Chapter 18

GETTY

Out of habit, my eyes scan the streets on the drive home through town as if we’re going to accidentally run into my father. I hate that I’m back to this feeling after being on my own for over four months. It reminds me how I felt in those first days—like a fugitive on the lam about to get caught and dragged back to jail at any moment.

Zander pulls into the driveway and the minute we enter the house, I’m immediately restless. Maybe it’s the Now where do we go from here? realization or just a sudden thrust back into my reality when the lookout point was more of a reprieve.

Keeping busy, I put dishes away, fold a load of laundry, change the sheets on my bed. Zander’s on the couch when I enter the kitchen, legs stretched out, feet crossed at the ankles, his laptop on his thighs. He doesn’t look up or bug me and I’m thankful for the space he’s given me, because even though I’m relieved at having told someone, my mind is now working a million miles an hour. I grab a drink and then put it back down, my stomach suddenly in knots. Unsure what to do next, I walk into my bedroom, where a blank canvas looks tempting to me, but for the first time, I’m not sure what to paint.

Resigned to this unsettled feeling, I opt for a long, hot shower that does nothing to ease the discord. After I dry off, I slide on my robe and the smile is automatic when I see Zander’s products on the counter tipped over, crooked, backward. The irony is it’s so perfectly messed up that I know he did it on purpose.

His intent makes the act so much sweeter. And my next decision that much easier to make.

The house is quiet when I exit the bathroom and I catch myself moving toward the sliding glass doors leading to the outdoor deck. By the light of the moon I can make out the tools still strewn around the platform, the errant two-by-fours waiting to reinforce the existing structure, the patchwork quilt of wood still waiting to be sanded and painted.

But it’s the lights on the water that hold my attention. The boats coming home to their families or ones leaving on a new journey. I watch them for what feels like forever, my legs chilled beneath the robe and my breath fogging the window in front of me. I stand motionless in the darkened hallway, because like at the restaurant, I lose myself in the story I create for each one of the glimmering lights.

Because sometimes thinking about others makes it so much easier to forget about yourself.

“Getty?” Zander’s voice is soft as he steps up behind me. And I don’t jump, because for some reason, I knew he’d find me. Bring me back when I’m trying to forget myself.

“Hmm?” I keep my eyes on the lights, their stories still loud in my head, but my body is most definitely shifting its attention toward his undeniable presence.

“You’re quiet. Have been since we came home. You okay?”

Like that’s not a loaded question when it comes to the two of us. I meet his eyes briefly in the reflection of the glass before looking back toward the lights. It takes me a moment to answer him. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

He chuckles softly and I know he’s thinking of the last time our conversation involved this phrasing. When he rests his hands upon my shoulders, it takes everything I have not to sag into him. His touch ignites something within me and it’s like I can’t think straight when he does it.

But I’m not sure if I want him to move his hands, because I’m so sick of thinking and worrying that I welcome the lack of thought. And if his hands on my shoulders can mess up my head, I wonder what the weight of his body on mine could do.

It’s a fleeting thought as his chuckle fades and the silence descends around us once again. The draw of his breath and a car driving by outside are the only sounds.

“It’s okay to feel a little all over the place after baring your secrets to someone.” I want to believe him that this is normal, but I’m so far from recognizing normal anymore I don’t know what to think. When I don’t respond, he continues. “I know I do.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel—”

“I told you no more apologies, Getty.” His voice is stern, implacable. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” He squeezes my shoulders gently and my eyes flash up to meet his in the reflection again. Our gazes hold through the darkness, a mixture of concern and understanding in his. “Talk to me. Turn around and tell me what’s going on in that beautiful mind of yours.”

Hesitation is my friend tonight. And so is the glass in front of me that allows me to look at Zander without really looking at him. Call it feeling exposed or vulnerable, but for some reason right now I can’t look him directly in the eyes.

“I don’t know.” I pause, take a deep breath, and try to find the words to express how I’m feeling. “It’s like I’m so sure that I did the right thing in leaving, so positive that I didn’t make up how I was being treated in my head or overreact, like Ethan used to tell me I was doing. Regardless, I can’t help the doubt from creeping in. And I hate it. Am so ashamed of it because I’m stronger than that now. A different person than that weak woman I used to be. But after all of those years being controlled and criticized and told I was wrong . . . I loathe that I feel so strong one minute and the next fall apart. It makes me question my sanity.” My chest constricts as I lay the contradictions that rule my life out on the proverbial table and hope he understands what I’m trying to say. That he doesn’t judge me as weak for the admission.

“That’s okay. So very normal.” The heat of his breath hits my neck as he leans his forehead against the crown of my head. Such an intimate action when all I want to do is pull away, because I don’t deserve this from him. What I deserve is for him to give my shoulders a good hard shake to knock some sense in me and tell me I need to buck up. But he doesn’t. He gives me patience, understanding, and compassion, when I least expect them. “You can’t undo something in a few months when it’s been hammered into your head year after year after year.”

“I don’t want to be that person anymore, Zander. I don’t want to be Gertrude Caster-Adams.” My voice is soft but conveys my inner turmoil.

His hands on my shoulders pressure me to turn around so that I come face-to-face with him, my back now to the sliding glass door. His blue eyes are full of determination when they meet mine. “You’re not her anymore. You’re Getty Caster, from PineRidge, who likes messy silverware drawers, thinks a mini-blind wand is a formidable weapon, and is the only woman I know who can rock a pair of mismatched knee-high socks and make them look sexy as hell.”

“Whatever.” I roll my eyes and try to step to the side. His words hit my ears but fail to sink in.

“No. Let me finish.” He steps closer, and I can’t deny the powerful feel of the heat of his body against mine. Next his hands are framing my jaw and directing my face up to his. “You’re Getty Caster. A fighter in every sense of the word. A person who is ten times better than any man who puts her down. A woman who knows it’s okay to be afraid sometimes so long as she also realizes it takes a helluva lot more bravery to be scared and succeed than to fear and give in.”

Tears well in my eyes. Even with his hands on my cheeks, I subtly disagree with a shake of my head, because words aren’t possible right now. What he’s telling me is so much harder to accept than the lies and the doubt.

“You’re Getty Caster,” he continues, “first-time beer drinker and apprentice deck carpenter, who has a wicked imagination when it comes to making up other people’s life stories like in the restaurant. Now you just need to finish figuring out what you want your story to be.”

“No.” It comes out without any conviction and with a sob lodged in my throat. Because his words are causing all my hopes and wants and desires to surface when they’ve been pushed down for so very long.

“Yes.” His voice is soft yet definitive. When I lower my eyes, he just lifts my head higher so I have no choice other than to look at him. “You’re Getty Caster. Artist extraordinaire, painter of sunsets instead of stormy seas.”

“Or of white squalls.” My words are barely audible. The moment feels at once too real, too raw, and yet poignantly perfect.

“Or of white squalls,” he repeats just as quietly.

His smile is genuine. His gaze is steadfast on mine. And there’s something in the way he says the words that tells me he really means them. He doesn’t see that other woman I used to be when he looks at me. He sees the new me.

Getty Caster.

We stand in that suspended state of anticipation for what feels like forever. His hands are still on my face and his breath feathers over my lips as my heart pounds in a new rhythm. One filled with expectation, hope, and a fear so very different from what I’m used to. It’s the kind that makes your palms sweat and stomach drop because the man standing before you is so incredible inside and out that you’re afraid he isn’t real.

“Zander.” It’s not a question—rather it’s an admission of wanting and telling him yes and I don’t know at the same time.

“Getty.”

He closes the distance at such an achingly slow pace that by the time his lips brush ever so slightly against mine in a kiss that hints at things to come, I feel like I’ve waited years for it to happen.

Our lips meet, once, twice, a third time before he leans back, eyes searching, demanding, wanting, and yet we are completely motionless and utterly silent. Desire flows like a raging river through me while nerves, doubts, and insecurities fight their way upstream.

“I’m nervous.”

“Of what?” And the curiosity laced with hope in his voice tells me he’s asking me to verbalize my decision about wanting to be with him. My understanding there’s only so much he can give me.

“I’m . . .” I clear my throat as my hands fidget where they rest on the bare skin of his waist. I avert my eyes before I speak so he can’t see my embarrassment. “I’m not any good at this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This.” My cheeks burn with mortification and I wish I’d just kept my mouth shut. I shrug, embarrassment stealing the words from my lips as I open and then close them again. “Sex.” When I finally say the word, it’s barely audible, my insecurities overruling the heat of his touch on my skin and the ache it makes me feel.

His answering chuckle is low and rich and all I hear is Ethan’s mocking tone in the sound. Needing space, I try to shrug out of Zander’s hold on my cheeks, to be alone, to lick my shameful wounds in private, but his hold remains steadfast. “Getty, look at me.”

He waits until I comply. I can tell my jaw is set with the hurt I don’t want to convey, but when my eyes find his, the mocking look I expect isn’t there. In fact what I see is exactly the opposite: disbelief, understanding, compassion. A million questions and answers pass between us in a single moment of connection.

And then something shifts. Maybe it’s the rub of his thumb over my parted lips. Or the way that soft smile lifts up one corner of his mouth and carries through to his eyes. I can’t place it, but it’s as if someone has vacuumed all the air from the room and replaced it with electricity. My skin burns with desire where he touches me, and a strange mix of anxious arousal surges through me.

“I don’t believe you for a second. If the sex wasn’t good, I assure you it wasn’t you. There’s no way you can kiss the way you kiss and not be any good at it. That’s not possible,” he murmurs as he leans forward and brushes his lips against mine again. “I have a feeling it was your partner who wasn’t any good.”

“Mmm,” I murmur against his mouth, willing myself to believe him.

When he leans back, the lift of his eyebrows is a subtle warning not to doubt him. His eyes are begging me to trust him. I do, but I’m scared. I want him but don’t even know where to start.

“Let me show you differently,” he says before he takes my hand in his and leads me down the hallway toward his bedroom.

There is no turning back now. My heart beats faster with each step and my body becomes more attuned to every single thing about him. The bunch of the muscles in his back as he walks. The intricate splash of ink on his shoulder. His hair mussed. His unmistakable but subtle scent of cologne. The confidence in his stride.

When we enter his bedroom, I’m glad he’s holding my hands so they can’t tremble out of control. He stops in front of the bed and pulls me to him so we’re face-to-face, eyes locked on each other’s, our matching shaky breaths the only sound in the room around us, and the glow of the moon the only light in it.

With his eyes trained on mine and the rush of blood pounding in my ears, I feel his fingers fumble with the tie on my robe. The smooth silk rubs against my bare skin. Then the cool air of the room hits me as the sash falls to the ground and the fabric parts. We stare at each other for a beat before the heat of his hands slides over my waist.

I hold my breath in reaction to the unknown that’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once. He doesn’t break our visual connection as he slowly runs the palms of his hands up my rib cage and then back down to the curve of my hips. His touch crosses to the middle of my back and then moves up the length of my spine before his fingers knead into my shoulders. Then they retrace their path all over again.

He continues this slow, tantalizing seduction, but it’s the look in his eyes that holds me rapt. He watches my reactions to every single brush of his hands over my skin. Every inhalation. Every flutter of my eyelashes. Every time my eyes widen from the temptation he offers.

My body aches in delicious ways that are brand-new to me. Each nerve at the delta of my thighs and along my nipples is left frenzied and standing at attention in the wake of his touch.

Foreplay was a waste of energy before. Seduction nonexistent in my marriage. My pleasure, my needs, my wants, all of that forgotten in the face of Ethan’s greed and disregard for me.

But he’s not Zander.

Zander is hypnotizing me slowly. Pulling me under his spell by giving me time to settle my nerves. Showing me tenderness with his patience. And we haven’t done anything more than kiss.

“Getty . . .” His voice sounds strained, rough with desire, as his hands run up my rib cage, this time rubbing his thumbs over the tips of my nipples. And I can’t respond. Not with his touch owning my mind and body. My back arches, lips part in a gasp, and my head falls back as he takes a moment to appreciate my breasts. But this time, he pushes my robe off my shoulders so that it slides down my arms and pools at our feet.

He threads his fingers through my wet hair at the base of my neck and fists it while his other hand splays wide against my lower back. And there’s something to be said about the fact that his eyes haven’t left mine yet. They haven’t wandered over my bared body like I’d expect from a man. It’s like he knows I’m scared, partly self-conscious, and a whole lotta flustered, and is making sure I know he wants me for so much more than just what my body can give him.

The notion is heady as he steps against me.

The cool air of the room, the undeniable heat of his body, and the anticipation of what’s to come all overshadow the nerves humming through me as I stand there naked and vulnerable.

He pulls gently on my hair to angle my head to the side and exposes the curve of my neck. His lips meet the top of my shoulder and he laces a row of openmouthed kisses up to that sensitive spot just below my ear.

“Let me worship you, Getty.” The deep timbre of his voice fills my ears, warms my soul, and erases any remaining doubt I have.

But there isn’t much.

“Let me show you how sex is supposed to be. Supposed to make you feel. Let. Me. Worship. You.”

I’m not sure who moves first, but within a beat our mouths meet in a kiss to rival all kisses. It starts out slow and sweet—parted lips, tentative tongues, contented moans—as his body moves into mine. My breasts press against the firmness of his chest and I lose myself to him. In him. The flex of his muscles beneath my hand. How he moves my head to control the angle of our kiss. The scrape of his five-o’clock shadow over my chin. The vibration of his chest as he hums in strained appreciation. The taste of him on my tongue. The strength of his body when he pulls me tighter into him. The unmistakable thickness of his erection, hard and straining against the inseam of his jeans.

And then our patience slowly evaporates. The tenderness of the kiss turns from want to need. From tentativeness to greed. From wait-and-see to now-or-never.

There’s a desperate hunger in his actions now. A nonverbal demand for more. While our teeth nip at each other, soft sighs intersperse the definitive moans of desire. With one hand cradling the back of my head, his other grabs my ass so he can grind himself against me.

The ache burns bright as we dance together and push our willpower to the point of no return. And then it’s gone.

Lost to the seduction.

Forgotten in our mutual need.

It’s like a switch is flipped in both of us simultaneously. Our kiss turns more possessive. Our bodies fixated on the next step, the next high, the next connection.

My hands are on the button of his jeans. His palms cup my breasts. His tongue licks a line down the curve of my shoulder before his teeth take a playful nip there. My hands are covered by his so we can push his jeans down together. And I know I’ve seen his dick before, but hell if the feel of his erection rebounding up when it’s released from the confines of the denim doesn’t make my breath hitch.

I don’t get much time to think about its hardness resting against my lower belly because Zander pushes me backward so that the backs of my knees hit the mattress. With his mouth on mine, derailing all other thoughts, he directs me back onto the bed. We move in unison. Our bodies responding to each other’s demands without any forethought about it.

I’m on my back across the bed, Zander’s knees frame my hips, his hands braced on either side of my head, and he leans back to look in my eyes. With my mouth still vibrating from his kisses, a slow, crooked smile lifts up the corner of his.

“Do you know how hard it is to do this and not take a step back to admire you naked and lying here in my bed? I know you’re scared. Know you’ve been hurt. And I know you worry about what I’m going to think of you. That I might compare you to other women. Listen to me when I say this, Getty. I’m. Not. Him. There is no history in this room. No history between us. Just here. Just now. Just you and me. And fuck yes, I want you more than I’ve wanted anyone in as long as I can remember. God, you’re sexy as sin. I’m kind of wishing you had those knee-high socks on right now.”

The smile on my lips is instantaneous. His attempt to soothe my fears and then make me relax reminds me why I’m here with him, despite knowing this can go nowhere. I push the thought away. Focus on the here and now and how he’s making me feel. Worthy, sexy, and wanted for the first time in forever.

How he’s worshipping me with his slow, sweet seduction.

I let out a laugh as I think about his fixation on the socks. And then it turns into a desperate moan when one of his hands slides between my thighs as he shifts on his knees to push my legs apart.

With featherlight touches he runs his fingertips up one thigh, over my lower belly, and then down the other. After doing that a few times, he trails them up the insides of my parted thighs so just a whisper of a touch is felt along the outside of my sex. Each time he traces the same path, his touch becomes a little firmer, his fingers more intent.

He sits on his knees, face angled down, watching my body tense in anticipation of his touch. When he lifts his eyes, a shadow blankets one side of his face, but the intensity of his gaze blazes through the moonlit darkness.

“There are so many things I want to do to you, Getty. We’ll get to all of them. I want to dip my mouth down and taste you. Spread your pussy, use my hands and my tongue to work you into a frenzy until you come. I want the lights on. So I can look into your eyes and see your face when you lose yourself to the things I do to you. So you can’t hide from me. Or from you. I want to look down as you wrap your lips around my dick and look up with your mouth full of me. I want you on top. So I can have your tits in my mouth and my fingers on your clit while you move however you need to so you can come. I want you bent over on your knees so I can grab your ass as I work you from behind.” His eyes burn bright as he leans forward to make sure I can see him.

And I can see him all right. Dark hair, clear eyes, and teeth biting into his bottom lip, he’s a damn Adonis leaning over me, stealing my thoughts and awakening every part of me that has been dead for so very long.

“I want you on the kitchen counter, the patio, in your bed, in the woods. I’ll take you anywhere you’ll have me, Getty, because you make me want you that bad, and I’m not a man who wants much at all. So when you doubt whatever it is you’ll doubt when we’re finished here, I want you to remember this. All of it. Because I will deliver on that promise. I’m here to prove I’m a man of my word and with you is no different.”

His words are as suggestive as his touch. I never knew you could be seduced by words alone and yet I’m seduced. Dragged under the spell of explicit promises that don’t feel cheap or false. I’m ready. Willing. Desperate. For him to put any of those plans into action.

“But first this.” He leans down and kisses me with reverence before pulling back. “First, we take it slow.”

His hands run down my torso, thumbs brushing over the undersides of my breasts. His tongue traces a circle over my nipple. Then he closes his mouth over it and sucks. My hands grab at the sheets beneath me while I gasp.

“We take our time.”

The tip of his tongue slides down the midline of my abdomen. An openmouthed kiss. Another tempting pass of his tongue as he licks a circle around my belly button. My shaky inhalation fills the room.

“I want to show you that sex isn’t about being good or bad at it but about finding the right rhythm. The right pace.”

He runs the tip of his nose back up my stomach between my breasts as his fingers find their way to my inner thighs and slide between the lips of my sex to the wetness at its core. Our sounds grow loud enough to fill the room—his guttural groan and my gasping moans—as a rush of warmth overwhelms every part of me from his lips teasing the underside of my jawline and his fingers gently adding friction over my clit.

“It’s about having patience.”

He murmurs against the sensitive skin of my neck as my hips shift and lift. And beg for more. My breath grows fainter. My concentration is on the sensations his fingers are evoking rather than remembering how to breathe. Because doing both is a struggle when he tucks his fingers into me and begins to move them in a slow rhythm that matches the kisses he laces over my skin.

“It’s about being selfless. Wanting your partner to get off just as badly as you want to. Knowing satisfaction comes in more ways than just the endgame.”

His warm mouth on my earlobe. His adept fingers inside me. The perfect amount of pressure and friction. My head falls back. My legs tense up. My lips part. My mind abandons any thought but him. Zander. And what he’s doing to me. Indescribable.

Mind distracted from the doubt. Body brought to that brink of free fall from his erotic and intimate mix of words and actions.

“It’s about letting yourself go because you trust the other person to take you there.”

His breath begins to labor against my cheek as his hand moves faster. The one rubbing against my clit. A pleasurable heat begins to burn hotter within me. Sears my core. Robs my inhibitions. Ignites my libido. Pushes me over the edge.

My hands hold on to his shoulders. Fingernails score into his flesh. My legs tense against his knees between my thighs. His name falls from my mouth. His teeth nip that sensitive curve between my neck and shoulder as my muscles pulse around his fingers.

“Let go, Getty,” he encourages, voice thick with desire.

I struggle for coherency as that white-hot rush of heat flashes through me. The release is all I can focus on. I think he says my name. Encourages me as his fingers milk my orgasm without giving me any reprieve to gain some sense. And I think that’s what he wants, because his soft chuckle vibrates against my chest, where his lips are still kissing softly.

With my body floating high on the orgasmic haze, he allows me only a second to catch my breath before he withdraws his fingers from within me. My soft moan of protest is smothered as his mouth meets mine again in a kiss chock-full of desperate desire. It’s like I’m trying to come up for air and he’s trying to pass me his.

“Goddamn,” he murmurs against my lips. His hands roam and mouth claims. The urgency between us increases and I want the greediness I can sense in his touch. So I welcome the telltale rip of foil after I hear the nightstand open as his pushes himself back onto his knees and protects himself.

He takes my legs in his hands and pulls me closer to him so that the backs of my thighs rest over his hips. I don’t know if I should hate or love the flutter in my belly at the feeling of the crest of his dick positioned at my entrance. If I should give in to the criticism embedded in my psyche over my lack of sexual prowess or let it go and just enjoy the man in front of me.

With his cock in his hand, he rubs up and down the line of my sex, and as much as the anticipation of him entering me makes me want to move things forward, I can’t resist the urge to look up and meet his eyes. And with a slash of moonlight across his face highlighting the slow lick of his tongue over his bottom lip and the unfettered desire burning in his eyes, I know the fluttery feeling is one I’ll hold on to.

“This is mine now, Getty,” he murmurs into the silent room, eyes locked onto mine, and slowly pushes his way into me. Inch by achingly sweet inch. My body burns in the most pleasurable of burns as he fills me in every way possible.

When he’s sheathed root to tip, the muscles in his neck and shoulders visibly demonstrating the restraint he’s holding on to by a thin thread, he leans forward so there is no mistaking what he’s about to say. “Not his.” He grinds his hips in a slow circle that has us both moaning at the litany of sensations he’s creating for both of us. “Mine.” Hands keeping the insides of my thighs apart in a possessive hold, he slowly withdraws so that just the head of his dick is inside me. He wraps one of his hands around his shaft so that he can tease and taunt me before resuming the slow, all-consuming slide back in.

And when he bottoms out, the word he enunciates in a pained groan is the sexiest one I’ve heard from him yet. “Yours.” A grind of hips. “Mine.” Then a shift of my legs upward as he pushes into me as deep as possible. “Ours.”

With our bodies connected, he leans forward on the last word and kisses me softly. And I love that although he’s inside me, he still treats the kiss as if it’s the most intimate of actions between us. When he pulls back, those blue eyes heavy with want meet mine. “Understood?”

“Yes.”

Our lips meet once more before he shifts back up onto his knees and begins to take what I’m offering. My trust. My body. And I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t say a little bit more of my heart.

His hips begin to move faster with each thrust. The crest of his dick keeps perfectly hitting on that hub of nerves within me that I never really knew existed before. It’s a different kind of sensation from when his fingers worked my clit. A pressure that intensifies as he picks up the pace.

Time passes in pure sensations. The bite of his fingers into my thighs. The mist of sweat on my skin. The groan he emits as he slowly comes undone. The tingle of ecstasy throughout my body. Then all the pleasure surges and crashes after his cock slides expertly over the coveted spot within me. Incoherency reins as he swells bigger, harder, and he continues his unforgiving rhythm.

“Getty.”

It’s the broken groan of my name that drags me from the onslaught of sensations he’s created. I focus on him just in time to see him in all his glory: head thrown back, muscles taut, hips thrusting relentlessly as his orgasm shudders through him. I stare at him with a mixture of awe and embarrassment: awe over how incredibly hot he looks and embarrassment that I don’t want to be caught staring.

But I can’t help it. The expression on his face as he lowers his head and looks down at me—satisfaction, desire, exhaustion—is so overwhelming to me because I put those there. Me. Getty Caster.

And I don’t have much more time to think about it before a smug smile slowly curls his magnificent mouth as he leans forward to press a thorough and lingering kiss to my lips, which causes everything to stir once again in my lower belly.

Zander carefully pulls out of me and rises from the bed to clean up. The panicked feeling I expected of What next? doesn’t come. Maybe it’s because I’m almost twenty-six years old and for the first time ever I’ve been properly sexed.

And properly doesn’t even begin to describe what Zander just did to me. I’m exhausted, and exhilarated, and can see why sexual intimacy is so important to a relationship. To cementing the connection between two people. Especially when that person has the skills of Zander Donavan.

Lost in my scattered thoughts, I emit a content sigh when Zander slides back into the bed and pulls my body against him, my back to his front. He presses a kiss to my shoulder and tears unexpectedly sting in my eyes, the emotion of the evening overwhelming me.

“You okay?” he asks, his mouth moving against my skin.

“Yeah.” I nod and slide my hands over his arms, wrapped around my waist. “Yes. Thank you.” Those words aren’t even close to adequate to thank him for the tenderness and sense of security he just gave me. Or the little slice of confidence that Ethan just might be wrong about me.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he laughs. “It’s not like you’re the only one who benefited.” The sleep-drugged sound of his voice tugs on my ego and I let the smile he can’t see spread unabashedly over my lips. “And next time, it’s okay for you to speak up and tell me what you want. What you need. I can handle being told what to do.” He chuckles softly again, the reverberation rumbling against my back.

Don’t talk, Gertrude. Your voice distracts me. Reminds me that it’s you I’m fucking. Next time you talk, you know what happens. . . .

I shove the horrible memory from my thoughts. My ex-husband’s decrees had previously ruled my sexual experience. But I don’t want them to invade this moment with Zander. Ruin this taste of normalcy that I now know I’m entitled to. I will myself to hear the words Zander said instead—next time—and hold on to the knowledge that he wants there to be a next time. That he actually wants there to be more. With me.

“Okay?” he prompts when I don’t respond.

“Okay.”

“Uh-uh,” he says as he pulls me tighter. “You don’t get to fade away into your doubts again. I’m not going to let you. Today was . . .” He blows a breath. “A lot happened today, but I need you to hear me when I say this wasn’t a mistake. Every time I touched you, everything we did, was because I wanted to. Not because I felt sorry for you or because of your past. But because I. Wanted. To.”

“You don’t have to do . . .” Inhale confidence, Getty. Exhale doubt. I squeeze my eyes shut and repeat the mantra silently. Allow myself to really accept his words. Let them sink in. Tell myself that the feeling of his body warm and firm against mine isn’t a fluke. Somehow its fate’s fickle way of proving me wrong. That I’m capable of everything I was told I wasn’t. I work a swallow over the lump in my throat and correct myself. “What were you saying?”

And of course it’s made that much easier when I feel his mouth still pressed against my shoulder spread into a smile, because he understands me enough by now to know I’m trying to be the Getty Caster he’s encouraging me to be.

“Confidence is sexy, Socks, so you better be careful with it or we might not ever leave this bedroom.”