by J. Haymore
I limped home, and I had to carry the front end of my bike, since the wheel no longer rolled. If Daddy had his way, I'd be driven in the limo to school every day. But I don't want to stand out like that—not here. I want everyone to see me as a normal peer, even though I might be the furthest thing from normal these people have ever seen.
Just then, I longed for the limo.
I went straight to Ethan's room, still mauled and bloody. When he opened the door and saw me, his face just…well, it crumpled. All kinds of emotions ran over it in quick succession—fear, anger, concern, pain, empathy. He pulled me inside his room and sat me on his bed.
The boy then proceeded to pamper me. He painstakingly cleaned me up—taking every bit of road grime from where it was embedded in my arm—and bandaged me. He got me ice for my twisted knee. He got me a change of clothes from my room.
And then he laid me in his bed and held me, burying his face into my hair and breathing me in and saying how seeing me like that scared the crap out of him. How he was glad it wasn't worse. He asked if I'd gotten the kid's license plate, and when I said no, he said he'd kill the idiot if he ever found out who he was.
That makes two of us, Ethan, my love, I thought. And I wondered, for the zillionth time, why people can say they want to kill someone so flippantly and no one thinks there's something wrong with them, but when I say it, everyone has a shit fit, and it's off to "observation" in the psych ward for me. It's not fair.
Anyway. I digress. I have a habit of doing that, Diary. You'll have to get used to it.
We lay there for a long time, and then Ethan started kissing me. We kissed and kissed—I could kiss him all night long. He is such a fantastic kisser. And then I was on my back, and he was on me, still fully dressed, when I pulled away and asked where his roommate was.
His roommate was gone for the weekend. Off to the Bay Area to visit Mummy and Daddy.
And then Ethan, my brilliant, sweet, handsome, protective Ethan, made love to me. Again and again, from Friday night through Sunday when his roommate returned.
I am so happy. Not the exuberant happiness of my first couple of months here, but a bone-deep contented happiness. I've never felt like this before, Diary.
I am in love.
Chapter Five
Dinner on the Temptation that night is awkward, and the conversations are short and terse. While I stare down at my spaghetti, Ethan talks about the silicone on the deck, and everyone claims to have no idea how it got there.
Nalani is still mad at me, and as soon as she finishes her food, she strides off and heads onto the deck to finish up her watch. Mick's gaze follows her as she leaves, his brow raised, and the rest of us sit around the table in uncomfortable quiet for a couple of minutes. Then Kyle turns to me. "She wants you to apologize."
I make a scoffing noise. Maybe I'm a messed-up, insecure social misfit, but I am not going to apologize for trying to save Kyle's life. No way. "For what? Making sure I got to you in time?"
Kyle grins. "Well, when you put it that way…"
"Try telling her that," I grumble.
Kyle raises his hands. "Hey, I'm not taking sides. I know better than to get between two pissed-off women."
"I'm not pissed off." Only frustrated by her holier-than-thou behavior and her refusal to see my point of view.
Okay. Maybe a little pissed off.
"You don't have to apologize to her," Ethan says.
I gesture at him and speak to Kyle. "See? Listen to the man. He knows what he's talking about."
"You reacted on raw instinct," Ethan continues. "Your gut told you what to do."
He's right. Nalani's rules never even crossed my mind.
"But sometimes the gut isn't right," Mick points out. "That's why they have procedures to begin with."
"Maybe," I say, "but there was nothing that could have made me think of them at that moment. Even if you and Nalani were on deck shouting instructions into my ear, I don't think I would have heard them."
"Well, thank fuck for your gut," Kyle exclaims. "Without it, I might be dead instead of having the headache from hell."
That sobers me. Hearing Kyle talking about dying makes me nauseous.
We finish eating, and Kyle and I clean up while Mick heads down to his cabin and Ethan goes to the desk next to the sofa to work.
"So Williams was all over you earlier," Kyle says in a low voice as he hands me a plate to dry.
Shit. I'd hoped Kyle was feeling too sick to notice that. I just don't want to talk about this right now, not with Kyle or anyone. It's too confusing.
"What was that about?" he asks casually.
I glance over my shoulder. Behind us, Ethan frowns at his computer as he types, deep in concentration, and there are earbuds in his ears. He can't hear us.
"Nothing," I mumble.
Hopefully Kyle doesn't see the lie on my face, but I've always been an open book to him.
He releases a low whistle. "Oh shit, T. You like him."
I mutter something in the affirmative. A denial at this point would make Kyle even more suspicious. I don't elaborate, though. I don't tell him how incredibly sexy and attractive I think Ethan is. I do not tell him about the kiss.
"So…you think he's hot?"
I make a noncommittal noise.
"Hotter than me?" Kyle asks slyly.
I laugh, then smack him with my towel. "Different from you."
"Ow!"
"What? Don't be a wuss. I didn't hit your head."
"The pain traveled directly to my skull," he moans, rubbing the back of his head.
"Liar."
He makes a grumbling noise and plunges his hands into the soapy water to attack the spaghetti-sauce pan. After a moment of silence, he says, "So. You want to bang him."
"Kyle!" I growl through gritted teeth, turning wide, warning eyes on him.
"You do! You do want to bang him!" Kyle taunts. "You want to have hot-monkey-hanging-off-the-chandelier sex with him. I see it in your eyes."
I push his shoulder hard and hiss, "Stop it!" I glance back at Ethan again. He's still focused on his computer, thank God.
Kyle raises his dripping, soapy hands in surrender. He's laughing, but his eyes remind me of jade, a hard, deep green. "Hey, hey! Just sayin'."
"Well, don't. Anyway, there are no chandeliers on this vessel," I say, trying to keep the mood light. When Kyle doesn't say anything, I add, "I don't think I'm his type anyway."
I close my eyes, wishing I hadn't said the last bit. I remember his expression after we kissed. Maybe I am his type. If not, why did he kiss me?
There was something there… Something between us. The question was, how deeply did Ethan feel it? Did he feel it at all, or was I reading the signals all wrong?
I have no idea. I'm no expert in reading signals. But the signal he sent when he pulled away from that kiss was loud and clear: I made a mistake. I regret this. This can't happen again.
Kyle seems reflective, and after washing another plate, he gives me a sidelong glance, now completely serious. "So this is new for you. Are you ready?"
"Ready for what? To think a guy is hot? Why not?" I feel guilty, like not telling him exactly what happened between Ethan and me this afternoon is some sort of betrayal. Kyle is my best friend, and he's a brother to me in every way but blood, but he's also a man. Telling him about the kiss, and how Ethan stopped it…
I don't want to share my humiliation with Kyle, but it's more than that. A gut instinct that tells me it wouldn't be a good idea, that it would piss him off.
And right now, there's no point in adding weirdness to Kyle and Ethan's relationship. They're friendly with each other, but Kyle has no compunctions about being an ass to anyone he feels might have hurt me.
"You haven't looked at anyone like that in a long time. Not since Daniel," Kyle says.
My lips tighten at the mention of my ex. He's right, though—I haven't given a second glance at a man since Daniel broke up with me. But that wasn't just because of D
aniel. It was because of the crash, mostly, and Emily's death, and then the convenience-store robbery…
"So…you're finally recovered from all that shit that asshole laid on you?"
"It was more than Daniel, and you know it," I say. "But it's been a year and a half." Since Daniel. Since the accident. "I need to get past it."
"Damn." He shakes his head. He keeps his eyes on the plate he's washing. "A year and a half. It doesn't seem like that long."
"Sometimes it doesn't to me either." Sometimes it seems like it's been forever, though, like my life has been contained within a bubble of fear and depression and grief for eternity.
Kyle hands me the plate. "What do you know about Williams?"
"Not too much," I admit.
"I didn't either, so I poked around on the Internet. He's prominent in the business world."
My smile is dry. "I figured that one out already. The part about him owning a venture capital firm was kind of a dead giveaway."
"Right. But he's got a lot of money, T."
"I figured."
"No…I mean a lot." He gives me a hard look, then says, more quietly, "A lot."
"Okay," I say slowly. Of course Ethan has money.
I'm not poor myself—my parents were wealthy. When they died, they left Emily and me with hefty trust funds. Em was a big spender, but when she died, what was left of her money went to me. My financial manager invests it and sends me cash on occasion. I try to avoid thinking about it otherwise; there are too many painful memories attached to all that wealth.
Kyle knows about my money. So when he says "a lot" in that tone, he's talking way more than the couple of million my parents and Em left to me. He's talking eight, maybe nine figures.
"Anyway," Kyle continues, "he's young, single, and stinking rich, so the press is, naturally, curious about him."
"Naturally." Not to mention that he's just about the hottest guy on the planet, and I definitely can't be the only person in the world who thinks so. In any case, I've had my run-ins with the press myself, thanks to my mom and Em's choice of profession. They were both always in the limelight, and they loved it.
Me, on the other hand… I hate the paparazzi. I hate how they followed Emily and me around after my mom and dad died. I hate how they were waiting outside the hospital when I was discharged after Emily died.
"He started making a digital footprint about seven years ago," Kyle continues, "when he started Williams Funding. Even so, his ëpersonal life' subcategory on Wikipedia is empty. There's one picture of him with a girl—some debutante or something—from eight years ago. It's scattered all over various sites—always the same picture. But since then, nothing. He's probably gay and in the closet."
Securing a dish in the overhead cabinet, I snort. The cabinets have latches on them, and the dishes get organized in slots so they don't jostle and break with the motion of the boat. "He's not gay."
"How do you know?" Kyle challenges.
"I just know. Trust me, he's not gay. He's probably just a private person. Some prominent people do manage to keep their private lives out of the public eye, you know."
"Right." He sounds unconvinced as he hands me the last of the silverware to dry. "Just be careful." His lips twist, his expression hardens, and I'm really glad I didn't tell him about the kiss. "I don't trust him."
"Why not?"
I think of the slick on the deck and grit my teeth. Could there be something to Kyle's distrust? Could Ethan have put the silicone there with the intention of causing me or Kyle to fall overboard?
No. No way.
Someone must have accidentally spilled the silicone without noticing. We use silicone in several different areas on the Temptation, so, really, there's nothing odd about it at all. It was an accident. That's all there is to it.
I haven't told Kyle about Ethan's suspicion. He'd probably laugh all the way to Hawaii.
"He looks like the kind of guy who eats girls for dinner, then spits them out before the sun rises."
I roll my eyes. "You mean like you?"
"Hey"—he's focused on me and completely serious now—"stay away from him, T. I'm not kidding."
"You're being ridiculous."
"No, I'm not fucking being ridiculous. I don't want you to get hurt."
I stare at him long enough to see that he's being dead serious, then I dry the silverware. In the end, it's possible Kyle's right. Men like Ethan Williams can have anyone they want. Those kinds of men just aren't into women like me, and when they are, it's rarely anything more than a passing infatuation.
I don't want to be Ethan's passing interest. I want to be his only interest.
And that thought scares the hell out of me.
* * * * *
After we finish the dishes, Kyle joins Nalani out on the deck. When they start to make out on the trampoline, I turn away quickly, because that is one image I'll need to scrub from my brain.
All is quiet from Mick's cabin. He spends a lot of time on his tablet IMing and e-mailing. He e-mails his kids daily, but he must have a girlfriend or something back at home, and that's why he's so obsessive about checking his messages.
Then again, maybe he's telling someone about his nefarious plans to make people slip and fall to their deaths overboard.
Geez, I really need to stop thinking about this. I wish Ethan hadn't put the idea into my head. Mick is a nice guy, a good sailor, a man who loves his family.
I've already decided the silicone slick was an accident. But, as irrational as it is, fear still niggles at me.
Trying to push it away, I curl up in the corner of the vinyl L-shaped couch and open up my iPad to my latest biography, this one on Gandhi. Ethan sits at the chart table typing on his laptop, and I covertly study him over the top of the iPad. There's something about watching him work. It's so sexy.
He studies the laptop screen with laser precision, his hands moving gracefully over his keyboard. He has the long-fingered hands of a surgeon. Like my dad's hands. The thought gives me a jolt. I turn back to my iPad and stare down at it, but it's not long before my gaze wanders back to Ethan.
He picks up the satellite phone and dials. It takes a while for him to connect, but when he does, his tone borders on annoyance.
"Donna, it's Ethan. Can you please compress the FireStart documents and resend? I can't receive large files out here." He pauses. "Good. I'll be waiting. And what's happening on Baston? Has it closed?" Another pause, then he mutters "Fuck" under his breath, but when he resumes talking on the phone, his tone is tersely professional. "Call him in the morning and tell him we can conference on the twenty-seventh. What was that? Okay, fine. And have Michaels call me tomorrow afternoon. Can you repeat that, please?" He shakes the phone a bit, as if that'll help him to hear. "All right, that'll work. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
He hangs up, stares at the phone in disgust for a second, then he must feel my gaze on him, because he turns toward me.
"Who's Donna?" I ask casually.
"My assistant."
I raise a brow and check the time on my iPad. "Your assistant is working at nine o'clock at night?"
"Donna is a good assistant. I usually don't place these kinds of demands on her time, but since I'm not in the office right now…" He shrugs.
The impulse to get off the couch and move closer to him is powerful. The guy is like a magnet to me. A shiver pulses through me at the memory of his kiss, and my gaze zeroes in on his lips.
He looks so remote, sitting there with his computer in front of him. And even though he's just a few feet away, it feels like there are worlds between us.
My own lips press into a self-conscious smile. "Sorry. Didn't mean to disturb you."
"You're not disturbing me." He lowers the lid on his laptop. "I was just finishing up. That is, until Donna sends me some e-mails."
He rises, stretches, and moves to sit beside me. My core muscles go stiff, resisting the natural inclination to lean toward his body. Warmth emanates from him, and the smells of so
ap and man surround me. Salt tinges his scent now. We're all bathing in salt water, so we've all started to smell like the ocean too.
Ethan slips his arm across my back and squeezes my shoulder. "Are you okay?"
I think of all that happened today, of Kyle and my terror over losing him, and my reaction to Nalani. And the kiss that Ethan ended without telling me the reason why.
"Sure," I say lightly, looking him in the eye.
"Tara…"
Heat emanates off him in waves, like a shimmer off the road in a desert summer. His eyes are dark and unreadable. He gazes at me for a long moment, and I know it's coming. He's going to kiss me again.
Yes. I want this. I want it so bad. Instinctively, my tongue darts out to lick my top lip.
Abruptly, Ethan stops leaning toward me and jerks back. He draws in a shaky breath but keeps his arm around me, his fingers tightening over my shoulder.
No. Don't stop. Please don't stop.
"God," he says in a rough whisper. "You're so beautiful."
I blink, frozen in surprise except for the crazy fluttering of my lashes. I can't speak either. My throat has closed in on itself.
His hand moves to cup my cheek. He strokes his thumb over the side of my face. "Do you know what you're doing to me?"
What? God…what am I doing to him? But I know. Some deep, essential part of me knows…can see it in the heat in his eyes, the tightness in his expression. He wants me.
I lean into his palm. I can't help it.
"I shouldn't do this," he whispers roughly. "I really shouldn't. But it's fucking impossible to stay away from you." All at once, he closes the distance between us. He presses me against the leather back of the sofa, then he angles his head, and his mouth covers mine.
My body lights up so fast, dizziness swamps me. A solid, shimmering, needy heat surrounds me, permeates me, goes deep inside me until, just seconds later, I'm panting with desire.
"You taste so sweet," he murmurs over my lips.
I whimper, so out of control—as if I've been missing some essential nutrient in my diet, and he's providing it. No, that's not enough. I'm like a junkie. He's not a nutrient; he's a drug.
