“Italy.” He sat back down and refilled our wine glasses. “She’s a buyer for Saks in the city.”
“Saks.” I was seriously impressed. “You mean, Saks Fifth Avenue. In New York City.”
He smiled. “Yeah. That’s the one.”
A tiny piece of observational data slid into place in my brain. “Ah, that explains that gorgeous leather jacket I saw hanging on a peg in your hallway back home. Well worn, but very expensive. A gift from Sis?”
“Okay, just how long have you been stalking me?” The smile turned to laughter. “Did you go through my bedroom closet, too?”
I blushed and scrambled for a comeback. “I may not be able to afford them, but I can appreciate nice clothes. Sis and I are going to be very, very good friends.”
“You’d like Sarah.” His eyes suddenly caught mine, and his voice went soft. “She’d like you, too.”
“I’d like to meet her. Are you two close?”
He shrugged minutely. “We were growing up. We don’t see each other much now, but we talk. She’s the big sister, you know. She worries.”
“So, okay, let’s see if I have this straight,” I said. “You all grew up in Syracuse, where Dad and Mom were . . .”
“A college professor and”—he hesitated—“a patron of the arts.”
I gave him a double-take.
His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Mom’s family has money.” He gestured at the room around us. “This is the Hamilton family camp, not the Roberts’s.”
More pieces fell into place. I began again. “Okay. A college professor and a patron of the arts, and as soon as they graduated from high school, Baby Bro and Big Sis skedaddled for the bright lights of the Big City while little Ethan followed his dream to become a country music star in Nashville, right? Where’d you go wrong, bubba?”
Ethan had just taken a drink of wine and barely managed to choke it down around his laughter. “Guess my radical upside down banjer-pickin’ style jest didn’t ketch on.”
“Sad, really. So many stories like yours in Music City.” I looked at him. “So, what’s the real story? How did you end up in Nashville?”
His smile faded, and he studied his wine glass. I could see he was weighing how much to tell, how much to leave for another time, how much to forget had ever been part of the story at all. I waited, knowing he needed to tell at least some of the story. After a while, he took another drink and began.
“I was in my final year of residency at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, doing pretty well. I liked them, they liked me. I was on track to be offered a staff position in the hospital there, and I was happy about it. It was interesting work, a really diverse patient population, and I was learning a lot. I had some good friends in town, too.”
I guess my puzzlement showed, because he stopped talking. “So why did you leave?”
The corners of his mouth quirked upwards. “The usual reason. I met someone.”
“Ah.” I forced myself to keep breathing.
“Her name was Elizabeth,” he continued, his eyes on his wine glass again. “She was studying at the School of International Studies at Hopkins. When she graduated, she was offered a position at a firm back home in Nashville. She asked me to go with her.”
My heart was trying to break free of my ribcage, and I had to fight to keep my voice steady. “You gave up everything for her.”
His eyes met mine. “It’s not quite as romantic as it sounds. Yes, I loved her, but I was young, and she was manipulative. She gave me an ultimatum, but she sweetened the deal. Her uncle offered me a fellowship at the Psychogenesis Institute.”
I took in breath in a little gasp. “You were married to Claussen’s niece?”
He nodded, his expression guarded. There was obviously a lot more to this story. I wondered how much I should push to find out. I nibbled around the edges.
“But you no longer work for him. Was it because of the accident?”
He shook his head. “The work was interesting, but after a few years, I got tired of research, so I opened my own practice. That was before the accident.”
“Psychogenesis is a research institute?” My confusion no doubt showed in my face. “I thought Claussen was just a psychiatrist, like you.”
“He still does clinical work, like the therapy group you left. But most of his time is spent on small-scale research projects. Lots of government grants, that kind of thing. He has a special interest in people who construct elaborate paranoid fantasies, but can still hold down a job and maintain relationships. People who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens, for example.”
I gave him a sly smile. “People like me, you mean.”
“Six months ago I would have said so, yes.” He had the grace to blush.
“You said he invented the AL machine to help them?”
“That was the idea. And it works most of the time.”
“Except when it doesn’t.”
He nodded. “Except when it doesn’t.”
I thought about what he’d told me while I sipped at my wine, but there was something I still didn’t quite understand.
“So you don’t work for Arthur Claussen, but he still sends you patients?”
“It’s not that uncommon. Docs do it all the time when they get busy or the case is a little out of their field.” The explanation seemed reasonable enough, but the expression on Ethan’s face didn’t match his words. He frowned, distracted.
I should have heeded the warning signs, but I pressed on. “Okay, I guess I get it. Still, it must have been hard at first, striking out on your own. How did your”—I stumbled over the word—“wife feel about it?”
Ethan sat back and took a drink of his wine. “Elizabeth was opposed to my leaving Arthur.” His tone had suddenly become detached and formal.
“She didn’t want you to have your own practice?”
He was tired of sharing, I could see it in his eyes. “She would have been fine with it, as long as all my patients had been rich, famous and merely neurotic.” His lips compressed into a line. “Poor and crazy she couldn’t handle.”
I slipped an arm around his neck and pulled him close. “Well, baby, poor and crazy is sure what you have now.”
I touched my lips to his, opened my mouth to receive him when his tongue slipped eagerly inside, enjoyed the wine-flavored swirl of his kiss for the space of several heartbeats. Then I left my counter stool to stand between his thighs, my arms around his waist, my head on his chest, just wanting to hold him and have him hold me for a moment. I could hear his heart beating beneath my ear, strong, a little fast, with the same excitement I felt.
I felt him exhale with satisfaction as his arms tightened around me. “You’re just the kind of crazy I need, Asia Burdette.”
Ethan emerged from the steamy bathroom with only a towel standing between him and the chillier air of the hallway. But the wood stove was doing its job, and he thought he might actually get away with making love to Asia in front of the fire without freezing his ass off. He grinned as he approached the great room.
Asia was wrapped in a blanket and sitting in the bentwood rocker by the fire. She offered him a slow, sultry smile and opened the blanket to welcome him. She was naked underneath, her skin pink and glowing with an inner warmth he could almost feel from where he stood. He pulled in a breath, the blood rushing to his groin so quickly it left him light-headed. He was so hard so fast he groaned, and his hand involuntarily gripped himself as the towel dropped to the floor.
Her smile widened in appreciation, and he heard her breath leave her in a sigh. He dropped to his knees between her thighs, gathered her in against him, her arms around his neck, her breasts pressing against his chest, her belly warm against his cock.
“Oh, yeah, that’s what I’ve been waiting for.” Her soft murmur drizzled like warm honey over his skin.
He turned his lips to her ear. “I’m going to open you like a beautiful, mysterious puzzle box. I’m going to find all your loveliest, most secret places,
and I’m going to set them on fire, one by one. I’m going to discover whatever it is that makes you shiver and moan and beg, and I’m going to use it to make you come for me.”
She was already trembling under the effect of his words, her breath warm and ragged against his cheek, her hands sliding across the skin of his back. She liked to hear him talk. He moved his lips to the sensitive places at her throat and under her jawline and kept talking.
“I want to hear you come for me, Asia. Not just once or twice, but over and over again. I love it when you say my name. I love it when you tell me what you need. I love it when all those little muscles inside you just go wild.”
She moaned and found his mouth with hers, parting her full lips to take him in. His tongue plunged deep, a prelude to the more intimate penetration to come. She welcomed him with a gentle suction, and he felt her breasts rising against his chest as he lingered over the hot, sweet taste of her mouth, the delicious velvety slide of her tongue on his. His heart hammered, pumping the fevered blood into his straining cock, setting up an ache that engulfed his whole body.
Then she reached for him, took his drum-tight head and the top third of his shaft in her warm hand and squeezed hard. He groaned into her mouth, grateful for the rough touch that diffused some of his immediate need. At the same time he knew only a stroke or two along his throbbing length would be enough to send him over the edge. He placed his hand over hers, a signal she understood to release him.
He broke off the kiss and made himself slow down, trailing his lips from her warmly pulsing throat to the satiny skin of her breasts. He cupped both round, firm globes in his palms, teasing the taut nipples with his thumbs until Asia’s head fell back against the chair and her eyes closed in pleasure. He lowered his head to one perfect breast and took the tight pink tip in his mouth, licking and suckling and circling it with his tongue as her fingers curled in his hair and soft little moans escaped her with every breath. He moved to the other breast and gave it the same devoted treatment, refusing to be hurried.
His deliberate pace was torture for Asia, who was writhing under him now, wanting more. He sat back on his heels and let his fingertips caress the inside of her thighs, the silken creases where her legs joined her hips.
“Oh, God, I want you so bad and you haven’t even touched me.” The breathy rasp of her voice made him ache to possess her. “How do you do that?” She pushed back in the rocker so that she was open to him, her hands skimming his forearms to encourage the play of his fingers.
“You can feel how much I want you. Your body can’t resist that.” He used his thumbs to spread the slick, tender folds of skin, revealing the swollen clit at the heart of her desire. He bent to put his mouth to the sensitive nub and breathed her in, reveling in that exotic desert honey smell and the taste that was hers alone. She arched under him as he lapped and suckled, working the buttery flesh under his tongue until she was desperate and moaning with need. He slipped two fingers inside her and stroked just as the throb of her arousal became the rolling contractions of orgasm and she flooded his mouth with her juices, calling his name and nearly sliding out of the chair.
As soon as he could, he moved to change places with her, enjoying the look of eager agreement that came over her face when she saw what he planned next.
She straddled him and slowly lowered herself onto him. As she settled onto his hips, he gasped at the full sensual impact of their connection. Fully sheathed in her creamy heat, it was all he could do to hold back the climax his body demanded. The least movement of the rocker took him deeper into her welcoming flesh, or pulled him back against the tight grip of her intimate embrace.
“God, that feels so good. I can feel every inch of you, you’re in so deep.” Her voice trailed off into a broken moan as he rocked slowly forward and back again.
She sat back so he could see her and, shameless, he watched as he pushed into her, took a voyeur’s pleasure in the watching as he took a lover’s pleasure in every stroke. He thrilled to see her breasts jounce as he moved with her, her belly flutter with every quick indrawn breath of intense desire. He lost himself in watching her, though his blood was on fire and his climax was becoming more inevitable with every thrust. Her head was back, her eyes closed, her skin lit with a sheen of fine sweat. She was the most magnificent creature he had ever seen, and his heart swelled with love and pride as he realized: she belongs to me.
He brought his hands down to her hips and began to lift her as they rocked, extending each stroke. He felt his own need spike as she groaned and the heat flared inside her, the fire intensifying toward a conflagration that would consume them both. He kneaded her swollen nub with his thumb, wanting to see her find that ultimate pleasure while he filled her, wanting to feel her explode into climax around his cock, wanting to feel it take her, body and soul, as he held her. At last she screamed and collapsed forward onto him as he speared up into her, the ripples of her orgasm squeezing him from tip to root in continuous waves. “Oh, God, Ethan!” Her moan, his name, was like a mantra, repeated with every shudder of breath, with every lift of her hips, until at last he could feel the desperate pulsing of her inner muscles begin to slow.
He had the strength for one more move and he made it now, standing with Asia in his arms to take two steps to the bed. He laid her down and reseated himself inside her, smiling as she wrapped her long legs around his waist and pulled him in deeper. They moaned together as he filled her and her silky grip claimed him. He drove up into her, experiencing a fierce joy as she opened ahead of him, pushed back against him, swallowed him to the hilt. He pulled back almost all the way so he could have the pleasure of plunging in deep again and again, and each time he felt her give him more of herself. He was close, so close, but he held back, just a few moments longer.
Then she looked up into his eyes, and he saw something he’d been waiting all his life to see. The truth of it stunned him, stole his breath and stilled his beating heart, resonating deep within him. He slowed his movements, wanting to savor what he was feeling.
“Asia,” he whispered. “My Asia.”
“Yours and no one else’s.” She still held him with those golden-brown eyes. “Tonight and for the rest of my life, Ethan.”
“God, I love you. I’m burning up with it.”
“Show me.”
He started to move again in long, slow strokes and God! if he thought he’d been ready before he’d had no idea, because soon she was sobbing his name over and over and urging him deeper and harder until he couldn’t remember who or where he was. The universe contracted until there was nothing but her body and his, nothing but her sweet welcoming heat and his scorching need, nothing but the pulsing waves of her orgasm contracting along his shaft as she came yet again and the pounding response of his own release beginning deep in his belly.
At last his climax erupted out of him, propelling him forward and deep inside her. He came like a dam bursting, flooding her willing body with his come, flooding his open heart with emotion. And when it was done, he lay gasping for breath, caught by surprise, as if by some kind of sexual—no, some kind of emotional—tsunami.
“Jesus, Asia.”
“I know, baby.” She clung to him. “I know.”
He lay inside her for a long time after it ended, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal, pressing his lips against her neck and her shoulder, too used up to move. She seemed in no hurry for him to go. She held him close, her hands moving up and down his back, her kisses brushing his cheek.
After a while he raised himself to his elbows and looked down at her. He smiled and bent to touch her lips with his. “That came close to a religious experience.”
Asia laughed softly, warming his heart. “Well, I didn’t see God, but I’m pretty sure I called His name a few times. And yours—a lot. Damn, but you do things to me no one has ever done before.”
Ethan grinned and nipped at her neck, proud of himself. “Good. Just the way I planned it.”
“But there’s som
ething else you need to know.” She waited to say more until he’d raised his head again to look at her. “What I feel for you has to do with so much more than the sex. The sex is only as good as it is because I love you, Ethan. Deep down where it counts. Where things take root and start to grow and can’t be gotten rid of easily. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Suddenly he was shaking, his breath caught in his tightening throat. Her eyes were locked on his, and he couldn’t look away. Did he know what she was talking about? Just a few days ago he’d been wondering if maybe she had a key to unlock the prison he’d built around his emotions. Turns out she hadn’t had a key, she’d had a fucking sledgehammer. And he wasn’t sure she was through smashing walls yet.
“People will say a lot of things when they’re making love, Asia, but I meant what I said.” He reached out to touch her face. “I love you. I’m still on fire for you. And I believe that fire will be burning inside me for the rest of my life. For you, Asia. Only for you.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Cold. Cold metal beneath my naked skin. Cold air in the vast room surrounding me, with not even a sheet to drape over my body. Bright. The lights arranged in vast banks high above and positioned close around the table so the Grays could do their work. Screams, some close, some further away. Some my own. And pain. Ripping, searing, mind-breaking pain that would not end.
I felt the touch on the back of my neck and shivered. Though I must have known it was Ethan’s fingertips that swept the hair aside and gently traced the line of the scar that lay hidden there, my body reacted as if Death himself had run a skeletal finger over my skin. Before I could stop myself I hissed, “Don’t,” and flinched away from his hand.
My eyes flew open, my heart thrashing against my ribcage. It was early; the sun had just lifted above the lake to fill the great room with golden, dust-sprinkled light. The dream—no, the memory—dissolved into a bitter aftertaste. And it came to me that I had just cruelly rejected the man who had given me the most incredible night of my life. Feeling awful, I rolled over to look at him.
Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1) Page 24
