“Not involved,” she echoed. “Exactly what does that mean?”
“Just what it sounds like.” His pale gray eyes held hers. “I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t know it was going down. I didn’t even know he’d died until it was on the news.”
Celeste swallowed. To her horror, she realized her eyes were burning—she was so close to crying. So close. Blinking back the tears, she looked away from him and muttered, “Well, maybe that counts for something.”
Ethan sighed. “It shouldn’t count for anything.” He came forward, edging around her. He passed so close she could feel the warmth of his body, so close she could smell the warm, vaguely exotic scent of the sandalwood soap he still used.
Was she imagining it or did he lightly brush the tips of his fingers over her hair?
“Good-bye, Celeste.”
Good-bye?
Narrowing her eyes, she spun around and glared at his retreating back. “Excuse me? Good-bye? You show up here after ten years and all you have to say to me is good-bye?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her, a sad smile tugging at the corners of his hard mouth. “What else do you want me to say, Princess?”
Princess—damn him. That name conjured too many things. Memories of nights when he’d held her and called her that very name. Memories of him whispering that as he made love to her.
“How about sorry? How about an explanation for why you’re here? Something.”
“You’re a bright woman, Celeste. It’s July 2. You’re always in Belle on July 2.”
Celeste gaped at the back of his head. “You expect me to believe you’re here because of me?”
“I don’t expect anything of you,” he said, his deep, smooth voice quiet and steady, stroking over her like a velvet glove. Then he sighed and pushed a hand through his black hair.
“But you asked for an explanation. So there you go. I knew you’d be here. I wanted to see you. End of explanation.” He turned back to face her, a grimace twisting his lips. “That part’s easy. But an apology? Not so much.”
He watched her with a deep, penetrating stare that made her feel like he could see clear through to her soul. “What should I apologize for, Celeste? I’m sorry you’ve been hurt in this—I can say that. But I can’t apologize for telling you the truth about your father. You needed to know. You were busting your cute little ass in school, making all these plans for how you wanted to help disadvantaged youth, while your dear daddy paid for that education by exploiting women and children.”
She flinched. Shame hit her, a slap across the face. Blood rushed to her cheeks. “You bastard.”
“So you’ve said. Twice already.” A cynical smile twisted his lips and he shook his head. “But that doesn’t explain what you want me to apologize for. I’m not sorry I told you the truth and I’m not sorry that sick son-of-a-bitch is dead.”
“That sick son-of-a-bitch was my father,” she snarled at him. “I loved him.”
“I know.” His voice was gentle, his eyes kind. “And I know losing him hurt you…for that, I am sorry.”
There was sympathy in his eyes, in his voice. Sympathy, understanding…and other emotions she didn’t want to study too closely because it hurt too much. Just seeing his face hurt. Hearing his voice.
“No, you don’t know.” Furious with herself, Celeste snarled, “You don’t have any idea what it’s like to realize you come from a monster—or that you loved that monster. To realize that the monster even loved you back. He loved me. He did everything he could to take care of me, to make sure I never wanted for anything…”
A sob stole her voice.
I can’t do this.
Glaring at him, she backed away. “Stay away from me, Ethan. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
She took off running, barely able to see the ground for the tears that blinded her.
Chapter Two
I knew you’d be here. I wanted to see you.
“Why?” she whispered in the darkness. After ten years, why did he care about seeing her?
Except, she knew she’d cared when she saw him. Even as it hurt, she’d cared. When she’d first glimpsed that dark hair, those wide shoulders, and wondered…Ethan? It had made her heart race. Then he’d turned. And for just a second, joy had flooded her. She’d wanted to run to him. Grab him and hold him and beg him to never leave her again.
Even after ten years.
She wanted to think that after ten years he couldn’t care about her. But a small voice inside, that same one that had insisted Ethan had cared, that he’d tried to convince her to leave Mexico with him, it wouldn’t be quiet.
Maybe he’d been here in Belle after all these years for one very simple reason…he still cared.
Even considering it, though, terrified her.
Sighing, she lifted a hand to the curtains fluttering the breeze, brushing them out of the way as she stared outside. She couldn’t see much of anything but the pale yellow circles cast by the weak streetlights. Their light didn’t do anything to lessen the gloom of the sidewalks and beyond. And although she couldn’t see him, she knew he was out there.
She knew he waited. Knew he watched her.
It was disconcerting as hell to realize that.
Easing the curtains aside, she slipped through the French doors onto the small balcony and stared down into the street. The Belle Inn was the only moderately profitable business in town. It catered to those who enjoyed spending the night in older hotels that had a history of being haunted. With the restaurant and bar attached, it managed to do a decent enough business. She stayed here every year—and hadn’t seen a single ghost.
The Inn had been redone period-style. The room she stayed in probably looked as it had back in the 1800s, with the exception of the air-conditioning and indoor plumbing.
Resting her hands on the painted wood railing of the balcony, she looked for him and tried to pretend she wasn’t. But she knew she was wasting her time. If he didn’t want to be seen, he wouldn’t.
Ethan.
He was out there.
Why?
She’d made herself clear, right?
I don’t want ever want to see you again. Nice, short, to the point.
Except she did want to see him. Man, she’d missed him. So much. Not just the physical stuff, although she’d definitely missed that. She missed him. Missed that slow, almost reluctant smile of his. Missed the way he could sit there and listen to her as though every word she said was somehow vastly important. Missed his easy strength and the way he’d made her laugh with that wry humor.
She missed feeling his arms around her at night, although they’d had precious few nights together.
She just plain and simple missed him.
And now he was out there again…watching her.
Where are you?
And even as she silently asked that question, part of her wondered—Why do I care? Damn it, it’s wrong of me.
Except she knew it wasn’t…this was Ethan.
Because she had to care.
It was Ethan…
“Where are you?”
*
From where he was, he couldn’t hear the question.
He saw her lips move, but for all he knew, she was up there begging God to strike him down where he stood. Leaning against a crumbled brick wall, Ethan stared at the woman on the balcony and tried to figure out why in the hell he was still there.
She didn’t want him around.
She’d made that fact pretty damn clear.
Still, he’d lingered around the little town and come dusk, he did exactly what he’d done the night before—stood outside her hotel and waited. Just as he had for the past ten years.
When she backed away from the balcony, he let out a sigh that was part relief, part frustration. Relief—because if she wasn’t looking at him, he could almost breathe past the band constricting his chest; frustration—because now it would be another year before he saw her again—if she came back to Belle nex
t year at all.
It had felt like she had been looking straight at him from on the balcony. That look had made it all but impossible not to go to her, even as it made him want to grab her, hold her.
It had been so hard since he’d left her. He missed her. Needed her. Wanted her…
She slipped into the room from the balcony and he waited for the doors to close, for the curtains to fall back into place.
But they didn’t.
The door remained open and the curtains pushed aside.
Almost like she was waiting…
“You need to leave,” he muttered.
But he found himself leaving the alley…crossing the street…
*
Will he come?
She licked her lips and rolled onto her side, staring toward the door. She hadn’t been prepared for this. The plain T-shirt she wore was nothing like the pretty little lacy things she’d had when they’d first gotten together.
She had nothing better, either. Although she wasn’t completely destitute, the money she had from her mother wasn’t exactly enough to let her go shopping at Saks. Or even Victoria’s Secret.
Cotton had replaced silk and lace. She made do with basic and was fine with it for the most part. But just then, she wished she had better. Because she knew she wasn’t alone any more.
One second it was just her in the room. And then he was there. There was no sound. If she hadn’t been staring at the open curtains so intently, she wouldn’t even have seen the darker shadow before it was lost to the rest of the darkness.
She eased up in the bed and waited.
The only sound was her erratic breathing, but she knew he was in there. She could feel him—a ripple of electricity dancing through the air, his gaze an unseen caress along her bare skin.
Celeste held her breath and waited for him to speak, but the silence stretched on. Her heart raced within her chest and she squeezed her eyes closed, tried to figure out what in the hell she was doing, why she’d opened the door, why she’d left the curtains parted, why she was lying here like she was waiting for him.
It came to her then. She was waiting for him. She had been waiting…ever since she’d been foolish enough to push him away.
She needed him. He needed her.
And it was all so very clear, clear as daylight. Clear as the longing she’d seen in his eyes. The same longing she’d felt echoed in her own. Longing…for him.
She was waiting. From the time he’d walked away, even as part of her wanted to hate him, she had been waiting for him to come back.
She’d needed him to walk away at the time—hell, she’d pushed him away. He had to go before she did something, said something, she could never take back. She’d needed the time to come to grips with who she was—who her father had been. After he’d died, just a few short weeks later, she’d needed the time to grieve.
She’d needed the time to understand.
To find herself away from her father’s overwhelming influence.
Now, a decade later, she could finally admit something else.
She needed Ethan. She’d needed him almost from day one. She could survive without him, but she didn’t want to just survive.
She wanted life. She wanted to live, wanted to experience the happiness, the peace, she’d known only with him. None of the men she’d allowed into her life had ever measured up to him. No matter how much or how little she’d cared, none of them had ever come close to Ethan. None of them had ever come to close to her heart.
Taking a deep breath, Celeste kicked her legs over the edge of the bed.
He was so quiet…she couldn’t even hear him breathe. So quiet. And her teeth were all but chattering, she was so nervous. She wished he’d say something, but if she tried to open her mouth to speak, she was going to start to babble, and then she’d lose her nerve and she really needed to get this done. Get it over with. If she ended up with a boatload of guilt and self-disgust come morning, so what? It wouldn’t be anything new.
Without wasting another five seconds, she grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and hauled it over her head.
She let it go and as the fabric hit the ground with a whisper, she finally heard something from him.
A harsh intake of breath, followed by the sound of slow, deliberate footsteps, coming right in her direction.
Abruptly, terror seized her and she reached out, blindly hit the light switch on the bedside lamp. A soft golden glow filled the room and she stared at him, blinking against the light.
He wasn’t staring at her face, though.
He was staring at her body—a naked, hungry look. Terror held her frozen. Need churned inside her. Her hands shook and she fisted them at her sides, fought not to cover herself.
“Celeste…” his voice was a ragged, harsh growl, so unlike his normal tone, always so deep and mellow. He lifted a hand and she caught her lower lip between her teeth as he brushed the back of his fingers over the outer curve of her breast.
She caught his hand and pressed it to her. “Come to bed.” She took a step backward, taking him with her.
Heat flared in his eyes, but when she went to lie back, he didn’t come with her. He opened his hand, cupped her breast in his palm, but did nothing else as he watched her. “Why?”
“Because I need it. I need you.”
Ethan shook his head. “No, you don’t. You’ve gone ten years without me in your life. You want me to leave you alone. You don’t want to see me again. So why?”
“If I didn’t want to see you, I wouldn’t have opened the door,” Celeste said quietly. She leaned against him and pressed a kiss to his chest through his T-shirt. She could feel the warmth of his skin, the solid feel of muscle and man through the thin cloth. “If I didn’t want to see you, I wouldn’t have followed you when I saw you on the street earlier.”
Lifting her head, she stared at him through her lashes. Fisting her hands in the worn fabric of his T-shirt, she eased it up. She held her breath when the shirt caught under his arms, wondered if he would stop her, but then he grabbed it and tore it away, hurling it across the room. He caught her arms, keeping a few scant inches between them when all she wanted to do was press her mouth to his chest and lick, suck, bite, nuzzle all that bare, golden flesh.
“I want you.” He pressed his brow to hers, his pale gray eyes boring into her. “I’ve wanted you every day for the last ten years, and I’d damn near sell my soul for this. But not if you plan on walking away in the morning. Or the day after. Or the year after. Walking away from you almost killed me. I won’t do it again—not if this happens.”
The naked need in his eyes wrenched at her heart. So often, she’d looked into his eyes and seen a blank wall—he rarely left himself exposed. Reaching up, she trailed her fingers down his jawline, feathered them over his lips. “I haven’t thought about tomorrow. Or the day after. The year after. I can’t think right now. All I know is that I’ve missed you, even while I tried to tell myself I hated you. I’ve spent the past ten years missing you, too. Spent the past ten years being lonely…and I’m so tired of it. I want you, Ethan.”
“You want me, but do you still love me?”
Celeste stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her naked breasts to his chest. “I don’t think I ever stopped.” She caught his lower lip between her teeth and bit him lightly.
His body shuddered, but he didn’t pull her close. He held still, so very still. Seconds stretched out endlessly—would he pull away? Would he walk away?
*
Walk away. Ethan knew that was exactly what he should do. Coming to her in the dead of night, without even knowing why, without even understanding what in the hell she was doing—hell, he doubted she knew what she was doing. Just a few hours earlier, she’d told him to stay away and now she stood naked in arms.
Naked.
In his arms.
And he wasn’t doing anything…why?
Fuck it.
He’d figure the rest of it out l
ater. Banding his arms around her, he boosted her slender form up until she could wrap her legs around his waist. “Celeste…” he groaned her name against her lips as he tangled a hand in her hair, tugged.
She tipped her face back and met his kiss, hunger for hunger, heat for heat. Taking her to the bed, he tucked her smaller body under his and settled his hips against the cradle of hers. Through his jeans, he could feel her—warmth and woman…waiting. Waiting for him. Finally. After ten fucking years.
Levering up onto his knees, he tore at the fly of his jeans, swearing as his fingers fumbled with the button and the zipper. His breath hissed out of him. He ached, throbbed. He shoved his jeans and underwear down past his hips. Celeste reached out and wrapped her fingers around his cock, smiling.
The sight of that smile burned through him and the feel of her hand on him was a sweet, sweet agony. Her hair, black as the night, spread around her shoulders and a wicked smile curled her lips as she started to pump her hand, then down. Fuck—
Gritting his teeth, he reached down and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, stilling her movements. “We need to slow down,” he rasped, hating himself even as he said it. “I…shit, Celeste, I don’t have anything with me.”
She tugged against his restraining hold and reached up, sliding her hand under one of the fat pillows crowding the headboard. She pulled out an unopened box of condoms and tossed them to the middle of the bed. “Problem solved.”
His gaze landed on the condoms and then he glanced back at her.
She shrugged, somehow managing to make the gesture look sophisticated, elegant, even as she lay naked on a bed. “I didn’t exactly plan this—had no idea you would be around. But after I saw you…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ethan said, shaking his head. He dipped down, pressed his lips to hers while fumbling for the box. He tore it open, shredding it in his haste.
Nothing mattered...nothing but her, nothing but this.
He hadn’t been this awkward since he’d been a teenager, he was certain. No. There had been another time. That first time with her. He tore the foil packet open, managed to roll the latex shield down over his aching flesh and then he settled between her thighs, staring down at her.
Endless seconds passed as he stretched his body out and covered hers. Endless seconds as he held himself still, hovering just above her while he stared at her face.