That’s when he yanked her onto the bed. She shrieked, landing on her back with a bounce and sending a flurry of papers into the air. “There aren’t any cameras in here, right?”
Ethan squinted. “Whoa, slow down, speed racer! Let’s save the kinky stuff for later.”
Relaxing, she undid the top button of her polka-dotted blouse. Then she snared him with a seductive look and he froze, slack-jawed.
“Don’t you want to help undress me, Ethan?”
“Hell, yes. But I’d rather you undress me, one button at a time.”
Grace’s nose crinkled. “You’re wearing a sweater!”
“That’s not the button I had in mind.”
Too turned on to be scandalized, Grace threw her head back and laughed. Then she hooked her fingers into the loops of his jeans and pulled him closer. “C’mere, then.”
Wow, where had this person been all her life? And she didn’t mean Ethan. She’d scoffed at the idea when Molly suggested she was hiding an inner sex kitten, but what would she really be like if she did what she wanted to do for a change?
The bulge of Ethan’s erection pulsed under his pants and it made her heart pound in an answering rhythm. Popping open his fly, she tugged down his zipper and licked her lips. She needed to see it. Touch it. Stroke it. Kiss it…
He caught her chin with his fingers. “First, we’re going to play a game.”
Grace groaned. “Not another game!”
“You’ll like this one. Trust me. In Strip Twenty Questions everybody’s a winner. You answer, you get to take something off me. I answer, I get to take something off you. You go first.”
He was kidding, right? He had to be kidding! In case he wasn’t, she asked, “Cat lover or a dog lover?”
“Lame,” Ethan said, shoving himself onto the narrow bed next to her. Oh God. He was so good-looking. And she was on a bed with him—the one place they might have never actually done it before. “Cat lover,” he said.
Something in his tone made her doubt him. “I think you’re lying!”
“I’m pandering to the voters. There’s a big difference. Now I’m going to take off your blouse.”
Grace thought she might hyperventilate waiting for him to undress her with his unexpectedly clumsy fingers. Ethan scowled. “Why are these buttons so tiny? And why are there so many of them? I’m worried I’m going to rip it.”
Grace gasped, scaring herself with the realization that she might like him to rip it off her if only it weren’t for the fact that she loved this blouse with its polka dots and frilly collar! Fortunately, he got the hang of the row of buttons. “There,” he said with a note of triumph, peeling back her blouse to reveal her bra and bare belly. He dipped his head and nuzzled her belly, glancing up at her only long enough to say, “Your turn to answer. Name the guy who gave you the best orgasm of your life?”
“Ethan Castle,” she said, without hesitation.
“That is so the right answer,” he said, warm hands stroking her sides. “But that was seven years ago. Heck of a dry spell.”
He looked way too satisfied with himself for her to let him get away with it. “What do you mean? You gave me an orgasm last night. You just weren’t there to see it.”
Ethan coughed, almost as stunned at her brazen admission as she was. “I’m gonna want to see a reenactment…”
“Maybe later. I get to take something off you now.”
She claimed her reward, tugging his jeans down over his hips. The sight of his long, lean legs brought back all sorts of memories; her craving for him was starting to be more than she could bear. How many questions had it been? If she shot them at him rapid-fire, they’d be naked that much quicker.
“What’s your favorite sport?”
“Politics,” he answered quickly, sliding her skirt down her legs, leaving her in nothing but her underwear. “And sex. Two sports that are even more fun played together.”
As the cool air kissed her bare skin, a little shyness crept into her. Ethan was staring down at her underwear-clad body so intently, she was suddenly aware of every curve and dimple. “My hips are kinda…”
“Slammin’?” Ethan asked, his voice husky. “They make me want to grab you hard and hammer into you. Which is exactly what I’m going to do once we’re naked.”
Oh. Her whole body reacted to that promise, twin coils of pleasure twisting just below her belly. She nearly forgot the game until he said, “Tell me the first rule you ever broke.”
A dark memory flashed through Grace’s mind. “Pass.”
“There’s no passing in Strip Twenty Questions. You pass and you lose more clothes.” Ethan made his point by unfastening the hook at the front of her bra. Her breasts spilled out and he cupped them, a low feral sound in his throat.
His warm hands on her body thrilled her. She wanted more of this. More skin. More touching. But, infuriatingly, he insisted, “Tell me the first rule you ever broke.”
She nudged him in the side. “If you’re going to make up new rules as you go along, I don’t want to play!”
“That’s how I play every game. Come on now, no quitting,” he said, taking the opportunity to press the rigid length of his erection against her side. He was so hard, so ready for her, that she couldn’t help herself.
She slipped her hand into the tight space between them, took him in her hand, and began to stroke him. At the feel of her hand on his cock, Ethan made a harsh wounded sound that dissolved into a growl of pleasure. “You’re trying to distract me, Grace. And it’s working. But I want to know. What was the first rule you ever broke?”
“Ethan, it’s not a sexy answer.”
“Everything you say is sexy. Besides, you’re running out of clothes,” Ethan pointed out, sliding his own hand down her bare stomach, into her panties. All she wanted was for him to touch the spot he’d touched in the coat closet on New Year’s Eve. Instead, he tugged at the waistband of her panties and eased them down. She bent her knees for him, letting him strip her, then turned slightly to the side on the faded floral bedspread.
His eyes traveled hotly up and down her naked body, leaving a tingling trail on her skin. “Wow.” He inhaled several times. “I’ve spent seven years trying to imagine what you’d look like completely naked and your body is so much better than anything I dreamed up that I can’t even catch my breath.”
Could this really be happening? Being with him made her feel so good it felt like a dream. “You’re still wearing way too much,” she said, reaching for his sweater to push it up over his head.
When she tried to take off his undershirt, though, he stopped her. “Hey, you’re cheating. You’ve gotta answer the question, Grace.”
“Fine. I’ll answer it. I went swimming.”
“Swimming is against your rules?”
“Not my rules. Mama’s rules. I wasn’t a good swimmer, so I wasn’t allowed in the pool unless she was there.”
Ethan ought to have sensed that this was too serious a topic for their various states of undress, but he wouldn’t let it go. “And you went without her?”
The surge of pain inside her heart threatened to crowd out the arousal. “We were living in a motel at the time. My dad was supposed to take me to school, but he decided to have a beer by the pool instead. He was with his friends; he wasn’t paying attention to me. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I wanted to go swimming so bad. So, I jumped in the algae-ridden water and almost drowned.”
Ethan’s hand went to her hair and he softly brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Hey, I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
He couldn’t know what he’d touched upon. He couldn’t know unless she told him. And even though she was so needy right now, so vulnerable to him in every way, there was so much else she couldn’t explain to him that it didn’t seem fair to keep this from him too. “Luckily, someone pulled me out of the water but when my mother got home and found out what happened, my parents had a huge fight. My dad slammed out the door that night…and he never came back.”
She was really naked, now. She was naked before him, inside and out. Ethan stared at her, several different emotions warring in his expression, as if he was scared to say the wrong thing and shatter her. In the end, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he kissed her. A deep, lingering kiss that drove some of the sadness away. And when his lips parted from hers, he whispered, “You know that wasn’t your fault, right?”
“Of course.”
But he saw right through her. “Your dad leaving had nothing to do with you.”
“I know. I mean…in my head, I know.”
“Your heart should know it, too,” he said, lowering to press a kiss just beneath her breast, right where her heart thudded in her chest. They both knew the game was over now and he moved on top of her, their legs tangling together. Something stirred in her, sultry and steamy. She tilted her head back and wet her lips. A little puff of air escaped her lungs. This wanting, this needing, was so foreign to her. It gave him such power over her.
“Will you let me, Grace?”
“Let you do what?”
His eyes locked on hers. “Anything I want.”
Grace moaned and nodded in a stupor. “Yes,” she said. It was a pure moment of connection. Of happiness. And Grace wanted to embrace it.
His lips slid down her collarbone, over her breasts, teased at her belly, trailing down, down, down…
All Grace could think about was pleasure, until a knock echoed through the walls. Hearing voices outside, she nearly scrambled out of her own skin. “Who is that?”
Ethan kept her pinned to the bed with his body. “Relax, it’s the volunteers with doughnuts.”
Grace squeaked. “They’re knocking! What do we do?”
Ethan abruptly pulled her knees up over his shoulders. “We let them knock.”
Oh, this position was sinful. Even the slippery pamphlets sticking to her overheated body made her feel wicked. “What if they won’t go away?”
“Then they can freeze to death for all I care,” he said and the brush of his stubbled chin against her the inside of her thigh made her shiver. “I’m going to make you come now, and when I do, I wanna hear you say my name.”
“Ethan…” she whispered, taking frantic little breaths as he kissed the damp curls between her legs.
“That’s a good start,” he said, tangling his fingers with hers while he bent his head to taste her. The feel of his mouth on her was so intense she might have been able to forget about the knocking.
Until a phone started ringing.
Ethan looked up and growled. “If that’s mine, I’m going to put it down the garbage disposal.”
But it wasn’t his. Grace recognized the ringtone as her own and disentangled her hand to reach for it inside the pocket of her discarded skirt. Ethan tried to wrestle it away from her but she twisted, laughing, holding it away from him for fear he’d smash it to pieces. “Ethan, just let me turn it off—oh.” The caller ID caused her laughter to die in her throat. “It’s the hospital…”
Chapter Twelve
“Can’t you go any faster?” she asked.
“Not unless you want us to arrive at the hospital in an ambulance,” Ethan said.
Grace gripped her seat belt. She was thinking about her dad, he knew. And he said the only thing he could think of to comfort her. “No one’s going to die on you this time, Grace.”
He pulled around the front to drop her off, so that she could rush in ahead of him. He watched her run—literally run—into the hospital, then went to find a parking spot.
By the time he hustled up to the main desk for directions, he was brought up short to find that he recognized the nurse. Usually good with faces, he groped for a name. “Batgirl?”
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Molly. Grace’s friend.”
“Right. I’d love to chat, but—”
“Grace went up to the third floor. I’m the one who called. It was a nasty crash. His legs were both shattered. Collarbone was broken, too.”
“And Senator Halloway?” Ethan asked. If anything happened to that old man, Grace might never get over it.
Nurse Molly shook her brightly colored Goth-girl head. “He wasn’t in the car. I told Grace to calm down. Blain’s already out of surgery and he’s a young and healthy guy. He should be okay.”
Ethan let out a long sigh of relief for Grace’s sake.
Molly sighed too. “She’ll probably freak out when she sees the cuts and bruises on his face, but I think he’ll be back to looking like Malibu Ken in no time.”
Malibu Ken. Ethan almost sniggered at the apt comparison, but the situation was too grave for humor. Still, he liked Grace’s friend and he wondered why they hadn’t spent more time with her. Molly was hard-edged, but kind of cool. Not the sort of friend he might have expected Grace to have. Yet another reminder of just how much of her life Grace kept to herself.
“How’d it happen?” Ethan asked. “Do you know?”
“He was rushing between appointments, skidded on the ice, and wrapped his sports car around a tree,” Molly said, with just the faintest trace of contempt.
So, they were on the same side when it came to Blain Halloway. That was encouraging.
Molly pointed Ethan to the elevators. By the time he found the right room, Grace was sitting outside of it in the hallway.
“The family’s inside,” she said. “So I’ll wait out here. Only a few visitors are allowed at a time.”
Ethan slipped into the seat next to her. “Once he’s awake, the restrictions will ease up.”
“The last time we spoke wasn’t…we didn’t have the best conversation,” Grace said, obsessively brushing cat fur off her coat, guilt written on her features.
“Hey, he’s not dying,” Ethan said, lifting her chin. “He’s going to be in therapy for a long time, but broken bones heal.”
She wasn’t that easily reassured. “Just because you work for a doctor doesn’t mean you are one.”
“No, but I spent a lot of time in hospitals when I was a kid.”
She angled to him, interested. “Why? Were you sickly?”
“My brother was. I wouldn’t even have been born if he didn’t need a bone marrow transplant…”
Her eyes widened. “What does that mean?”
“My oldest brother, Danny, had leukemia. Without a donor, he was going to die. None of my other siblings was a match, so my dad reversed his vasectomy and my parents, well, they made me. And lucky for everybody, I had the right DNA.”
“Oh my gosh,” Grace said, bringing her hands up over her mouth in genuine surprise. “Was the transplant painful?”
Ethan shrugged. “I was just fourteen months old when they took the marrow. I don’t remember.”
She mistook his shrug for modesty. “So, you were literally born to save someone, Ethan. That’s totally amazing…” She trailed off at the expression on his face. He hadn’t meant to let anything show. In fact, he seriously regretted the subject had ever come up. She was stressed out enough without this grim bit of history.
“Oh no,” she said. “The transplant didn’t work?”
“It worked for a while,” Ethan said, fighting back the lump that sometimes lodged in his throat when he thought about it. “But Danny relapsed and eventually died.”
Grace was right that he’d been born to save somebody, but he’d failed. In a way, it was the first campaign he’d ever mounted and he’d been trying to make up for it ever since. No single win or loss at the ballot box was personal to Ethan, but somehow, they were all a justification of his right to exist.
“Ethan. I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. It’s okay. Really.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I promise.”
Then Senator Halloway peeked out into the hallway. “Gracie, Blain’s asking for you.”
…
Where had she been when Blain Halloway lost control of his car and nearly killed himself? That’s right, she’d been playing games with
Ethan Castle. Being kissed by Ethan Castle. Falling in love with Ethan Castle… She had to wonder if Blain didn’t do this on purpose just to make a point.
When he’d first awakened from his surgery he’d engaged with Grace in slurred conversation. When she came back later, he hadn’t even remembered seeing her there before. Now, days into Blain’s recovery, he was still speaking like his mouth was full of gravel. “The way you’re looking at me, it must be pretty bad.”
Grace forced a smile. “Don’t worry, you’ve still got all your super-white teeth.”
“Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have had to do anything quite so dramatic to get your attention.”
Once upon a time, she’d have jumped at the chance to satisfy his every whim. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. She also didn’t think it was wise to have a conversation about it when stupefying amounts of pain relievers were coursing through his veins. “Well, gee, I’ve never had anybody wreck a car for me before. Now that’s romantic.”
He laughed, which she took as a good sign. “I’m sick of Jell-O. If you don’t bring some of your mother’s cooking for me, I’ll do something crazy.”
Grace was relieved at his petulance. “What will you do? Take Molly hostage? Call a press conference bewailing the state of the health care system?”
Oops, she shouldn’t have said that last part. Some part of Blain’s mind started turning. “Speaking of, wasn’t that fund-raiser tonight?”
“Yep. The senator is behind me by about ten minutes.”
“How’d he do?”
Grace didn’t want to stress Blain out, but she also didn’t want to lie. “He said Nancy Jackson had a lot in common with Jack Sprat’s wife.”
Blain made a gurgling sound. “Oh, no.”
“It was horrible,” Grace admitted.
“We’re going to have to spin this…”
“We can’t spin it. He called Nancy Jackson fat! It was a petty, sexist, indefensible comment.”
“Exactly. When your candidate says something indefensible, the only option is to attack. When you’re defending, you’re losing.”
It sounded like something Ethan would say. “Well, do whatever you’ve gotta do.”
In Bed With the Opposition Page 12
