Did you have fun today?”

Ethan came up behind her and braced his hands on the deck railing. Boxing her in. His body pressed against hers from shoulder to knees.

A choked laugh escaped her lips. “Not sure I’d call it fun exactly.”

When they finally arrived back at Ethan’s bungalow, she felt like a rocket. Ready to go off at the slightest touch. He’d pulled out a bottle of Cristal Rose Champagne from his refrigerator and grabbed two glasses that were on the counter and guided her to the deck.

The sunset had been amazing and her body buzzed, and not just from the alcohol.

His dark chuckle against her neck made goose bumps pop up along her skin. If he started and stopped this time, she really was going to kill him. She leaned back, tilted her neck so that he had more surface to kiss.

Ethan ran his tongue down along her shoulder, then nipped his way back up. The scruff of his beard abraded her skin in a way that she’d never felt before. The hard bulge of his cock pressed into her lower back. She was pinned between it and the railing and she was tired of waiting.

She turned and wrapped her arms around his neck. No more games. She wanted him. With a tug she brought his head down and pressed her lips to his. Hot silk. That's what his tongue felt like gliding over hers. Harper groaned, lifted her leg, and wrapped it around his thigh. His fingers dug into her bare flesh, holding her like that, pushing her back against the rail.

She needed his kiss deeper but he held back, stroked the inside of her mouth boldly but with deliberation. She ached everywhere but the pulsing wetness between her legs was unbearable.

“Ethan, I need you to touch me.”

His low chuckle was full of promise.

“If you don’t, I’m going to go back to my own bungalow and masturbate all night. Without you,” she said.

“No you won’t.” He punctuated each word with a kiss.

God, she wouldn’t. Even she knew that.

The fingers on her thigh crept higher, brushed against the inner edge of her shorts. Her breath lodged in her throat. She tilted her hips, tried to move so that he was touching her where she needed it most. Damn him if he didn't purposefully avoid it.

If he didn't do something soon she was going to explode out of her skin.

“Please,” she gasped. “You’re not being very nice you know.”

He pressed hot lips to her neck, then dragged them up, over her chin and took her mouth. This time he really kissed her, stroked his tongue in her mouth boldly, and swallowed the moans coming from her throat.

“I plan on being very very nice,” he said against her swollen lips when he finally came up for air. “So nice that you’ll be screaming my name when you thank me.”

It should have been a horrible line that made her roll her eyes, but the way he said it, the dark promise in his voice, made her ache down to her bones. She never wanted anyone like this and it was making her a little crazy.

“I think you have too many clothes on,” he said. “Can I take them off?”

Yes! Her mind screamed. Finally. He lowered her leg and moved his fingers to the button on her shorts. His knuckles brushed over her stomach and she sucked in a breath. Even an innocent touch made her blood race.

He took his time, sliding the zipper down, pushing his hands along her hips to slide under the cotton of her shorts and panties. The warm night air washed over her skin as he slowly slid them down over her legs. He knelt, lifting one foot and then the other so she could step out of them.

She expected him to stand, to take her shirt off. What she didn’t expect was for him to lift her leg and drape it over his shoulder. She grasped the railing behind her as he grabbed her ass, tilted her hips forward so that he could slid his tongue between the lips of her pussy.

“Shit,” she moaned when his tongue ran over her clit then bucked when he drew it between his teeth and sucked.

He moved his hands, gently guiding her hips into the rhythm that he wanted. He released her now throbbing nub but kept his tongue firmly against it, using her own momentum to build her up.

Harper panted, spread her legs a little wider as the pressure in her stomach tightened. All of the day’s teasing had her blood in a constant simmer and it didn’t take much to bring it to a boil. This what was she wanted, what she’d needed, since her first second of seeing his face.

“Oh god, Ethan.” One hand tangled in his hair and she bucked, riding his tongue, chasing the orgasm that was just a little higher. Just a little more. The leg she stood on shook and the tension in her stomach made it hard to suck in air. She was so close.

So fucking close.

Then she teetered, on the sharp edge where she held her breath. Balanced as pleasure raced through her body, building higher, tighter, almost too much. He kept her there, hovering on the edge for several excruciating seconds, then he pulled her clit between his lips and sucked.

Light exploded behind her eyes and her entire body went rigid. Waves crashed, pulling her under while she drowned in white-hot pleasure. Somewhere in there she heard herself screaming, whether out loud or in her head she didn’t know.

All she did know was that she’d shattered into a million pieces and there wasn’t any way she’d ever find them all again. Very slowly, she came down as Ethan slowed his strokes. When he eased her leg back to the floor she had to lean heavily on the railing.

He pushed up until he stood right in front of her. His eyes were so dark, hungry. As she tried to catch her breath, he lifted her top up and over her head. With a quick flick he had her bra unclasped and down her arms. Now she was completely naked.

“Told you that you’d scream my name.” His husky voice washed over her skin as he leaned in and took one of her nipples into his mouth. He ran his tongue around the hard tip, pulled it between his teeth, then sucked, then bit down, then sucked.

He kept up the torture until a low groan ripped from her throat.

When he released it, her nipple throbbed. Then he did the same to the other side. By that time, she was panting again.

“Turn around,” he said.

Goose bumps danced over her skin as she faced the ocean, her hands gripping the railing. The sound of clothes hitting the deck and then, his lips brushed over the back of her neck. Wet kisses made a path down her spine as his warm body pressed against her. She arched back when his hard cock slid over the top of her ass.

The pounding of her heart filled her ears.

Ethan cupped her breasts from behind and tweaked her nipples between his thumb and fingers. Rolled and twisted until she was pushing back and forth, feeling the ridges of his cock sliding on her skin.

Fire burned in her stomach. Her clit throbbed with need again. The way he covered her so completely with his hard body made her feel wild. Out of control.

“Now,” she begged. “I need you now.”

She lifted her hips, tried to get high enough so that his cock would slide lower, into the place where she needed it. One hand left her breast and slid between her legs. His fingers were slick and he rolled her clit. Harper was out of her mind, delirious with the need to come again.

“Ethan please,” she panted.

He growled, bit the back of her neck, her shoulder when she managed to shift her hips in a way that bent his cock down, allowing it to slip between the moisture between her legs. She took a step to the side, opened up to him, and arched her back again.

The tip of his cock slid into her and she groaned deep in her throat.

“Fuck,” he hissed. His grasp tightened around her stomach. The fingers on her clit squeezed and her pussy clenched, pulling on the end of his cock. “Christ Harper, you’re so fucking tight.”

Everything narrowed and the only thing that mattered to her was coming. While he was inside her. She jerked her hips back and gasped as he filled her completely. That’s all she needed, the added friction shooting her to the edge again.

“God yes,” she panted. “Don’t stop. So close Ethan.

He drove forward and she pushed back and their bodies slapped together noisily. He worked his fingers, pulsed her clit with every thrust and it hit like a freight train. This time it started deep inside and burst out of every pore at the same time.

Pleasure so sweet it hurt.

She screamed. Again.

His hands covered hers, gripped onto the railing as he pounded into her, extending the shocks coursing through her even as she convulsed on his swollen cock. With a hoarse ragged cry, Ethan stiffened behind her and she felt him pulsing inside her.

She sucked in air, tried to fill her burning lungs.

Her entire body shook and he held her there, his front to her back, while he moved back and forth inside her much slower now. If he let her go, she’d fall to the floor. Intense would be an understatement. Never in her experience had it been like that. She was floating, not quite one with her body yet.

She had to give him credit, that whole anticipation thing fucking rocked.

“Will you stay?” His voice was hoarse in her ear and she probably sounded the same.

“Yes.” They slowly disentangled and she shivered as air moved across her sweaty skin. He took her hand and led her inside, where he pulled back the covers and she slipped between. He moved in behind her and pulled her back against his chest again.

She laid her hand on his arm then turned her head and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. Exhaustion crept into her muscles and she relaxed in his arms. He kissed her hair and ran a thumb over stomach.

“Goodnight, Ethan,” she whispered, feeling sleep pulling her under.

“Goodnight, Harper.”

She snuggled against him, feeling safer and warmer and more relaxed and happy than she’d felt in a long, long time.

Maybe ever.

She wanted to just save this moment with him, freeze-frame it forever.

And then, she suddenly found herself wondering if maybe this wasn’t just one day in paradise with a sexy stranger. She felt something with Ethan that she’d never realized she even needed. He was like a living, breathing pain reliever—his touch and his smile could take away all of the troubles that plagued her worried mind.

Maybe she shouldn’t be so quick to assume that things couldn’t go further than just this little vacation. Maybe they could keep talking, fly out to see one another—assuming he lived far away from her, which he in all likelihood did.

But regardless, as she drifted off to sleep, she told herself that tomorrow she would actually try to feel Ethan out on whether or not he was interested in something more than a one-night-stand.

And then she was asleep, peaceful, calm, deeply content.

In the morning when she woke, he was gone.

At first, she thought maybe he’d only gone out to get food—something, anything.

Only, when she went to the doorway of the bungalow and glanced out, she saw a note that must have been taped to the door and fallen down, almost out of view.

She picked up the paper and saw a quick note scrawled in what could only have been Ethan’s handwriting.

I had to leave early and didn’t want to wake you. If things were different, I would be waking up with you every morning and never leaving. But things are what they are. Try not to live in your head too much…

-E

It had been three weeks since she got back from her vacation and it was as if she’d never left. Sometimes it felt like it had just been a dream, but the way her body ached for days after told her it was all real.

Ethan had been real.

She’d gone to Tahiti to forget her life for a week and he’d made sure that for one night, she’d forgotten her own name. There were a few moments of regret, when she wished she’d gotten his number, and perhaps some lingering betrayal that he hadn’t even said goodbye in person.

But maybe he really had been thinking that it was easier to do it the way he did. And maybe he was right.

Regardless, she was filled with her own concerns about life in the present, life in the real world, where paradise was as far away as the North Pole.

Every single day since she’d been back had been filled with lawyers and press conferences and prepared statements.

Not hers.

Harper wasn’t allowed to speak to the media about her father, but her parents insisted that she be there at their sides during every single interview. To show solidarity. It didn’t matter if Harper thought her father was wrong or right, she had to put on a smile and do nothing. Say nothing.

Today they were on their way to the courthouse. In the town car, her father, Bud Matheson, was going over the cards his publicity manager had given him. Huge crowds were expected to be waiting, mostly to throw insults, Harper was sure.

That’s what happened when you swindled millions of dollars from people. They kind of hated you for it. Truthfully, so did she. They hadn’t needed the money. Her father was a very successful investor with a half billion-dollar portfolio.

They all lived in a beautiful townhouse in Back Bay, had a house on the West Coast, a chalet in Europe and several penthouse apartments around the world. Some people collected cars or antiques, her father collected houses.

So why had he felt the need to create the biggest Ponzi scheme in history to rob people of their money? She had no idea, but the fact that he did, that he didn’t give a shit about her mother or Harper or how this would affect them, made her hate him.

And because of his unparalleled greed, everything was at risk. By the time the courts were done with him, they might have nothing left.

Actually, less than nothing, since her father could potentially owe far more money than any of them would ever be able to earn in ten lifetimes.

The only reason she was even sitting in the car with them, on the way to listen to her father’s lawyers try and argue for a new venue for his hearing, was because of her mother. She might look calm and put together on the outside, but all of this had taken a toll on her.

Harper’s mother’s eyes had lost their sparkle, though she kept her head held high. Harper thought a part of her mother believed her father when he said he wasn’t trying to screw anyone over. That it was just a failed business model.

If she did, it was out of desperation—and Harper wasn’t desperate enough to fall for his empty excuses.

She reached out and took her mother’s hand, gave it a squeeze. Her mother glanced over and smiled in return. It didn’t reach her eyes.

“Everything’s going to be okay. This will all get settled and things will go back to normal,” her mother said.

Her denial was driving Harper crazy. Sometimes she just wanted to grab her mother’s shoulders and shake her and demand that she open her eyes. See that the only thing her father thought he did wrong was to get caught.

And Harper didn’t have the heart to force her mother to see that, not when she was holding on to sanity by such a thin thread as it was.

The car glided to a stop and Harper took a deep breath. The steps to the courthouse were a mob of reporters and people with pickets.

The signs said things like No Mercy for the 1% or Put Him in Prison and Throw Away The Key.

“Remember, don’t say a word.” Her father’s deep voice filled the backseat. “When we get to the top of the steps and have the legal team around us, I’ll stop and make a statement. Then we’ll go inside. Reporters aren’t allowed in the courtroom.”

The door opened and the throng pushed closer. Security held them back but questions were being fired even before they stepped out of the car.

“Remember, not a word,” her father said to her, before stepping out of the car first. Her mother followed. After the crowd next to the car thinned, Harper emerged. Most of the attention was on her parents, but a few reporters thrust their microphones in her face.

“Any comment on your father’s criminal activity?” one asked.

“Did you know your father was stealing money, Ms. Matheson? Are the rumors true that he’s hiding most of it in the Caymans and Swiss accounts?”

Harper kept her face impassive as she followed close behind her parents.

The truth was, she had no idea how much of it was left. Her father had stolen so much, lost quite a bit, and supposedly hidden more. But she was as in the dark with the nature of his fraudulent activities as anyone else.

At the top of the steps they stopped and with his legal team all around him, her father stepped to the microphone that had been set up.

Harper had already seen the comments his publicists gave him earlier. A bunch of bullshit about wanting to do what was right and that the truth would come out. That he wasn’t a crook, just a victim like everyone else.

Harper had read the paper, knew the allegations against her father and had come to her own conclusions. Ones that didn’t match up with her mother’s blind trust.

The crowd grew thicker and her father spoke, reciting the words he’d been given.

Off to the side, half a dozen reporters broke away and surrounded two men who had been walking up the steps just behind them. Her father paused, glanced over at the two men, and his eyebrows drew down, but then he straightened his shoulders and concluded his speech, refusing to take any questions.

The reporters swarmed her father, peppering him with accusations as he continued to refuse to talk further.

As she stood there, being jostled beside her parents, she saw the one man who hated her father more than anyone on the planet.

Robert Wentworth was just a few feet away from them now. The man who lost the most money to her father’s scheme, the man who most vocally called for justice and was putting his own reputation on the line to ensure that justice was done.

Along with plenty of other victims, Robert Wentworth had lost an untold fortune to her father. But unlike many of her father’s victims, Wentworth was not broke because of the scheme.

He was still one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the country. And he was angry as hell about being fleeced.

“Mr. Wentworth, what are you hoping the outcome of today will be?” a reporter asked.

“Obviously I am against moving the venue of the trial,” Wentworth said. “And I’m here today to make sure that the con artist Bud Matheson is held accountable for his trickery and lies.” His voice rang out loudly on the courtroom steps.

The reporters gave way as Robert Wentworth began advancing once more.

Harper froze, her gaze on the man at Robert Wentworth’s side. His hair was cut shorter and the beard was gone, but she knew by the way her skin tightened that it was Ethan. And she knew then that Ethan was actually Ethan Wentworth, the son of Robert and heir to an empire. Her gaze darted between the two men. They had the same build. The same hair color. The same jaw shape.

Ethan looked up and when he met her stare, his eyes widened in shock. His gaze slid from her to her parents and then back again. Disbelief. Anger. Accusation.

All of those expressions flitted across his features in rapid succession.

The ground tilted and Harper took a small step back.

Ethan, the man she’d slept with in Tahiti was Robert Wentworth’s son?

Her pulse pounded in her ears and her stomach roiled. The bug that had plagued her the last few days chose that moment to rear up. Without excusing herself, she turned and ran up the steps to the courthouse.

Inside the restroom, cool air washed over her skin as she sank down and emptied her stomach into the toilet. The stupid virus hadn’t let up after all. The room was empty as she wet a paper towel and patted it over her heated skin. After she rinsed her mouth out, she caught sight of her reflection. Her eyes were still too wide. Her face a little too pale.

When she’d tried to argue that she was too sick, shouldn't attend the hearing, her father had put his foot down.

We must appear in public, unified as a family.

God she hated all of that public relations crap.

Harper groaned. If she’d never come today, she could have lived in ignorance a little while longer. Now she knew. She’d slept with a man who would have hated her if he’d known her last name.

A man that would have just as soon spit in her face as kiss her lips, had she told him who she was.

“Of all the men in all the world,” she muttered at herself. “Of course I ended up running into the one guy in that part of the world connected to my father’s case.”

Harper patted her face down once more to cool it off.

Harper pushed out of the restroom and when she looked up, her feet stopped moving. Ethan leaned against the opposite wall, his arms crossed over his chest and a very pissed off look on his face. As soon as the door shut behind her, he pushed off and was in front of her. She had to tilt her head to look up at him.

His familiar smell washed over her and she fought the urge to bury her nose in his neck. She knew who he was but it didn’t stop her body from remembering how good it felt to be naked on top of him.

“You’re Harper Matheson.” The accusation in his voice slammed into her chest. He said her name as if it was akin to being Charles Manson.

“And you’re Ethan Wentworth. I guess the universe has an ironic sense of humor.” She crossed her own arms across her chest.

“Seriously? That’s all you have to say for yourself?” he growled. He drove his fingers through his hair and took a few steps back. “I had no idea who you were. I’ve only seen a few pictures of you. If I’d known who you were...” he didn’t finish his sentence but the implication was clear.

“I could say the same thing,” she snapped.

“Oh, that’s funny.” His lip lifted with anything but a smile. “You have no reason to avoid me. I didn’t do anything illegal—I didn’t steal millions of dollars. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Neither do I,” Harper said. “My father is the one who has to answer for whatever he did or didn’t do.”

Ethan scoffed. “We both know he did all of it.”

She shrugged, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing she agreed. “The courts will decide.”

“You know he’s going to be found guilty.” His smirk changed to a sneer. “And maybe you went to the island to see if there was some other way to take the heat off him. Get to my father through me. That’s some sick shit, Harper,” he said, shaking his head.

Anger rose up, swift and volatile. “I went there to get away from all this. I’m so sick of people invading my privacy for a comment on something I have nothing to do with. You think if I went there for some kind of seduction plot I would have waited almost a week to try and meet you? You think that I faked almost drowning, right? Risked my life on the off chance that you’d sweep in and rescue me? When I had no fucking idea who you even were.”

Harper spun around and stormed down the hall.

She was sick. Sick of all of the hate poured on her, taking the blame for her father’s misdeeds, being accused of things she hadn’t done.

But seeing the look on Ethan’s face when he realized who she was had been the worst of all.

“Harper, wait.” Ethan’s voice echoed down the empty hallway and then she heard his footsteps coming up behind her. His fingers were warm on her arm and she reluctantly let him turn her around.

“What?”

He stared into her eyes, his gaze searching, intense. “You really didn’t know?”

“I really didn’t know, Ethan. And even if I had, which I didn’t, I would not have been trying to seduce you to help my father. He’s the last person I’d ever pimp myself out for,” she all but spat.

He took a step back and genuine confusion filled his face. “Then why are you here at his side while he denies everything?”

She didn’t have an answer because she didn’t really know. Even though she knew he was wrong, she was standing by her father.

Why?

“Maybe I didn’t know what else to do,” she said softly, and realized that was true. It was something she’d never quite admitted before now.

It felt as if the walls were closing in on her, the same feeling that had sent her to the remote island in the first place. And for a week, she had been able to relax and forget. All the good feeling was gone now though.

“Harper,” he began, his gaze intensifying.

But she couldn’t. Whatever else he was going to tell her, she knew it would be a demand of some sort. Ethan was going to tell her to come out and renounce her father publicly, or to become a secret informant and help the Wentworth’s get their revenge.

Something she couldn’t hear. Something that would only serve to break her down further, and Harper was already broken down enough as it was.

“I’ve got to go.” This time, when he called her name, she didn't stop.

She kept running out of the courthouse, down the street and away from the people who were making her question what the hell she was doing. Around the corner she hailed a cab and gave the driver her home address. Her home. Not her parents place.

Fifteen minutes later, the cab stopped at her apartment on Willow Street. Once inside, Harper finally exhaled as she pushed her heels off. Almost immediately the tension started to ease from her shoulders.

She sent her mother a short text telling her that she’d gone home because she wasn’t feeling well then went upstairs to change into something that wasn’t a conservative pantsuit. Once she’d pulled on a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a tank top she twisted her hair into a messy bun.

Padding barefoot back downstairs, she grabbed her laptop and sank down onto the couch. Almost without thought, she typed Ethan’s name into the Google image search. Curiosity might have killed the cat but Harper wanted another glimpse of the cream on top.

Her screen filled with different images of Ethan. Some shirtless, some on a yacht, some where he had on a suit. She wanted to be mad at him for not simply telling her who he was, but she hadn’t exactly volunteered information about herself either.

She honestly had not known who he was, but if she’d have paid any attention to the media she wouldn’t have missed him. Because his eyes were impossible to forget.

So blue they almost looked fake, yet she knew they weren’t. She’d been close enough to see that they were real and amazing. A couple of video links came up and she clicked on one. Ethan rode a surfboard over some pretty massive waves and Harper felt her breath cut off as he entered a tunnel of water.

The wave crashed over itself and whoever was filming started yelling.

Her heart pounded furiously.

Then, screams from the people behind the cameraman. On screen, Ethan popped out of the end of the tunnel right before it crashed onto itself. He rode the wave almost to the beach amid deafening cheering.

The camera zoomed in on him as he strode from the water, board under one arm. The sexy grin on his face was all too familiar. Wet hair hung over his eyes and he pushed it back, making the muscles in his chest ripple. Board shorts hung low on his hips and the indent on each side made her mouth water.

Her fingers twitched like they had a memory of their own. He’d felt hot and rock hard under her touch. Solid. Strong. Despite the air conditioning, her body felt warm. What had he wanted to say to her when she ran out of the courthouse?

Harper scrolled down and clicked an image of Ethan in racing gear. There was a website under the picture and she clicked on that. Over a dozen pictures filled her screen, of Ethan in a racecar, standing by the car, posing with his sexy grin leaning on the car.

Apparently Ethan was making a name for himself on the dirt tracks, if what she read was true. A list of his wins ran down the right hand side of the screen. There were bios of his team too, but it was his she clicked on.

He was twenty-four. A graduate of Columbia University. Had a degree in International Economic Policy. He and his family lived in New York, so they must just be in town for the hearing. Which meant that he’d probably be leaving soon. Disappointment sat heavy in her gut.

When the trial started, she’d probably see Ethan, but by then they would be solidly on opposite sides. If she could see him just once more, to tell him...that she was sorry for the way she acted. That she wished...God why did it have to be him?

Why did he have to be a Wentworth?

She was about to close her browser when she saw a link at the bottom of the page. Events. It was a list of where Ethan would be driving. The races that he’d be part of. Next to tomorrow’s date had the name of a raceway in Massachusetts.

A quick search showed her that Pelletier Raceway was a dirt track just outside the city. She could be there in less than thirty minutes.

No. Bad idea.

Very bad idea.

But maybe…maybe I could just watch him from afar.

Her phone buzzed. A message from her mother.

The judge denied your father’s request. The trial will be here in Boston.

And just like that, the slide into complete and utter shitdom had started.