“What? Just making sure you’re trained in proper coffee prep. I have my standards.” I winked at him. “I think you’ll do in a pinch, Mr. Blackstone.”
“You devil woman, teasing me like that.” He leaned in to kiss me, careful of the hot coffee. “I like having the coffee maker set up the night before. I wonder why I never thought of it.” He stayed close to my face, looking intently over me, his hair still messy from sleep and all the sex and still managing to look like a god. “I think you should be here every night to set it up just before you get in my bed.” He put his mouth right at my neck and grazed. “So I can bring you your coffee like this in the mornings, with you all naked and lovely, and the smell of me all over you from a night of f**king.”
I shivered from the words, and the images of that reality but we still had things to discuss. And this was an issue between Ethan and me. We didn’t talk enough about what needed to be worked through. When he got near me, the clothing dropped away, my body responded to him, and well, not much talking ever got done after that.
“Ethan,” I said gently, my hand at his cheek to stop him, “we need to talk about what’s going on. The bodyguard thing with Neil? Why would you do that and not tell me?”
“I was going to tell you last night after I brought you here but it didn’t work out like that.” His face fell away from me and he looked down. “The city is full of strangers right now, baby. You are a beautiful woman and I don’t think it’s safe for you to be taking the Tube and walking all over on your own. Remember that ass**le at the club.”
“But I was doing that before I met you and I was just fine.”
“I know you were. And you were not my girlfriend then either.” He gave me one of his Ethan looks—the kind where I tense up and wait for the blast of Arctic air to hit me. “I run a security firm, Brynne. It’s what I do. How can I have you going all over London when I know the dangers?” He put a hand up to my face and started in with the thumb rubbing action. “Please? For me?” He put his forehead against mine. “If something happened to you it would kill me.”
I brought one hand up to his hair and dug my fingers in. “Oh, Ethan, you want a great deal from me and sometimes I just feel like I’m getting pulled under. There’s so much about me that you don’t know.” He started to speak and I shushed him with my fingers over his mouth. “Things I am not ready to share just yet. You said we could go slow.”
He kissed my fingers pressed to his lips and then tugged them down. “I know, baby. I did. And I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize you and me.” He kissed my neck and nipped at my earlobe. “Can we talk about a compromise?” he whispered.
I tugged at his hair so he would stop the seduction tactics and look at me. “First you need to actually talk to me and not try to distract me with sex. You’re very good at distracting me, Ethan. Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll tell you if I can do it.”
“How about you accept a driver?” He took a finger and traced over the tops of my br**sts where the sheet was slipping down. “No more walks to the Tube and hailing cabs in the dark. You have a car to take you anywhere you want to go,” he paused and pinned me with his very expressive eyes that told me so much about his desire to protect me, “and I can have some peace of mind.”
I took another sip of the coffee he’d brought to me and decided to ask my own pointed question. “And why do you need peace of mind about me?”
“Because you’re very special, Brynne.”
“How special, Ethan?” I whispered because I was a little frightened to hear. I was frightened of my own feelings for him already. In such a short time he’d possessed me.
“For me? As special as it gets, baby.” He smiled his signature one side up twist and made my stomach flutter.
He didn’t say he loved me. But I hadn’t said it to him either. I knew he cared about me though.
He looked down again and picked up my free hand palm up. My wrist scar showed. The one I’m ashamed of and try to hide, but is impossible to conceal when it’s daylight and I am naked. He traced over the jagged line with his fingertip, so gentle it felt like a caress. He did not ask me how I got my scar and I did not offer to tell him. The pain of remembering, added to the shame paralyzed me from talking about it.
I had feelings for this man but I couldn’t share that with him quite yet. My indignity was too ugly and horrid to bring between us. Right now I just wanted to be wanted. Ethan wanted me. And that was enough to make me agree. Baby steps. I would accept his conditions for a driver, and he would accept my inability to share my past with him. We would go slow.
“Okay.” I leaned forward and kissed him on the throat above the vee of his t-shirt, the hairs of his chest tickling my mouth, his male scent already familiar to the point of downright necessity along with food and water and breathing. “I’ll accept the driver and you’ll tell me up front what you’re doing. I need honesty. I like that you are so blunt with me. You tell me what you want and I get it—”
“Thank you.” He started kissing me again. My coffee was set aside and the sheet was tugged away. Ethan pulled his shirt off and ditched the sweatpants and stretched out over me. I finally got a really good look at his body. Completely naked. In the light.
Sweet Jesus!
From his chiseled chest and tight ni**les down to his impressive and beautiful cock, I was mesmerized. He was trimmed up neatly, nothing weird, just nice and totally masculine.
He stopped and tilted his head. “What?”
I pushed him back so he sat on his knees and pulled my own self up. “I want to look at you.” I trailed my hands over him, over his ni**les and that V-cut which was so sinfully sculpted it was truly unfair to the rest of the male population, to his thighs hard with muscles and dusted with dark hair. He let me touch him and control the moment. “You’re so beautiful, Ethan.”
He made a sound in his throat and his body shuddered. Our eyes met and there was an exchange; a communication of feelings and an understanding of where we were heading in this force connecting us.
I looked down at his shaft, hard and pulsing. A drop at the tip confirmed how ready he was for me. I wanted him so badly I hurt. I wanted to give him pleasure and make him come apart like he did to me, totally blown into a million fragments. I lowered my head and took his beautiful prick into my mouth. I got my wish a few minutes later.
We broke in the shower too, or I should say I did when he propped me in the corner, dropped to his knees and returned the favor. The sex never ended with this man. And I was on board the sexy train right with him, flashing my frequent traveler pass. I had not had so much sex in—
Don’t go there and don’t ruin this time with him.
Ethan had a tattoo on his back. Right across his shoulders were medium sized horizontal wings. They looked a little Goth and almost Greco-Roman in their black inked starkness. I loved the quote underneath the wings. No more yielding but a dream. I saw it in the shower when he turned to get the soap.
“That’s Shakespeare, right?” I smoothed over the ink with my hand and that’s when I saw the scars. Many white lines and ridges. So many you couldn’t count them. I gasped a sharp breath, desperately sad to think about how badly he’d been hurt. I wanted to ask but I held my tongue. I didn’t offer to tell about my scars.