by J. Haymore
I want Ethan in my life. Now that I have tied him to Triton and Daddy, I have connected him irrevocably to my family. Of course, I'm still in college, and we're both only twenty-one, so it's not like I'm expecting him to propose or anything. Yet.
But someday he will.
It's so wonderful, Diary, to know without a single doubt that Ethan Williams will be mine. Forever and ever and ever.
Chapter Ten
The next day goes by in a flurry of smiles and stolen kisses. When no one is watching, Ethan and I can't keep our hands off each other. It's like I'm reliving a high school experience I never had, stealing kisses behind our parents' backs. It makes me giddy.
Kyle spends most of the day in his and Nalani's cabin, and I'm guiltily glad about his absence, because I worry he'd see something different about me, like I must have a certain glow that wasn't present yesterday, and he'll notice and be irritated by it.
It'll be best if Kyle never finds out about the arrangement Ethan and I have made. We're going back to LA in a few weeks, and then everything will be like it was. Why worry him? I know he'll worry. He made it abundantly clear yesterday that he doesn't want me to be with Ethan. Because evidently, a "forever kind of a girl" isn't allowed to have hot flings with hotter men.
That night, when I go up on deck for my watch, a steady rain is falling. Which means there will be no stargazing on the trampoline or on the roof of the cabin. It means we'll need to hunker down on the bridge and try to stay dry.
Ethan comes out early, and we settle back in the darkness while the rain patters on the Plexiglas windshield and the Temptation pitches beneath us. The waves are spectacular tonight—these aren't baby waves but high rollers that the Temptation will crest, then crash down onto the other side. It's so dark, we can't see where the ocean ends and the sky begins. Inky blackness surrounds us on all sides.
I sit in the captain's chair to steer by hand for a while and give the autopilot a break.
"We're just over five hundred nautical miles from Honolulu," Ethan tells me, looking up from the GPS.
I nod. "About four more days, then."
"The forecast is still promising more wind. We might make landfall sooner."
Three or four more days on the Temptation. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm anxious to see dry land—to see anything except the endless blues of ocean and sky. On the other hand, now that I'm not so eager to escape from Ethan, I realize that something has awakened in me in the past couple of weeks. Some dormant feeling of vitality that's been missing in my life since Emily died. Even surrounded by all the darkness tonight, I feel lighter than I have in a long time.
A part of me fears that stepping off this boat means I'll step back into a world as oppressive and bleak as the one I left.
Ethan studies me intently. "Are you okay?"
"I just can't believe we've sailed almost all the way to Hawaii."
He seems reflective for a moment, then he nods. "It's amazing. I never thought I'd do something like this."
Again, as I have so many times since the day we met, I wonder at his presence here. He's been vague, and I can't get a solid answer out of him why he decided to join the crew of the Temptation. But if anyone asked me the same question, my answer would probably be vague as well. He says it was something he had to do. Well, it was something I had to do as well.
He leaves the GPS and comes to stand beside me, slipping his arm around me. He bends down to press a kiss to my cheek and nuzzle my hair. We melt into each other, our edges blurring together like the sea and sky around us.
I spent most of the day anticipating tonight, imagining that we'd make love under the stars. Now, though, the weather is awful, and by the time Ethan's done with his watch at three a.m., I'll be fast asleep.
Disappointment is a heavy stone within me, because I want him so much, I can hardly think of anything else. What will it be like to make love to him? To have him inside me? How will he feel? What will he look like—what will it feel like—when he comes?
I want to see it. He's so tightly controlled, so precise, I want to see him when he falls apart. When he succumbs to pleasure. When he succumbs to me.
I push away those thoughts. If I can't make love with him tonight, I can at least talk to him, learn more about him, be with him. And those are all things I crave too.
I lean my head against his shoulder. "Tell me more about you."
"Mmm." His chest rumbles with the sound as he gives me a crooked smile that's so sexy, all sorts of places within me awaken in response. "I've already told you about me."
"Not everything. There's so much I don't know."
"What else do you want to know?"
I consider this for a minute. Maybe we should start with the basics. It's embarrassing I don't know these things yet. "Where do you live?"
"I have a house in Malibu, but I also have a condo downtown."
This doesn't surprise me, considering his business and his wealth. "A house in Malibu, huh?"
He nods, and a small smile curls his lips.
"You like it there," I guess.
"I do," he confirms. "I had it built a couple of years ago—and it has every feature I'd ever want in a home. It's in a great location too. Malibu can feel congested, but in my house, it feels like there are no people for miles around. It's not as isolated as being in the middle of the ocean like we are now, but I like that feeling of being close to but far from the world. It's too bad I can't spend more time there."
"Because you're working," I say. It's not really a question.
"Because I'm working," he agrees after a beat of silence. "I sleep at the condo when I work late."
The Temptation slams down over the back face of a tall wave, and we're silent as I steer through the rest of the waves in the set. "And in your spare time?" I finally ask him.
"What spare time?"
I laugh. "Okay. If you had spare time, what would you do with it?"
His lips press to my temple. "I can think of a lot of things."
"Like what?"
"Like peeling off your clothes. Like tasting you again."
And just like that, I want him with a ferocity that leaves me breathless.
"Like running my hands all over you. Like feeling you come under my fingers. Do you know how much I loved that? I want to do it again and again."
"Ethan," I say on a sigh.
He trails his fingers up and down my spine, a flaring path of promise. His lips move against me as he nuzzles my hair. "God, you smell so good. Like lemonade."
I shift restlessly, the sudden press of arousal too intense for me to keep still.
"I wish—" He suddenly stops speaking.
"What? What do you wish?"
"I wish we could be in my Malibu house right now. More specifically, in my bed in my Malibu house."
"I wish that too. Or anywhere where it's dry, actually."
"Dry would be good."
"And warm." Although the air grows more tropical by the day, it's still damp everywhere, and with that comes a certain chill in your bones it's difficult to shake. I sigh, and before I can stop myself, I say, "But I'll never see your Malibu house."
I flinch at that, because it sounded so damn plaintive I want to whack myself in the back of my head for sounding so weak.
"I wish you could." The words have an honesty to them that makes me want to demand why he won't take me there, then. But I've found that scrap of pride when it comes to Ethan, and I'm not letting it go.
"I do too." I leave it at that. "So tell me, when I'm not around to seduce, what do you really do in your spare time?"
But he still doesn't answer. "Is that what I'm doing? Seducing you?"
Oh, you already have. Irrevocably and thoroughly seduced me. But I don't say that. "I don't know. Is that what you're trying to do?"
He shakes his head. "No. I think it's the other way around. You've seduced the hell out of me."
A sensation of intense strength washes through me
at the way he says that, his tone wavering, infused with so much raw need. For the first time in my entire life, I realize I have the power to seduce a man. And not just any man—no, I have the power to seduce a man like Ethan Williams.
Holy shit.
I take a moment to let all that strength sink in deep into my pores, and then I murmur, "I'm not going to let you get off that easy. You still haven't told me how you like to spend your time away from work."
"I'm not evading the question. You keep distracting me." His teeth graze the top of my ear. The sensation is so erotic, my body emits a harsh, demanding pulse of need.
"Then answer it."
"I go to the gym. When I'm feeling lazy, I watch movies. Just recently, I've taken up sailing." He laughs.
"I go to the gym sometimes, but mostly I feel lazy and watch movies instead. And, isn't this a coincidence? I've recently taken up sailing too."
"Sounds like we have a lot in common."
"Yes, it does." I smile.
The sails start luffing, flapping wildly in the wind, and we adjust course and use the electric winches to pull in the sheets. When the Temptation is sailing smoothly—well, as smoothly as it can in this weather—I murmur, "My sister was in a couple of movies."
Ethan goes very still beside me. "She was an actress," he says. It's not a question. Maybe someone already told him about this.
"Emily Jameson." I look at him when he has no reaction to the name. "Have you heard of her?" If he's a movie aficionado, it's possible he has.
"Yeah," he says slowly, "I think so."
"She was the younger sister of the mom in Truth and Dare two years ago, and the zombie best friend in Dining with the Dead—that one came out early last year when she was already…" I don't finish.
He nods, but his expression is still flat. "I remember."
"She was so pretty," I murmur. "And talented. She was going to be a bigger star than my mom, I think."
"You miss her a lot, don't you?" The words are laden with an emotion I can't quite place.
"Yeah."
The arm he has wrapped around my waist squeezes me tight. And while I feel like I'm about to cry, I don't feel one of the panic attacks coming on.
Progress, I think bitterly. But then some of the bitterness recedes when I think of how much Emily would want me to move forward and not hover in a purgatory of panic attacks and grief.
We move on to other topics, about how he has a cabin in Aspen he goes to whenever he can get a winter weekend free to ski but evidently hasn't visited in a couple of years.
"The last vacation I went on was to Cabo San Lucas with Aunt Jo over the semester break."
"I've been there. Did you like it?"
"It was nice. All we did all week was sit on the beach, drink margaritas, and read Jane Austen books."
"Sounds like a real-life chick flick."
"Well, what did you do when you were in Cabo?"
He gazes out the window into the inky darkness. "Not much. I worked a lot."
I snort. "Right, of course. But if you hadn't been working, what would you have done?"
"I would have rented a boat and gone sport fishing. I would have gone off-roading, maybe horseback riding. I would have rented a Jet Ski and gone kayaking."
I smile, because all that sounds wonderful to the new me—to the thrill-seeker that I've always wanted to be. "You don't know my Aunt Jo. Imagining her reeling in a swordfish…"
"No? Not her thing?"
"Definitely not her thing. She's against animal violence of any kind."
We launch into a discussion about Aunt Jo. The woman who raised me after my parents died was the woman who gave me the alcohol to get drunk the first time when I was seventeen. She was the woman who encouraged me to live, to experiment, to have adventures. In my teenage years, I rebelled by becoming as conservative as possible, but Aunt Jo never begrudged me that. She's the least judgmental person I know.
"What does she think about you coming on the Temptation?" Ethan asks me.
I roll my eyes. "What do you think?"
Ethan pauses as he considers all that I've told him about her. "She supported it?"
"She made no secret of the fact that she wishes she could have come instead. She's insanely jealous and thinks it's the chance of a lifetime."
Ethan laughs easily, and the conversation easily moves on. I talk about school and my upcoming job as a finance associate for Continental Bank, about my apartment in West LA and where I grew up with Emily and Aunt Jo in Topanga Canyon.
All the while, we pay attention to the gusting breezes and the rain, and we make constant adjustments to keep the Temptation sailing in the direction it's supposed to go. The rain and the wind recede, but seawater still sprays over the deck every time we crash down from a wave.
We're so focused on sailing and on each other that I don't notice Kyle until he's almost on top of me. When he touches me, I think it's Ethan come back from adjusting one of the lines, and I lean into the hand on my back.
"Hey, T."
I pull away quickly. "Oh hey. What's up?" I haven't seen much of Kyle today at all. He didn't even come in to grab dinner, which he usually does; instead, Nalani took him a plate.
"It's time for my watch."
I glance over to the port side to see Ethan making his way back toward us, his head bowed against the wind.
"It's one already?"
"It's one fifteen," he says dryly. "I'm late."
I blink at him surprised. "Already?" I haven't been aware so much time has passed. It seems like I just came out for my watch. Being with Ethan makes the time fly.
Ethan walks over to us, dripping wet. He greets Kyle, who responds with a grunt, tension I don't often see in him tightening his shoulders.
I try to shake it off. "Well, I guess I'll get down to bed."
The two men eye each other, and I don't like the looks they're exchanging. I don't like that their clear antagonism toward each other undoubtedly has something to do with me.
Ethan turns to me. "I'll walk—" Ethan begins, but Kyle interrupts him.
"I'll go down with you. I have to grab something below."
"Okay, sure." I glance at Ethan to see his gaze locked on me. I want him to walk me to my bunk like he did last night and kiss me until I'm senseless. But that's not going to happen—not with Kyle here.
Kyle and I walk inside, and as I shrug out of my wet jacket and PFD to hang them in the galley to dry, Kyle grips my shoulder, turning me to face him. The Temptation is pitching with the weather, and it's rocky down here in the main cabin, so I hold on to the lip at the edge of the counter. Kyle's expression is one I've never seen on his face in my life. It's angry, distressed, so intense I suck in a breath. "Ky, what's wrong?"
His mouth opens, then closes. He tries again, and his voice is low and scratchy. "I can't do this, T."
"Can't do what?"
"I can't sit here…and watch this."
"Watch what?"
His lips twist into a grimace. "I…I saw…"
Kyle's face is as dark as storm clouds, and suddenly I get a strong notion that I know what he's about to say. And I'm not going to like it. I want to cover my ears and turn away, but Kyle continues, biting each word out. "I saw him going down on you last night. I watched it all."
"Kyle!" I gasp out. Nausea tightens into a knot at the back of my throat.
His lips go flat, and he shakes his head. "I'm not going to let this happen."
What? Why? I'm slammed by a flurry of reactions and emotions, and I can't connect any of them to what he's saying.
"Let…what happen?" I manage.
"You can't be with him."
"What?" I ask not because I didn't hear him, but because I'm so shocked that he thinks he can tell me what to do.
"You can't be with Ethan Williams." He grabs my shoulders and pulls me closer to him, then gets in my face. "You can't sleep with him. You can't be with him."
I'm so angry with him, so blindsided by this. It'
s like something clicks on inside me, like it did that day Nalani told me I was wrong to swim to Kyle when he fell overboard. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Don't do this, Tara," he warns.
"It's not your business."
"That's not true. Everything about you is my business."
A part of me knows he's right. At least that's been the case since Emily died. He's been there for me in every way possible, has made just about every move of mine his business so that he could help me get through it.
"Well, this isn't your business," I bite out.
He bends down, almost nose to nose with me now. His eyes are narrowed, his facial muscles tense. "I'm making it my business," he growls.
I stare at him, my eyes blazing, my jaw working, so pissed off at him now, I can't even talk.
"You can't be with that asshole," he says.
"Too bad"—I'm amazed at how solid and strong I sound—"because I am with him."
He gives me a little shake. "No."
"You're not my dad. And you're not my big brother either. Ethan and I are together. Deal with it."
His fingers squeeze tighter, and I wrench away from his grip, though I still face him, my cheeks burning with anger…and embarrassment. To think that he saw Ethan and me…that he watched it. My anger is sharp, and it contains a hint of loathing. I'm not sure I can ever forgive him for this. This could destroy our friendship.
"I saw his head between your legs, Tara," he spits out.
"So?"
"So…that's not okay."
"You know what's not okay? You watching. You invading our privacy. That's not okay."
"Bullshit. You were out on the deck where anyone could go at any time. That's not a private area. I have as much right to be on deck as you do."
"That's not the point. The point is, once you saw that we were…that we were intimate, you should have gone away."
At that, he breaks our eye contact and looks away. His shoulders heave up, then down as he sucks in a giant breath.
"Damn you." The words are laden with such heaviness, it sucks the wind out of my sails.
"What's wrong? Why are you so upset? I don't understand. I've had boyfriends before. You know that." He'd always been my staunch protector, but this is different. He's never taken my attachment to a guy so personally.
