Somehow, after several hours and one very hot shower, they made it to the bed. Strangely, it had been slipping into Ethan’s soft sheets and curling up against the man’s broad chest that had set Natalia on edge. The sex? That she’d wanted and taken and enjoyed. Ethan had denied her nothing and given her so much more than she could have known to ask for.
She’d wanted the fantasy, the indulgence, the passion. Ana Maria had accused her of forgetting how to want, how to yearn for something new or better or different.
She’d been so wrong. There were a thousand things Natalia wanted. Dreams she’d cultivated as a child, plans she’d made to see the world and go to school and fall in love. Knowing she couldn’t have them, that the best she could hope for was to pass them on to her sister, didn’t mean she didn’t still wish she could. Didn’t still wonder what Italian pizza tasted like or if she’d excel in medical school or if New Zealand was the beautiful emerald amid a sapphire sea it appeared to be in travel magazines.
Knowing she’d never have those things, accepting that her life was different, that her goals had changed, didn’t make her weak or sad or pitiful.
It just made her realistic.
Still, the accusation had sent her to Ethan, a path she might have resisted and a destination she’d never forget. But as wonderful as it had been, she couldn’t afford to think that this was the start of something, that there was a future here, that she could get attached.
“You’re thinking again,” Ethan rumbled against her neck as he drew his fingers down along her arm.
“Only a little,” Natalia replied, letting her body go loose and languid lest Ethan take it as a personal challenge—again—to set her at ease or, at the very least, to wipe away all thoughts of regret or unease or departure.
When they’d first tumbled into his bed, still damp from the shower, Natalia had expected another round. Yearned for it, even as muscles and nerves unused to such exercise or attention had simultaneously protested and cheered at the thought. But Ethan had surprised her and instead brought her an ice-cold bottle of water, then climbed in beside her and pulled her close.
She’d been naked with the man for hours. Let him touch her, stroke her, please her in ways she’d never even imagined, but the cuddling, that had done her in. Made her stiff and self-conscious. Ethan hadn’t said anything, though it had been clear that he’d taken it as a personal affront and set himself to soothing one set of nerves while inflaming another. Turned out that Ethan’s head between her legs, Natalia’s fingers in his hair, drove every single thought from her head but one.
Wonder. Because there’d been nothing in it for him, not after an entire afternoon of sex. He was incredible but not a god. No, he’d put his mouth to work just because he’d wanted her to feel good, to linger a little longer in the moment they’d created. Then, when words failed her and muscles could no longer respond to basic commands, he’d tucked her in against him again, her head on his shoulder, one of her legs between his, and taken to stroking idle fingers up and down her back.
They stayed that way for a long time, until the sun set in a blaze of glory through his floor-to-ceiling windows and the city lights winked on, one by one until there was a sea of urban stars laid out before them. But now reality was returning and, with it, unexpected consequences. Natalia had come here hoping for a singular experience. But she hadn’t thought it through. If she had, she would have known there was no scenario in which she could have Ethan only once. There wasn’t a whole lot that Natalia feared—losing her sister was really the only thing that came to mind—but that was because she’d so carefully denied herself any sort of attachment.
Now, whether he’d intended to or not, Ethan had given her things to think about. Like the next time they could do this. And the time after that. And the time after that. Surely it wouldn’t, couldn’t, always be this way? This potent. This good.
She’d miss him, she realized with a leaden drop of dread. Miss him in ways that weren’t physical or primal, though her thoughts were sure to linger on those, too. Life, she decided, would be so much easier if she didn’t like Ethan Somerton. Didn’t respect him. Didn’t wonder how a man who’d made a violent, lethal living could still be so wholesome and kind and loyal.
Acknowledging that dichotomy within him, the killer and the gentleman, the sinner and the saint, made her resurrect long-buried feelings about her own character. Reflect on the decisions she’d made—the ones she’d continue to make—and wonder if maybe she, too, could be more than the sum of her deeds.
She doubted it.
“I love the feel of your skin,” Ethan said, drawing the sheet away from her back and stroking his fingers across her shoulders. “So warm and soft and strong.”
She shivered, turning in to him and away from the fingers that slid over a scar that curved around her ribs. It was hardly the only one he’d found. She’d laid herself bare before him, in the middle of the afternoon, with the curtains open and the lights on. She didn’t kid herself; Ethan had seen every single mark on her body, be it freckle or mole or scar.
She didn’t mind, not really. Like so much else, she couldn’t change them, couldn’t take them back. They were a part of her, and Ethan could see them, could know they were there, but she didn’t want him to touch them. To put his strong, capable hands on that part of her.
“Is this one sensitive?” he asked, brushing his thumb against the end of the raised skin along her ribs. “You shiver when I touch it.”
“No, it’s not sensitive,” she said, sliding her palm up the expanse of his stomach and over his right pectoral. “Is this?” She brushed her fingers across the puckered flesh she’d mapped earlier. Raised and pink, it was healing and free of stitches but still new, still a recent memory instead of a distant reminder.
“It doesn’t hurt, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said slowly. “But it feels strange. It’s not more or less sensitive, just . . . different.”
She turned her head, pressed her lips to the corner of the scar, and wondered what circumstances had placed it there. “Gunshot?” she asked, though she suspected as much already. She’d seen these sorts of scars before.
“Yeah.” He caught her hand, brought the tips of her fingers to his mouth for a kiss. “My vest caught the other two, but this one slipped in just above it.” He pulled his fingers through her hair and down her back, then dropped a calloused palm over the scar at her ribs. “And this?” he asked, his fingers spreading as she tried to move away. “A knife, right?”
“Yes,” she acknowledged. “A long time ago.” She stilled beneath his hand, let herself relax against the length of his body, and prayed he’d drop it. She didn’t want to talk about this. It would ruin the moment, shatter the fragile peace of their afternoon and evening.
It would remind her of things she did her very best to forget—and remind Ethan of all the reasons he shouldn’t be with someone like her, even temporarily.
“Who hurt you?” he asked, pushing forward in a tone that was both curious and determined.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, rolling away from him. She pulled the sheet to her breasts and sat up. “He’s long dead.”
“And this one?” he asked, tracing fingers along another raised line of healed flesh. “It isn’t as smooth, as if the stroke wasn’t clean.”
“That’s because it wasn’t,” she said on a sigh.
“And this one?” he asked, sliding his fingers up under the mass of wavy hair that fell down the length of her back, to press against the circle of raised skin.
“A cigar, but then you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“We don’t have to talk about it,” he said, brushing against the raised skin, then sliding his hand down along the back of her arm.
“I’m not the one who brought it up,” she snapped, staring out the window and wishing for the world to stay on the other side of that glass for just a little bit longer.
“You’re a mystery to me, Natalia Vega,” Ethan murmured, and sat up to press a kiss against her shoulder. “I know every inch of this gorgeous body. I know what you look like when you come, know the sexy Spanish curses and pleas that spill from your lips when you’re seconds away but denied all the same.” He pulled the sheet away from her grip, exposing her breasts. “I know the weight of these,” he said, stroking the sensitive skin along an outer curve. “I know what you taste like, what your nails feel like. I’ve licked water from your skin and sweat from your throat. Is it any surprise I’d want to know more? That I’d want to know everything?”
No, no it wasn’t. She returned his interest, after all. But it wasn’t the same, not by a long shot. Getting to know Ethan would be a revelation, a wonder. This was a man who’d grown up privileged, who’d lost a brother, who’d committed himself to the military. He was a leader, natural born and gifted. There were layers to him, Natalia was certain, and there’d be darkness, too. Shadows left by grief and violence and life-and-death struggles. But the good would far outweigh the bad.
A white knight.
She turned, pressing the flat of her palm to Ethan’s chest and pushing him back against the stack of pillows, then shoved down her frustration and resentment. He wouldn’t drop it, wouldn’t just let them linger in the safety of knowing each other physically and leaving the rest to lie quiet and dormant. Which meant that once again she’d have to make the choice, the sacrifice. She’d have to push him away so that he didn’t get attached. Didn’t think she was something she wasn’t.
Even now, staring down at him, she could see it written across his face. He didn’t just want to know her; he wanted to save her. It was sweet and a little naive. And while the desire touched her, made her warm and happy in a way she couldn’t remember feeling, it was also dangerous. She had to make him understand.
“This scar,” she said, tracing her fingertip over the bullet wound that couldn’t be more than several months old. “I’ll bet you got it protecting someone.”
He grimaced but otherwise didn’t move. “It was a situation of my own making. If I’d been paying attention, if I’d listened, Parker would never have needed protection in the first place.”
“He’s your tech analyst, right?” she asked, the name familiar. “The one who gave you the drive?”
“Yeah.” Ethan nodded.
“Was he hurt?” she asked, her finger moving back and forth over the scar on his chest.
“No, not that day, at least.”
“Because you put yourself between him and the bullet,” she stated, certain of how it had played out. For a man like Ethan, he’d think nothing of stepping into the path of a bullet to protect a friend. Hell, he probably wouldn’t give a second thought to taking a bullet for a perfect stranger. “It’s who you are,” she said, sitting up to study his handsome face. “You’re a good man, Ethan. Loyal. Protective. Honest.” She brushed a lock of hair off his forehead, then reluctantly pulled away. “It’s ingrained . . . and how I knew you’d uphold any promise you made.”
Trusting him, even though it had been in her own best interest to do so, had still been startlingly easy. Though he was right that she couldn’t stay the current course, couldn’t continue to let things play out where her uncle was concerned, it should have been harder to accept his word. And yet, she knew that he’d keep his promise to protect Ana Maria—even if it meant putting his own man in jeopardy.
“And you aren’t all those things?” he asked, grasping her wrist and linking their fingers. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“And if I am?”
“Then you’re either lying or completely oblivious to the strength of your own heart.”
She shook her head and tried to pull away.
Ethan tightened his hold and slipped his other hand to the nape of her neck to bring her close. “You’re the most stubbornly loyal person I’ve ever met, Natalia. I know damn well there isn’t a thing under the sun you wouldn’t give to keep your sister safe. That there’s nothing you wouldn’t sacrifice to put a smile on her face. You’re a good person, sweetheart, even if you don’t realize it.”
She pulled her fingers free, then circled them around his wrist and drew his hand to the oldest scar she carried, the cigar burn on the back of her shoulder. “This burn?” she said, letting Ethan trace the old wound. “I got it because I defied my uncle.” She swallowed hard but forced herself to continue. “In the months following my father’s death, I was confrontational. Angry—”
“Scared,” Ethan supplied.
“Yes.” She nodded. “And too sheltered to really understand what was happening. That I had to be careful. My father had always encouraged us to speak our minds, to be direct. It took longer than it should have for me to learn how to tread lightly.” She bit her lip and drew a breath, her mind traveling back to those first early months. To a time she did her best not to think about. “Three weeks after he murdered my father at the dining room table, he moved us back to Colombia. Kept us under lock and key. Took my mother to his bed,” she choked out, old tears clogging her throat before she could shove them down.
Ethan’s eyes softened, and he brought his hand to her cheek. She turned away from the touch. She couldn’t do this if he was nice. If he was gentle.
“Ana Maria didn’t speak for months. Not a single word. Sometimes I worried she’d just waste away to nothing.”
“But she didn’t. She survived. Because of you,” he said.
“Because of my mother,” Natalia corrected him. “She pleaded with my uncle to send her to school or to at least hire her a tutor. It was the only time I ever saw them fight, the only time my mother railed at him for everything he’d done. He hit her—”
“And you went after him,” Ethan realized aloud.
“With a cast-iron skillet.” She could still feel the weight of it, the awkward balance, the cold metal digging into her fingers. “If I’d been older or stronger or had any idea of what I was doing, I might have killed him. I got in one good hit—across his shoulders, just clipping his skull.” She ran a finger along the soft cotton of Ethan’s sheets, stared at the way his chest rose and fell, watched as his face comprehended what would have come next.
“He let my mother go . . .”
“And came after you.”
“Yes.” She sighed and settled into telling the rest of the story. “He was furious, of course. I reminded him of my father, of betrayals more imagined than real. My mother pleaded with him, but . . .”
“He wouldn’t hear it.”
“He gave me to an associate he owed a gambling debt to,” she whispered. “I don’t think he ever expected to see me again.”
Ethan sat up in a rush, reaching for her with agony in his eyes and comfort on his mind.
“Don’t,” she barked, pulling away. “I can’t tell you the rest if you touch me.”
“Then, for God’s sake, Natalia, don’t. I don’t need to hear it—”
“Yes, you do.” She pushed back, willing herself to make him understand. “You see my devotion to my sister as something altruistic. It’s not. It’s selfish, pure and simple. I made a promise, and I intend to see it through, no matter what it costs me”—she pinned him with a hard look—“or anyone else.”
Ethan started to say something, then bit down on the protests she could see he wanted to make and said, “Okay. Tell me.”
She smiled sadly at him. He figured he’d let her finish, let her say her piece, and then take apart the confession bit by bit and prove her wrong. She’d let him believe that a little bit longer.
“The night my uncle traded me for a gambling debt, it changed me,” she admitted. “Forced me to make a decision. To choose a path.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I was so close to giving up. It would have been easy; he had his hands around my neck. All I had to do was close my eyes.”
Ethan shifted, his face stricken, his fingers ghosting along her collarbone in apology, then disappearing before she could admonish him for it.
“Don’t do that. Don’t feel bad. I never once conflated the way you touched me with the way he did.” She did her best to smile.
“I’m really glad you didn’t give up, Natalia,” he whispered.
“I couldn’t break the promise I’d made my father.” She pulled away, sat back, and let herself remember what it had felt like to die. “I couldn’t breathe. Didn’t know how to fight. I panicked,” she admitted. “Dug at his face and, when that didn’t work, grabbed for anything I could reach.” Her fingertips had flown over the bed, scrambled against the table beside it, and found salvation. “I got ahold of a heavy crystal ashtray.”
“You defended yourself,” Ethan assured her.
She sighed and slid out of bed, wandering toward the huge windows. Idly, she wondered if anyone could see inside. “When I returned to my uncle, beaten and blood-smeared, I thought he’d kill me.”
“What stopped him?” Ethan asked. “Your mother?”
“Greed.” She glanced over her shoulder, watching as he slid to the edge of the bed and placed his feet on the floor. “I beat a man to death for the things he’d done to me. For the things my uncle had done to my family. I didn’t have to. Could have stopped.”
“That would have been an impressive feat for a traumatized teenage girl, Natalia.”
Still, he wanted to believe the best of her. She shook her head. He was wrong; she’d had a choice. There was always a choice. And she’d made hers.
“Hernan spared my life, not because we’re family, not for my mother who he professed to love. He did it because suddenly I was useful.” She repressed a chuckle and rubbed her hands along her arms. “Suddenly, I had a skill set he could exploit. He gave me to his best sicario.”
She didn’t have to turn to catch Ethan’s shock; she could see it all in the reflection of the glass. The way his head snapped up. The way he went unnaturally still. He didn’t say anything, didn’t come toward her, as he’d so clearly intended. Good. Maybe she was getting through to him.
She turned to face him, the cold of the window seeping into her back. “You were right,” she said, drawing a finger across the scar he’d first touched, first asked about. “A knife did this,” she explained, meeting his gaze and holding it. “I didn’t know he was armed at the time. I was still young. Still inexperienced. But I learned . . . and I’m still here.”
But only because they’re not.
She didn’t say it, but then, she didn’t think she had to. Ethan wasn’t naive. He knew what the cartel was, understood the sort of people who lived within its pull.
“Whatever you did, you did it because you had to,” he said, rising from the bed and moving slowly toward her. “I believe that, Natalia, even if you don’t. Tell me, what did your uncle threaten you with if you didn’t comply?” He stopped directly in front of her, stared down onto her upturned face, and refused to understand the truth of her.
“You already know the answer to that.”
“Ana Maria. Your weakness. One he’s exploited for years.” He drew his hands up as if to cup her face. He stopped, his palms hovering a breath away, the warmth of his touch on offer but so out of reach. “You didn’t have a choice—”
“It’s always a choice, Ethan. The same one, over and over and over again. Her life against someone else’s.” She placed a palm on his chest, absorbed the beat of his heart, strong and steady, into her skin. “You took a bullet to save a man’s life,” she said, stroking her finger over the scar one final time. “I buried a knife to save my sister’s. Those are very different things.”
“No, they aren’t.” He dropped his hands to grip her shoulders and pulled her close. “I’ve killed my share of men, Natalia. Sometimes I didn’t even know the reason why. Only that my country had deemed them dangerous. I didn’t ask, I didn’t have to.”
The text alert on her phone chimed, and she pulled away.
“Hernan ordered Ana Maria to sleep with you. To determine if you are who you claim to be.”
“And you’d have me believe that’s why you’re here?” he asked. “To take her place?” He looked stricken, though the emotion passed as the events lined up in his head, the timeline no doubt reminding him that she’d come to him only after she’d had all the proof she’d ever need that he was a liar.
“He ordered me to kill you if I discovered you’d lied.”
“You wouldn’t hurt me, Natalia.” He caught up with her as she stepped through the doorway and jerked her back to face him. “You could have. I don’t doubt that. I imagine there’s not much you can’t do when determination sets in,” he said with a wry grin. “But you didn’t.” He leaned down, pressed his mouth to hers, speared his fingers through her hair, then cupped her cheeks and stared into her eyes. “You’d never hurt me.”
She brought her hands to his wrists and kept his gaze as she said, “You’re sure about that? Sure that there’s nothing in this world that could ever turn me against you?”
She gently pulled his hands from her face and stepped away.
“I trust you,” he said, though the words were stilted and unsure, a declaration he wanted to believe but one he couldn’t possibly be certain of.
“Don’t,” she said simply, then turned to find her phone.
Ethan followed her into the living room, though he didn’t say anything as she slipped on her underwear, then pulled her phone from the pocket of her jacket.
“This conversation isn’t over,” Ethan said, something fierce and determined settling over his face. “We’re not over. Not after today.” He studied her but held himself back, as if he knew his touch was no longer welcome. “You don’t see a future for us—”
“And you do?” she mocked him. “Based on what? A thumb drive and an afternoon of hot sex? There’s nowhere to go from here, Ethan. Even if by some miracle I survive to see my sister free and my uncle dead, that doesn’t change the facts. It doesn’t change who and what I am.”
“And who are you, Natalia Vega?”
“A—”
“Sister?” he interrupted. “Friend? Lover? A woman who’d risk it all on long odds based on the word of a man she barely knows? How about someone who’d help a man she’s never met? Someone who’d provide a string of tips to the authorities just to spare a few women and children a fate she’s all too familiar with?”
“It’s a drop in the bucket, Ethan.”
“But you did it anyway. Because it was the right thing to do. So tell me again who you are.”
She read her messages, then fired off a response and sighed.
“You don’t want to hear it,” she said, pulling on her T-shirt. “Don’t want to believe it.” She picked up her jeans and cast him a resigned look. “You think of me as a victim. As a woman who fought back when cornered. It’s simpler to imagine a knife to my throat or a desperate struggle. It’s not always like that, but I guess I can understand why you’d have trouble imagining it.” Understand, and even appreciate his effort to paint her as something more, something worth saving. “It’s just not true, but I suppose there’s only one way you’ll understand. Get dressed, Ethan,” she said when he didn’t move, just crossed his arms and stared at her as if he could out-stubborn her. “My uncle has summoned us.” Which meant he knew she was here. It didn’t surprise her, not really. She hadn’t tried to hide it, and he’d all but told her to find a way into Ethan’s bed, but it still left a sour taste in her mouth. As if Hernan’s shadow had darkened an otherwise wonderful afternoon.
And it had been wonderful, every last second of it.
But now reality hovered, just beyond the door, ready to snatch Natalia away again.
In some ways, she was grateful. It would be like ripping off the Band-Aid—quick, clean, and less painful to do it now and do it fast. Ethan had to understand.
“Natalia—”
“You can’t save everyone, Ethan.”
“Not everyone. Just the people who deserve it.”
But she simply wasn’t one of them. She just had to make him see it.
Buttoning her jeans and then shrugging into her jacket, Natalia said the only thing she knew would shut down Ethan’s desire to argue. “Stephen Milner’s been found.”