Sexual Integrity

by J. A. Dennam

  In keeping with the respectful tone they’d adopted, Brooke asked, “When I come up innocent…what then?”

  His gaze scoured her face. “Then I guess I’ll be in trouble, won’t I?”

  Because he’d have to admit he was wrong? Or because he doubted she’d be of a forgiving mind? Fearing the latter, Brooke swallowed hard and backed out of his reach. “Then I guess we’re still at an impasse. I’m sorry you wasted your time.”

  Ethan stared at her for a moment before looking away. “And I’m sorry I ruined your date.” He moved toward the door.

  Brooke watched him with a sinking feeling, knowing that if he left now she would never get a moment’s peace. That kiss still lingered on her lips, a brutal reminder of just how much she wanted him despite their turbulent exchanges.

  His hand froze on the knob. Shoulders stiff, Ethan stood there for a quiet second before he swore beneath his breath and turned back to her. “The hell I am,” he rasped as he closed the distance. The look in his eyes told her there was no escape…and Brooke had no desire to try.

  17

  WITH A FEROCITY THAT SURPRISED HER, ETHAN reclaimed her mouth, demanding a response that she couldn’t possibly deny. When Brooke grasped those solid shoulders, he held her just as tight, moving both hands down her back until he took hold of her ass and pressed her hard against his erection. It was thick and long and rigid as steel behind the barrier of his jeans.

  Then she felt herself being lifted. Succumbing to the heady demands of her own desire, she wrapped her legs around his waist. He backed her up against the wall and removed her glasses before sweeping her into an erotic world of torturous pleasure. Her shirt came off. Her bra was unclasped and slipped down her arms. She flung it aside, arched back, and let him taste her skin, along her collarbone and further down until his mouth closed over a rose-tipped breast.

  The feel of his tongue moving over her nipple and the sounds of their erratic breathing pushed her lust into a whole different realm. She forgot all about the competition and the misery that went with it. All she wanted was for him to quench the longing that burned deep inside her, completely out of her control.

  Ethan ripped off his T-shirt. “Where’s the bedroom?” he rasped.

  She pointed and then held on tight while he carried her past the kitchen and through a set of double doors. Throughout the short journey, she kept her forehead pressed against his, her eyes shut tight in order to not allow any sort of reality in. He was a man. She was a woman. This was the most natural outlet for the pent-up needs that plagued them.

  He lowered her to the bed, curled his fingers around the waistband of her shorts, and pulled them off. Then he came back and repeated the process with her panties, all the while studying their slow progression down the length of her legs. Brooke stretched, feeling languid all of a sudden as she watched him unbutton his jeans. They came down, and in the dim light of dusk, she saw his erection standing at full attention. Somehow it seemed bigger than she imagined. But, of course, now she had the benefit of sight.

  Ethan moved between her legs, parting them as he crawled onto the bed. They said nothing, just watched each other as he lowered himself on top of her. She opened her mouth in invitation. He delved inside it, kissing her with matched hunger. Then his lips were once again roaming down her body, slowly following a path down its center until they came to the valley between her thighs.

  Brooke gasped when his lips grazed the tender flesh there. His breath moved over her folds, teasing until she tensed in anticipation of where they would go next. Then she felt his hot tongue flatten against her sensitive clit and everything around them melted away.

  As she drowned in sensation, he wrapped his arms around her legs and pulled her closer against his firm, demanding mouth. After that first taste, he burrowed his tongue deep, moving from the bottom of her slit to the top and then repeating the process as he lapped at the essence flowing from her body. Her pulse raced. Soft moans of pleasure escaped from her throat. How could something feel so good? How could anything be so sinful and wonderful at the same time?

  Closing her eyes, she let the mounting pleasure carry her away. She felt his fingers explore her entrance and then slip inside. She moaned and moved her hips against them as he licked and sucked. Soon her moans turned to gasps and then to high-pitched sounds of ecstasy. His fingers and tongue brought her to the brink of an orgasm that was different from the first—more focused and heavily concentrated in one spot from the inside out. As it intensified, she held her breath and waited for it to crown. When it did, the feeling of surpassing all boundaries had her writhing beneath him, grabbing his hair in her fists, and letting everything else fall away.

  As the wave subsided, he slowed down, his tender ministrations gently bringing her back to earth. Though her body was well sated and thoroughly depleted of strength, she was left with a sudden need to be filled again.

  She heard the tearing of foil, opened her eyes, and watched him roll on a condom. The sight of Ethan touching himself that way, preparing his cock, and knowing he used that break to take in every detail of her naked body filled her with a feeling of sensual wellbeing. Then he lowered himself between her legs again and positioned his engorged member against her slick entrance.

  “Look at me,” he whispered.

  She was looking at him. His face loomed close above hers, his handsome features dark and fierce in the waning light.

  “I want you to know who’s inside you this time.”

  As the words sank in, he plunged. Her body took him in, stretching to accommodate his girth. In one instant, he managed to anger her and reward her, to satisfy that hungry need to join and to be filled so completely. As his hips ground against hers in deep, wide circles, her pulse began to race again. Yes, she knew exactly who was inside her, but he also knew whose body he took pleasure from at that moment.

  His eyes bore into hers, refusing to let her escape. “Touch me,” he demanded. She raised her hands, moved them over the contours of his shoulders, chest, and back. She felt all of him, the many curves and textures of his body, the scars that marred his skin’s sinewy perfection, the dance of muscles beneath them.

  “Ethan,” she whimpered.

  “That’s right.” Shifting to one elbow, he hooked an arm beneath her leg and drove deeper inside her. The angle changed the friction of each thrust, awakening a whole different part of her. Brooke panted as the pleasure built again, fast and furious.

  Her lips opened wider with the knowledge that she was about to come again. A strangled sound escaped her throat as that familiar, exquisite tightening began deep inside her. When it consumed her, she threw her head back and the room was filled by her cries of pleasure. Ethan buried his face in her hair and roared out his own.

  Once again locked in each other’s arms, they gently came down from the incredible climax they’d reached together, enjoying the lingering intimacy of it all.

  After a while, Ethan rolled off of her. “Would you hit me if I told you I’m not sorry that happened?”

  He sounded dazed. She turned her head, stared at his profile as the air conditioning cooled her glistening body. “I would hit you if you were sorry.”

  He breathed in deeply and exhaled. “Then it’s a fucking miracle. We agree on something.” Then he turned his head, stared into her eyes for a moment. “Do you want me to leave?”

  Brooke marveled over the fact that a man she had an ugly relationship with was lying naked on her bed. He was beautiful, his body long and lean with the natural physique of a born doer—a man who would ruin a shirt in order to tinker under a car hood for a stranded coworker. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Can we do this for long without fighting?”

  The bed moved as he rolled toward her, propping his head on his hand. “Wouldn’t it be something if we could just…take a break: no fighting, no doubts, no cares?”

  She smiled. “I don’t know how we’d handle something like that.”

  He also smiled, but it faded i
n thought. “Maybe if we understood each other a little more, we’d find a way to survive the week.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Brooke asked with a fair amount of caution.

  “We can ask each other one question. Just one, so it has to count. Nothing about work and nothing too sensitive.”

  That didn’t sound too bad. “Okay,” she said with a sigh. “You first.”

  “How did you get to be twenty-nine years old without ever having an orgasm?”

  If they weren’t trying so hard to get along, she might think he was making fun of her. “What makes you so sure I haven’t?”

  Annoyance deepened the lines around his mouth. “Still playing coy, are we?”

  “I don’t know.” Brooke gave a helpless shrug. “I guess I didn’t think I could.”

  “You are an incredibly capable woman,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s not something you have to work hard at if you have the right partner.”

  Brooke frowned at his practical outlook on the subject. Were they talking about sex or square dancing? “Yeah, well…I’ve never been good at picking the right partner.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Something tells me your priorities were a little skewed.”

  She smiled, not offended and completely at ease. “I’ve always been very career oriented. Shocker, huh?”

  “I’m stunned,” he quipped back with a smile of his own.

  “Okay, it’s my turn.” Her fingertips lightly grazed the scar over his left ribcage. “Is this from your car accident?”

  He grabbed her hand and went still, his smile slowly fading. When she thought she’d gone over that “too sensitive” line, he brought her hand up and placed it over a part of his head. “Feel that?”

  Brooke rolled toward him and carefully probed his scalp just above his left brow line. Beneath his thick hair was a scar, but also something else—a larger area that felt…different. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “It’s a metal plate. My helmet came off.”

  “Jesus.” A shudder ran through her. “That must have been one hell of an impact. How long ago did it happen?”

  “Not as long ago as you think.”

  “You seem to have recovered okay.”

  “My vision is bad. I’m banned from racing.”

  Though he seemed nonchalant about it, Brooke wasn’t fooled. “You must miss it.”

  He finally looked away, breaking the intimacy of the moment. “I’m dealing with the withdrawal one day at a time.”

  “Your sister is afraid you’ll do something stupid.” When he didn’t answer, she pressed further. “She says you need a new hobby, a new distraction.”

  “My sister worries too much,” he replied with irritation.

  Brooke scrutinized his face and decided the stubborn crease on his brow was a sure sign of guilt. “Something tells me it’s a legitimate worry.”

  Ethan looked at her as if he was surprised. “Why would you say that?”

  “Your car has a roll bar on it.” He rolled his eyes, prompting her to dig further. “You mean you’ve never been tempted to open it up on a back road? Or race someone in a dry riverbed like Danny Zuko?”

  His sudden laughter filled the room, easing any tension that her line of questioning might have caused. “Seriously?” he choked. “Out of all the epic racing films out there, you pick a reference from Grease?”

  “It’s one of my favorite movies,” Brooke argued with a pout.

  He shook his head. “Why does that not surprise me?”

  “That moment when Greased Lightning jumps the ramp in slow motion, it makes my heart go pitter-patter every time.”

  He snorted again. “You’re hopeless.”

  She shrugged and yawned. “Why? Your idea of racing and mine can’t be that different. A fast car is a fast car is a fast car.”

  Before the last word left her lips, Brooke realized just how much the tumultuous day had caught up with her. Now that the stress was gone and Ethan was lying beside her and they were exchanging their first-ever round of easy banter, the pull of sleep beckoned.

  “Take a drive with me.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “Take a drive with me,” he repeated. “I’ll show you the difference.”

  The suggestion alone drove the sleep right out of her weary body. “You’re banned from racing, but you want to test your limits with me in the passenger seat?”

  With a heavy sigh, he sat up, slid off the bed, and extended his hand. “I would never do that,” he said softly. “Just trust me for once.”

  18

  THE RIDE TO FORT MYERS HAD BEEN DEVOID OF conversation since they both seemed unwilling to break the amiable silence. It had not, however, been quiet. Much to Brooke’s chagrin, that prevailing, vibrant whine still hummed in her eardrums even after the engine was cut. She supposed such power under the hood had a way of burrowing into one’s soul, and she could see how a man would embrace it. Now parked in a shadowy corner of a mall parking lot, she sensed Ethan’s restless mood as they watched a gathering in the distance.

  Though it was way past her bedtime, her eyes were clear and her mind was sharp. “Do you know those people? “ she asked.

  “Nope,” Ethan said, his wrist still draped over the steering wheel. “But I know why they’re here.”

  So did Brooke. “It looks like they’re shopping.”

  “They’re looking for a compatible car,” he explained. “They’ll ask questions, compare specs, and make a bet.”

  “And then they’ll race each other?”

  “Yes, but not here, too many cops. They’ll pick a desolate road somewhere and mark out a quarter-mile stretch.”

  She smiled. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

  He shook his head and ran a hand over the stubble covering his jaw. “Not really.”

  But his intense focus on the unfolding scene said otherwise. “Bull,” she challenged with a little laugh. “You said you were on your way to Fort Myers before you came to my house.”

  “That had nothing to do with this.”

  “And you just happened to find these guys through telepathy?”

  “I just spotted them from the road,” he said easily enough.

  She shook her head. “You’re lying, Ethan Wolf. You’ve probably raced half of them already.”

  He raised a brow. “That would be reckless and irresponsible of me. Besides, street racing wasn’t my thing to begin with. These guys risk some hefty punishment because there’s no other outlet available when the need hits.”

  “And you don’t ever feel the need, huh?”

  He gave a casual shrug. “Nope, and before, I had the track any time I wanted.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.“Because you were so good no one could deny you?”

  “Because my sister married the owner.”

  It wasn’t the answer she expected. Brooke’s smile widened. “It wasn’t an arranged marriage, was it?”

  Ethan broke into a chuckle. “Don’t tell her. She’s in love, and Grant made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  He was joking, of course, but Brooke detected a hint of truth behind the story. “You were friends with Grant first, then?”

  “Close friends. He builds cars, I drive—drove them. As soon as I was back on my feet after the accident, we finished the modifications on this car that we’d started a year before.”

  “Even if you couldn’t race it?”

  He rolled down the window and exhaled loudly. “You sound like Harper. She thought that Grant was dangling a carrot under my nose. They fought about it a lot, I guess.”

  As the warm night air moved in and cleared the fog from the windshield, Brooke heard music and people laughing and talking in the distance. There were only a few women in the mix, probably girlfriends, not the tawdry-looking groupies she expected to see. Before, there was no sign to indicate that Ethan fit in with a crowd like that. It amazed her how easy it was to imagine now. “Watching this, listening t
o you right now,” she paused, searching for the right words. “You don’t seem like a man who would settle for a desk job.”

  He dismissed the notion with a grunt. “Racing was just a hobby… well, until it wasn’t. But there was a nice balance between the office and the track.”

  Another two-door car pulled into the lot, purple with a spoiler that looked like a dual-blade razor. Ethan swore lightly and sank down in his seat a bit.

  “What?” Brooke studied the new arrival with keen interest. “Do you know that person?”

  “Nope.”

  The car had stopped just long enough for the driver to converse with some folks in the crowd. Then the engine revved and the wheels began rolling right toward them.

  Brooke watched with fascination as Ethan propped an elbow on the window and stared straight ahead with a look of discomfort. Sure enough, the purple car came to a stop right beside them. A man of Polynesian descent sat behind the wheel with a mass of black hair hanging down his beefy shoulders in tight, orderly waves. “Well if it ain’t the hotrod himself,” he said in a gravelly voice.

  While Ethan gave the man a sheepish smile, Brooke cocked her head. “So you do know each other?”

  “Not really.”

  The other driver scoped her out as if assessing the situation between them. “Name’s Kale, by the way.”

  Ethan tapped his fingertips on the windowsill. “Kale, your timing is unbelievable.”

  “The car sticks out, man,” he continued. “You’re kinda making the guys nervous. Are you here to run or not?”

  “Nope. Just watching.”

  Brooke noted his prolific use of the words “nope” and “not really” with amused interest.

  Kale stuck out a hand. “Why not? I’m sure your date wouldn’t mind.”

  It was his use of the “D” word that had them both scrambling to set the man straight. “Uh…no, he isn’t—”

  “She isn’t—”

  “We aren’t—”

  “And this is definitely not…”

  “That’s cool, that’s cool.” Kale’s teeth flashed bright white in the dark of the parking lot. “But instead of lurking, why don’t you come on over and show the guys what you got. I know I’m curious.”