by J. Haymore
Ethan squeezes my hand, and we continue walking. It’s warm out, and I let my feet get wet in the balmy water, sliding my toes over the silky sand.
We talk about Ethan’s work, about a tech company he’s considering providing capital to. The company is developing technology in “smart-home systems” and is poised to make huge steps forward—going beyond thermostat control and security systems and moving to cooking your dinner for you and vacuuming when you’re away from home.
Judging from his tone, Ethan is excited about the potential of this company. He reminds me of a boy who’s discovered PlayStation for the first time. He’s so passionate about his work. I ask him questions about the technology, then about its financial viability. We’re so engrossed in our conversation that I don’t realize we’ve made our way back to the other side of the beach until the orange of Kyle’s surfboard flashes in my vision.
A dripping Kyle walks toward us, holding his board under one arm. He’s already tan from an hour’s worth of surfing, and the blue tattoo on his arm stands out from the bronze of his skin.
“Hey.” He’s grinning from ear to ear. I guess his hangover’s gone.
“Hey,” I say. “Looking good out there.”
Kyle’s gaze flicks to where Ethan’s holding my hand, and his grin falters. Ethan squeezes my fingers.
“We’re heading to lunch,” Ethan tells him. “Would you like to join us?”
Kyle glances back at the water. “Nah, I don’t think so. Haven’t got my fill yet.”
“Okay, then we’ll see you at the hotel?” I say.
“Sure.”
Kyle doesn’t have any transportation—he doesn’t even have a towel, at this point—so he agrees to the limo picking him up here at four, and we plan to meet up in the hotel lobby this evening.
Something passes over his expression again, and it twists my heart. It’s exactly what I’d feared when Kyle first told me he was in love with me—that things would become awkward between us. Seeing me with Ethan like this hurts him more than he’s willing to let on. He’s pushing through it, and I love him for that, but it also kills me that he’s hurting.
Ethan takes me to a seafood restaurant for lunch, where our table looks out over the beach and Diamond Head. We share a bottle of wine and a lobster linguine and talk about what we should do while we’re on the island.
By the time we finish eating, my head is filled with ideas about hiking, horseback riding, World War II memorials, beaches, reef tours, snorkeling, museums, water sports… And while I’m eager to do all these things, so much has happened… I have to decompress, but I’m not sure exactly how to accomplish that.
Ethan reaches for my hand across the table. He threads his fingers through mine. “Let’s get back to the hotel. We both need some time, I think.”
“There’s so much to see,” I say in protest. “I want to—”
“We’ve had a rough few days,” he says. “Everything else can wait until tomorrow.”
I agree, relieved that he feels the same way I do.
We take the limo to the new hotel. Ethan must have had someone check us in earlier, because he takes me to my room—a beautiful bungalow suite that already contains my meager possessions—then to the top floor of the main hotel building and his suite. When I step onto its perfectly polished hardwood floors, I put my hands on my hips and turn to Ethan, brows raised.
He tips the porter who accompanied us here, and the door closes behind the man.
“The Imperial Suite, huh?” I ask him.
He grins at me and gestures to the wall of windows. “Look at the view.”
I’m momentarily distracted by the dimples that dig into his cheeks. I so rarely see them—they only appear when he’s really smiling.
“Go on,” he says.
Obediently, I step forward and gaze out. How water can possibly be such a turquoise blue is beyond me. “Why isn’t the California ocean water this color?” I ask him conversationally. “It’s still the Pacific.”
He slips his arm around me and nuzzles his face in my hair. “Because the water’s colder there.”
“I could gaze out this window all day,” I admit to him. “It’s so beautiful.”
He looks pointedly at me. “I know what I’d rather gaze at all day.”
“Was that a line?” I ask, slanting him a glance. Because it’s working. My body is throbbing in all sorts of interesting places.
“No, baby. It’s not a line.”
I lean my head against his shoulder. After a moment, he turns, tugging me behind him. “Let’s explore.”
I can’t help but smile. Ethan grew up poor, and he’s new money, his fortune built only since he dropped out of college, and he doesn’t take what he can buy with this wealth for granted. It’s still “fun” to him. And he works so hard, he rarely has the opportunity to enjoy it.
So we explore the rooms—living room, office, bathrooms, and bedroom—ogling the gorgeous furniture, the tropical fruit basket, the crystal glasses and chandelier, the huge vases filled with fresh flowers, the expensive paintings… But we always return to the view. Money can buy gilded furniture and crystal anywhere, but only in Hawaii can it buy a view like this.
We return to the floor-to-ceiling window and gaze outside. Ethan stands behind me and slips his arms around me.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs, then presses his lips to my neck.
His lips slide over my sensitive skin as his hands trail upward over my shirt until he cups my breasts in his palms. I press against the cradle of his body, feeling the length of him against me, holding me steady.
I reach back and press my hands against the sides of his butt. When I tilt my head to give him better access, he gently moves my hair aside and lays kisses along the column of my neck and the bottom of my jaw, moving along it until his teeth graze over my earlobe.
“I want you, Tara.”
A deep shudder runs through me. Am I ready for this? Now, after all that has happened, to us and between us?
I am. I am so ready. I feel like I’ve been waiting a hundred years. I want it now even more than I did on our last night on the Temptation.
I turn in his arms, the view forgotten. I only have eyes for Ethan. “I want you too,” I whisper.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ethan swoops me up into his arms, the action smooth and controlled but so surprising I release a burst of laughter. But then I remember his injury.
“Put me down,” I demand. “This can’t be good for your stitches.”
“Screw the stitches,” he rumbles.
Shaking my head, I kick off my flip-flops and wrap my arms around him, burying my face against his uninjured shoulder. He smells so good. Without all the ocean salt from the Temptation, Ethan just smells clean and masculine.
He walks into the bedroom, where he lays me down on the bed. The cozy mattress swallows me up, so comfortable after the beds on the Temptation and the last hotel room.
He sits on the edge of the bed and gazes down at me for a moment. Then he takes off his shirt.
It’s the second time I’ve really seen him shirtless. The last time was in the lifeboat, and beyond the shock of him telling me about how he knew Emily, I wasn’t seeing much of anything.
There’s no bandage on his wound today, and it appears to be healing well, the stitches unaffected by him carrying me. The new wound skirts the edge of the scar caused by the convenience store shooting. That scar draws my gaze like a magnet.
It’s round, almost perfectly so, and pink, with a darker pink raised lip all around its circumference. In the very center is a bullet-size depression.
“It is so surreal,” I whisper, raising my hand to touch it gently with my fingertips. “I wanted to thank my Good Samaritan, and I couldn’t understand why they’d never tell me who you were. Just that you recovered.” I glance up at him. “You didn’t want me to know anything about you, did you?”
He shakes his head.
“Why didn’t you reveal you
rself? I would have understood.”
“You’re understanding now, so I know you would have been understanding when I hadn’t done as much…” He hesitates, then adds, “But I didn’t know that then.”
“Do you think I’ve been understanding?”
His gaze softens. “Yes. Thank you for forgiving me.”
Have I forgiven him? No, not completely. The blind trust I gave him before the Temptation sank won’t be easy to rebuild. The part of me that used to be soft and supple, accepting, and trusting, is now jaded, hardened. I don’t know if there’s any turning back from that.
But looking at him now, at the vulnerability that passes over his handsome face like a shadow, I know that he does care about me. He would never deliberately hurt me, he wants me to be safe, and he wants me to be happy. Yes, he has 99 percent of my forgiveness. But that’s the limit of what I’m able to give.
My gaze zeroes back in on the gunshot wound. He saved my life in the convenience store that night. He saved my life when I had the peanut reaction, and again on the night of the explosion. He’s saved my life at least three times.
How can I not forgive him?
My gaze trails across his torso—strong arms, defined shoulders and pecs, a perfect six-pack. He’s like a Greek god, sculpted from marble. He’s breathtakingly beautiful. And he wants to be mine.
I reach out my arms to him, inviting. “Come here.”
He kicks off his shoes, then lies down beside me, dressed only in his shorts. Turning to our sides, we face each other.
I want to touch him. My fingers twitch in anticipation. And as his deep blue eyes watch me, I reach out. My fingertips trail down his broad chest that tapers to narrow hips, feeling the hardness of muscle beneath his skin.
I stroke up his arm, enthralled by the dips and bulges of his triceps and biceps, then move over his neck, his solid jaw.
My fingers drift all the way to his face, and I learn it as if I’m blind and need to see it by touch alone. My fingers explore his jaw, his strong chin, and trace his lips, which were one of the first features that attracted me to him. They’re soft and pliant, slightly parted as he watches me with rapt attention. I continue my exploration, tracing the straight slope of his nose, then the slant of his dark, slashing brows.
He stares at me through it all, as if watching to see my reaction to him, what I think of all these discoveries.
My fingers spread and push into his soft black hair.
At this moment, I want to thank Emily for bringing this man into my life. The thought startles me, but my hand pushes deeper into his hair. I gaze at him, deep into his stormy blue eyes.
“Do you approve?” he asks huskily.
“Yes.” There’s no doubt. No shyness.
He releases a long, slow exhalation, then leans toward me, and his lips touch mine. The kiss is slow, sensual, but so passionate it seems to reach through me, awakening me, humming through my veins and curling my toes.
The kiss goes on and on. Longer than minutes—hours, maybe. I’m drowning, but this time, I embrace it. This time, it doesn’t bring me pain but peace, comfort, security. The craziness of my recent life fades away, and all that exists is Ethan and me and our connection. I don’t need to come up for air—I don’t want to.
He kisses me until my muscles feel like softened butter and all the tension has melted to nothing. My body is pliable in his arms, but light as a feather, floating along in the pleasure offered by his mouth and his hands.
It feels like I’m in a dream when he slides the shirt over my head and unhooks my bra. He moves to my jeans, unbuttons them, and pulls down the zipper—the sound loud and harsh in the otherwise quiet room.
He pulls down my pants and the lacy pink silk scrap of underwear he bought me, leaving me completely bare. I don’t intend to be alone that way—not for long. I reach for his waistband, but the angle is wrong for me to undo his button. He helps, then removes his shorts and his boxers…and for the first time, he’s naked in front of me, without darkness or clothes to shield him. I take full advantage to drink in my fill.
My body’s reaction is instant. It grows tight in some places, melts even further in others.
He pulls me into his arms and kisses me again. This time, my body is pressed against him. I arch into him. So much of my skin pressing against so much of his—warmth, pressure, connection. It’s almost too much…sensory overload. But also not enough. I want more. So much more.
He turns me onto my back and moves above me. He kisses me thoroughly, and it’s not just my mouth but my whole body. As I learned him with my fingers earlier, he learns me now with his mouth, tasting me everywhere his lips can touch. He travels all the way down to my bare feet, then trails a path with his lips up my inner thigh until he presses his lips to my sex. He is just as thorough there as he was everywhere else, and soon I squirm on the bed, and my breaths escape in small gasps.
Just as I’m on the verge of tumbling over the edge, he moves up again, his lips sliding over my stomach, then between my breasts, and finally he’s back at my mouth, kissing me, his body over mine, his legs notched between mine. His sex, hot and solid, slides against the silky heat of mine.
When he pulls away, I grab at him, not wanting to lose this exquisite contact even for a second. But he gently extricates himself from my grip and reaches to the bedside table. Pulling out the drawer, he takes out a foil packet.
I release a puff of laughter. Because I forgot—again. Me—the one my mom used to call “the most mature Jameson” at the age of six.
I have no excuse…except maybe that Ethan does something to me—something that makes me abandon the reason I usually cling to as if it were a limb.
Ethan grins as he holds the condom out, and my heart nearly bursts at the sight of his dimples. “I didn’t forget this time.”
“Thank God.” My voice is so earnest, I almost laugh at myself.
“You ready, baby?”
All my laughter fades away at the seriousness of his expression. “I’ve been ready for…” I can’t even think back. It feels like I’ve been waiting all my life to be with Ethan like this. “…too long.”
He rips open the packet and rolls the condom down his length. Then his hand cups my cheek, and he’s over me again, his skin moving against mine—where it belongs—his lips on my mouth, and the tip of him pressing against me.
“Tara,” he whispers. And he hesitates there, pressing but not penetrating.
Impatience crawls through my squirming body. I need this. I need him. Right here, right now. Why isn’t he moving? Why isn’t he pressing into me? I can’t wait to be filled by him.
“Say yes,” he grits out. “Say you want me.” And he moves forward the scantest inch. I gasp and arch up, my hands on his back trying to press him closer. Deeper. But he is still as stone, his muscles hard under the pressure.
“Yes!” I exclaim.
But he doesn’t move, and I groan with impatience, so mindless with need and desire and want—and that place where our bodies touch but in such an incomplete way—I’ve forgotten what else he wants. But then he reminds me.
“Say you want me.”
How could there be any doubt?
The expression on his face is one of tight control. His teeth are clamped, his jaw hard, his eyes narrow, staring with laser precision into mine.
“Say. It,” he grits out.
He’s treading the edge of control. And, God help me, but I want to push him over.
I press my hands flat against his back, wrap my legs around his, and tighten every muscle in my body. “God, yes,” I whisper. “I want you, Ethan. I want you.”
“Tara.” My name is a groan, a plea, a prayer on his lips. And then he pushes forward.
I gasp as he fills me. I wrap around him, tight and hot and wet. He pauses, fully seated within me, and we both hold there suspended on the edge of perfection, savoring the sensation.
Finally, we are together. Wholly and truly together. And he feels so good ins
ide me. So…right.
He slowly drags out of me, then in again.
The way he moves, the angle of him inside me, the pressure and the fullness and the feel of him over me. Oh God. I am lost. My mind separates from my body, and after a few moments of unbearably exquisite pleasure, I become solely a creature of sensation. I only feel—only Ethan. No world exists outside of our connection.
He shifts, moving lower onto his elbows, and I groan, because his torso presses against mine, my sensitive nipples touching his chest with every movement he makes inside me. He threads his hands into my hair, cupping my head as he kisses me, tangling tongues with me, holding me firm against him as he continues his relentless assault inside me.
My whimpers reach my ears as if from a distance. Threads of spine-tingling sensation curl inside me, starting at the place where our bodies are joined and wrapping into a simmering ball of light and heat, tightening, burning, growing. My nails dig into Ethan’s back, seeking purchase as my body bows and my muscles grow so taut and tense they begin to shake.
Through it, he holds me steady even as his thrusts grow deeper, harder, and his body grows even tighter above me.
Suddenly, the ball of heat explodes, sending white-hot light sizzling through my body, reaching every part of me, sparking every cell. I cry out into Ethan’s mouth, and even though it feels like my entire body has short-circuited, his hands are on me, his body and his mouth are on me, and I am safe.
Aftershocks roll through me in great undulating waves of pleasure. I hold on to Ethan with all my strength. He hasn’t hesitated—his movement is strong, deep. He feels impossibly huge inside me.
And then he buries himself deeper, touching a part of me he hasn’t reached to this point. He buries his face in the notch between my shoulder and my neck. I feel the orgasm rush through him, and he loses his rhythm as he gasps. His sex pulses deep inside me.
His orgasm is long, drawn out, his body shaking as little aftershocks from my own orgasm still zip through me. Finally, he melts on top of me.
He’s so warm, so heavy and relaxed, and I glory in it. Then, with a seemingly great deal of effort, he withdraws and rolls to the side, bringing me with him and gathering me against his chest.
