and taking time to enjoy myself. I smirked to myself, amused that I’d let a man tell me what to do. Never again, never again would I let my shield down. Anger flashed through me for allowing myself to feel vulnerable.
I didn’t do flings.
This was going to end up ugly and painful unless I did something to stop this now. I didn’t want my memories of Mill Creek Resort be that of a love affair gone wrong.
I stopped typing to look out the window at the beautiful snowy landscape before me. I looked at the land that Ethan loved so much.
I could see Ethan.
I could feel Ethan, and if I tried, I could smell Ethan.
What was it about Ethan that made me swoon? What power did he have that made my thoughts be consumed by him? I had no answers for why I felt so… in love in such a short time. I loved his swagger, his way. I loved… I loved him.
A knock on the door snapped me out of my deep thoughts. I rushed to the door and opened it to find Ethan standing before me. His Mill Creek baseball cap shadowed his eyes, making it hard for me to read his emotions. The uncertainty of his mood made me feel uncomfortable. We stood in silence for what seemed like a lifetime. I decided to make the first move by wrapping my arms around his neck.
“I’m sorry. I run. I get scared, and I run. It’s what I do. I’m sorry.”
Ethan wrapped his arms around my lower back and slightly lifted me off the floor and carried me back into the room. Placing me down softly, he just looked at me in silence. The quiet made me uneasy. I looked down at my toes, praying that Ethan wasn’t about to end it all.
He lightly lifted my chin so I was looking into his eyes. Very slowly, he kissed me. He kissed me tenderly, his touch sensual and full of love. His lips were soft. His tongue was light. The kiss was beyond anything I had ever felt. It was a kiss of acceptance, of understanding. Ethan embraced my face with his work-roughened hands. The texture of hard mixed with the gentle kiss, sent shivers through my body.
“I don’t want this to end. Not now, and not when the snow melts,” Ethan confessed as he wrapped his arms tightly around me. “Yes, we live apart. I have no intentions of leaving Mill Creek, and I can’t expect for you to give up your life to move here. But I think we can work past it. I feel it deep in my gut that we can overcome that obstacle. And I definitely don’t want to stop now because we’re afraid of tomorrow or the next day.”
I turned my body into his. “I don’t want it to stop either. I know it seems like I do because I keep putting the brakes on… but it’s because I’m scared.”
“Which isn’t what I want,” he said. “I don’t want to scare you. But I want to see what this road has in store for us for what’s left of the winter. I want to see if we can continue down the road even beyond. I want to work on us for the time we have. I want to work hard to make the road go on.” He smiled. “And one thing about the both of us is that we’re hard workers.”
“I’ve never worked on a relationship or on anything that involves someone else. I’ve always been a solo workaholic,” I confessed as I pressed my body closer to his.
“Me too. But that’s okay. I don’t mind a little turbulence along the way. Just as long as I get a happy ending.” Ethan kissed my neck and then softly whispered in my ear, “I love you, Jade. I’m not going to hold that feeling back.”
He said the words that would have made me run.
He said the words that would have made me tense up and seek escape.
But he also said the words that I had always wanted to hear.
I turned my head so I could look into Ethan’s eyes. I decided that I would fight against my urge to flee. I would allow myself to say the words I’d never wanted to say. I decided to stand on the edge of the icy cliff. I needed to have trust that Ethan wouldn’t let me slip and fall. I needed to have trust… and I