Until Dawn

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  I didn’t wait for her to react. I just dropped to my knees and did what I’d just promised.

  * * * *

  Mia

  For about ten seconds—the same amount of time it took for Ethan to kiss his way up one of my thighs—I questioned my sanity. Strings or bribes or no, having oral sex in a bathroom wasn’t high up on my to-do list.

  For about ten seconds more—the same amount of time it took Ethan to move to the other thigh—I reasoned that I wasn’t giving in to him. I was giving in to my own physical needs. Which was a good thing. Far, far too good.

  Another ten seconds—the same amount of time it took Ethan to flick his tongue along the lacy edge of my underwear—was all I had to think about it at all. Because honestly…how much thinking could I be expected to do when an undeniably skilled man had his mouth working over my most intimate places? And it was working.

  “Oh, God!” I gasped as his tongue found its way under the lace and took its first taste of me.

  At my exclamation, Ethan made a small noise—a pleased little hum that vibrated straight through me. My hips thrust forward, begging for more. And he gave it to me. For a moment. Lick-suck-lick. Then he paused.

  Torment, I thought, my hands balling into desperate fists.

  “Ethan.” His named slipped out as a plea, and he brought his mouth to me again.

  Lick-lick-suck. Slooooooow lick. Pause.

  “You taste good,” he murmured, his breath hot on my skin.

  Lick-nibble-suck. Another pause.

  “Wet and sweet,” he added.

  And I realized the torment was on purpose, fully intended to drive me insane with want.

  Suck-suck-nibble-lick. Break.

  “And these panties. Always thought I was into black lace. But I’m damned sure purple is my new favorite color.”

  Lick-circle-lick-lick. P—

  My hands unfurled and whipped up to land on his head.

  “Don’t,” I begged.

  Lick. “Don’t?” Suck-suck. “Or don’t stop?” Lick.

  “Yes,” I moaned.

  “Which one?” he teased.

  “Please, Ethan. Don’t stop.”

  “All right, baby.”

  And—blissfully—he ceased his teasing.

  He swore in that reverent, under-his-breath way that he had, and his fingers came up to push away my underwear and join the sensuous dance of his tongue. Together, they circled my clit, driving my want higher. My breaths echoed off the walls, and my hands pulled so hard on his thick hair that I knew I had to be hurting him. But I couldn’t stop grasping him. I needed to hold on. To anchor myself and prolong the pleasure. It was like riding along the edge of bumpy cliff, knowing full well that the rush was going to crescendo any moment. The high could only get so high before it crashed. Before I crashed. And I was getting closer by the ragged-breath second.

  And when his finger plunged into me, I knew I was done. As he stroked me—in-out, in-out—and circled his tongue over my clit—around-and-down, around-and-up—my body exploded in heat. Wave after dizzying wave of climactic throbs rolled through me as Ethan clamped his mouth and hand down on me.

  Dear God.

  It was the orgasm by which to measure every other orgasm from here on out.

  I said his name again. Or tried to. What actually came out of my mouth was a mushy, garbled mess that made him chuckle against my still-pulsing sex. It should’ve been embarrassing. The laugh. My quickness. Our location. Instead, it was just hot. And as Ethan released me and slid up my body, I felt an incredible need to make sure he felt the same way. No strings be damned. I was happy to reciprocate. But before I could even get my hands as far as his belt, a knock on the door froze me in place.

  “Lu? Are you in there?” My brother’s voice carried in, his tone just shy of deeply concerned.

  “Crap,” I muttered.

  “Lu?” Marc called again.

  Ignoring the slightly amused look on Ethan’s face, I pushed him away and stepped back from the door so as to answer from a more reasonable space in the bathroom.

  “I’m here,” I called back, turning on the tap for emphasis. “Just washing my hands.”

  “Are you okay? You’ve been in there a while.”

  “What are you? My personal bathroom clock?”

  His sigh was audible through the door. “Hardly. Mom sent me.”

  “She sent you to the ladies’ bathroom?”

  “She said you’d be annoyed if she came and embarrassed if Aysia did.”

  “And you’re less annoying and embarrassing?” I countered.

  He sighed again, even more noisily. “I basically drew the short straw. Just tell me you’re not dying, give me an excuse, then offer an ETA for me to take back to Mom.”

  “Fine,” I said. “My ETA is two minutes. I’m not dying.”

  “And the excuse? ’Cause you know Mom’ll want one.”

  “I don’t need an excuse. I wasn’t in here the whole time. I got…distracted on the way. By a…business associate.”

  If Marc noted my hesitant and seemingly obvious lie, he didn’t say. “Okay. So long as you’re sure you’re all right.”

  “Better than all right.”

  Ethan let out a muffled laugh, and I shot him a warning look. But thankfully, Marc didn’t appear to have heard him.

  “You want me to wait?” Marc asked through the door.

  “That would be exceedingly weird,” I replied.

  “Yeah. I suppose. See you back at the table.”

  I waited until the thud of my brother’s shoes signaled that he’d disappeared up the hall and into the restaurant, then opened my attention to Ethan.

  He wore a devilish grin, and he spoke before I could. “Distracted?”

  I blew out a breath. “What would you have said?”

  “I dunno. ‘Sorry. I was on the receiving end of my business associate’s tongue’?” he suggested.

  “Right. And then, you would’ve been on the receiving end of my brother’s fist. Which I suspect wouldn’t be quite as pleasant.”

  “But the rest of it was pleasant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only pleasant?” he teased.

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t pretend to be less arrogant than you are.”

  “Arrogance implies an inflated sense of self-worth,” he said good-naturedly. “I’m just confident.”

  “You know that there’s a line between confident and cocky, right?”

  His eyes glinted lasciviously. “Cocky, hmm?”

  I snorted. “Subtle.”

  “That’s one thing I never am.” His eyes traveled the length of my body, then came to rest on my face, a surprising hint of softness making its way into his gaze as he added, “But I was aiming to please.”

  Warmth tingled through me far more easily than I wanted it to. “You did.”

  “But nothing’s changed.”

  “No.”

  “And you need to get back to your family lunch.”

  “I do.”

  “You sure that’s what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  Except it was a lie. What I wanted to do was back him to the door. Unbuckle that belt of his. Drop to my knees, and—

  “I have to go,” I said abruptly.

  He gestured toward the door. “Go ahead. I promise not to scream.”

  “Funny.”

  “Mia.”

  I’d started to reach for the door, but my name on his lips stopped me. As much as I wished I could ignore him, I couldn’t. “Yes?”

  “See me again tonight,” he said.

  “I think that would be a very bad idea.”

  “Don’t trust yourself to be alone with me?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t trust myself with you in
a roomful of people.”

  His mouth twitched. “A compliment that feels like an insult.”

  “Sorry.”

  I reached for the door a second time, and for a second time his voice stopped me. “What if I dare you to do it?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “What if I dare you to go out with me…like your friend dared you to kiss me?”

  “It wasn’t you she dared me to kiss,” I reminded him. “It was the next attractive man I saw.”

  “Who turned out to be me,” he stated.

  “Not the point.”

  “So you won’t take my dare?”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Why not? Have you got a one dare per week limit?”

  “One per decade.” The words were out before I could stop them.

  Both his eyebrows went up. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

  If I could’ve kicked myself for piquing his curiosity, I would have. “Maybe there is. But it’s not one I’m inclined to share with men in bathrooms.”

  “Are there a lot of us?”

  “One too many. I really have to go, Ethan.”

  This time, I did manage to reach past him then unlocked the door. But I only made it two steps into the hall before he caught up and stopped me yet again, this time with his hand on my arm.

  “What if I promise that it’s not about business,” he said.

  I met his eyes. “Are you saying you don’t want Trinkets and Treasures anymore?”

  “No. I’m not saying that.”

  “Then it would still be about business. The fact that you want to steal my company out from under me would be hanging over us.”

  “I don’t want to steal it,” he said.

  “You want to buy it, and I don’t want to sell it. It boils down the same thing,” I argued.

  “That’s not an accurate—”

  A throat clearing cut him off, and I fought a groan as my future sister-in-law issued a greeting. “Hey, Lu. Everything all right?”

  “Fine!” I nearly snapped. “Did my mom send you too?”

  Aysia’s gaze dropped to Ethan’s hand on my elbow. “Should she have sent me?”

  I swallowed and shook off his grip with all the subtlety of a walrus jumping from a diving board into a wading pool. “I’m perfectly capable of coming and going on my own.”

  “And of being accosted by handsome strangers,” Aysia said, eyeing Ethan with interest.

  He smiled his charmingly crooked half-smile. “I’m neither accosting nor a stranger. E. B. Burke. A potential business associate of Mia’s.”

  “Notice that he didn’t say he wasn’t handsome,” I muttered.

  They both ignored me.

  “I’m Aysia,” said my future sister-in-law. “Did you say business? Are you into jewelry too?”

  Ethan’s smile widened. “Shiny things in general, actually.”

  I fought a groan. And it only got worse.

  “Are you in a business meeting here at Ella’s?” Aysia asked.

  “Nope.” Ethan’s mouth twitched even more. “Just in for a pure pleasure lunch. I was just getting ready to order.”

  “Were you eating alone?”

  “I was.”

  “Not anymore,” Aysia told him firmly. “We have an extra seat. Join us.”

  And before I could muster up a logical protest, the man who’d just spent several very long, whole-body-shuddering minutes with his mouth sliding along underneath my still-wet panties was on his way to meeting my whole damned family.

  Chapter 8

  Ethan

  If someone had handed me a Tuesday itinerary that looked like this, I would’ve read it over and laughed. Hard and long. No innuendo intended. First, I would’ve chortled at the suggestion that I might start a Tuesday by buying soap for a woman. Then I would’ve really let it rip at the idea that the same woman might be coming against my mouth one minute, then eating lunch with me and her family the next. In fact, after laughing my ass off, I’m sure I would’ve simply told the person holding the itinerary to get the fuck out. Because it was ridiculous.

  Yet it was all true, and here I was.

  Soap? Check.

  Taste of Mia on my lips? Check, check.

  Diaz family introducing themselves, one by one? Check, check. Check.

  It all seemed a little surreal.

  Because apparently it’s easier to accept that you went down on Mia in the bathroom than it is to accept having a meal with her family?

  I scoffed at the self-directed question, but as we ordered our lunch and the conversation turned to what I did for work, I had to admit that it was true. Maybe a little because discussing the inner workings of my business with strangers wasn’t something I did. Maybe a lot because explaining it to the family of a woman whose leg kept brushing mine under the table—unintentional but distracting as hell—should’ve been out of the question. Yet somehow, I found myself doing it with Mia’s father anyway. Enjoying it, even.

  Of course, enjoying it didn’t change the fact that the whole time we spoke, I had what was starting to feel like a permanent, half-mast erection. Each accidental tap of Mia’s knee against mine drew attention to it, reminding me of how badly I wanted her and driving me a little crazier each second.

  He’d ask an innocuous question like, “So you and your assistant in the office, and everyone else working virtually? Must save a lot on overhead.”

  Then Mia’s knee would bump mine, her warmth seeping through for a heartbeat.

  I’d try to answer in a calm voice. “Saves a lot of headache, and I care more about that than about overhead, but yes. I offer full-time and part-time packages, decent benefits, and a flexible schedule. My people can set their own hours, and all that matters to me is that their tasks are done right, and that they’re done on time.”

  Then Mia would exhale, her breath making my skin tingle.

  It went on like that for the whole damned meal, leaving me in an incomprehensibly contradictory position.

  On the one hand, I genuinely wanted to carry on the dialogue. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d just sat down and told someone about how I did things at Burke Holdings. At least, not without assuming the person on the other end had some agenda for wanting to know. Mr. Diaz—and the rest of Mia’s family, actually—seemed genuinely interested.

  On the other hand, the ache in my cock battled with the simple pleasure of conversation. I kind of wanted to tell them all to shut the hell up so I could do something about it. A quick, hard fuck in the already christened bathroom. Though judging from the murderous looks I was receiving periodically from Mia, I knew it was far more likely that I’d be heading back to my hotel room solo. Left to find my own release as I fantasized about the way I knew she felt underneath me.

  Except it didn’t play out like that at all.

  At some point during the meal—maybe when Mia got her stir fry bowl, and her mother stopped the server to check if there were bean sprouts in it, because Mia was allergic, or maybe when her brother asked her about a car repair that was taking a little too long, and offered to “chat” with the mechanic—I became aware of a dynamic in the family that struck me as odd.

  Not that it was any of my damned business. Or that I had anything more than two days of experience with Mia to give me reason to comment on it.

  But every one of them—Mr. and Mrs. Diaz, meat-fisted Marcelo Diaz, and even Aysia Not-Quite-Diaz—seemed to see Mia as someone they had to protect. When another patron knocked her chair as he passed, and Mia spilled her wine, I thought the whole table might have an apoplexy trying to get her a napkin.

  They definitely weren’t condescending about it, or even visibly conscious. I didn’t like them any less because of it, either. If anything, the behavior was almost endearing. In fact, it might
’ve been completely endearing if it wasn’t strange as hell. Their view of her was totally at odds with the woman who’d kissed me under a tree without having a clue who I was. Even though I’d only met her two days ago, I already knew just how tough she was. How in charge and in control, even when she was surrendering.

  The weirdest part about it all came when I realized her father had no clue just how successful Trinkets and Treasures was. Mia made an offhand remark about the cost of some pair of shoes, and Mr. Diaz actually reached for his wallet. She had to talk him out of giving her a stack of cash.

  As the little argument unfolded, my mouth dropped open, a question on my lips. The only thing that stopped it from slipping out was the way Mia’s hand very abruptly landed on my knee. In fact, I just about choked on the words, and my eyes automatically tipped her way. She gave me the smallest headshake. A warning. And the look in her eyes was a plea for silence.

  Which made me realize that she knew—at the very least—how her father perceived her. Likely how the others did too. And Mia didn’t want to draw attention to it.

  A dozen questions flitted to mind, and I couldn’t ask a single one. Not just because she was clearly asking me not to, but also because of the way her hand stayed on my knee. Warm. Beyond distracting. Moving back and forth in just the right way to make me crazy.

  My eyes flicked around the group, trying to discern if anyone had noticed the intimate contact.

  I had zero problem imagining her big, dark-haired brother diving across the table to knock my teeth out. Or her dad for that matter. Maybe her mom or Aysia might like to stab me with a fork. For all I knew, the two women were more protective than the men. At that moment, though, I didn’t have to worry about their murderous ways. They were too immersed in their own conversation—back to the all-consuming wedding—to pay attention to me. To Mia and her erection-inducing touch. So I just lifted my glass and took a sip, trying to cool the flow of blood to my crotch with the chilled liquid on my tongue.

  Of course, the cooling didn’t happen. If anything, my need for her only spiraled higher. Hotter. That wasn’t surprising. What did catch me off guard, though, was the secondary warmth. It started in the middle of my chest and quickly bloomed out, not quite overshadowing my lust, but giving it a run for its money. The feeling prodded me to slide my own hand under the table to grasp hers and give it a reassuring squeeze. If she didn’t want her family to know she saw how they were babying her, then I wouldn’t be the one to give it away.