12 Days

by Dark Angel

  I remember the last time we were in this office, how Ethan touched me. I crave that again. I don’t enjoy the idea of being caught, but I like being in his domain and under his power. The authority he has over me does turn me on. The idea of being his makes my pussy so wet.

  A real date? That’s the sort of heady reality that makes my whole world feel like a modern day fairy tale. Ethan will always be my dark prince, my charming beast. “Until then,” I tell him, dragging myself away from him.

  Emmaline

  I can’t believe I’m going on my very first date. I don’t really date guys my age. I’ve never had time for any of that. And now to be doing so with the teacher I can’t quit? My professor, who was into my mother…wow, my head is spinning with every possible thought that I shouldn’t be thinking.

  And then?

  Nothing.

  When he shows up, I don’t feel out of place standing outside the restaurant anymore. I didn’t want to be seen getting into his car before, so this is how I agreed to meet for our date. But I see him, sharp-dressed in an incredible suit and looking so damned good I could faint. When I see his hand extending out a rose for me, I'm so touched by the gesture. Ethan has made all my tensions disappear and made this moment so romantic.

  A single red rose, with a black ribbon tied on it. I’m not surprised that Ethan has brought me another favorite aesthetic, romantic thing of mine for me. Phantom of the Opera, I realize, must be a story that he sees us, with hopefully a happier ending. He sees me as his beauty, and if he is a beast, then he is mine.

  “Thank you,” I say, accepting the rose. I bring it to my nose and inhale the scent deeply, loving that natural mystery that roses have in their scents.

  When I open my eyes, Ethan is looking at me. He’s got a wide grin spread over his lips and his eyes are crinkled up at the edges with just how much he’s smiling. His kind eyes are lit with such emotion it could bring me to my knees.

  I feel my heart swell up in my chest that this gorgeous, wonderful man is looking at me like this, because of me. He wants me. Ethan wants me like I want him and I need him more than ever.

  I lean forward to kiss him and though it's just a closed mouth kiss, I pour all my passion into pressing my lips against his. I need him to feel how much I want him, need him, and appreciate him. How much I desire him.

  I pull back and see the adoration still present in his eyes, and I know he feels what I feel.

  Ethan extends his arm, which I hook with my own, and we are escorted to a private room in the restaurant he’s taken me to. I have never been anywhere this truly fancy and elegant before. This is much fancier than fancy noodle place, like the difference between a shed and a high-rise tower.

  The meal is incredible. I had no idea that food could even taste this good, or look this pretty on the plate before. I can hardly focus on that, though, because I’m watching Ethan. Watching him sip wine, with his elegant lips touching the glass and making my hair stand up on the back of my neck. I watch Ethan watching me, and the way that he smiles at me, and I’m so taken with him I barely have an appetite. I manage to, though, because no way I’m passing up the fanciest food I might ever eat in my life.

  “You enjoying your meal, Emmaline?” Ethan asks, taking another sip of his wine.

  “Enjoying it almost as much as the company,” I tell him.

  He raises an eyebrow and smiles. “I find the taste of the company is much more delicious than the food, yes, though this room is nice. Private.”

  “Yes,” I say in a small whisper. “I just realized something,” I tell him, and then I feel foolish and wish I hadn’t said anything.

  We’re sitting next to each other, rather than across the table from each other, which is such a nice intimate touch that Ethan can close his hand over mine. He calms me and I don’t feel silly anymore. I feel so close to him right now.

  “What is that, Emmaline?” Ethan says, and he pulls my hand to his lips and presses a small kiss there.

  “This is the first time we’ve ever been really alone with each other.” I think maybe he won’t understand me, but I can see the light of recognition in Ethan's eyes. “I know that when we first slept together, we were alone in your home. We’ve been in your office.” My face heats with the erotic memories flashing through my thoughts. “But what I mean is, we’re in this room alone and we’re bare before each other. We both know what we want. The rest of the world has to catch up.”

  Ethan draws a hand around my waist and holds me there for a second before he pulls in and kisses me on the neck. His lips on my skin are fire and ice battling for dominance, the heat of arousal and the tingle of pleasure coursing through my veins.

  Ethan pulls back and squeezes my hand. “I need to tell you the truth about everything.”

  “Ethan, I trust you. But I…I do want to know things,” I say, thinking about how now, when all the thoughts rush in my mind, they can’t bombard me. It isn’t me in an impossible situation; it's us facing difficult things. And together, I know we will figure this out. I’m glad Ethan is going to explain things, and I brace myself for whatever he might tell me. His hand holding mine comforts me, and I put my other hand on top of his and hold him, too. “I’m ready.”

  “That girl, I was never involved with her. No one would believe it of course, and she came to my house, and she was obsessive. I understood obsessiveness, but I told myself I’d never be interested in any of my students. Until you, that was true.

  “So I ruined you,” I say, with a small laugh.

  We share a smile. I’m glad that I can bring something light to the heaviness of this conversation.

  “Thank you for telling me the truth,” I say, running my thumb over the top of his hand, stroking the warm skin of his hand that makes mine seem so small.

  “You saved me,” Ethan says, inhaling sharply. “That girl…she was leaving my house when she crashed her car, and I feel responsible even though I wasn’t involved with her. I thought that was some kind of omen. Like my passion, my obsession, was going to lead me that way. I should've been able to help that girl, but I was just a hopeless fool myself too. I need to tell you the story of how Joelle actually rejected me, because that’s what I flashed back to you after that incident with Aiden. I drug up all those memories, and now I understand how I’m a different person.” His eyes search mine.

  If he’s looking for me to be upset, he’s not going to find it. “Thank you, Ethan.”

  “Your mother, I saw someone she was dating decide they wanted more from her. I was being a creep and I hit that guy, too. Joelle wanted me to stop. My intensity has always been dialed up way too high for her. And I can understand that now. I know I get too violent, too passionate, and there’s no fucking excuse,” Ethan says, and his breathing goes ragged. “But I can be myself with you…and the person that I am changes, grows, gets better when I’m with you. I must sound insane right now. I understand with these cards on the table, you don’t want to be in a relationship with me-“

  “Ethan!” I interrupt him. “I’m not exactly scoring major points in the healthy relationship column…I’ve avoided them all and I got completely obsessed with you. Of course I want you. I mean, I guess your temper and my timidity…they’re part of why we're together in first place.”

  Ethan laughs. “Only you would see it that way. And you are not timid. You were just waiting on me. It's perhaps creepy that I thought I wanted to be with your mother, but she wisely rejected me,” Ethan says.

  I can tell that he’s bringing this up because he’s worried about my reaction. “I’m glad my mother rejected you. I don’t think I could see anyone else with you but me. We understand each other,” I say. I’m serious, and maybe I sound overly confident, but I feel Ethan wrap his arm around me and his lips are on my ear.

  Ethan kisses there and a shiver blooms from there down my body.

  “We do,” Ethan says in my ear. “Now let’s have the valet get my car, and we’ll go understand each other in private.”


  Emmaline

  “This dinner was amazing,” I say. I hear the breathiness in my voice. I need him inside me. I part my lips and look at him.

  Ethan’s eyes are on fire, and they’re bolting me to the spot. His hand is on the small of my back as we walk toward where we wait for the valet, and I need that hand to dip lower.

  “I wish you could just finger me right here. That hand is driving me wild,” I say in a whisper that I know only Ethan can hear.

  “Fuck, you keep saying things like that, and I will fuck you right here. I have half a mind to have you pretend to drop something and slip my cock between your silky lips, if just for a second to feel your mouth on me,” Ethan says.

  Shit. I desperately want Ethan’s cock deep in my mouth now. Sure, I want to sweep my tongue over the tip, but I want more than to just taste him. I want to devour every last inch of him and feel him overtake my body and fill me up, any way that he can. His body belongs to me as much as my heart belongs to him. I care so deeply for Ethan…and want him so fucking bad that if he told me strip naked right now and let him fuck me in the street, I would.

  “What’s on your mind, love?” Ethan says.

  I nearly whimper at that inquiry, but I let it take control of my lust surging through me right now, and instead of dwelling on him calling me ‘love’ I answer the question he asked.

  “I’m thinking about how much I want you,” I say, searching his eyes for a reaction. I see him looking like he’d fucking suffocate me with his cock right now given half the chance. And, oh, do I want to. But that’s thinner ice than either of us should skate on right now. “I was thinking how if you asked me to strip down and take your cock right now, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Even though we shouldn’t…”

  Ethan clenches his fist and he grabs me, pressing me against a wall that’s behind us. He holds me, pressing his lips to my ear. “I hear you say anything like that again and I’m going to fuck you right here, I can’t hold myself back that much, not when I know how fucking perfect my cock is inside you,” Ethan growls.

  Ethan’s arms are wrapped around me, circling my waist. I grind against his cock. His lips ghost over mine, and it is just not enough. His kiss sets my body on fire and short circuits my brain. All I can think about is getting that big cock of his inside of me. I’m shamelessly parting my thighs and letting him rub against me while I rub against him and kiss him. The valet can’t get here fast enough, because I’m aching for him to touch me more. If this takes even a moment longer, I’m going to beg him to fuck me right here, public or not. That’s how badly I need him.

  “Fuck, I don’t know the valet to take this long. I need to get you home and fuck you, as soon as possible, before my cock fucks into you right here,” Ethan says, his breathing ragged.

  But we were so fucked, and not in the way that I thought we would be tonight.

  Emmaline

  “Ethan fucking Wesley, you get your damn hands off my daughter!”

  Fuuuuuuuck.

  That voice is my mother. The gasp I hear is my father.

  Ethan keeps his arm around me, circled around my waist so that I’m hooked to him, even when he turns around.

  Shit. Shit. Shit!

  My parents were in a restaurant down the street. They’d parked when they saw Ethan and I as we were waiting for the valet.

  “This isn’t as bad as it looks,” I say to my mother. I can barely catch my breath and she’s barreling toward me in full protective mother mode. This is so fucking bad, but that’s because I can’t imagine my mother being okay with this in a thousand years. I love Ethan, but this isn't how I want to tell my mother that.

  My father is trying to calm her down, grabbing her arm, but she’s swatting him away. “Shut up, Daniel, you don’t understand,” she spits her words at him.

  I can’t imagine ever talking to Ethan that way, and I know he’d never stand for that. Of course, my father cowers back. I know that mom likes being in charge, and I certainly don’t take any shit, but now I’m seeing the differences in myself and my mother now and what it means for belonging to Ethan. I want to belong to him. My mother just plain doesn’t want that. My father has never acted like that far as I’ve ever seen.

  But I don’t have time to put last year’s freshman psychology to use. I lean forward and instinctively Ethan grips me. I bite my lip at the sensation. I crave belonging to Ethan, this is who I am and who I want to be for him. With him. Ethan and I bring out the equal and complementary parts of each other.

  The battering ram coming toward us is the opposite…and she’s my mother who wants me to not date my professor, the friend she romantically rejected. God, this is a mess. Everything I want is going down in flames. Tears well up in my eyes and I try to breathe through it.

  Ethan is struggling to control his temper; I can practically feel heat rising off of him. I step between him and my mother, my hand sliding over his for a second because I have to touch him. It's how I have to show him that I’m his, that I want him to be okay, even in just a small, momentary touch.

  “Move, move right now, Emmaline. You get the hell away from this bastard. I knew he was up to some bullshit. All these years and you figure you’ll just have my daughter since I didn’t want you? You’re crazy. You’re a creep. You need to stay the hell away from Emmaline-“

  “MOM!” I can’t take a single word of this. “Don’t talk about Ethan like that. You don’t know him anymore and I’m not convinced that you ever really did. This isn’t about you. I’m an adult’-“ I cut off my mom but she cuts me off, opening her mouth and making a frustrated sound while stepping closer.

  I press my body against Ethan, backing against him. Ethan grips my upper arms and the waves of adrenaline shooting through my body that make me want to run tell me that there's nowhere to run because where I want to be is in Ethan's arms.

  My mother’s eyes nearly pop out of her head at Ethan's hands around my arms. “He's not some man you can date. You're a child, and this is ridiculous. You have some kind of delusion here, and I love you, baby, but I know that you don’t know what you’re doing right now. You can come home with me, or you can come to the university to me.” She stomps.

  Ethan's hands squeeze my arms tight and then release me. “Emmaline, go home with your mother,” Ethan says. His voice has that calm-before-the-hurricane quality, but this won’t be the prelude to something sensual.

  My eyes well back up and I turn around. “No!” I try to fight back the tears but they’re streaming down my face. I bring my hands up to touch Ethan's face but he captures my wrists before I make contact.

  I can see the pain in Ethan's eyes. “Your mother is right.” The valet pulls up with Ethan's car, and though his eyes are pained, Ethan releases my hands and takes his keys from the valet. “Go home with your parents.”

  “Please, don’t leave me,” I cry out.

  Ethan steps back toward me and wipes off one of my tears, and I watch his hand drop down into a fist, but he goes back to his car.

  I beg Ethan not to leave me, whimpering and crying, but Ethan drives away.

  My father comes toward me, but I push him away and he stays back. My mother walks toward me and grabs my arm but I push her away. “I will not go home with you. No one controls me, I'm a grown woman, not a child!” I storm off and drive back to campus.

  As soon as I’m inside my room, I call Ethan.

  No answer.

  “I thought we were past that,” I say aloud to no one but myself.

  My tears don’t stop flowing until I’m asleep. In my dreams, I’m sure that I am still crying. When I wake up from my fitful sleep, I pull the rose out of my purse and lay it on the pillow next to me. It smells so good, but right now I should be wrapped up in the unique, masculine scent of Ethan enveloping me.

  We were starting something, and now I’m so crushed.

  I understand what my mother was getting at, but she’s the one who doesn’t understand. I know that I’ll forgive her, but it
won’t be just because she is my mother. I will absolutely need her to even attempt to understand that she crushed something in me when she callously called me a child and ignored anything I had to say.

  Ethan won’t be forgiven until he erases every hurt he’s caused me. I feel like I’ve been hollowed out, scooped out and left in his mouth when I kissed him. The husk in a crumbled hump on my bed, that’s not Emmaline Travers.

  Ethan

  I can’t bring myself to open a second bottle of wine, even though finishing this first one hasn’t even gotten me buzzed. I don’t want to be numb. I want to feel this, even though this misery is crushing me more than I even knew was possible. I miss Emmaline so damn much it's killing me.

  I can’t let anything stand between me and Emmaline. I know this now. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone in my life. I fucking love her. I know this, and I should've told her. I crave her, I long for her, I think about her constantly, and in my mind I picture a life with the two us, together. Forever. I’m not giving that up.

  I don’t like what that means right now though. I have to go to Joelle. She’s not going to stand in the way of Emmaline and I. I know that there’s a complicated history. That Joelle is Emmaline’s mother and has genuine reasons to want me not to date her daughter.

  But I don’t just want to date Emmaline. I want to marry her. I want to possess her. I want to grow old with her and die by her side. I'm older, and that means I’ll likely die first…and damn if that won’t be a life well lived.

  I grab my keys, knowing I’m sober enough to drive and desperate enough to have Emmaline that nothing is going to stop me.

  When I get to Joelle’s house, Daniel isn’t home. Good. I don’t want to deal with him. Daniel didn’t plan to kill me with his bare hands. That’s honestly a little strange…but he’s always been a much more passive person than me.