Audrey forced herself to breathe and then reapplied her deodorant. A few minutes later she stared into Ethan’s glittering eyes at the bottom of the stairs. Her pulse skipped.
God, please keep that look in your eyes. Don’t let it fade when you see me.
****
“How’d it go with the Davises?” Myrna asked as she stepped in from the kitchen. Paul approached from the back hallway and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms as he waited.
Ethan couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Her skin glowed and hair haloed like an angel from the ceiling light behind her. But what kept him the most entranced were her eyes. Hungry, determined, and yet tinged with dark blue tension. A woman with that many emotions running through her was bound to erupt with passion in a way he’d never thought possible.
But she’d just been through hell not three hours before. And he was anxious to know her response just as much as her parents.
Audrey set her bags next to the staircase and brushed her hair back with her hand. “They said exactly what I needed to hear.” She smiled. “The truth.”
Without a word, Myrna stepped forward and hugged her daughter, not wiping her tears until she stepped back. But Audrey’s father continued to stand in the hallway, fidgeting with an awkward grimace.
“I’ll help take your bags to the car,” he broke in, gripping the luggage handles and pushing through the door.
“If you can make the drive,” Audrey redirected to her mother. “Please come to the fundraiser. It would mean a lot.”
“Oh sweetie,” she sighed, squeezing her daughter’s hand. “I’m sure it’s gonna be lovely. But your father has to work and you know him. He’ll crash in front of the football game when he gets home. But I’ll be thinkin’ about you.”
Audrey kissed her mother on the cheek with a half smile and stepped out.
“Don’t wait too long to come home again, hon,” Myrna called from the porch.
Paul shut the trunk and faced Ethan, scowl firmly in place once again. “Ethan, good to meet you. Safe drive back.”
The curt words were said along with a tight grip, his eyes holding Ethan’s for an additional second. The stare serious as a jail sentence:
Hurt my daughter, and I’ve got an entire box of ammo with your name on it.
Ethan nodded. “See you soon.”
Really? Wow…first time I’ve said that to a woman’s father.
“Hope not,” Paul replied dryly.
Ethan walked around the car, and opened the passenger door. He tried to pretend he didn’t hear Paul’s words to Audrey, but he stopped anyway, watching him through the rear window.
“You’ve…done really well, Audrey. Better than I thought you would.” His voice broke, which he covered with a cough and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You need to stay where you’re appreciated. Keep away from here as long as you can.”
Hard ass with no heart,
Ethan growled to himself
.
True, it was his version of keeping his child safe, but all Audrey wanted was some sign of affection from her father. After everything she’d been through, he still couldn’t give her that much.
Though he couldn’t see Audrey’s face, he hoped she wasn’t crying. That kind of rejection would have made any adult blubber like a toddler. Audrey leaned forward, kissed her father’s cheek and gave him a one-armed hug.
Finally, Paul hugged her back with one quick squeeze and stepped back, clearing his throat as he looked away.
A minute later, Audrey steered through the back roads of Mackineer and accelerated when she hit the highway. She’d only looked in the rearview mirror once as they pulled out of the driveway, and the corner of her mouth lifted into a cute smile. Like an inside joke. Or the confirmation she needed to feel loved.
This woman deserved a lot more than that to feel loved.
I’m going to make sure she feels it. I’ll make that small half smile the size of the Atlantic, and move her just as deeply.
The road sign for Dallas zoomed past his window, ninety-nine miles.
He stared hard at Audrey’s profile, the smooth skin, adorable freckles along her nose, and long, dark lashes, and he tried to control the heat filtering into his groin.
I’ll pay every speeding ticket wearing a huge ass smile in my birthday suit if she gets us there in less than an hour.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Fifty-five minutes later, Audrey closed her front door behind Ethan and set her bags down on the wood floor. Before she could verify the time on the kitchen clock, Ethan dropped his duffel bag and moved to her, smoothly pushing her against the wall and covering her mouth with his own.
He tasted like toothpaste, the fresh, sweet kind. Like the flavor she could eat straight from the tube when she was a kid. But it was his warm cologne that flooded over her most, like a drug that relieved every pain in her body and replaced it with the warmest ache fuzzier than any blanket fresh from the dryer. His soft lips were hungry on hers, demanding and giving simultaneously. His hands moved in tandem along her neck and into her hair, burying his fist at her nape. He massaged her neck and moved along her shoulders, down her arms and to her waist, squeezing every ample mound of flesh.
Her own hands savored each muscle he flexed. She loved how they twitched at her touch, anticipating her fingers and what they’d do next. Grabbing the bottom of his shirt, she yanked it up over his head. He flung the fabric over his shoulder.
Wide shoulders.
The groan from her diaphragm trickled up her throat. The light curls of his chest hair didn’t detract from the smoothness of his skin as she spread her fingers across them and along his collarbone. Further down was his flat stomach, all the way to his “innie” belly button, just above the hem of his briefs. The abs weren’t defined on the surface, but as she traced her hands across them, she felt them flex and quiver, strong and tight.
Their lips parted and his breath was shallow and hard, quickening at the touch of her hands.
The rock-hard length of him pressed against her waist. Were there no clothes between them she was sure she could feel it pulse with heat. Their lips joined again, feverish and plunging. In the next moment, he’d unzipped her jeans and slid them down her thighs, letting his hands linger over her lace thong. Audrey kicked off her shoes and stepped out of her jeans, moving her lips along his jaw.
A second later, he’d stripped off her sweater and devoured her neck in wet kisses.
Her pulse raced.
Suffocation by passion was a good way to go,
she managed to think, until Ethan held her breasts, kneading and strong, and all thought vanished. His mouth took the place of his fingers over her brown lace bra and Audrey watched him love on her nipples through the fabric.
Everything ached. The best kind of ache. And the white fire spread to her legs until she ground against him.
Let this last…
His hands froze as Audrey heard him gasp. “Good God, Audrey…is this from the accident?”
Her eyes opened wide and saw the trauma in the lines of his forehead.
Oh God…this is it. Where he runs away in disgust. Refuses to touch me thinking he’ll contract a disease.
Fear strangled her words, so she nodded.
Shock morphed into sympathy in one breath and his fingers traced over the white spider web of scars. Tender, barely any pressure—like feeling the texture of a Monet he wasn’t supposed to touch.
“Does it hurt?” he asked softer.
Audrey shook her head.
Breathe, Audrey.
The first time anyone saw her scars in full, aside from the doctor and her mother. And that was ten years. Not like this. Not like a display waiting for someone to decide if they were attracted, were willing to pretend they didn’t exist. She knew how deformed they made her look, how beautiful she would have been had the serrated wounds not destroyed the canvas of her skin.
The lack of control scared her witless. Almost as much as that night.
Trust…just trust.
Ethan cupped her hips within his hands and leaned into her, pressing his lips to her skin. Slowly, he fluttered kisses along every inch of the jagged lines up her waist, side and shoulder. Shivers ran up her spine as he moved down her arm and back to her hip, placing another longer kiss to the largest scar, the chunk missing from her upper thigh.
When he stood, he held out her hands and grazed his eyes over her whole frame, taking in every curve, freckle and heartbeat, along with every flaw. But the sympathy was gone. The look people give to injured puppies or lost children that she expected to see. Instead, his eyes were full of…thirst.
“You’re fucking beautiful,” he said just above a whisper.
Heat tinged her cheeks and she smiled.
Please keep looking at me like this. Don’t run away.
“Promise me they don’t hurt?”
“Not a bit. Why—umph!”
Ethan yanked her to his body and crushed their lips together. In another fluid motion he cupped her bottom and lifted her like she were a basket of feathers, never releasing her mouth from his own hungry urges. She wrapped her legs around his waist, astonished by the strength in his skinny waist.
“Because I’m not gonna hold anything back.” The words almost growled from his chest. “Bedroom?” He mumbled into a deeper kiss.
“Behind you,” she panted.
Thank you…
Everything around her faded into fuzzy bubbles, a weightlessness that consumed her soul. The only thing existing in her world was Ethan with his sturdy arms and teasing hands. And the bed.
Somehow he’d slipped off her lace lingerie without removing his mouth from her body. A heartbeat later, he’d stripped his briefs and knelt over her, full glory. The first
man
she’d ever seen completely naked. Forget movies or media. Nothing like up close and private. And glorious. Thick and ready for her.
But more glorious were his eyes. Dark, almost all pupils as the lust dripped from every pore on his face, soaking in her bare body. He nestled his knees between her legs, moving his hands up. Thighs, waist, stomach. Further…until she gasped when he reached her breasts, stroking, massaging, and circling the sensitive tips until they peaked into diamonds.
Lowering his head to one, he sucked it between his teeth, laving it with his hot tongue. Flicking, suckling, while he mimicked with his fingers on the other tip. She wanted to cry out, but bit her lip and groaned.
He switched nipples, giving each the same attention and pleasant torture. When he realized the first made her breathe heavier, he moved back to her other breast and repeated again. Enveloping faster, gyrating, and white hot.
Shit, I’m not gonna last long. Is it him? Or merely the ten years of inattention?
Steadily, his hand moved down her body as he continued, and reached the juncture at her thighs. He slipped a finger between the slick folds and she nearly exploded right then.
“Ethan,” she cried as electric shocks sparked in every muscle.
“Don’t hold back,” he breathed, relentlessly caressing the delicate nub.
“You... asked…for it.”
Audrey clamped her thighs around his waist and shoved hard against his shoulders. Like a tidal wave, she flipped him on his back and straddled him. Lips swollen and red, he gazed back with shimmering, playful eyes.
“You’ve been in the driver’s seat all weekend. Don’t I get a chance to call the shots?”
“Something tells me you’ve done that your whole life.” She smiled. “And you’ve had plenty of head-coach moments this weekend. Don’t kid yourself.”
“Fair enough.” He laughed. “There’s a condom in my wallet. Right pant pocket.”
As Audrey reached across the bed to grab his pants from the floor, she couldn’t hold back a smirk. “Pretty sure of yourself, huh?”
“Just hopeful. Always prepared.”
She handed him the gold packet and let him slip it on, watching his skilled hands work like it was second nature. But she kept her doubting questions shoved firmly in the back of her mind. It didn’t matter she wasn’t as experienced or if he’d played the main role in
Animal House
; she’d match him stroke for stroke, pump for pump.
She glided her hands across his abdomen as he finished putting it on, marveling in the smooth skin, and then he grasped her fingers. He brought her palm to his lips and kissed the cut from the glass shard, light and gentle. Their bodies sank into each other, igniting another tidal wave. Staggering and all-consuming. She moved through it, rising and falling, pressing his hands to her hips and watching the dancing flecks in his eyes with each rippling push.
Everything dissolved around her. The election, the fundraiser, the speeches, interviews, the blaming glares, painful words, and inadequate feelings. Gone. For a good three minutes.
Then another twenty.
Two hours later, they lay on her comforter spread across the floor beside her bed, flat on their backs, panting at the ceiling.
“Now I know why you never wore short skirts or sleeveless shirts on the campaign trail.”
My scars. Pitiful time to spotlight my flaws.
Audrey wrapped her arm across her chest, gripping her shoulder and let the sweat permeate through her skin.
“You’re too hot for your own good,” he breathed. “Your platforms wouldn’t have stood a chance against shots of that hourglass you have.”
Women’s lib enthusiasts would campaign against her to ensure her loss for loving his comment. How could she be irritated when he kept making her smile?
“Skin I can lick like ice cream.” He laughed and curled himself on top of her, skimming his fingers up her side. “Hugh Hefner can eat his heart out; you’re mine!”
Each nipple received a wet kiss from his lips before he pulled her head onto his shoulder.
“Hefner doesn’t stand a chance. I have a brain. And robes are a turn-off for me.”
“How about bunny slippers?”
Audrey laughed and sat up, letting her long hair tumble about her shoulders in a glorious morning-after feeling. Though it was only one in the morning.
“Want a drink?”
“I just did,” he smirked.
“Cute. I think I’ve got a beer in the back of my fridge with your name on it.”
“I don’t drink anymore. Water’s fine.”
Chapter Thirty
The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. One minute he was engorged on Audrey’s delectable skin, the next he started to spill his intimate side with just a simple question. Not that it was a secret, but Ethan didn’t like to talk about his history with alcohol. Not a flattering picture.