I knew Ethan was in a bad state the second I came out of Lance’s room. I could see the lines of worry around his eyes and the harsh set of his jaw. And I most definitely felt the tension in his body when he refused the car to take us home and had Len waiting for us instead. Ethan wouldn’t accept another morsel of anything from the senator. He was done.
The moment Len dropped us at the lobby of our building, Ethan propelled me inside with quick steps. No seconds wasted on even a simple greeting to Claude, our concierge, as he usually did. He moved us along with a singular purpose, trundling me into the elevator without ever uttering a single word.
He herded me into a corner and pressed his body up against mine, dropping his head to my neck and inhaling. Still silent, he just pinned me there and breathed me in. I could smell the seductive male spice coming off him. The scent of desire for sex, and the burning drive to mate.
“Ethan,” I whimpered his name.
“Hush.” He brought one finger to my lips and held it there. “No talking.”
I could feel the length of his cock pressing into my hip and a long shiver rolled down my spine. I was already wet and he hadn’t even done anything to me except press his body to mine and express his displeasure for conversation. It was all in the power of suggestion in his manner, the way he communicated to me with his mind and his body about what he wanted, that was so compelling.
Ethan wanted to fuck. Me.
I knew he was just holding back the firestorm that would be coming at me the second he got us behind closed doors.
THE click of the door latch sounded incredibly loud against the tense silence.
With my senses on high alert, I braced myself for him to come at me. I didn’t have to wait long. In less than a second, I was covered from behind by a very hard body intent upon one, and only one goal. To get inside mine.
Ethan had his hands up my skirt and his fingers sliding over my clit before I could even take a step. His forceful probing of my sex was primal, and sent me into instant lust. It was his animalistic desperation that flipped the switch. Ethan was a ravening beast at my back right, and the erotic images he conjured up in my mind made me go just as wild.
“So drenched already,” he purred smugly at my neck, his hips thrusting into my ass while he fingered my pussy, building me up to where my body took over, and my mind didn’t have to think about anything beyond this.
He pushed me forward, up to the foyer table. “Put your hands there and hold on,” he commanded.
As I took my place, I felt my panties pulled down roughly, one leg lifted out of them and then…his magic fingers were back at my pussy. Thank you. This time, he plundered from the front so he could grind into me from behind. Spreading the slickness up and down my slit, he worked it around with talented fingers, stroking and lubricating my flesh until I was nearly ready to orgasm. Ethan was well versed in the signs, and I knew he would change things up because of it. He let me go along until I started to rock into the rhythm he had going, riding his hand like a wanton. Then he stopped. “No,” I cried out in protest when his fingers left me.
“I’ve got you, baby. Hold on.” He smacked my ass cheek with a firm slap, the sting edging my pleasure up a notch. I tensed my muscles and shuddered into it, desperate for him inside me. How does he know?
The noise of him unzipping was the best sound I’d heard all day. Still shaking, I moaned in anticipation as I felt the blunt head of his cock nudge at my entrance, hot and ready.
Bracing my arms on the table, I looked down at the floor made of beautiful Travertine marble. The scene below us could only be described as sex personified. Creamy-lined stone, created by nature, juxtaposed against the haphazard cluster of abandoned clothing. Ethan’s dark grey trousers and leather belt bunched along his shins, the rolled pink lace of my panties still around my left ankle, the wide stance of my Gucci peep-toes propping up my legs. A truly jaw-dropping sight to behold, because of what it represented. Wild, filthy sex between two lovers too desperate to bother with getting naked.
And also that I was about to be fucked senseless.
Ethan filled me up on a steady thrust, his hands at my hips for leverage. He made that breathy groan of pleasure that I loved to hear from him as he sank into me. “Feel that, my beauty. All of it—just for you.” He drew out on a glorious slide of his thick cock. “You’re so good, so fucking beautiful right now, bent over this table—” He plunged inside me deeply. “—taking my cock.”
God, he felt good in me. “ Yes…oh!” I couldn’t respond to his erotic ravings with any coherence. All I could do was take it.
“You belong to me!” he barked on harsh punctuating thrusts, his pace almost punishing as he pounded faster.
Yes, I do. My man was trying to reestablish his claim over me after having to give me up at the hospital. He needed this. I needed it. Over and over he pumped into me, the hot flesh of him sinking and retreating in a wicked stride that left me barely able to breathe.
“I want to hear you say it,” he growled.
My orgasm building, I could barely think, let alone speak, but his demands always pulled it out of me. “Oh, my God, Ethan…yes…I only ever belong to you!”
I felt the first convulsion start, rolling me to the tip of the crest as I clamped down on his hammering cock as hard as I could.
“Oh, fuck, yeah. Squeeze it just like that!” His hand gripped my hair in a huge handful and pulled my neck all the way back. I understood why. Ethan needed that intimacy of our mouths and eyes meeting, no less than the joining of our sexes. He brought his other hand around my throat and held me pinned, cock pounding relentlessly into me from behind as he took my mouth. His kiss was searing, devouring, and ravening. He bit and sucked at me with rough lips and teeth, possessing me in every way, demonstrating that I was, indeed, his.
Just as I needed to be.
As I climaxed into a blissful explosion of intensity, his tongue plunged deep into my mouth claiming my breath, my soul, my everything.
I felt him harden and swell inside me. I cried out his name in a long, low wail, unable to vocalize anything other than that one word. “Ethan” was the only word I knew.
“I love you,” he rasped against my lips right as he started to come.
BRYNNE squeezing and gripping around me as she came—was so good. So—fucking—good. Every convulsive grasp and shudder coming from her sex, owned my cock. I felt the tightening rush in my balls just as I started to go off. “Uhn…uhn…uhn,” I grunted, with every plunge into her tight cunt.
My beautiful girl gave herself up to me in exquisite surrender.
“Fuck, YES!” I ground out, a hot flood of cum shooting out in spurts, spunking her up good and dirty. I kept on fucking through the ecstasy, holding her against me by pieces of her beautiful hair. Fuck. Love. Mine. Brynne… Random thoughts filtered through my consciousness as I melded into her, but one idea stayed with me though. No matter how far gone I ever got, I didn’t lose sight of the truth: This woman owned me from head to toe, and everything else in between.
And she always would.
I released my hold of her hair, straightened her neck, and buried my face at the back of it. Breathing in her floral scent, laced with the smell of pussy, I traced the top of her spine with my lips, whispering to her, cherishing her, kissing in between the words. I might be calmer now, but I was fully aware that I’d just fucked my wife like a madman in the entryway of our home.
“Are you all right?”
“Mmm hmm,” she purred sexily.
I wondered what she was thinking. Even so, I knew there was nothing I could have done differently. After leaving Oakley at the hospital, I’d slipped into a very dark place in my head. I understood the visit was necessary, but I hated every second of it. All I wanted was to protect my precious girl from the things that had hurt her. And I wasn’t able to do that today. I had to stand aside and allow him to put his hands on her…again.
Don’t think about that cocksucking shit.
Pulling out, I yanked my trousers up, only bothering so I’d be able to walk. They wouldn’t be on me in another two minutes.
I swept my hand over her gorgeously displayed arse and squeezed a cheek, taking in the view. “You’re so…goddamn…beautiful.” The word didn’t even do justice to how she looked right now. There weren’t words. And I could never get enough of looking at her.
She rolled her neck like a cat getting a good stretch out of the way. My girl seemed pleasantly sated, but I wasn’t done with her yet. That desperate entryway fuck we’d just had was merely a warm up.
“I think I need to get off my feet,” she said from her position bent over the table—pink pussy framed between her spread legs, standing long and straight, all the way down to the black heels at the end of her dainty feet.
Guilt speared my gut. Of course she should be off her feet. She was pregnant. You’re a fucking moron sometimes. I helped her to straighten and turned her around to me. “I’m so sorry ’bout that, baby. Let me make it up to you.” I scooped her up into my arms and kissed her, relieved to see the sexy smirk teasing her lips as I walked us toward the bedroom. “I’ll rub them for a long time.”
“Pretty please,” she hummed into my chest.
And that’s all it took for everything to be right with the world. I just needed a sign from her. A smile, a word, a caress—something that told me she wasn’t bothered by my freak-out, and still loved me. That, and the fact I had at least another blinding orgasm coming to me. Brynne, on the other hand, deserved at least two more, plus a really nice foot massage.
“You will be,” I told her when I laid her out on our bed.
IN the SF, Captains lead troops of five men. Small squads for tactical ops that require zero detection. My men were the best the BA had to offer. Mike, Dutch, Leo, Chip, and Jackie. That day we found the boy and his dead mother in the middle of the road was the final day we were all alive at the same time. The last time brothers, husbands, fathers, and sons of Britain drew breath. Twenty days later, that number was reduced to…one.
Mike was the only other besides me to make it out of the ambush in the street. It would have been so much better if he hadn’t…
IMMERSED in the bathtub with luxurious scented water warming my body, I processed through the last twelve hours. Jesus Christ, it would take more than a soak in the tub to figure it all out.
Ethan had fallen asleep so soundly after we finished the second time, he didn’t even stir when I slipped out of bed. He usually followed after me when he heard the tub filling, if he hadn’t been the one to start it in the first place. But not tonight.
I imagined Ethan was exhausted from the pretense at the hospital. I could tell that he was torn up inside about having to ask me to go. We didn’t have a choice though. Lucas Oakley was going to secure the presidency for Benjamin Colt because of a twist of fate that made his son a war hero at just the right moment. Handsome young Army officer gets his leg blown off in the war. Oh, and the handsome young officer just happens to be the son of the nominee for Vice President of the United States of America. The polls were already predicting a landslide victory, and everyone knew it.
The really scary part though? Once Senator Oakley was the Vice President, he would only be a heartbeat away from being…The President. The very thought made my heart ache. The normal response would be to rub over the area to ease the sting, but I cradled my belly instead—my first instinct to protect my little butterfly angel. I’d done what I had to today. I had to secure some kind of assurance that my sordid past with Lance couldn’t do damage to his father’s future, or to mine. And I would willingly do it again, too. Anything for my butterfly angel.
Lance… When I had woken up this morning, he was the last person I ever imagined seeing. I wasn’t ready to deal with him yet, but I was realistic enough to see that Lance Oakley was not going to go away. Especially now. “Brynne, please come back to see me again. I have to tell you how sorry I am for what I did to you.”
Which had led me to my second shock. He was sorry? I didn’t know what to make of his request, but I understood Lance only wanted me to hear because he asked me in a secret whisper. It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t go back there to see him again. I didn’t need to. Oddly, I was okay with how things stood. All in all, the way the visit had played out, was not as traumatic for me as I thought it would have been. I was strong during our meeting, and I did everything I was asked to do. As did Lance.
I didn’t really dwell on the idea of what this all meant in regards to my emotional health, because I didn’t have the time or the inclination to delve into it. I had a life to lead, with a husband who loved me and needed my support, and a baby who needed me for everything. All of the past crap with Lance would just have to take a back seat in the driving force that was now my life. I didn’t see any other way to move forward.
And I was determined to move forward. I brought my hand to my stomach again and tried to feel for more movement, but baby wasn’t in the mood, I guess.
I couldn’t let Lance, or his scheming politician father, stop me from what I needed to do. The meeting had really stunned me in the way Lance appeared so different than he’d been when we were together. Like, complete-one-eighty different. I still had some trouble connecting the man I’d seen today, with the one I’d known before. They didn’t even feel like the same person. Maybe he had changed over the course of the years. His body sure had changed with all the tattoos—
“—Noooo! Mike, I’m sorry, brother. I won’t do it again! Awww, fuck no. MIKE! God, please no. FUCK! NO, PLEASE DON’T DO IT. NO…NO…NO!”
Ethan. I heard him shouting from the bedroom and understood immediately. My man was having another night terror. I stood up from the bath, water streaming off my skin, and reached for my robe. I drew it on over my dripping body and rushed out of the bathroom. He needed me, and I had to help him. Simple as that.
I bolted up from the bed gasping, both hands around my throat, just hanging there taking in oxygen.
Breathe, motherfucker. In, out, in, out.
That flashback was the worst. My deepest torment—one that could never be erased from my mind. I knew I was doomed to carry that one inside of me forever. He’s at peace now. I told myself that, whenever the guilt seared into me to the point where I was right then. It didn’t help a great deal, but some. And it was the best I could do.
In, out, in, out.
“Ethan, baby…” Her gentle voice told me she was awake this time.
I was afraid to look at her. Fucking terrified to lift my head and face my sweet girl. If I did, she would see my shame and my weakness. Fuck all knows what I’d shouted out. I felt like I would be sick.
But Brynne didn’t do what she had done on the other occasions. She didn’t get upset or demand I start talking. Didn’t judge or question. She just put her soft hand to my chest and brought herself close so I could take in her scent, and know I was in the here and now, and not lost in my past. She let me see that I had her safe beside me. “I’m here, and I love you,” she crooned at my ear. “How can I help you?”
Pure, flooding relief cascaded over me at her words. I pulled her into me and held on for dear life. The idiom was a perfect description of me. I held onto my girl for dear life.
THE hair at the back of her neck was a little damp. I could mess about in her hair for hours. I loved the softness of it, the texture, the smell, everything. As soon as she’d asked me how she could help me, I’d showed her exactly how.
I think she knew because she had “helped” me before, allowing me to find a small measure of comfort in her body by using sex to drown out the demons. Now came the hard part. The part where I apologized for my beastly reaction of using her like a tranquilizer.
Spooning on our sides, I breathed her in and cradled our little bun-in-the-oven with my hand. I was looking forward to feeling a kick or a fist pump, but hadn’t been so lucky yet. Brynne brought her hand to cover mine on her stomach and sighed in contentment. Which made me feel miles better. A satisfied Brynne was a good start.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” I finally whispered at her ear. “Forgive me…”
“You have nothing to be sorry about, Ethan, ever. All I care about is that you know I’m here for you and that I love you. That’s what’s important to me.” She yawned sleepily and patted over my hand. “Go to sleep now.”
My eyes snapped open. Did I just hear her correctly? She wasn’t going to interrogate me about my nightmare, or demand I go “talk” to some headshrinker about the shit in my fucked-up past? Her actions made me curious.
“Brynne?” I nuzzled the back of her shoulder.
“Hmmm?”
“Why aren’t you disturbed by what I—what I did tonight? My nightmare?” I asked carefully, my lips pressing down on her skin with a kiss as soon as the question was out of my mouth.
“I spoke to Dr. Roswell about your PTSD.”
My body tensed as I struggled with feelings of betrayal for a moment, but I held off, because I was sure there was more in the way of an explanation from her. Brynne was not the hothead I was. She thought about things before she said them. Most of the time. And if I was in her shoes, I would probably do the same. My condition was no secret to her anymore. Why pretend with the only person I could even trust?
“Well, I didn’t tell her very much, just that you have bad flashbacks from your time as a prisoner in the army. I asked her how I could help you.” She rolled around to face me, her expression telling the truth in her words. “Because I love you, Ethan, and I will do anything to bring you out from that dark place if I can.”
“You do already. You have from the beginning,” I told her. “You’re the only thing that helps me.” I traced her cheekbone with my finger, wishing I could tell her I’d never have another flashback, or wake her from a sound sleep with barking-mad ravings in the night. I would do it again. I might never stop doing it.
“So Dr. Roswell told me a little about the way the trauma memories work,” she began cautiously, her voice like a soft caress.
“What did she say?” I managed to ask.
“She told me that people with PTSD will do almost anything to avoid having to remember the events. It’s too painful and terrifying.”
Dr. Roswell is right.
She shook her head slowly. “So I won’t ask anymore…I’ll just be here for you. Whatever you need from me¸ I’m here for you. Sex? To bring you out of it if that’s what you need. With no pressure to talk it out if you don’t want to.” She swallowed and her throat flexed in the hollow of her neck. The cool touch of her hand on my cheek came next. “I know now that when I pushed you to talk to me about your nightmares I was just making it harder on you. I’m so sorry, Ethan, I thought talking would help you. I didn’t know I was hurting you by trying to force you—”
I kissed her, cutting off her words. I’d heard plenty. Beautiful words of acceptance that went further to heal me than anything probably ever could. I knew this was true. My girl had just helped me to take the first step. Maybe now, with her unconditional support, I could find the courage to go out and find some help somewhere.
Brynne brought her hands into my hair and gripped hard, letting me know she was going to be right with me through and through. God, I loved her so much it was beyond what I could ever express. It was just something I would have to hold inside me. I was the only one who could ever know how deep my love went for Brynne.
When I finally ended our kiss, I still held her against me because I couldn’t bear to let her out of my arms. Could not fucking bear it. I had to hold onto her for the rest of that night.
