by Tracy Wolff
I don’t answer him this time. I can’t. I’ve completely forgotten how to breathe. If I duck my chin just a little, my lips will be against his hand and I’ll be kissing him. It’s all the invitation he needs, and for a moment I’m tempted. Really tempted.
I want to kiss him again, want to taste him and touch him and let him do the same to me.
I crave him on his knees in front of me, crave that wicked tongue of his once again taking me over the edge of orgasm.
I need to do the same to him, need to take him in my mouth, in my body, and give him the same pleasure he gave me.
Except I don’t know how to do that. How to do any of that. Not without inviting the memories back. Not without freezing up completely.
I break eye contact, pull away. Concentrate on the sand castle with a vengeance. Ethan doesn’t say anything, just goes back to building the second turret. But for a moment—just a moment—his fingers brush against, tangle with, hold my own, and it feels better than it has any right to.
This whole thing feels better than it has any right to, and I know I’m getting in over my head. Not like that’s a surprise. When I put that envelope together for Ethan this morning, I knew things would get complicated quickly. But now that it’s starting, now that he’s here and he’s interested and I’m interested despite the warning bells clanging in my head, it’s all just a little overwhelming. Like I’m walking a circus high wire without a net and any small miscalculation will send me hurtling toward utter disaster. Utter ruin.
Except I’m already there, and I have been for five long, interminable years. I’ve spent those years just trying to survive, and I have. It’s been no small feat, not when some days it takes every ounce of energy I have just to get out of bed, go to class, build some semblance of a life for myself.
For the first time in a long time, I’m starting to wonder if that’s enough. Or if maybe I should want more.
I look down at the sand castle Ethan has helped me build, at our fingers that keep tangling together, sliding against one another. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to pull back. To stand up and walk away before I get in over my head.
But it’s too late. It’s been too late from the moment he slid that smoothie across the juice bar to me, only I’ve been too stupid to realize it.
I look up, find him staring at me with an intensity that belies his casual clothes and surfer-boy demeanor, his charming smile and smooth moves. It’s an intensity that reaches to the very heart of me—into my soul, into my sex—and for the first time I realize the true enigma that is Ethan Frost.
“Let me take you out tomorrow night.”
It’s more a statement than a question, more an order than a request, and normally it would rub me very wrong. But in those moments, caught in Ethan’s eyes and his spell, I can do nothing but nod. Do nothing but surrender and hope the ride is worth the inevitable fall.
Chapter Eleven
Ethan builds me a sand castle worthy of an architect—or a genius. It’s not the biggest on the beach, but it is the most elegant. The best-made. And he does it with nothing more than a bucket and his hands.
When it’s finally done, when my six-turret palace complete with drawbridge and moat is standing tall and proud I take a few long moments to admire it. To wonder what it would be like to live in such a perfect, well-thought-out place. Then I think of the huge, beautiful monstrosity that my parents live in, and I remember for the millionth time that perfection is only ever skin deep.
The thought has my stomach clenching, and I look across at Ethan, who is busy watching me admire his creation. He’s perfect, or as close to perfect as I’ve ever seen. Brilliant, funny, gorgeous, philanthropic, kind. Or at least that’s how he appears on the surface. I wonder what’s underneath and if I’ll ever get the chance to see it.
Just as I’m deciding that I’ve had enough of the deep philosophy, my stomach growls. Ethan laughs as he climbs to his feet, then holds out a hand to help me to mine. I can get up just fine on my own, but I take his hand anyway. Let him pull me up.
Trust has to start somewhere.
“What do you want to eat?” he asks, and I’m acutely aware of the way he bends his neck so his mouth is inches from my cheek. I’m also aware of his hand on the small of my back, guiding me through the throngs of partiers and sand-castle enthusiasts. There are hundreds of people down here and this area of the beach isn’t that big, but somehow he manages to ensure that no one gets too close, that no one touches me.
It’s a relief, the way he instinctively seems to know what I need. Later, when I’m home, it may freak me out. But here, now, surrounded by these crowds—and by the heat and strength of Ethan—I feel protected, safe. It’s not a feeling I have often, so I can’t help but savor it.
“Chloe?” he prompts, and I realize I never answered him.
“My roommate was going to get us some carne asada tacos.” I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. “You’re welcome to join us.”
“I’d like that, if she doesn’t mind.”
“Are you kidding? She’ll be thrilled. Tori loves gorgeous men.”
“So, you think I’m gorgeous?” he asks with a wicked grin.
I roll my eyes. “Don’t fish for compliments. It’s so unbecoming, especially when you know exactly how devastatingly hot you are.”
“I was beginning to think I’d lost my touch. Trying to get your attention has been…challenging.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get ahead of yourself just yet. I agreed to go to dinner, not have sex with you.”
He glances at me out of the corner of his eyes. “I don’t remember asking for sex.”
“You will.”
“Oh, yeah? And how do you know that?”
I turn my head so our gazes meet and for a second I forget my train of thought. Hell, I forget how to breathe, let alone how to make words.
But I can see the gleam of triumph deep in his eyes, can see the hint of a smirk on his lips, just waiting to form. And suddenly I’m determined to not let him get the best of me. I reach up, pat his cheek. “Because they all do, darling,” I tell him in the best femme fatale voice I can muster. Maybe it’s foolish, maybe it’s arrogant, but I don’t want him to know just how messed up I am. How our date tomorrow night will be the first one I’ve gone on in a long, long time.
He stiffens at the challenge in my words, in my eyes, but it’s not an insulted movement. Not a threatening one. No, it’s more like the movement of a large jungle cat moments after it’s scented its prey. A stretching, an awakening, just a hint of danger as awareness prickles in the air all around us.
I wait, breath held, for him to say something else. Do something else. But in the end, he just laughs. I laugh, too, and somehow it doesn’t shatter the tension between us like most moments of amusement would. No, it only fans the flames, only ratchets up the attraction and the energy between us.
I hold his eyes as long as I can, let him see just how unafraid I am—and that I have no intention of backing down.
His whole body seems to grow harder, hotter, where it rests against the side of my own. And while he doesn’t say anything, I know he understands the gauntlet I’ve just thrown down, just as I know that he has picked it up.
He leans in closer, ostensibly to be heard over the music and the crowds, but as his breath brushes against my ear, my throat, the sensitive nape of my neck, I know the truth. That he is doing it to torment me, to arouse me. As my nipples peak and my sex throbs, I have to admit that he is very, very good at what he does.
“This is going to be fun,” he tells me, the words soft and warm as they caress the sensitive skin behind my ear.
I suck in a deep breath at the sensations rioting inside me, and immediately regret it as I pull his scent deep into my sinuses, into my lungs. He smells like the ocean, only sweeter. Like oranges and secrets and smooth, rich chocolate. There’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to roll around in his scent, to wrap it around myself and huddle insid
e it—inside him—until everything bad in my life just floats away.
Still, I manage to rally. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing just how easily he can throw me off my game. “It’s going to be something. I’m not sure fun is quite the word for it.”
“Sure it is. There’s no point in doing anything if it isn’t fun.”
The words work their way inside me, pull me out of the sensual fog his touch and voice and scent have enveloped me in. I look at him curiously. “Do you really believe that?”
“Absolutely. I wouldn’t be as successful as I am if I didn’t enjoy what I do.”
His answer makes sense, and yet I know there’s more to it. I can see it burning in his eyes, feel it in the way his body tenses against mine. But before I can call him on it, my phone vibrates in my pocket.
Normally I’d ignore it, but I’m pretty sure it’s Tori. I pull it out, glance at it. Sure enough. “Tori’s got a spot to the left of the stage. She wants me to meet her there.”
Ethan nods, then effortlessly steers us in the right direction until we run straight into Tori. Maybe I should have warned her, because for the first time in the three years I’ve known her, my best friend is speechless. Face-slack, mouth-open, eyes-wide speechless.
It’s not a great look on her, but Ethan doesn’t seem overly concerned. Which makes me wonder just how often women look at him like that. Then again, maybe I don’t want to know. Especially if it’s on a daily basis.
“Ethan, this is my best friend, Tori.” I step on her foot in an effort to pull her out of her dazed stupor. “Tori, this is my boss, Ethan Frost.”
Ethan gives me a strange look when I call him my boss, but it’s not like I have another moniker for him. He’s not my date tonight. He’s not my friend yet, and he certainly isn’t my boyfriend. I guess I could have just introduced him as Ethan, but it isn’t like Tori doesn’t know who he is. The fact that she has yet to blink is a pretty good clue that the cat was out of the bag before I so much as opened my mouth.
“Hi, Tori. It’s nice to meet you.”
He smiles at her, one of his I’m-a-charming-bastard-and-I-know-it smiles, and my roommate—my world-weary roommate—giggles like a thirteen-year-old. Ugh. When I get her home I’m going to kill her.
“Nice to meet you, too, Ethan.” She runs a hand through her Technicolor hair, shoots me a sly look. “Fancy running into you here.”
“Frost Industries is sponsoring the fund-raiser,” I quickly interject before she can embarrass me any more than she already has. “The environment is one of the Frost Foundation’s big causes.”
“Isn’t that a coincidence? Environmental foundations are where all your extra money goes, too, aren’t they?”
And the girl wonders why I won’t let her set me up on any blind dates? If she’s this bad with a guy she has no vested interest in at all, imagine how she’d behave if she’d actually set us up together. She’d probably be asking about kid names and china patterns right about now.
Ethan doesn’t seem to mind, though. Instead, he looks at me with interest. “You’re interested in green issues, too?”
Interested enough that I came close to specializing in environmental law. Not that I’m going to say that—I have no desire to look half as desperate as Tori’s rabid interest is painting me. “I think everyone has some interest in green issues at this point, don’t you?”
“You’d be surprised.” He glances at the table, where Tori has a collection of street tacos. And two margarita glasses, one of which is already empty. “I’m going to go get a beer. Can I get you another one of those?”
“Sure.” There goes the fingers through her hair again. “It’s a mango margarita.”
“Got it.” He pulls out one of the vacant chairs with one hand, presses lightly on my back with the other to guide me into it. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“More like half an hour,” Tori says. “The booths are swamped.”
Ethan just smiles. “Can I get you anything?” he asks me before he leaves.
I take a long sip of my strawberry margarita. It’s delicious, and not too heavy on the alcohol—which is exactly how I like it. “If the lines are that long, maybe you could bring me another one of these as well?”
He grins wickedly, and I know he’s thinking of my predilection for all things strawberry. “You bet.”
Tori and I both watch as he walks away. And we’re not the only ones—every woman in the general vicinity has her eyes fastened on Ethan’s ass. Not that I blame them. It’s a really great ass. And the way his damp jeans mold to it should be illegal.
“Oh my God,” Tori says the moment he’s out of earshot.
“Don’t start.”
“Oh. My. God.”
I take a long sip of my drink. “He’s just a guy.”
“Ohmygod!”
Now she’s breaking the sound barrier and I put a hand over the ear closest to her in self-defense. “I swear, it’s not a big deal. He saw me struggling with that ridiculous sand castle and decided to help.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s not a big deal at all. Ethan Frost does stuff like that all the time.”
“He might. You don’t know.”
“I think you forget what social circles I run in when I’m home. I do know. And making sand castles with a woman is totally not Ethan’s normal modus operandi.”
“Oh, yeah? What is?”
“I don’t know.”
I snort. “The truth is, you don’t know what he does with women. Building sand castles might be the same opening move he uses on every girl.”
“Seriously?” She makes an annoyed noise deep in her throat. “I swear, Chloe, you could suck the joy out of anything.”
“Just one of my many charms.”
“Well, stop it. And let me savor the fact that Ethan Frost is wooing my roommate.”
“We built a sand castle and he’s getting me a drink. That’s a far cry from wooing.” But I think of the seashell and the tea bags, of those hot, stolen moments in his office. And wonder if Tori might be right.
“Don’t forget the blender. And the strawberries. The man is obviously interested enough to pay attention to what you like. That’s half the battle.”
“I didn’t realize this was a war.”
She reaches over, pats my cheek. “Poor, sweet Chloe. Didn’t you know? The whole male/female thing is always a war for dominance.”
For the second time tonight I think of Brandon, of lying bruised and bloody when he was done with me. “That’s why I steer clear of romantic entanglements. I’m not much of a fighter.”
“That’s why you’ve got me. I’ve got enough fight for both of us.”
Eight simple words, and yet they sum up my best friend completely. More proof that she’s just as screwed up as I am, only she hides it better.
Before I can think of a retort to her very screwed-up relationship analysis, Ethan’s back. He’s carrying a tray loaded with chips and salsa, guacamole, queso, a half-dozen tamales, a plate of fruit, a couple small pitchers filled with mango and strawberry margaritas, and two bottles of Corona.
“Planning on settling in for a while?” I ask, even as I reach to help him unload the tray.
“I am.” He dips a chip in queso, holds it to my mouth. I open for him automatically, before I can even think about whether or not I should let him feed me.
He grins in approval as he arranges the rest of the stuff on the table. “It’s getting dark, which means they’ll be lighting the bonfire in a few minutes. Then the band will take the stage and I’d rather watch them perform than fight the crowds for another drink.”
“Good plan,” Tori says, already reaching for a tamale. “Who’s playing?”
He names a local San Diego band that has gotten some major play on the radio stations lately, not to mention a number one video. Tori and I glance at each other, surprised. We hadn’t been expecting anyone of that caliber—not for a five-dollar admission ticket. No wonder the whole are
a’s jam-packed.
Ethan fills up my glass, then Tori’s, before settling back with his beer and a taco. I expect things to be awkward—we’ve never actually tried to make nice social conversation before—but somehow everything just seems to flow. We talk about the fund-raiser, how awesome the weather’s been, a new movie we all want to see. It’s nice. Relaxed. Fun, just like Ethan promised it would be.
As we talk, he keeps my drink—and my plate—full. He also regularly leans over and pops something into my mouth. A chip, a piece of watermelon, a choice bite of his pineapple tamale. Normally I’d never let a guy feed me, but Ethan seems to enjoy it and, if I’m honest, so do I.
Tori watches the whole thing wide-eyed and approving, and I know I’m going to get an earful when I get home. But right now I’m stuffed with amazing food, halfway through my third margarita, and blissfully, utterly relaxed. The future can take care of itself. I want to stay right here, in this moment, for as long as I possibly can.
As darkness falls, people start to quiet down. Those who haven’t found tables to sit at settle on the sand to watch as the benefit organizers light the bonfire. Then, as it starts to burn, the band takes the stage.
They’re good, really good, and it isn’t long before I’m swaying and singing along with the music. Tori’s doing the same thing, and even Ethan’s tapping his foot to the beat.
I’m having a great time—the best time I’ve had in I can’t say how long—and I know at least part of that is because Ethan’s here with me. Which should be a huge warning sign, but somehow isn’t. Not when he smiles at me with such obvious delight. And not when he wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer.
Again, that’s not something I’d normally ever allow. But this is Ethan and I decide to go with it. In the back of my head, a lone warning bell is going off, telling me that I’m getting much too comfortable with this guy, but I ignore it. Tori’s here. She’s got my back and I know she’ll make sure nothing happens to me. She might be half infatuated with Ethan herself, but I know she’d never let anyone hurt me. Just like I’d never let any guy hurt her.
