Chapter Eleven #2
Her mind screamed stop.
Her body whispered don’t you dare.
He lifted his head, eyes wild green, fever-bright.
“You’ll leave again,” she said. It wasn’t accusation—it was prophecy.
He shook his head once. “No. I can’t walk away. Not now.”
“This isn’t about saving me,” she threw back, voice breaking even as her legs slid wider, betraying her. “This is about you…your guilt…your fucking…issues—”
He swallowed the word with his mouth, cut it in half, and ground down again—slow, steady, devastating. Fabric against fabric. Heat against heat. The air left her lungs in a gasp.
The sound he made—half groan, half prayer—hit something deep in her. She hated how it felt.
How good he felt.
He pressed his forehead to hers, breath rough, words barely words. “Don’t mistake this,” he rasped. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you. That’s not negotiable.”
Her laugh cracked in half, turned into a moan. “All these years, and you think you get to—”
“I think I get to say I never stopped,” he snapped, temper rising, restraint gone. “I think I get to say it damn near killed me to leave you sitting on those steps at dawn, thinking I’d never see you again. Thinking you’d marry someone else.”
“I did marry someone else,” she shot back. Her throat closed around it. “And he hurt me.”
Everything froze.
Ethan’s breath stopped against her skin.
His eyes changed—gone from wildfire to ruin.
“Fuck,” he whispered, the word breaking apart in his mouth.
Ethan’s weight pressed her into the mattress, every heartbeat seeming to echo through his chest into hers.
He kissed her again—harder this time—like an apology he didn’t know how to speak.
The sound that left her wasn’t anger, wasn’t forgiveness.
It was surrender. She met him with tears, with tongue, with ten years of yes and no and not enough, hands dragging down his back to feel the pull of muscle, the honesty of heat.
He thrust harder, hand firm on her hip, the other sliding up her ribs to cage her there without even closing.
Even with clothes on, the sensation of him grinding against her aching pussy was rendering her helpless, aching, needing.
When he moved against her she felt the demand in it, the way he could make her world smaller until there was only the space between them.
She’d sworn she would never need that again, never let anyone this close, and yet she was reaching for him, drawn by the same pull that had wrecked her at eighteen.
She arched against him before she could stop herself, tank rumpled up between them, the thin cotton clinging where sweat had started to gather. Her breath stuttered when his palm found the bare skin at her waist, slid under, fingers splayed.
“You always did that,” he murmured.
“What?” she breathed.
“Hold your breath when I touched you here.” His thumb dragged across the slope of her stomach, slow as sin. “Like you were trying not to want it.”
She didn’t answer.
She couldn’t lie.
Because that was exactly what she was doing.
He shifted his weight, sliding down just enough to mouth along her collarbone—heat, teeth, tongue, reverent and rough. She let her head tip back. Her legs parted instinctively, breath catching when the hard line of him rocked against her again, still demanding, still devastating.
The pressure. The rhythm. Her body begged for what her brain tried to resist.
His mouth reached her breast—hidden behind fabric, but he didn’t care. He kissed it through the tank, breath hot, dragging his tongue over the peak until it hardened beneath the soaked cotton. She whimpered. Fisted her hands in the sheets to stop from pulling him closer.
He pulled back just enough for breath. “Say stop,” he rasped. “If you don’t, you listen to me.”
She could have. She should have. Instead she nodded, half-wild, throat too tight to speak.
His control was her undoing. He was measured where she was chaos, the steadiness she mistook for safety.
“Don’t lie to me,” he whispered. “You still want what I am.”
Her answer was a broken breath, half plea, half confession.
He kissed her again, slow and sure, and every wall she’d built over the last ten years gave way. What flooded in wasn’t peace—it was the dizzy, dangerous relief of finally giving up the fight.
When he drew back, both of them shaking, his forehead stayed pressed to hers. “You should hate me for this,” he said quietly.
“I already do,” she whispered. “And I still can’t stop.”
“Good. Now be a good girl.”
The command slid into her like a key. His mouth worked down her neck to her chest, lazy and devout, massaging and claiming her breasts in a way that made her gasp.
“You think I don’t know this body?” he rasped against her cleavage, lifting the hem of her shirt inch by inch. “You think I forgot what it sounds like when you break?”
“You’re not allowed to talk like that,” she gasped.
“I’ve never followed your rules, Amara.”
She hated the flush that rolled over her. Hated how alive she felt. How sharp the pleasure was because she shouldn’t be here. Because this wasn’t healing—it was relapse with a heartbeat and a jawline.
He pulled her shirt over her head. Tossed it aside. His eyes dropped, mouth parted.
“Fuck, you’re still unreal,” he whispered, reverent and wrecked.
Her arms instinctively moved to cover herself. He caught her wrists—gentle, but firm—and pinned them to the mattress. Hovered over her like a man barely keeping it together.
“Don’t hide,” he said.
“You left,” she whispered back. “You don’t get to worship me now.”
“I never stopped,” he said. And then— “Shorts,” he said. When she shifted, he slid his palm from her hip to the waistband, fingers inside the elastic but not moving. “Yes?”
“Yes.” Barely air.
He eased them down just enough to make her gasp and stop there, leaving her breathless with what he didn’t take.
“What about you?” she managed, moving her hands to his drawstring.
He hooked a thumb there, tugged once so the knot loosened and settled lower, teasing without giving. “My pace,” he said. “You know the drill.”
He kissed her again, deeper, until thought dissolved, his tongue meeting hers with broken promises.
His hips rolled with punishing precision—press, hold, retreat—building a rhythm that forced her to breathe with him.
When she tried to chase, he stilled her with a flex of his palm and a quiet, “No. Take it how I give it.”
“You’re going to break me,” she said softly.
He shifted just enough to look her in the eye. No smirk.
“Already did,” he said.
He drew her shorts down another inch and stopped again, letting the ache sharpen until she whimpered. Only then did he ease them lower, slow enough to be maddening, precise enough to be worship. He gazed intently as he unclothed her, like unwrapping a present he’d been wishing on for too long.
Her shorts finally off, he drew a line up her wet, aching pussy. She writhed in response, trying to open her thighs, but he was still bracketed around her.
“Damn, baby—needy?” He grinned, tracing her clit slowly.
She let out a desperate moan.
He played with her clit, hard enough to stir her, soft enough to make her chase. She did—hips lifting, a helpless grind against his hand that drew a low sound from his chest.
“Yeah,” he murmured against her lips, that rough, pleased sound. “There she is.”
It made her reckless. She slid her hands up his chest—hard lines, heat under skin—fingers catching the chain at his throat, skimming down again, hungry for more.
Her palm found the edge of his waistband and tugged harder.
He smiled into the kiss—slow, infuriating—like a man who loved watching her lose her composure.
“Ethan,” she whispered, broken on want.
“No,” he said, and held the kiss just out of reach until she arched for it. “This isn’t how this goes. Be good.”
He lifted her thighs, opening her legs to him, and settled back in between them. He slid two fingers inside her pussy, pumping where she wanted it. She twisted against the sheets—her breath stuttering, the tremble in her thigh where it brushed his.
“Words,” he said, watching her with wild eyes, voice gravel and heat. “Tell me what’s mine.”
She swallowed. Her voice shook. “Yours…yes.”
He exhaled like it hit something deep, something buried. “Good.”
His smile was slow, certain, and then he leaned in and gave her another kiss.
Then another. Each one lower, each one more deliberate.
Like he was peeling her away from herself one breath at a time.
He kissed down her throat, down her cleavage, her abdomen, and settled his mouth near her belly button, slowly kissing, tasting, and claiming every inch of her body.
“Again,” he said.
Her breath came faster. Her body, traitorous and aching, rose to meet his kiss. His hand never left her—back to stroking small, steady circles over her clit, each one a tether, alternating with pumping his fingers inside her aching pussy.
“Yours,” she gasped, the word slipping out on a whimper that made her flinch—because it was true. Because he knew it was.
“That’s it,” he murmured, his mouth sliding lower, brushing her clit now. He gripped her hips—to hold her down, hold her still. “Now stop fighting and feel what I’m doing to you.”
She tried. God, she tried.
He licked her clit—down her pussy, and back up again, slow and reverent. He treated her like she was his goddess, like she was precious, like he remembered every place she’d ever arched into him, every place she’d pulled away.
His lips and tongue were hot against her clit, finding a pace that made her moan. Heat climbed within her, threatening to throw her over the edge.
She reached for his hair. Not to pull him closer. To touch. To connect. She tangled her fingers in his strands, and he licked her pussy faster, harder.
And for once, this didn’t scare her. It unmade her.
Because it was him—and for one long, impossible heartbeat, she trusted him to hold the moment without breaking her heart.
“Ethan,” she moaned louder, half warning, half prayer.
“Baby,” he answered against her clit, that gravel catching.
With his tongue, his reverent strokes that made her arch, tiny helpless sounds betraying her.
He licked right down into the folds of her pussy, devouring, groaning about how much he missed this, until he hit the place that made her thighs shake, humming low when she shivered.
“That’s my girl,” he breathed. “Lose it with me.”
And she was—fast. Emotion hit hard, hot and messy.
She curled one hand in his hair, the other still braced above her, greedy for heat and muscle, and found the drag of his chain at the back of his neck, hard and edgy against her fingers.
She held on as he kept giving—mouth, hands, patience—until thought fizzed out and her body spoke for her.
He shook his head, gravel rough. “Take it, angel.”
She gasped. “I—God—please.”
“That’s it.”
She cried out his name, again and again, which he met with intensity.
His pace on her clit turned feral and proud. “Good girl.”
Heat flashed through her so bright she thought it might take her apart again.
“Let it go,” he told her, voice low and sure. “I’m right here. Been right here in my head for years. Missed this.” Licking harder. “All this.” Fingers pumping, curling to that spot inside her. “Missed the way you come for me.”
Her world narrowed to that voice and those hands. To the way he kept saying things like they were prayers and oaths.
“Look at me when you break— Good. Just like that— So damn hot when you let go…”
Every rumble cracked her open wider, and drove her far, far over the edge of orgasm. She gasped for air, somewhere between heaven and hell, her body shuddering.
Her limbs felt like smoke. Her body hummed. Her thoughts scattered, half-formed.
Ethan didn’t shift far. Just stretched alongside her, his weight a warm press against her side, one hand splayed over her bare stomach like he was holding her soul in place.
“Stay with me,” he murmured, voice rough but gentler than she’d ever heard it. “I need you here.”
“I’m here,” she whispered. Dizzy. Drenched in everything. Her fingers drifted into his hair, needing something to anchor to. “I’m—”
Her voice caught.
He kissed her again, brushing her lips like a vow. “Good,” he breathed. Another kiss, this one deeper. “So good.” Then quieter, aching, “God, I missed you.”
The words hit her in the chest. Sharp. Sudden. Unbearable.
She blinked fast. He must’ve felt it—how close she was to breaking—because he smiled against her mouth, softer now, and whispered, “I’m here.”
She let out a shaking breath and lifted her hand to his face, dragging her thumb along the scar at his jaw. He shivered. Just slightly.
“My turn,” she said, voice a rasped promise, already shifting over him.
She swung a leg across his hips and straddled him slowly, the sheet slipping low across her back.
For one suspended second she just looked—at all of him laid out beneath her like sin wrapped in sweat and muscle, chest rising slow, eyes dark with something too full to name.
She’d wanted this man. Ached for him. Fought herself for him.
And somehow, she still was.
He didn’t speak. Just reached for his wrist, undid the metal band of the old watch he always wore, and took her hand in his.
“Baby,” he said, quiet and sure. “Wear my watch.”
He fastened it around her wrist, the titanium cool on her hot skin. The band clicked into place. The weight settled.
“So we keep the same time.”
The words—simple, stupid, devastating—punched clean through her.
Her heart beat right under the ticking.
No ring. No promise. Just this. A man who never said enough, handing her the only thing he had left to give.
She leaned down and kissed him—deep, slow, grateful and greedy at once. Her palms skimmed over his chest, memorizing him like she might forget again. He grinned into it, that wicked curve he only gave when she was the one losing control.
“Baby,” he said again, tilting his chin up, wanting more. She went willingly—kissed him until her knees trembled, until his hand found her hip and held her still, until her name fell out of his mouth like a need.
And then—
Headlights swept the wall.
Both of them stilled.
A half-second later came the sound of tires on gravel. An engine idling down. Keys jangling. A car door.
The porch light blinked on, like the house itself startled.
Her stomach fell straight through the bed.
“Shit,” she breathed, eyes wide. “Mama.”