Chapter Three
Harsh sunlight poked into Ethan’s eyeballs a few hours later, as consciousness slowly returned. And for a few moments everything felt good. He felt limber and loose. Energised.
And then something lean and warm shifted against him and he cracked an eyelid open and found himself looking down on a head of wavy brown hair.
Very familiar wavy brown hair.
His pulse accelerated as if he’d already guzzled his first coffee for the day. “Holy shit,” he swore, sitting bolt upright, displacing JJ in his panic, taking a peek under the sheet covering his lap only to be confronted with his nudity. His very limp, spent, satisfied looking nudity.
He looked back at a stirring JJ, the sheet barely covering her clearly naked breasts. He dropped his head into his palms as the memories of what had happened in this bed a scant few hours ago crashed in on top of him.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
He leapt up, grabbing for his jeans, conscious of JJ’s eyelids fluttering open. He kept his back to her as he pulled them on sans underwear, zipping the zip, leaving the button undone. He could hear the bed squeaking behind him but he had to wait a beat or two before he was composed enough to turn around and face her.
She was sitting with her back propped against the bedhead, the sheets tucked firmly around her, a wary expression on her face. “Jesus,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “What have we done?”
She held up her hands in a placating manner. “I think it’s important that we don’t freak out,” she said.
Don’t. Freak. Out? Was she kidding? He’d just slept with a woman he’d been best buddies with his entire life. With Jemima Jane Ericson for fuck’s sake. And now he knew stuff about her he’d never known before. Intimate stuff.
Naked stuff.
Like how she kissed. How she whimpered in the back of her throat. How great her nipples tasted. His gaze dropped involuntarily to where the sheet ruched around her breasts.
Oh God, doofus, do not think about her nipples. Or her breasts for that matter.
Or how hot and tight she was.
How damn good she’d felt.
Not now. Not when he needed JJ—his friend—more than ever.
He cleared his throat, his gaze falling to her breasts again before he pulled it away. “Why did you let me do that?”
She blinked and he hated himself for the affront he saw on her face. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well clearly I’d had a lot to drink and was not in any fit state to be making important sexual decisions.”
She snorted, a little puff of air blowing her fringe off her forehead. “Are you accusing me of taking advantage of you?”
Ethan glared at her. She looked exactly like the JJ he’d always known. The knobbly kneed kid who lived down the street and could climb a tree, jump from a rope swing into a waterhole, and throw a cricket ball as good as any boy on the block.
Except, she wasn’t.
Her shoulders were bare, her hair was all sleep tousled and her mouth, always a little on the wide side, looked thoroughly kissed. And then there was her distinct lack of clothing. “I’m saying you should have stopped me.”
She crossed her arms and glared right back at him, her hazel eyes stormy. “Why?”
Why? She had to ask him that? Because she was … JJ. They’d known each other practically since birth. Their relationship was one of the few in his life he actually gave a rat’s ass about. And now they’d gone and blown it.
Sex always complicated things.
Connie was living proof.
Ethan shoved his hands on his hips trying to gather good argumentative data in a brain that had obviously taken leave of its senses. Which he probably would have managed had her gaze not zeroed in on his belly and lit a trail of fire in its wake as it trekked from one hip to the other.
He swallowed as the whole world shifted under his feet. “I was a … mess last night JJ,” he said scrabbling for plausible reasons for his behaviour. “That bloody letter … I wasn’t in any fit state …” Although God knew he’d been hard as a freaking rock from the first touch of her mouth. “I was drunk—”
She shook her head at him vehemently, interrupting his flow. “No. You weren’t,” she said emphatically. “Earlier in the night, yes. But not … later.”
Ethan let go of the excuses for his behaviour as the truth came and bit him hard on the ass. He might not have been one hundred per cent sober, and some earlier events of the night were pretty much non-existent, but he sure as shit remembered every bit of their horizontal action.
But that didn’t make it okay.
He opened himself up further to truth. The awful, harsh truth he’d been hiding from since he sprang from the bed minutes ago. “I was just using you,” he bit out. “Don’t you get it?”
Another typically inelegant snort escaped her mouth. A mouth he could not stop looking at. “You think I don’t know that?” she railed. “What makes you think I didn’t use you? I’m thirty-five years old, Ethan, and not averse to some recreational sex every now and then. I have needs too you know.”
Ethan gaped at her. No. He didn’t know. And he’d gotten through thirty-five years of his life just fine without knowing. Frankly this whole line of conversation was driving him nuts. How could he not think about what they’d done when JJ was sitting there bold as freaking brass—in a sheet—telling him she’d used him right back.
That she had needs.
He just couldn’t wrap his head around it. Despite all evidence to the contrary—her marriage to that evil prick Shane, the casual arrangements over the years with the odd passing truck driver or transient backpacker—JJ had always been kind of asexual to him. The fact that she was forcing him to confront her sexuality—now of all times with the wild aroma of their joining lingering on his skin like soap residue—made him inexplicably pissed off.
“Well maybe you should have more self-respect?”
JJ gasped and he hated himself a little more. “Oh, I see,” she said scathingly. “It’s okay for you to use me but not okay for me to allow it? To enjoy it?”
He’d never noticed how symmetrical her features were before. How her big mouth balanced out her square face. How it was a good counterpoint for her wide cheekbones and her broad forehead. But with her whole face frowning at him like he was responsible for inventing menstruation, it seemed particularly obvious.
But suddenly an even bigger issue than her wounded feminine pride hit him square between the eyes.
Christ … enjoyed it?
She hadn’t even come. He’d just taken what he wanted then rolled off her like some drunken slob and gone to sleep. Loathing rose in his throat and scalded like stomach acid.
“For God’s sake,” he snapped, “You didn’t even …” Dear God, he couldn’t even bring himself to say it. “I mean I didn’t even make you …”
Nope. It was no use. He couldn’t say the words. God knew they trash talked and told each other dirty jokes all the time, but he couldn’t talk about such intimate stuff with her when it actually meant something.
But he needn’t have worried. JJ was drawing herself up against the bedhead, a familiar feminist glow burning in her eyes. “You think I need an orgasm to enjoy sex?” she demanded. “What are you, like fifteen?” She eyed him in disgust. “I can get my own orgasms just fine. Last night was not about me getting off. It was about comfort and solace. About helping you to forget for a while.”
Ethan blinked as the full magnitude of her words pelted him like shrapnel. “Oh my God. It was a pity fuck?”
JJ shrugged and his gaze was drawn to the angular lines of her collar bones and the hollow at the base of her throat. And lower …
“If you insist on labelling it.”
Ethan gaped, her flippant remark halting the downward trajectory of his gaze. Bloody hell. He was speechless. Utterly speechless. This could not be happening. His best friend of thirty years, who he hadn’t even seen in a bikini before to
day, had slept with him because she felt sorry for him.
It was official—his life had gone down the shitter.
And then, rather belatedly, another thought hit him square between the eyes. “Oh Jesus. We didn’t even use a condom.”
Ethan stared at JJ askance. What the fuck had he been thinking last night?
Clearly, he hadn’t been.
Clearly, he’d lost his mind.
Protection had been so far from his head he might as well have been in an alternate universe where unwanted babies and sexually transmitted diseases had never been heard of.
Dumb horny guy universe.
JJ scowled at him. “It’s fine, Ethan. I just finished my period. And as you seem to have about as much sex as I do, I assume disease isn’t an issue.” She folded her arms. “Take a frickin’ breath.”
Ethan couldn’t believe how composed she was. Of course, that was JJ’s MO. Cool, calm and collected. Unflappable in the face of most situations. Running a pub required a level head, a firm hand and a nose for bullshit.
Pretty much like being a cop.
But this situation was totally outside his experience. He’s screwed up with women before. Hell, he’d screwed up with Delia big time. But this …
He found his gaze wandering again as she stared back at him like she wasn’t naked beneath those sheets. Her long lanky frame, which he’d always admired for its athleticism—she’d run cross country for the state, had set the girls’ long jump record at high school and could ride a horse like she was born to it—seemed suddenly … feminine.
“Do you think you could … get some clothes on or something,” he said, with a sweeping gesture towards her general nakedness. “It’s really hard to have a serious conversation with you in nothing but a sheet.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Shall I just peel it back and do it now? Or perhaps you’d like to leave so I can have a little privacy?”
A dull flush lit his cheeks as he thought about her emerging from those sheets. He hadn’t really seen an awful lot of her body last night—although he doubted he’d ever be able to erase the image, or the taste, of her rosy nipples. He’d been too intent on being inside her to worry about the outside.
His blush intensified at his crass ineptitude. He felt freaking fifteen years old again.
“Of course … sorry,” he said. Her legs shifted beneath the sheet and he tried not to think about how firm they’d felt locked around his waist.
JJ’s folded her arms across her chest. “Well?”
“Right,” he said, dragging his mind out of those sheets and his head out of his ass. “See you outside,” he said stiffly, and rather unnecessarily, before his legs actually circumvented his brain and moved him the hell out of the room.
JJ, still clutching the sheet, watched the play of muscles across his bare back as he practically ran out of the room. They bunched and shifted beneath honey-golden skin, which would have been exceedingly distracting if it weren’t for two full sets of fingernail marks decorating the slabs of muscle either side of his spine.
She swallowed at her handiwork, looking down at her paltry nails. They were short and neat—hardly noteworthy. Long fingernails weren’t very practical for pub work. And seriously … who could be bothered?
She knew the answer before the question even formed fully in her mind. Delia. Delia sported a full set of flashy nails every time she swept in and out of town. Long and painted, sometimes decorated with fancy little stickers. For the wedding, according to an excited Connie, she’d had tiny diamantés artfully placed.
JJ had just stopped saying, yeah well … no matter how much sparkle you stuck on a talon, it was still a freaking talon.
It wasn’t Connie’s fault her mother was a manipulative cow.
JJ dropped her forehead into her palms. For fuck’s sake, what the hell was she doing thinking about inane crap like this?
Delaying the inevitable?
She had to get up. She had to get dressed. She had to go outside and go back to living the lie. Tell Ethan she was fine, that it was no big deal, that nothing had to change.
That their relationship wasn’t in jeopardy. They were still friends. That it would be okay.
That it would never happen again.
Because clearly, based on the horror on his face when he’d leapt out of bed, repeating the experience was not on the table. Hell, she was pretty sure he’d have chewed off his own arm had he not been able to get away from her easily.
They’d been good together, she knew that—she wasn’t some inexperienced, insecure twenty-year-old who would torture herself about the meaning of his swift morning-after rejection. But she also knew that nowhere inside Ethan Weston’s brain had she ever been part of his life equation.
Not in that way.
And the man had enough to worry about now without adding her feelings into the mix. Or her horniness from her not-quite-fulfilled session between the sheets. Even now, as she thrust her feet into her jeans, she felt the pulse between her legs. The throb that he started when he’d first touched her there, lingering still.
She hadn’t lied to him. Penetration alone was satisfying on such a primitive level—and that’s what last night had been. Primitive. But it had been a long time since a man had touched her. A long time since she’d even taken care of business herself. And having sex with the man she’d been having wet dreams about since she was thirteen was a painful reminder.
But right now—she had to go stop Ethan from freaking out.
By pretending she wasn’t freaked out at all!
JJ could smell coffee as soon as she entered the main living area and was thankful for small mercies. She’d take any crutch she could get to help her through this conversation. Even if it was being given to her by a half-naked man sporting her fingernails marks all down his back.
He was standing at the sink staring out the window, which overlooked the back of the roofs of the other businesses that lined the main street. He turned as she approached and passed her a mug. JJ took it and sipped immediately—strong and milky with two sugars, unlike the black sludge he drank.
Caffeine buzzed on her tongue and shot into her system, kicking up her heartbeat and tingling like sherbet between her legs. Or that could just be the semi-naked spectacle of him lounging against her sink, his feet bare, that damn button on his fly still undone. Lounging like he belonged here in the hotel room she called home.
JJ took another sip, feeling his wary gaze weighing her down. She looked up. Ethan didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t watching her and she didn’t bother to pretend she wasn’t aware. She met his gaze head on, refusing to be ashamed by what they’d done or cowed by his consternation.
They were thirty-five years old for crying out loud. Not a couple of reckless teenagers. And what was done, was done. That’s what her mother would say.
She took a steadying breath. “It’s going to be fine, Ethan. I think the best thing we can do is just put this thing behind us and move on.”
Ethan looked like he was about to splutter his mouthful of coffee everywhere. “This thing?”
He put his mug down and crossed his arms, which only served to draw her gaze to the chest she’d been trying really hard not to look at.
“Sex,” he spluttered. “This thing, is sex. It’s not some little white lie, some minor transgression. It’s sex. Between you and me. Sex. That’s a big thing.”
JJ raised an eyebrow. She was trying really hard to practise what she preached and forget about the s thing and move on, but him saying it over and over like a toddler discovering a new word was not helping.
All she was thinking about now was sex.
“Is this the lecture you give to the high school kids you catch down at Hobson’s Crossing? Because I really don’t appreciate being treated like some kid you caught with her pants down.”
She gripped the handle of her mug hard, trying not to think how easily her pants had come down.
“I know what happened between
us, Ethan. But short of one of us leaving town, we’re just going to have deal with this. The way I see it, we can talk about this ad nauseam or we can avoid each other forever. Both really not practical choices. So I suggest we do what every other adult couple does in our situation—accept that it happened and get on with it. Or pretend it never happened and get on with it. Either way, we really just need to get on with it.”
He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “But I know stuff about you—stuff I can’t pretend I don’t know. For God’s sake, I’m standing here trying to have a serious conversation with you and all I can see is that you’re not wearing a bra.” He pushed a hand through his hair and scowled at her. “I never notice that sort of stuff about you—never.”
JJ didn’t know whether to be insulted or grateful. This was the downside of having a guy friend—they didn’t pretty things up to spare your feelings. “Yeah well,” she said sticking a hand on her hip belligerently as her nipples decided to really put on a show, “you’re not looking close enough. Apart from work, I hardly ever wear a bra.”
Why bother with her breasts? With a good push-up she looked like she had some to spare but otherwise her A cups were never going to win her a wet T-shirt contest. Sure they sat nicely, the nipples perfectly centred, but they’d have done that without the support of a bra. The only reason she even wore one to work was to stop drunks thinking it was some kind of come-on.
“Of course I’m not,” he said, his voice reaching exasperation point as his gaze took in the hard centre points of her nipples tenting her T-shirt then quickly skittered away again. “That’s the bloody point!”
JJ regarded him for a moment. What did he want from her? Did he want what happened between them last night to be just magicked away? Because even if she had that in her power, she wouldn’t have done it. She was going to savour last night for a very long time.
She wasn’t sorry it had happened.
She took a calming breath. “Okay then,” she said, “what do you want, Ethan? How do you want to handle it?”