Ethan scooped me off the couch and into his arms. I lifted my eyes and got that wave of emotion again as his blues found me. I loved him so much I knew the fear. I’d heard others speak about it. I’d read about it in books. Now I understood. The fear that you have when you finally give your heart away to another person. It makes you very vulnerable to loss. If you never love anyone, then you’ll never be hurt when they don’t love you back or when they leave you.
I finally had the practical experience of understanding.
It sucked.
Ethan sensed my newfound knowledge, I think. He studied me with intuitive eyes that looked very dark blue at the moment, and ducked his head down to meet my lips. He kissed me there in front of the window while holding me naked in his arms. I melted into him and gave in to my goddamn emotions.
He carried me down the hall to the bedroom and broke the kiss to lower me down to the bed. He saw.
“Oh, oh, baby . . . don’t cry,” he whispered, cupping my face and settling against me.
I couldn’t help it. There was far too much inside me to leave it there. “I just love you so much, Ethan,” I blubbered and then closed my eyes in an attempt to find some small sliver of sanctuary from my emotions.
He took over, stretching out against me so that our bodies aligned from head to toe when he started kissing me. Everywhere. “I love you more,” he whispered as his lips trailed over my tears and brushed them away. He moved on to my jaw and then my neck and throat, the warm draw of his tongue over my skin settling me into some control over my urge to weep.
“I know what you need, and I’ll always be here to give it to you.” His hand reached up to weave fingers into my hair as his mouth closed over a nipple and sucked. And just like that he took me away into another world. A place where I was cherished, and where I could forget about a time when I never dared to dream about being loved like this.
Ethan alternatively flicked his tongue between my nipples, pinching with his lips, pulling them up and hardening the tips to sharp aching points as he held my hair in a firm grip. The tugging of my hair arched my chest up to meet his mouth. I needed what he did to me. So very badly.
When he lifted his head from my breasts, I protested the loss of his mouth on me and the pleasure it gave. He wanted to look at his handiwork. Ethan loved to look at our bodies during sex. There was no part of me he hadn’t had a good look at or touched in some way. It gave me confidence when he looked and I knew he liked what he saw.
“Does that feel good when I suck on your beautiful tits and make them hard?” He tugged on my hair.
“Yes! I love when you suck them.” I was starting to feel desperate.
“Do you love it when I bite them?” He clamped his teeth over one, not hard enough to hurt badly, but enough to give me a jolt of ecstasy along with a twinge of pain that brought out a moan.
“I think I take that as a yes,” he muttered. “You’re so fucking gorgeous when you make sounds . . .” He bit the other nipple, making me gasp and craving much more. Ethan had shown me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was indeed a sexual creature. When he got me into this state even I would class myself well into the category of nymphomaniac.
His hand left my hair as he reached down to open my legs wide so he could stare at my pussy. “But this is what I want now,” he rasped, stroking over my cleft, spreading the slick wetness from my earlier orgasm backward to lubricate my other opening. We’d been working on this for a while, and Ethan was taking his time in getting us there. I’d never done anal sex with anyone else; he would be the first. It felt nice to be a virgin in this way and give something to him that wasn’t going to go to anyone else.
He pushed two fingers in and lifted his eyes as he did. “I want this, baby. I want into every part of you because you’re mine, and you always will be.”
The sting of pressure filling me up made me flex against the invasion. “I know,” I panted against his lips brushing mine. His words only helped me to feel more of what I needed to know from him, I focused on that and let myself go to a good place in my head. You’re mine, and you always will be.
“Relax for me. Let me in here, and I’ll make it feel so good.” He started stroking with his fingers slowly, working in deeper with each penetration. “Baby . . . so fucking tight. I want to claim this tonight.”
“Do it,” I breathed, rolling my head to the side, “I want you to . . . finally do it . . .”
Ethan took hold of my chin, turning me back to face him as he pressed his fingers farther inside me and took possession of my mouth with his, thrusting his tongue in deep with forceful swirls. “I love you,” he said harshly. “So much I don’t know what to do with myself most of the time, but I do know what I want to do here.” He withdrew his fingers, then slid them back into my virgin asshole.
I cried out from the intensity of the slide as it burned a path straight to my center.
“I have to know every bit of you, Brynne. I’m greedy and I have to have it all, baby.” He started a slow rub of my clit with his thumb in tandem with his finger penetrations. “I have to be inside your beautiful, perfect ass because it’s you and I have to know what it feels like to be there.”
I shuddered beneath him and his touch, incapable of much more than a simple yes. The second I uttered my agreement, he pulled off me and turned me over. He took his time arranging me as he wanted. My hips were tugged back so I rested on my knees. My arms were stretched forward and made to grip the headboard. My knees were spread farther apart, and then . . . nothing. I could hear him breathing, and knew he was studying me again. My Ethan had a touch of voyeur kink in him and it only served to make me hotter knowing I was fulfilling his fantasies.
I hung there in anticipation when he covered me, his chest pressing onto my back, his mouth at my ear. “Are you sure?” he asked with a warm brush of his lips and then a lick just below my earlobe.
“Yeeees,” I shuddered out my answer on a long breath.
His lips met the back of my neck and swept down my spine in a worshipful caress. The closer he moved toward his destination, the more my body lit up in sensations building low in my belly. I started to shake.
“Easy, my beauty, I got you.” He pressed a hand to my lower back and then smoothed over one cheek. “You are exquisite like this,” he murmured as his hand rolled up the other cheek to grip my hip. “Utterly exquisite and perfect.” I felt him shift his weight around behind me and heard the side-table drawer slide open. Slick drops of lube met my skin as he worked it around. “Breathe for me, okay? I’m going to take care of you so good.”
I nodded to let him know I’d heard but I couldn’t speak. All I could do was suck in air and anticipate what would happen once I felt him there.
The tip of his cock bumped through my folds and slid deliciously along my clit, sending out sparks that made me thrust back for more contact.
“Yes, baby. You’ll get it.” The blunt head of him pressed forward on me. The pressure was intense, and I couldn’t help the contraction of my muscles. “Relax and breathe.” He gave another push and the tip of him was in, my opening stretching to accommodate his size. “One more, baby. Almost there. I’m going in slow but steady, okay?” His hands held my ass as his cock moved deeper, propelled by a desire on both our parts to complete this union. There was some pain, but it was a very erotic sort of sensation that released something inside me. I wanted to feel it. I really did. I needed to understand what it was to give myself to Ethan completely.
The immense pressure building was already forcing a response within me and taking me forward for an orgasm. I pushed backward on his cock to let him know it was okay to keep going. “Ahhhhh . . . oh, God,” I said, shuddering as he pressed forward again, the stretched feeling increasing to the point of pain until it seemed impossible, my body burning up. Then suddenly a give as he filled me up completely on a stinging thrust that took him all the way home. I closed my eyes on his shout and froze at the sensation.
“Fuuuck, you feel so good!” He held himself still and caressed both sides of my ass with his hands. “Baby . . . oh, fuck me . . . okay?” He was having trouble with words and I certainly understood that. I was having trouble holding still, and could feel the shakes returning. The convulsions weren’t pain-induced, but involuntary reactions to the incredible assault on my erogenous zone. There was minimal pain because Ethan had prepared me slowly for this experience, taking me with care, as was his way with most everything. “Look at you, shaking.” He stroked my hips reverently. “I’ll stop if you tell me to. I never want to hurt you, baby,” he said clearly but I could hear the strain in his words. “You feel so crazy good, I’m—I am—fuck, it’s so good!” I could tell he was as affected as I was, hanging there suspended, waiting for the other to share. Ethan and I had always connected very honestly when it came to sex. I don’t know why everything was so easy, but it was and it always had been so.
“I’m—I-I’m okay,” I stuttered, “I want you to keep going.”
“Fuck, I love you!” he groaned harshly.
Ethan withdrew slowly, the drag sending more of those sensory sparks down my center, and then thrust back in deep again. Each penetration slow and controlled. Each joining a little deeper than the one before it. I was shocked at the intensity of the pleasure building inside me as he picked up the pace steadily. His hands held me secure and his cock owned me in the last and final way possible.
As everything built low in my core, racing toward something explosive, I could tell Ethan was in the same desperate condition as I was. He began to start in with the dirty talk and the heaving breathing as he slipped a hand down over my clitoris and rubbed in a circle.
His touch to that little bundle of nerves sent me over the edge. “I’m going to come!” I sobbed. As I bowed my head down into the sheets to brace for the onslaught, I felt him swell to inhuman hardness inside me as his cock continued on in a relentless rhythm.
“Oh, FUUUUCK!—so am I!” he bellowed through the tight thrusts that connected us over and over again.
I convulsed beneath him and blew apart, utterly boneless, and only able to hold on as he kept on with his purpose. A moment later I felt him leave me and flip me over, my body still reeling with the most explosive pleasure I’d ever experienced.
“Eyes!” he barked.
I opened mine and latched on to his fiery blue orbs. The sight of him was magnificent to behold. He looked like a pagan god, slick with sweat and all straining muscles as he kneeled between my legs, gripping his cock, and ejaculated all over my breasts and throat.
He was so very beautiful in that moment.
Sometime later I heard the bath running and opened my eyes, my body heavy with sleepy satisfaction. Ethan was right there watching me, all intense and serious in his expression, his fingers trailing through my hair.
“There she is.” The hard lines softened as he leaned in to nuzzle over my lips. “You get sleepy after I make you come.”
“I think I needed a little nap after all that.”
The frown returned. “Too much? I’m sorr—”
I shut him up with my hand over his mouth. “No.” I shook my head. “If it’d been too much I would have said.”
“Did it feel good?” he asked carefully, a worried brow creasing his beautiful features.
“Oh . . . yes.”
“Did I hurt you?” The sound of concern in his voice melted me even further.
“Only in the nicest way,” I told him honestly.
The furrow disappeared and a look of relief replaced it. “Oh, thank holy fuck!” He lifted his eyes upward like he was saying a prayer and then trained them back on me, which was absurd, really—thanking heaven for anal sex with an f-bomb declaration of gratitude when I’d given my blessing?
“Because I really want to do it again sometime.” He looked so very relieved, and possibly even a little smug about me. I was glad to have made him happy and comforted to be shown, yet again, how much I could trust Ethan with my heart, and my body. He excelled in taking care of me. I hadn’t really seen just how much he wanted to, and just how good he really was at doing it. Sexually and emotionally.
Ethan was brutally honest about stuff, sometimes so much so I blushed outwardly for his frankness. Inwardly though, I knew it was part of the reason he worked so well for me. I had to laugh a little at him too. Only Ethan could get away with sounding sweet about his hope for more backdoor sex for us and not have it come out crude and harsh.
How in the hell does he do that?
My kinky, foul-mouthed, romantic gentleman lover.
The perfect combination, in my opinion.
“Okay . . .” I told him, and leaned forward for a kiss.
He kissed me for a while in his gentle and precious way, as was typical. I looked forward to the after-sex kissing session. Ethan always wanted to kiss me after, and it always felt like he was making love to me again, only just with his lips and mouth. He pressed into me from above and held me underneath his hard body, his hips settled in between mine, his lips all over me, my lips, my throat, my breasts. He didn’t stop until he was good and satisfied either.
Ethan knew how to demand from me. And I am quite sure his instincts are just that basic—hardwired primal directives that he cannot help but to answer. I’m sure about him, because it works the same way for me as well. I want to accept him, and submitting during sex is a way to give Ethan those things he asks me for so candidly. It gets me hot too. I love the things he says and asks from me when we’re in the heat of fucking.
He lifted his lips away and looked over me with glassy blue eyes. “I love you so much it scares me sometimes. No . . . it scares me most of the time.” He shook his head idly. “I hate leaving you alone here so much. It’s not right.” He sighed heavily. “I hate it so badly. I get—I just turn into a sort of raving madman, and I hope it’s all not . . . too much. That I’m not too much.” He touched his forehead to mine. “I see you and I just have to be with you like this.” He trailed a hand over my breast and cupped it over the now dried effects of his orgasm, which looked to have been mostly wiped off me at some point. Maybe he’d done it while I dozed. I’d been so out of it from that cataclysmic climax he’d given me, I had no idea.
“Well, I’m not complaining.” I held his face. “I like your version of a madman, if that’s what you call it, and just so you know, I was lonely tonight, missing you and feeling worried about everything, but then you came home looking like you would die if you didn’t have me, and . . . well, it was just what I needed to make me feel better. When I’m alone with my thoughts, I tend to start worrying about things that I shouldn’t. Doubt creeps in. You are the first person to really help me with all the doubt. You just erase it all when you touch me and show me how much you want me.”
He just stared, his eyes wide. “Are you real?” he whispered, brushing up my face with the back of his fingers in a cherishing caress. “Because I’ll want you forever.”
Ethan had asked me that question before and I loved it. “When you say things like that my heart beats faster.”
He put his hand over my left breast and held it there. “I can feel your heart. It’s my heart too.”
I nodded. “It is your heart, and I am very real, Ethan. I’ve wanted everything we’ve ever done together, and you own my heart now.” I touched his face in the same way, just inches apart, drowning in his eyes.
Ethan sighed heavily, but it sounded like one of relief and not of worry. “Come on, my beauty, have a bath with me. I need to wash you and hold you for a while.” He picked me up and carried me into his travertine masterpiece of a bathroom, and helped me into the tub. After he settled in behind me, I stretched back and rested against his firm chest. His arms came around to swirl water up over my breasts and shoulders.
“I called Benny tonight,” I offered after a moment.
Ethan soaped up a bath sponge and drew it up my arm. “How is Clarkson? Does he want to take more pictures of you?”
“We didn’t talk about that.”
“But he will.” Ethan’s response was nothing new. He didn’t like me modeling, and he really didn’t understand how much I needed it either. I wasn’t in the habit of throwing it in his face because I didn’t want him getting all upset and unreasonable again. Every time I went for a photo shoot he got irrational, so it was easier to just avoid reminding him.
“I think Ben’s getting suspicious, and I’m sure Gaby would be too if she’d seen me in the flesh, but we’ve only spoken on the phone.”
Ethan drew the sponge over my neck. “It’s time to tell them, baby. I want it announced and it has to be something big. I know that much.”
“Big how?”
“London press? Celebrity guests? Posh planning?” I stiffened in his arms. He tightened his hold around me and whispered, “Now, don’t panic, okay? Our wedding has to be an . . . event that will be newsworthy enough so that everyone knows about us.”
“Like the senator?”
“Yes.” He paused. “We think that Fielding is dead too. He’s been missing since the end of May.”
“Oh, God! Ethan, why didn’t you tell me?” I jerked forward and turned halfway around to look at him accusingly.
He tightened his hold around me and pressed his lips to the back of my neck. He was attempting to soothe me, I suppose, and lucky for him his tactics usually worked. Ethan was able to settle me down with just a gentle touch.
“I just got confirmation, and when I first suspected it we were at Hallborough, and you were so desperately sick . . . Don’t be angry. I had to tell Neil about us too. He knows we’re pregnant. And before you get mad about that, you should know he’s very happy for us. You know everything there is to know, Brynne.” He kissed my shoulder. “No secrets.”
My brain started putting it all together and the very idea gave me goose bumps. “You’re worried they will try to get to me too, but if our relationship and wedding are made into celebrity news then they won’t dare to?” I could hear the fear in my voice and hated it. I couldn’t imagine that Senator Oakley would want me dead. What had I ever done wrong except date his son? It was Lance Oakley who’d done the damage, not me! Why did I have to live in fear over something I didn’t cause? I was the victim here, and as much as I loathed the idea, it was the truth.
“I cannot take the risk with you and I won’t, not ever.” Ethan kissed my neck and swirled the sponge down my belly. “I always say you are brilliant because you are. You understand, then.”
“Yeah, I get it. I understand that a powerful political party may want to snuff me out, but that doesn’t mean I have to like a façade wedding.” I could feel Ethan tense behind me and figured he wasn’t happy with what I was saying.
“I told you I would do whatever it takes to secure your safety, Brynne, and I will. I promise you, the venue and the guest list don’t change a goddamn thing about the purpose. Not for me, they don’t,” he ground out. “And I want the fact that we are expecting a baby to be part of the announcement as well. It just makes you more of a precious commodity.” He shook me lightly. “Which you are.”
Yeah, my man was not happy at all. He sounded a little wounded too, and I felt guilty yet again for being so unappreciative. I guess it was just one more thing to discuss with my therapist. While I was grateful Ethan wanted to marry me and was willing to make a commitment to our child, I hated that threats from fuck-knows-who were the driving force behind his proposal.
“I’m sorry. I know I am not making this easy on you, Ethan. I wish I could be different about this.” In so many ways, I wish it. “But you should know it’s not really every girl’s dream to have a celebrity wedding because someone might be trying to kill her.”
“There’s a lot more motivating me than that,” he growled, “and you know it.” Ethan thrust up the drain plug and heaved himself out of the tub. He offered his hand to assist me, his expression a little angry, a little hurt, and a lot beautiful in all his magnificent wet nakedness.
Yeah, a baby we started together by accident is driving it too.
I accepted his hand and let him draw me out of the tub. He snapped down a towel and started drying me from head to toe. When he got to my stomach he bent down and planted a gentle kiss right over where our baby would be growing.
I gasped and felt tears starting again, fully unable to bring my emotions to heel, and wondering how I’d ever make it through everything intact. Why did I have to be so weak?
He lifted his eyes up. “But I love you, Brynne, and I have to be with you. Isn’t that enough?”
I lost it. Completely and totally, and for the goddamn zillionth time. Tears, sobs, hiccups—the whole nine yards. Ethan got the deluxe emotional package from me tonight. Poor guy.
My outburst didn’t seem to faze him, though, as he took charge, putting me back into bed, sliding in alongside me and drawing me close. He drew his fingers through my hair and just held me for a long time with no more demands, no questions or inquiries. He let me be, offering his comfort and strength generously without the prospect of anything in return.
He was thinking. I could hear the cogs grinding around inside his head as he pondered me. Ethan did that quite a bit, actually, the thinking without saying anything.
I was too, though. I remembered something Dr. Roswell had said to me more than once. Whenever I expressed my fears about the future, she said: “You’ll get through one step at a time, one day at a time, Brynne.”
Another cliché, yes, but one that was spot-on true, as Ethan liked to say sometimes. Spot-on true.
I’ll get through this one step at a time, and Ethan will be here to help me.
“It is enough, Ethan,” I whispered. His fingers stilled in my hair. “It is enough for me. You are enough.”
Ethan kissed me, gentle and soft, his tongue slipping inside to tangle around lazily like there wasn’t a care in the world for us right now. I felt his palm sweep down to rest low on my belly and he held it there, warm and protecting.
“We’re gonna be okay, baby. I know we are. All three of us.”
I buried my face in his chest and nuzzled. “When you say it, I believe you.”
“It will. I know this.” He lifted my face up and tapped his head with his finger. “I have visions, just like you have those super powers of deduction that you told me about once.” He gave me a wink.
“Really.” I added some sarcasm, just so he’d know I was over my snit about the wedding and could go back to acceptance.
“Yup. You, me and our little blueberry will have our happily ever after.”
I had to shake my head at him. “We don’t have a blueberry anymore.”
He feigned shock. “What happened to blueberry? Don’t tell me you ate it.”
“You idiot.” I nudged him in the ribs. “Blueberry is now raspberry.”
“Where are you getting this information?” he asked, one eyebrow quirking up.
“Website called Bump dot com. You should check it out. It’ll tell you everything you need to know about fruits and vegetables.”
He laughed. “I love when you play with me,” he said, taking my chin. “Especially when I can see the light in your eyes and you look happy. It’s all I really want. You to be happy with me, about us, our life together.”
“You do make me happy, Ethan. I’m sorry about how I am lately. A hormonal wreck crying over everything, moping, being difficult, ugh . . . I hate the sound of myself even apologizing to you right now.”
He shook his head. “Nope. We’ll have none of that. You don’t need to apologize, baby. All you need to do is agree to the announcement of our engagement. I wrote it out today. It’s ready to go.”
He looked so earnest in his request, and I realized in that moment the time for avoiding my fears about marriage, a baby, the stalker, everything that scared me, really, was definitely over. Going forward was the only option now.
“Okay. I’m ready.”
“You are?” Ethan looked more than a little surprised. “Just like that, you’re now ready?”
“Yeah. I am. I know you love me and I know you will take care of us. I finally admitted to myself with Dr. Roswell that I need you. I love you and I need you.” I cupped one side of his face with my hand. “Let’s do it.”
I got one of those spectacular and rare Ethan smiles that made it all worth it. I did indeed love making this man happy. It filled something in me, made me feel warm inside.
“We need to tell our parents and families. How do you want to break the news?” he asked softly.
“Hmmm . . . good point.” I looked at the bedside clock reading one o’clock in the morning. “How about now?” I said.
“Now?” He looked unsure for a moment before he figured it out. “You want to tell your dad first.” I could tell he was doing mental calculations. “It’s five o’clock on a Friday, do you think you can get ahold of him?”
“I’m pretty sure I can. Get dressed.”
“Huh?”
I slipped out of bed and started pulling on yoga pants and a T-shirt. “I want to Skype him and tell him that way.” I smirked, feeling pleased with my idea. “I doubt he’d appreciate hearing he’s going to be a grandfather with you naked on Skype looking like you do right now,” I said with a long, measured look over his bare, muscled skin, “so get dressed, please. I can guarantee he’ll want to talk to you once I tell him what you’ve done to me.”
♥
“Princess, you look so pretty. I love seeing your face on here. To what do I owe this honor, and what in the hell are you doing up at one a.m.?”
I grinned at my dad and actually got butterflies in my stomach at the prospect of telling him our news. Somehow I knew he would be happy for me. He’d never judged me in the past, and he wouldn’t now. “God, I miss you. I would give anything to have you right in front of me for this, Daddy.” My handsome dad had a pool towel around his neck and wet hair.
“I just did forty laps, and it felt great. My weekend is off to a good start. The weather’s been so nice for the pool. Wish you were here to enjoy it with me.”
“Me too. Are you taking your blood-pressure pills like you’re supposed to?”
“Of course I am. I’m in great shape for an old codger.”
“Oh, please, you’re about the furthest you can get from being a codger, Dad. When I imagine an old guy, you’re definitely not it. I even got a message from Jess on Facebook telling me how she sees you at the gym and how adorable you are. You must have to scrape the ladies off you when you work out.”
He laughed and brushed my comment away. I always wondered about that part of his life. He never talked about dates or women, so I really didn’t know much. He had to get lonely sometimes. Humans weren’t meant to be alone. I wished he could find someone who made him happy.
“Jess is a sweet girl. We talk mostly about you, Brynnie. You didn’t answer my question either. Why are you up so late?”
“Well, Ethan and I have something important to say and I didn’t want another moment go by before talking to you.”
“Okay . . . you’re smiling, so I think this must be happy news?” He lifted his chin and looked a little too smug. My confidence faltered just a little, until I felt Ethan come up behind me and sit down. He put his hands on my shoulders and leaned forward so my dad could see him in the monitor. “Hey, Ethan, so you’re going to make an honest woman of my daughter? Is that what this big announcement is all about?”
“Ahhh . . . well—um . . . we wanted to tell you a few things, actually, Tom.”
“Well, I’m dying to hear it,” Dad said, obviously loving that he had Ethan squirming on Skype, a monstrous grin on his handsome face. God, I hoped he was happy once he heard the words.
I went for it. A big ole fat belly flop into the deep end of the metaphorical swimming pool that was my life.
“Daddy, you’re going to be a grandpa.”
I felt Ethan’s fingers grip my shoulders a little harder, and watched the big grin on my dad’s face morph into a look of complete shock.
