugging out of her head over FaceTime.
“Shh!” I cast a glance over my shoulder to make sure Ethan’s bedroom door is still closed. “I don’t need the whole house hearing you.”
After I came upstairs, I tried to distract myself by reading the copy of War and Peace on Ethan’s bedside table, but it’s hard to concentrate on Tolstoy when your ex-boyfriend is having it out with your current boyfriend—who also happens to be his dad.
I read ten pages before realising I’d taken zero of it in, then tossed the book on the bed and started pacing.
When my anxiety started kicking in, I tried to ground myself with some yoga, but that didn’t work either.
Eventually, despite it only being five-thirty in the morning in the UK, I phoned Willow.
Thankfully, Luca’s at an away game, so I was able to confide in her about everything that has been happening with Ethan and Dylan.
“Sorry,” she squeaks, “but I’m sure I just heard you say you’ve been sleeping with Coach Rourke, as in Dylan’s dad, as in a professor at Beckford U.”
“You heard correctly,” I say with a sheepish grin.
“What the heck! How did this happen?”
“So, it turns out Ethan was Watch Me Watch You.”
“Ethan?” She fans her face with her hand. “Oh my gosh, Leni, this is way too much to take in this early in the morning.”
“Says the girl who moved to the other side of the world with her stepbrother,” I tease.
A blush spreads over her cheeks. “Right, sorry. But he’s Dylan’s dad. Does he know what happened to you back in high school?”
Swallowing, I nod. “He knows.”
Willow leans back against her pillows, the soft morning light filtering into her bedroom as I fill her in on everything that’s happened since she left Beckford. She listens without interrupting, her face full of sympathy when I recount what it was like confronting Dylan after what he did to me.
“That sounds like a lot,” she says gently after I finish. “But I’m really proud of you for being honest and telling him how you feel.”
“It was really nerve-wracking,” I confess. “Especially with his mother hovering there. I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“Well, you have slept with her son and her ex-husband,” Willow says, amusement coating her tone.
I groan. “Too soon.”
“Sorry.” She rolls over in her bed, taking the phone with her. “So, what now?”
“I guess I’ll have to see what happened with Dylan after they leave.”
“But you really like him?”
A smile tugs on my lips, and I nod. “I really, really like him.”
She grins. “I can’t believe you’re dating a professor.”
“I can’t believe you’re dating your stepbrother,” I shoot back, poking my tongue out at her. “How’s all that going, anyway?”
Willow’s face lights up, and it fills me with so much warmth. She tells me all about their life in the little village of Hurworth-on-Tees and how hard Luca’s been working. I love seeing her so happy. She deserves it, and I’m slowly starting to believe I do, too.
“I miss you,” I say with a sigh.
“Me too. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch since we left. It’s been crazy getting set up in our new place, finding our way around, and trying to get all my final assessments in.”
“That’s okay. I’ve been pretty busy with school myself.”
My best friend laughs. “And sneaking around with your sexy professor. I can’t believe you had sex in his office. That’s so hot.”
A throat clearing behind me makes me startle, and I fall off the bed, crashing to the carpeted floor with a loud thud and a muffled curse.
“Leni?” I hear Willow call out from where I dropped my phone. “What the hell happ—Oh shit. Hi, Coach Rourke.”
I glance sheepishly at Ethan who’s standing above me half-amused, half-concerned.
He offers me his hand, helping me back to my feet.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I mumble, warmth spreading over my cheeks.
He bends and picks up my phone, nodding a greeting to my best friend, whose eyes are bugging out of her head now. I guess hearing about him and seeing him are two completely different things. “Willow, I presume?”
“Uh-huh,” she stutters.
“How’s Luca going over there in the big leagues?”
“G-good. Really good.”
“Tell him we’re all rooting for him to do well.”
“Thanks, I will.”
He passes the phone back to me, and I swallow, forcing my gaze back to the screen. “I’ll talk to you soon, Wil. Miss you.”
“Miss you, too. Bye.”
Tossing my phone onto the bed, I meet his whiskey eyes. “How much of that did you hear?”
His lips tug into a smirk as he wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into him. My core throbs as it presses against the growing bulge in his pants. “Enough.”
I groan, resting my head on his chest. “Kill me now.”
His laughter settles around me like a warm hug. “I can think of better things I’d rather do to you, little devil.” He dips his head to nip at the soft skin beneath my ear. “All I can think about right now is how good you looked spread out on my desk.”
I bite down on my lip to suppress a moan. “Shouldn’t we talk?” My words come out in a breathy whisper. I’m too distracted by the trail his mouth and tongue are taking while his fingers skate across my stomach under my hoodie.
“We’ve got plenty of time to talk.”
“Mmhmm,” I hum, my eyes fluttering closed as his hand breaches my leggings. “Plenty of time.”
As I lie naked in Ethan’s arms, his fingers skating over my spine, I know we have to face the elephant in the room—his son.
“Is this weird for you?” I ask.
“Hmm?” Ethan’s reply is sleepy.
“Being with me with all the history between me and Dylan… and whatever he’s going through now?”
My stomach churns as I wait for him to answer. He’s quiet, mulling over my question.
“I hate what he did to you, and I will never condone his behaviour, but he’ll always be my son, and I want to help him be a better person. Are you okay with that? I don’t want to hurt you any more than he already has.”
I nod, resting my chin on his chest so I can meet his gaze. “I never wanted to come between the two of you.”
He presses a kiss to the tip of my nose. “You haven’t, and you won’t. I’m not going to lie and tell you it will be easy, but I’ve spent my life sacrificing what I want for everyone else, and I’m not doing that this time. I want to be selfish with you.”
My heart skips a beat. I’ve never been anyone’s first choice.
My dad left me, my mum blamed me, and Dylan stole my innocence to impress his mates.
Hell, even I didn’t put myself first, hiding behind the window in the voyeur room and only pursuing men I knew would never be the real thing…
until Ethan. I know it’s ironic that it’s Dylan’s dad who has shown me I deserve more.
But I’m done with caring what other people think.
I deserve to be seen for who I really am, scars and all, and I’m ready to shed the mask.
“I want to be selfish with you, too,” I tell him. “I love you.”
His grin lights up his face, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I love you.”
Ethan cups my cheek and leans in to kiss me, but I pull back needing to say this before he distracts me.
“I’m graduating soon.”
Pride sparkles in his whiskey eyes. “You are.”
Releasing a shaky breath, I run my fingers over his full lips. “I want to celebrate with my boyfriend. I don’t want to hide anymore.”
To my surprise, he doesn’t shut down the idea straight away, instead asking, “Are you sure?”
I nod. “Will it get us into any trouble?”
He frowns, considering my question. “Not really. I mean, the university won’t be happy about it, but it’s not a fireable offence, even if I hadn’t already handed in my resignation.
I’m not technically your professor, so it won’t affect you graduating.
Technically, I should have advised them of our relationship the moment it started—”
“Could we fudge the dates?” I ask. “Tell them it only just started.”
He chuckles. “You want to lie for me, little devil?”
I shake my head. “It wouldn’t really be a lie. We only became official yesterday. No one needs to know anything else.”
“You mean we don’t have to admit to fucking on my desk?” he asks, amusement coating his tone.
“Couch Rourke!” I gasp in mock outrage. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
His laughter is infectious as he rolls us, leaning his weight on his muscled forearms as he kisses me deep, his hard cock resting heavy against my core between us, causing me to moan.
“If you want to go public, Leni, then we can do that,” he murmurs against my lips, “but don’t feel like we have to. You spent your final years of high school in the spotlight because of Dylan. I don’t want you to go through the same in your final month of university.”
I smile, rubbing my nose against his. “It won’t be so bad. Apart from all the girls who’ll be jealous that I made the sexiest professor on campus fall in love with me.”
“That you did, baby. That you did.” He shifts, sinking inside me slowly, fitting inside me like a missing puzzle piece.