“Relax,” he tells me, his lower body pressing me into the wall, holding me upright even as my knees buckle. “I’ve got you, baby. I won’t let you fall.”
“Right. Like relaxing is even an option here.”
I feel him grin against my breast before his tongue darts out and circles my nipple once, twice, then again and again. I whimper despite my promise to myself to stay silent, my body spinning out of control as need rips through me, takes me over.
Above us, lightning streaks across the sky—powerful, primitive, and so, so beautiful. Seconds later, thunder booms and a warm summer rain starts slamming against the sand.
Ethan hunches into the rain as it slides over us, and then he’s licking the drops from my breast, my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. I arch my neck to give him better access, and in doing so press my sex directly against his cock.
We both moan then, and it’s my turn to rip at his shirt, to shove it down his arms and onto the sand below us. I have one moment of concern—it’s a thousand dollar dress shirt, custom-fitted for Ethan by one of the finest tailors in Europe—but then he’s running his tongue along my throat, sucking at the sensitive spot behind my ear, and any worries I have drown in the passion and the pleasure sweeping through me.
“Ethan, please,” I plead, wrapping my legs around his waist and pressing myself against him again. I need him inside me like I’ve never needed anything in my life, and he’s too busy teasing me—torturing me—to give me what I’m all but begging for.
He laughs then, his mouth skimming back down to my breast even as he rocks against me. It’s not enough, not nearly enough, but I’m too far gone to care. Too far gone to do anything but take whatever he wants to give me.
His mouth is back on my breast and I’m moaning, panting, as he licks and bites and nuzzles at me. I tangle my fingers in his hair, press myself more firmly against his lips as heat spirals through my belly. It feels so good, he feels so good, that I can’t imagine how I’ve gone the last two weeks without this. Without him.
I tell him as much as his tongue circles my nipple, and he pauses for a second, presses his face against the softness of my belly. “Never again,” he tells me in a voice choked with emotion. “Promise me, Chloe. Promise me you’ll never again walk away from me like that.”
“Ethan. Oh, God, Ethan, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize,” he grates out, echoing his words from earlier. “Sweet Jesus, don’t ever fucking apologize to me for leaving. Just promise me that you won’t do it again. Promise me that you’ll give me a chance to explain, to work things out—”
His teeth sink into my breast then, not hard enough to hurt but more than hard enough to send pleasure crashing through me. I cry out, clutch at him, and he laughs—a low, rich, dark sound—even as he licks tenderly at the bite, soothing the sharp sting with the rough warmth of his tongue.
“Say it, Chloe,” he urges in between pressing hot kisses against first one of my nipples and then the other. At the same time, he shifts his hand between my thighs and starts stroking at my clit. Not hard enough to get me off, but more than hard enough to make my eyes cross and drive me absolutely crazy.
“Ethan, please,” I choke out, thrusting my hips against the too light pressure. “You’re making me crazy.”
“Good,” he mutters. “Because you’ve been making me crazy from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
And then he’s pulling my nipple into his mouth, sucking hard enough to make me scream even as he lashes his tongue back and forth across the areola, again and again and again.
“Say it, Chloe,” he mutters in a voice gone deep and dark and sexy, so sexy. “Say you won’t walk out like that again. Say you’ll at least talk to me the next time you decide to end us.”
“I promise,” I choke out, my throat too tight with desire for me to even attempt to sound normal. “I’ll talk to you, Ethan. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please, please, fuck me!”
He growls deep in his throat, like my words have pushed him over the edge and there’s a part of me that expects him to thrust into me right now. No condom, no preparation, no nothing. That’s how far gone he is. Then again, the fact that I’m willing to let him shows just how far past sanity I’ve gone, as well.
Except that’s not what he does. Instead of ripping my underwear off and shoving himself inside me, Ethan lifts his head and starts pressing soft kisses to whatever part of my body he can reach. My breasts, my shoulders, my neck, my cheeks, my lips, my forehead. Over and over he kisses me, and in between he mutters soft words of love. So many kisses, so many words that my eyes fill with tears and my body slides right over the edge into my first orgasm in two long, excruciating weeks.
And the thing is, it isn’t even sexual. I mean, it is. Of course, it is. Just looking at Ethan is a sexual thing, let alone being held and touched and kissed by him. But it’s also so much more than that, so much more than the way Ethan’s body is moving against mine. So much more than the way his lips are pressed against my skin, the way his hot breath is caressing my ear.
Because I get it now, as I wrap myself around him here, listening to all the love words and all the promises falling from his lips. There’s a desperation in Ethan, a harsh uncertainty that I’ve never recognized before—and that gets through the shaky barriers I’ve tried so hard to erect like nothing else could have.
All along, through everything that’s happened, I’ve always believed that I love Ethan more, that I need him more than he’ll ever need me. That the way I feel about him is so huge, so monumental, that there’s no way he could possibly match it.
But in these moments, on this beach, with the wind crashing around us and the rain lashing at our skin, I begin to understand that our relationship is more equal than I ever could have imagined. Because as much as I need Ethan to breathe, to settle, to function, he needs me the exact same way.
I can feel it in the hands clutching at me, pulling at my chignon so that my hair tumbles down around my shoulders, holding me so tightly that I know I’ll have bruises in the morning. I can see it in the tenseness of his shoulders, like he’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I can hear it in his ragged breathing, in the soft words that skim across my skin like a benediction.
Ethan loves me.
Ethan Frost loves me.
Ethan Frost loves me the same way I love him. Wildly, completely, absolutely.
It’s a sobering realization, the knowledge that I hold someone else’s happiness so totally in my hands. But it’s comforting, too. Soothing. Because I know how I feel about him, know that I would rather cut off a limb than hurt him the way he so obviously has been hurting these last couple of weeks. Knowing that he feels the same way about me, that he’d do anything to keep me safe—keep me whole—is freeing in a way I never could have imagined before this moment.
Pleasure thrums through my body, crashing over me in messy waves not unlike the ones rolling toward the shore at this very moment. I shudder, arch against him, and somehow Ethan must know what’s happening to me because the touch of his lips against my breast grows much firmer, as does the stroke of his thumb over my clit.
I ride the orgasm out, body and soul wrapped around Ethan as he pulls every ounce of ecstasy he can from me. When it’s over, when I can think and breathe and maybe even stand again, I press my lips against his ear and whisper, “I love you, baby. I love you so much.”
I know we have a lot of awful things to work through, know that we have a lot of history between us that can never be undone. Two weeks ago, that history seemed insurmountable, absolute. But two weeks without him in my life, two weeks without seeing him, touching him, holding him, has given me a new perspective on what I can handle.
I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I’m not saying we aren’t going to have some bad moments. But are those bad moments worth giving up all the good ones, as well? Are they worth spending the rest of my life like a member of the walking dead?
I
don’t think so. Not after everything I’ve gone through these last two weeks. Not when I look into a future filled with emptiness and agony without him.
“I love you,” I tell him again, because I can’t not tell him. Not when I’m filled to bursting with the feelings ricocheting around inside of me.
Ethan freezes at my words, his whole body turning to stone even as his cock twitches against me. “Chloe. Baby.”
His voice is choked, quiet, devastated, and it gets rid of the last of my doubts. A better woman than I might have been able to hold out, but then that woman wouldn’t have Ethan and he’s worth a little sacrifice, worth a lot of compromise.
Honestly, he’s worth everything.
“I love you,” he tells me. “I love you so much.” And then he’s tearing at his fly, ripping his zipper open with a desperation that could be dangerous if he isn’t careful. Seconds later, he’s doing the same to my pants, throwing them onto the wet sand seconds before sheathing himself in a condom. Then he’s lifting me up again, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his waist before pressing slowly, steadily, inexorably inside of me.
It’s only been two weeks, yet it feels like forever, and I gasp as he fills me up. Gasp again as he bottoms out and then starts to move gently, carefully, inside of me.
Despite the urgency I can see in his eyes, he starts slowly, giving me time to adjust to his body after going so many days without it. As always, I’m thankful for his care—between the physical sensations swamping me and the emotions washing over me, I’m drowning in sensation.
“You okay, baby?” he asks, pressing open-mouthed kisses against my cheek, my jaw, my lips.
“Yes. God, yes.” It’s only been minutes since I came and yet the need is already building inside of me again, my body starving for Ethan and the pleasure he brings me with every squeeze of his hand, every press of his body. I skim my hands over his shoulders, down his heavily muscled back, stroke my fingers over his waist before sliding them lower to cup his ass.
Ethan groans at the contact, gasping as I yank him hard against me, inside me.
The last tenuous grip he has on control shatters and he slams into me again and again and again. I meet him thrust for thrust, my body arching against his as he devours me—hands everywhere, mouth everywhere. On my neck, my shoulders, the sensitive skin of my elbow. He skims his lips across my breasts to toy with my nipples, rubs glancing caresses against my clit before sliding his thumb between my ass cheeks and pressing it slowly, carefully, against my anus.
I gasp, eyes going wide as my body arches instinctively against him. He’s never done this to me before and I don’t know what to do, how to react. It makes me nervous, makes me squirm against him even as it takes my pleasure to a whole new level.
“Okay?” he murmurs against my mouth, his thumb stroking over a whole slew of nerve endings I never knew I had.
Part of me wants to say no, to tell him it’s too intimate, that it’s too much. But this is Ethan and with him, there’s no such thing as too much. There’s only more. More pleasure. More sensation. More intimacy. More and more and more until we’re part of each other, until I can’t tell where he begins and I leave off.
“Yes,” I gasp as my body starts to go into overload at the duel sensations. I’m trembling, sobbing, my nails raking down his back as my body arches against him, desperate for more. Desperate for whatever he’s going to give me.
It’s almost painful, how acute the sensations are. Painful and overwhelming and terrifying. He’s kissing me everywhere, touching me everywhere, and I want to live in this moment forever.
Except it really is starting to hurt, this need I have for him, the pain and pleasure mingling deep inside of me until I don’t know where one ends and the other begins. I know only that if we keep going like this, I’m going to go supernova, my body exploding outward in a blinding flash of heat.
“Ethan!” I wail, clinging to him as the sensations build and build and build inside me. The storm is still raging around us, the hot slap of the wind and rain only adding to the overload of emotion and pleasure that is swamping me, dragging me under.
“I’ve got you, Chloe,” he tells me again, right before he seizes my mouth in a kiss that takes me over completely. “Let go, baby. Just let go.”
He bites down hard on my lip at the same time he twists his thumb deep inside me. The result is a cataclysm of ecstasy sweeping through me, lighting me up from the inside and turning my whole body inside out as Ethan slams me into the most intense orgasm of my life.
“Fuck, Chloe!” he groans as my body goes haywire, vision blurring, breath stuttering, sex clenching rhythmically around him.
And then he’s coming, his face buried against my neck as he empties all that he has, all that he is, so deep inside of me that I know I’ll never, ever be the same again.
Chapter Ten
When it’s over, when my body has stopped wigging out in twenty-seven different directions and I can almost remember what it feels like to take a full breath, Ethan slides me slowly down his body until my feet meet the hard packed sand.
My legs buckle the moment I try to actually use them for more than holding on to Ethan, and I start to crumble. He catches me, his hands warm and big against my back as he holds me up.
“You okay?” he asks for what feels like the millionth time.
“I’m fine,” I tell him with an eye roll and a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I’m better than fine. I’m really good.”
He smiles then, the first real smile I’ve seen from him today. I can tell, because even in the shadows where we are still lurking, I can see his eyes light up like Times Square.
“Come home with me,” he says as he bends down to retrieve my now ruined suit pants.
I stare at them in dismay, wondering what the hell I’m going to do now that the only power suit I have is pretty much irreparably damaged. I should be more upset by this—hard to be a legal intern without a good suit—but I’ve just had the most amazing orgasm of my life and Ethan is here and he’s holding me, smiling at me, loving me. The suit seems like more than fair collateral damage.
“Chloe?” he prompts when I don’t answer him right away. “Am I pushing too hard?”
He is, absolutely, but then he wouldn’t be Ethan if he didn’t. And while I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to go home with him now, when we still have so many things to work out, saying no seems a little like closing the barn door after the horse. He’s already fucked me into incoherence. What else could he possibly do, except more of the same? An outcome I’m nowhere near as opposed to as I should be, by the way.
“That depends,” I tell him, still eyeing my wet, sandy clothes with distaste.
“On what?” His eyes narrow and I can see the CEO in him gearing up for a serious negotiation. There’s wariness in his eyes, and the same leftover remnants of fear and agony that I know are in my own, as well.
“On whether or not going with you will keep me from having to put my clothes back on.”
Ethan laughs then, a low, happy sound that sends joy and heat sizzling along my nerve endings. I can’t believe this.
I just came—twice.
My knees are still so weak that I can barely stand on my own.
My body is deliciously sore and deliciously sated … and still I want him. Still I can feel myself aching deep inside, missing the feel and the touch and the taste of him against me.
“Come with me,” he whispers in between pressing hot kisses to my temple, “and you’ll never have to wear those clothes again.”
“Sounds good to me.”
He grins as he picks up his own soggy shirt and jacket off the sand. His shirt seems to have sustained the most damage, so he just wraps me up in his suit jacket before re-fastening his pants and belt.
“Come on,” he tells me then, sweeping me into his arms and carrying me across the parking lot to the limo he has waiting at the back of it.
“The limo, huh?
To what do I owe this honor?” Ethan and I have been together since the beginning of the summer and I’ve only seen him use the limo once before. And that was when he had people in town from Japan.
“I had a lot of work I wanted to cover today, and the hour I spent in traffic trying to get to the Trifecta meeting seemed like a perfect time to do it. Besides”—he grins ruefully—“I haven’t been able to sleep since you left me. It seemed safer all around to let Michael drive me for a few days.”
That sobers me up, the levity leaving as quickly as it came. “I’m s—”
“I swear to God, Chloe, if you apologize to me one more time for something that is in no way your fault I will not be responsible for my actions.” He’s glaring at me now, his mouth set in a warning scowl that tells me just how serious he is. He never looks at me like that. Or, at least, he never has before.
I slide closer to him as the limo pulls out of its parking spot, run my hand down his jaw. It’s just a little bit prickly now, the stubble that has crept up there since this morning making him look sexy and dangerous. Hot.
“I was awful to you. In the parking lot that day. I could have been—”
“You were hurting. You were traumatized and you had every right to be. If you’d screamed at me, or punched me, you would have been well within your rights then, too. Telling me that being with me hurts you—” He shakes his head. “That nearly killed me. But it was no more than I deserved.
“Hurting you is the last thing I ever wanted, Chloe, and it kills me that you’re suffering now because of our relationship. I’m the one who needs to apologize, baby, the one who should be groveling at your feet. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so—”
I cut him off with a kiss. Not because his apology isn’t important, but because I’m not ready for it. Not here, not now, when this truce between us is still so new, so fragile. When I’m afraid that anything might come along and knock it—knock us—off our axis again.