Shake The Frost (Crystal Lake #6) - Juliana Stone Page 0,12

at war inside her.

Pain. Anger. Hurt. Disappointment.

“It’s like when he was in the hospital, in that coma, I knew how to be. How to act. I did what was expected. I went to see him, and I talked to him, and I rubbed lotion onto his hands and played his favorite music.” She attempted a smile. “He’d hate it if you knew, but he had a thing for Britney Spears.” A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, and she swiped at it. “Maybe I was dumb or silly or naïve, but I didn’t think he’d leave me. I always thought one day he’d wake up and life would go on. But now…” Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat. “Now everything’s different. I’m the tragic young widow. I walk into a room and no one looks at me. Their eyes drop and their voices fall to whispers because they don’t want me to know they’re talking about me. They don’t know how to be around me, and I don’t know how to just be. It’s like I’m screaming inside, and no one is listening. No one can hear me. No one can see me, and I…”

Her throat was so tight, she couldn’t go on.

Ethan got to his feet, but Emily didn’t move to give him room. He was tall, had at least a foot on her, and for the longest time he stared down, his handsome face in shadow, his expression unreadable. He smelled of summer and sandalwood and pine, and something inside her responded to the scent—her eyes moved over his chest and abs—and sight.

Ethan Caldwell had always been a handsome, charismatic man, but tonight, the moonlight shining and the water lapping at the dock, the pain and things unsaid between them, heightened his attraction.

“I hear you, Emily.” His voice was low and husky.

She hadn’t been touched in so long, not since Beck Jacobs had warmed her bed and eased her pain, well over a year ago.

Mouth open slightly, she looked up at him. The air was so thick, she felt like she could choke on it, and God, she was hot.

“Do you see me?” Mouth dry, she barely got the words out.

After a few moments, Ethan nodded.

Her fingers went to the straps of the sundress she’d thrown on hours ago. Before she could change her mind, she slid them off her shoulders and then down and down until the light blue dress was a pool of cotton at her feet. Until she stood in front Ethan wearing nothing but a strapless bra and matching thong.

He said nothing. Not even when she slowly undid her bra and tossed it onto the deck along with her panties.

Ethan didn’t say a word when she reached for him. When she pressed her mouth to his and guided his hands to her breasts. He didn’t utter a sound when she slowly undressed him, didn’t move when she reached up on her tiptoes to kiss him. He was like a rock, hard and unflinching in his darkness and silence and non-reaction.

“I need you,” she’d breathed into him. “Please, Ethan.”

A heartbeat passed, and just when her skin flushed with humiliation and she would have turned away and slipped into the shadows, he scooped her into his arms and kissed her until her head spun.

No words were said.

But he watched her, those glittering eyes of his unrelenting as he ran his hands over her body and claimed each breast with his hot mouth. When he laid Emily down on the dock and sank deep inside her, they never left her face. He held her tenderly and moved slowly at first, his hands and mouth bringing her to orgasm before she felt the tremors start all over again.

And as he rocked harder, holding her closer, she felt a bit of that ice around her soul break apart. Underneath the stars and the moon, with this man she’d known most of her life, she finally felt alive. As if she’d make it. As if the broken pieces inside her were less broken, at least while his touch was on her. While he was inside her.

They came together, their labored breaths the only sound aside from the water lapping at the shore and for a few minutes afterward he held her tightly; he was the harbor from the tempest that was her life.

But then something changed. He rolled off Emily and turned away. And when she reached for him, he glanced over his shoulder, his expression