Out on patrols we saw all kinds of horrifying shit. Democracy is something most people never really have the opportunity to appreciate. I suppose that’s a lucky thing for much of the world, but still food for thought for those who don’t even know how good they have it. The thing that bothered me the most was the incredible waste of potential. People suppressed and terrorized have very little potential—just the way third-world dictators like them to be.
We’d seen her around begging on the streets of Kabul before, but never with the boy. Servicemen were restricted from interaction with the Afghan women. It was far too dangerous, and not just for the troops, but horny men are the most predictable, stupid creatures on the planet. They’ll go looking for pussy and find trouble just about every time. It was fair to assume she was a prostitute. Although not common, brothels did exist in Kabul, not that I’d ever be caught dead in one. But some of the men took the risk, morons that they are, thinking with their cocks. I made do with porn and the occasional secret shag with a “fellow” enlisted when it could be managed on the sly. I had a fair bit of interest and enough offers from women in the army. Discretion was key for any sex on base. Female troops had reason to be wary when they were so vastly outnumbered by men.
The woman’s name was Leyya and she died an inhumane death. The Taliban executed her in the town square for her crimes. The crime of working to feed her child. The bawling boy alerted us of the situation. He was about three years old and sitting in his mother’s blood in the middle of the street. I later wondered if anyone in the town would have ever picked him up, or if they would’ve left him to die right there with his mother’s desecrated body. In the end the point was moot.
It made me insane leaving him there while the possibility of a suicide bomb was ruled out. Took fucking hours. I was the one who set out to go get him off her corpse. I went in quickly and scooped him up. He didn’t want to leave her and clutched at her burka, dragging it away from her face as I lifted him up. Her throat had been slit from ear to ear, her head mostly severed. I dearly hoped he was too young to remember seeing his mother like that.
I got a terrible feeling almost immediately. A coldness swept through me as I ran him out of there. And then his crying stopped abruptly. A whoosh of air passed my ear and then . . . blood. So much blood for such a tiny little body. A moment later all hell broke loose . . .
“Baby, you’re dreaming,” a voice said gently in my ear.
I turned toward the voice, straining hard to find it. The sound soothed like nothing else before. I wanted that voice.
And then again, “Ethan, baby, you’re dreaming.”
I opened my eyes, sucking in a breath as I saw her, and took in her words. “I was?”
“Yeah, just some mumbling and moving around.” She reached a hand up behind my head and held my eyes to hers. “I woke you because I didn’t want you to dream anything terrible.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I woke you up?” I still felt disoriented, but was coming out of it quickly.
“It’s all right. I wanted to wake you up before it got . . . bad.” She sounded sad to me and I could only imagine that she’d try to get me to talk about this dream like she had the last time.
“Sorry,” I repeated, feeling shamed for doing this shit again and disturbing her with it.
“You don’t have to be sorry for having a dream, Ethan,” she said firmly. “But I’d really love it if you told me what it was about.”
“Oh, baby.” I drew her close and smoothed over her head and hair with my hand. I pressed my lips to her forehead and inhaled. Just breathing in her scent helped me immensely, as did the feel of her breasts against my thudding heart as I held her close to me. She was real, right here, right now. Safe with me.
I was hard. Hot and hard against her soft skin. “I’m still sorry for waking you up,” I said tightly as my lips found hers. I plundered her mouth with my tongue, pressing in deep and forceful, determined to have more. Nothing could help me right now but Brynne. She was the only cure.
And I was sorry, but I’d been like this with her before. Waking in the night and needing sex to bring myself down from the hyperanxiety of wherever I’d been in my dreams tonight.
“It’s okay,” she rasped against my mouth.
Her response emboldened me. Most everything she did turned me on. I liked to be dominant, but it thrilled me when Brynne assured me that she was willing, and desired me in the same way I did her. I instinctively knew she wanted me. It was just another form of the communication we shared. I wished all aspects of our relationship were so easy. The sex part we had figured out quickly, from the very first. Yeah, the fucking had always been hot and wickedly good for us.
I rolled her under me and split her legs wide with my knees, opening her up and dropping my head. I tossed off the covers and drew my eyes down over the gorgeous, willing body I would be buried deep inside of in another moment. Thank sweet Christ.
♥
“Good, because I need to fuck you until you come, saying my name,” he said in typical fashion. “Then I’m going to take my cock out of your divine cunt and fuck your beautiful mouth with it. And watch your lovely lips wrap around it and suck me dry.” His eyes flared and his sculpted chest moved from the heavy breathing as he moved into position. “Yes, baby, I’m going to do all of that.”
Ethan and his filthy mouth. It was crazy as hell, but that dirty talk did something to me.
Tensing in anticipation of what he would do, I moaned when he plunged into me hard and deep, filling me so full, bringing us so close together, my mind flashing back to what he’d said to me earlier in the night. We’ll get married. Not a question posed, but a directive as only Ethan could state and get away with, just as he’d done so many other times since we’d met.
Ethan held my wrists in one hand and roamed with the other as he rode me hard. In and out at a furious pace, almost angry in his method. I knew he wasn’t angry with me, though. It was the dream he battled. He needed to get the thing out of his head. I totally understood what was going on. Didn’t matter to me. I was a completely willing participant in his form of self-discipline.
He pushed me open wider and worked my sweet spot with his cock so perfectly it didn’t take very long before I was striving for an orgasm, feeling the tightening of my muscles readying for the blast that would take me to heaven on a supernova of heat and light.
He pinched my nipple, much more sensitive than usual, and the pain blinded me for an instant. I cried out as the climax started to roll through my body. He soothed the tender flesh with his tongue and spoke: “Say my name! I have to hear it.”
“Ethan, Ethan, Ethan!” I chanted against his lips as he plunged his tongue into my mouth and swallowed my words. I shuddered and clenched my inner muscles around his cock, pinned down and fully taken. And never more satisfied than I was in this moment. He took charge of my pleasure and never let me down.
But he wasn’t done. I remembered what he’d said to me before.
Ethan growled a very primal sound and pulled out of me. I protested the loss, but welcomed the jerk down the bed and the hot head of his penis filling my mouth as he readjusted his point of penetration. I could taste myself mixed with the taste of him and the eroticism was blatantly explosive. Gripping his hips, I pulled him deeper and sucked him to the back of my throat. Just a few strokes of my lips along the shaft before I felt the spurt of semen splash down. The sounds he made were carnal and oddly vulnerable for such a dominant act. It always made me feel powerful when Ethan came. I made it happen.
He was staring at me, watching the whole thing as he liked to do, our eyes connecting us deeply beyond just the physical act.
“Oh, God,” he whispered as he slid out of my mouth and drew back down my body to press us close. He covered me again, gently this time, sliding inside me in a perfect fit of his body to mine before his erection faded. I could feel the thudding of his heart blending with mine.
I held on to him and let him have his way. For a long time he kissed and touched me, needing to be inside me for a while longer, telling me he loved me and making me feel cherished. I understood so much about this man and what made him tick. So much . . . except for the one thing I wanted to know, and didn’t know at all.
Ethan’s dark place was still as mysterious to me as it had ever been.
“I love that you brought me here.” I felt myself start to slip away into drowsiness again, determined to talk to him tomorrow about the nightmares, knowing that he wouldn’t like it, but screw it, I was going to anyway. I wondered if he sensed what I would do. Ethan had the uncanny ability to predict my intentions. “And I love you.”
He settled me in his arms and stroked my hair. I breathed in his spicy scent mixed with all the sex and his cologne and let myself go, knowing I was in the arms of the only man who had ever gotten me to stay there.
As morning dawned I disentangled myself very carefully from the body wrapped around me. Ethan just sighed into his pillow and rolled deeper into the blankets. He had to be worn out from last night’s stressful show at the National Gallery and then the three hour drive up the coast late afterward. I couldn’t discount the time spent on sex once we got here either. Or his bad dream. And the fucking after that. The look in his eyes and the silent domination was a replay of his nightmare that other time. I knew what I knew. The resulting encounter had not been as intense as before, but I sensed Ethan had been working very hard to control his response so he didn’t lose it quite as badly as last time. My poor baby. I’d never tell him that, but it pained me to see him hurting; even more so that I couldn’t do anything about it because he refused to share it with me. Men were frustrating as hell.
With the soap in the shower, I scrubbed at my skin in annoyance and hurried to finish, determined to be dressed and out of the room without waking Ethan from his much-needed sleep in.
I tucked my phone into my jeans pocket and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door softly behind me. I just stood and looked down the hall from the wing where our room was situated at one corner of the estate. This place was something else all right, shades of Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley with a dash of Mr. Rochester’s Thornfield Hall thrown in. I couldn’t wait to get an official tour, still enthralled with the fact that Ethan’s sister and her husband owned this place.
I took the stairs halfway down, stopping on a dramatic landing. There on the wall was the most stunning painting. Larger than life and most definitely an artist I knew well. A portrait created by none other than the hand of Sir Tristan Mallerton hanging on the wall in a private home. Wow. I’m so out of my league with this family.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Gaby. “You won’t believe what I’m staring at,” I spoke to a thick sounding “hello” that could only be my roommate but didn’t sound at all like her usual confident self.
“Oh? What would that be? And it’s a little early, isn’t it?”
“Sorry, Gab, but I couldn’t resist. You would be drooling if you could see this . . . oh . . . midcentury Mallerton looming not a foot from me. I could rub my hands all over it if I wanted to.”
“Better not do that, Bree. Tell me,” she demanded, sounding a bit more like herself.
“Well, it’s probably about seven feet by four, and gorgeous as hell. A family portrait of a blond woman and her husband, and their two children, a boy and a girl. She’s wearing a pink gown and pearls that look like they belong in the Tower’s crown jewels collection. He looks like he’s in love with his wife. God, it’s beautiful.”
“Hmmm, I can’t place it offhand. Can you ask if it’s all right to take a photo so I can see?”
“I will, as soon as I meet someone I can ask.”
“Can you make out his signature?”
“Of course. It was the first thing I looked for. Bottom right, T. Mallerton in those distinctive block letters of his. It is, without a doubt, the real deal.”
“Wow,” Gaby said, in a very unwowed voice.
“Is everything okay with you? Last night was insane and I never saw you after that alarm went off. I wasn’t feeling well and Ethan was in high stress mode from some other stuff that happened.”
“Like what?”
“Umm, not really sure yet. Some weird message on my old phone came through, and Ethan had it on him. The person sent a crazy text and the song from . . . ah . . . that video they made of me.”
“Shit, are you serious?”
“Yep. I am afraid so.” Just telling her made my stomach flip a little. I just didn’t want to deal with it right now. Avoidance had worked well in the past for me, and would again I was certain.
“No wonder Ethan was stressed, Bree. Why aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. I just want to believe that nobody is after me and that this is just some kind of blip on the radar that will go away when the election is over. Trust me, Ethan is all over it.”
“Yeah, well, it’s good that someone is,” she grumbled. I decided right then that I wouldn’t share Ethan’s “proposal” of the previous night. I needed some coffee before I tackled anything of that magnitude. Better wait about telling her of Ethan’s ultimatum to move in with him too. Gaby had no trouble giving her opinion on things. And at the moment I didn’t need to hear the resulting noise it would bring.
“Hey,” I asked her, “you didn’t answer my question. Are you okay? Last night was so messed up. I know we exchanged texts and no damage done, but still . . .”
Silence.
“Gabrielle?” I asked again, notching up the intensity by using her full name.
“I’m fine.” Her voice sounded flat and I knew she was holding back.
“Where did you go? I wanted to introduce you to Ethan’s cousin, but that obviously never happened.”
“I got distracted . . . and then that alarm went off and I had to get out just like everyone else. I waited outside on the street for a while until I got your text. Once I knew you were safe, I found a cab and went home. I just wanted a shower and a bed. It was a weird night.” She sounded more like herself, but I had to wonder if she was feeding me a line. “Benny called too. He saw it on the news and was worried about us. I talked to him for a long time.”
“Okay . . . if you say so.” Gaby was stubborn and if she wasn’t in the mood to talk about stuff, then over the phone would not cut it. I’d have to get her in person.
“I do want to meet Ethan’s cousin with the houseful of Mallertons someday, though. Maybe you can arrange it,” she said in what seemed like a peace offering.
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll work on that with Ethan.”
As soon as I said the words, I sensed I was not alone anymore. I turned and met the solemn face of the most beautiful little girl, her blue eyes reminding me so very much of another pair I knew well. “I gotta go, Gab. I’ll talk to you later, and I’ll see what I can do about sending a pic of the painting. Love ya.”
I hung up and slipped my phone back in my pocket. My serious companion just kept staring. I smiled at her. She smiled back, her long dark curls framing a face that I predicted would someday evolve into a great beauty. I couldn’t wait to see Ethan with her.
“I’m Brynne.” I stuck out my hand. “What’s your name?” I asked, although I had a pretty good idea.
“Zara.” She took my hand with hers and tugged. “I know who you are. Uncle Ethan loves you and drinks Mexican beers now because of you. I heard Mummy tell Daddy that.”
I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. “I know about you too, Zara. Ethan told me how much he admires your smarts in handling your brothers.”
“He did?”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded as she looked up in wonder. “Where are we going?”
Zara did not share that information, but I let her pull me along anyway, weaving through rooms and corridors until the lights of a warm kitchen became clear and what was most certainly the smell of heavenly coffee found my nose.
“Mummy, I have her,” Zara announced as she pulled me into the room.
“Ahh, I see that, love,” said the dark beauty who could only be Ethan’s sister, Hannah. She smiled at me as she answered her daughter, and I got an impression of Ethan for just a moment in her expression. There was a resemblance for sure, but she favored their father more, I thought, than Ethan did. Hannah had the same dark hair and coloring, but her eyes weren’t blue like Ethan’s eyes. Her eyes were gray. And she was petite, whereas Ethan was muscular and tall. Genetics were interesting in the way that they managed to mix the genes of male and female to create combinations that made perfect sense.
“Welcome, Brynne. It’s lovely to meet you,” she said, moving forward, her eyes making a swift assessment. “Hannah Greymont, mum of your small captor there, and big sis of a man I never imagined would put me in this situation. There are plenty of surprises from him yet, I have realized.”
I laughed at what she said, liking her honesty immediately as we shook hands warmly. “Same to you, Hannah. I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a long time. Ethan speaks so affectionately of you. I met your father. He’s quite the charmer, as I am sure you know.”
“Yes indeed. That would be my dad.” She handed me a mug of coffee and pointed toward the table where the cream and sugar were sitting. “E told me about your coffee habit.” She grinned and winked at Zara.
“Thank you.” I breathed in a lungful of the delicious smell and gave my own wink to Zara. “Your daughter informed me that Ethan drinks Mexican beer now, and it’s entirely my fault.”
She opened her mouth in mock horror at Zara. “She did not!”
Zara giggled.
“My brother is nearly unrecognizable, Brynne. How on earth did you do it, and where is he, by the way?”
I started doctoring my coffee with sugar and cream. “Well, I can say in all honesty that I have absolutely no idea. Ethan is quite . . . ah . . . single-minded much of the time. Except for right now.” I laughed. “He’s pretty out of it, and I left him sleeping. Long drive last night and the evening ended . . . weirdly.” I looked over at Zara, who was soaking up every word of our conversation, and figured less said was better. Little ears can be very big, and I really did not know these people, despite how charming they were being toward me right now.
“Yeah, I heard about that when he rang me.” She shrugged and shook her head. “Crazy people out there for sure. As for E’s single-mindedness, that’s nothing new. He’s always been that way. Bossy, stubborn—very annoying as a boy.”
I just smiled and leaned against the counter opposite from where she appeared to be making bread. So, Hannah was a cook.
“The house—it’s amazing. I was just on the phone to my roommate gushing about the Mallerton that’s hanging on your stairs.”
“You found Sir Jeremy Greymont and his Georgina. Freddy’s ancestors . . . and you’re correct, Mallerton was the artist.”
I nodded at her and took a sip of coffee. “I study art conservancy at University of London.”
“I know. Ethan’s told us all about you,” Hannah paused before adding, “much to our surprise.”
I tilted my head in question and accepted the challenge head-on. “Surprised that he told you about me?”
She nodded slowly with a slight smirk. “Oh, yes. My brother has never talked about a girl, or ever brought anyone to my house for the weekend. This is all,” she gestured with her hands, “very different for Ethan.”
“Hmmm, well it’s pretty different for me too. From the first time I met him, he was very difficult to turn down.” I took another sip. “Impossible, really.”
She grinned at me. “Well, I’m glad for him, and glad to finally meet you, Brynne. I’m sensing there is more to come for you two?”
Hannah worded it as a question, and I had to give her props for being so intuitive, but I absolutely was not going to share the crazy lunatic proposal of marriage Ethan had dropped on me during the night. No way. We still needed a good long discussion about that little suggestion. I shrugged instead. “Ethan is very . . . confident about what he wants. He’s never had any trouble telling me. I think I have more trouble hearing stuff than he has with saying it. Your brother can be as blunt as a wooden plank.”
She laughed at my assessment. “I know that too. Subtlety is not in his lexicon.”
“You can say that again—” My eyes caught a picture on a cabinet shelf. A mother with two children—a girl and a boy. I wonder . . . I stepped closer and got a good long look at what I was sure was Ethan and Hannah with their young and beautiful mother, sitting on a stone wall looking almost posed, but possibly just serendipity in capturing a perfect moment. “This is the two of you with your mother?”
“It is,” Hannah said softly. “Taken shortly before she was gone.”
The moment felt odd to me. I was so curious as I soaked up the image of a four-year-old Ethan and the woman who had given him life, but I didn’t want to be rude and bring up sad memories. Still, my curiosity kept me from looking away. Mrs. Blackstone was unbelievably beautiful in an aristocratic way, elegant yet with warmth in her smile. Her hair was up and she had on a very fitted burgundy coat dress and tall black boots. She had amazing style for the period. I didn’t want to stop looking. In the photograph Ethan was leaning back against her body, snuggled into her arm, his hand on her lap. Hannah sat beside her on the other side, her head tilted in toward her mom’s shoulder. It was a sweet, loving moment captured in time. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I didn’t dare. To do so felt gauche and intrusive. “She was lovely. I can see a close resemblance between the two of you.” And Hannah did indeed look like the woman in the picture, but it was baby Ethan I wanted to stare at for a long, long time. His rounded, innocent face and little body in short pants and a white sweater made me want to wrap my arms around him.
“Thank you. I love to hear people say that to me. I never get tired of hearing it.”
“You both look like her,” I said, still staring at the photograph, wishing I could hold it in my hand but I was far too unsure to risk asking.
“Our dad gave us each a copy of that picture.” Hannah looked at me questioningly. “You’ve never seen it before?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not out on display at his flat. I never saw it when I went to his office either time.”
I got a pang when I mentioned his office; the last time I’d set foot in the place had not ended well for us. I’d gotten angry and left him, unwilling to listen to anything he had to say to me. Including “I love you.” I could remember the look on his stricken face from just outside the elevator as the doors closed between us. Painful, unpleasant memories. Ethan had not asked me to stop in since we’d gotten back together and I’d not offered to come by either. It was weird. Like the two of us being in his office was something a little too raw to sift through at the moment. Ah, well, maybe in time we’d get back to finding a comfort zone with the offices of Blackstone Security International, Ltd.
“Hmmm . . . interesting . . . I wonder where it is.” Hannah turned back to her breadmaking project and lifted a cloth from a bowl.
I sipped my coffee and continued to study the photograph.
“Ethan didn’t speak for almost a year after her death. He just stopped talking one day. I think he was in shock when she didn’t come back . . . and it took him some time to accept it, even in his four-year-old mind,” Hannah said softly as she worked her dough.
Wow. My poor Ethan. It hurt me just to hear this story. The sadness in Hannah’s words was pretty intense and I struggled with any kind of response that didn’t sound ignorant. I wish I knew how their mother had died.
“I can’t even begin to imagine how hard that must have been for everyone. Ethan speaks so kindly of you and his father, though. He told me you all got closer and hung together once your mother passed.”
Hannah nodded as she worked. “We did, it’s true.” She punched the ball of dough and covered the bowl with the cloth again to allow a second rising. “I think the suddenness was a good thing in the end. There was no long illness or sad dwellings on what could not be changed, and in time Ethan adjusted and began talking again. Our grandmother was wonderful.” She smiled sadly over at Zara. “She’s been gone about six years now.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just stayed quiet and sipped my coffee and hoped she would share more of the family history.
“Car crash. Late at night. Mum and my aunt Rebecca were headed home from their grandfather’s funeral.” Hannah turned to Zara, who had gotten down from her chair and was heading out of the kitchen. “Don’t wake up Uncle Ethan, my love. He’s very tired.”
“I won’t.” Zara answered her mother but looked at me and gave a little wave.
My heart melted as I waved back and gave her a wink.
“That is one adorable child you have. So independent. I love it.”
“Thank you. She is a handful sometimes, and more curious than is good for her. I know she’ll be trying to get Ethan up out of bed and getting her sweets.”
I laughed at the image of that scene. I hoped I got to witness it. “And you have two other children too—both boys, I heard. I don’t know how you manage everything.”
She smiled as if the thought of her kids gave her a good feeling inside. I could tell Hannah was a great mom and I admired her for it.
“I’m pretty lucky with my man and I enjoy having guests here. We meet a great deal of interesting people. Some we’d like to never meet again, but on the whole, it’s good,” she said jokingly. “And some days I don’t know how I’d manage without Freddy. He took the boys to volunteer at a charity breakfast for the Boy Scouts. They’ll be home in a bit, and you can meet the rest of the clan.”
“You don’t have other guests staying here?”
“Not this weekend. You and my brother are it. By the way, what can I get you for breakfast?”
I came closer and peered at her breadmaking mission. “Oh, I’m fine with the coffee for now. I’ll wait for Ethan. In the meantime, could you use some help with the bread? I love to bake. It would be therapy for me after the insanity of last night.”
She grinned and pushed a lock of hair away from her face with a bent wrist. “You’re hired, Brynne. Aprons are on the back of the pantry door and I want to hear all about the insanity of last night.”
“That was easy,” I said as I went for the apron.
“I’m not stupid. I’ve learned over the years that help is a good thing.” She pegged me with warm gray eyes. “And you never have to ask me twice.”
