Emily

After we’d made our way to the closest patch of grass and dealt with the aftermath of Dammit’s sugary treat, we lingered there on the sidewalk. It was late, but it was still a Saturday night, so there was lots of foot traffic. I was worried that Ethan would be recognized but he just shrugged it off when I commented on it.

“It’s cold as fuck out here, so people are more concerned with getting where they’re going than checking out the other unfortunate, freezing souls as they pass by.” He pointedly looked at a woman who was hurrying by, her head down to block the cold. “I could probably get away with wearing sunglasses since the streets are always so bright, but that just seems like a douchebag move. Know what I mean?”

I laughed and paused to let Dammit sniff at a bike parked in a rack we were passing. “Yeah. Shades indoors or at night just seem…”

“Douchey?”

“Pretty much.” I nodded.

He pointed to the hood of his jacket, which was pulled up to shield him from the cold. “Add the hoodie and the douchiness level grows exponentially. Along with the likelihood of being called the Unabomber.”

I chuckled and muttered my agreement, letting my gaze linger on his face. He kept his head down for the most part as we walked, but when he spoke to me, he turned just enough that I could catch flashes of those gorgeous blue eyes beneath the hood.

We walked for a while in silence, keeping our heads down and letting Dammit stop to do the spin-and-sniff with a few other dogs while watching as a few thin flurries fluttered to the ground and disappeared.

If the temperature dipped a couple of degrees lower, the snow would stick and begin to accumulate.

I liked that possibility. Especially when I pictured myself playing in the snow with Dammit and Ethan.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Ethan said, that flash of blue catching my eye again.

“Sorry, I was just wondering when we’d get more snow. Enough to play in.”

“You like to get out in the snow, huh?”

“Very much. Do you?”

Dammit stopped walking and looked up at me, his ‘I’m done, let’s go home’ signal.

As I turned us around, Ethan said, “I used to love the snow. We didn’t seem to get as much snow in our part of Pennsylvania as the rest of the state, but we got a lot. And when we did, it was always treated like a holiday. Snowmen, sledding, snowball fights. One year, Ryan and I took out all five of the Minter boys by ourselves and they all played baseball—hell, one of them ended up going pro. Ryan had a great arm; they’d pop up from behind their fort, and he’d nail ‘em every damn time.”

My heart sank at the dip in his voice, the way it shifted with the memory, going from fond memory to painful yearning. He desperately missed his brother, anyone could see that.

“When’s the last time you had a snowball fight?” I asked, reaching out with my free hand to take his. He threaded his fingers through mine automatically. Dammit was content to walk at my side, so I concentrated on Ethan’s bowed head, waiting for that flash of blue.

He didn’t look over as he answered, though. “The guys and I got into one a few years back after a concert. Us five with the guys from the two opening acts in an arena parking lot. It was brutal. Kade and Kane may have done some real damage.” A touch of amusement crept into his voice. “They can’t aim for shit, but when they throw, they try to throw through you instead of at you. Laid out the second act’s bassist. Really rang his bell. Things kind of tapered off after that. It’s all fun and games until someone gets a concussion.”

I laughed at that and waited to see if he’d keep talking. He didn’t. Instead, he tugged our joined hands up and wiggled them into the pocket of his coat, where they would be warmer.

I wanted to push him, ask questions and get him talking again, but decided it was better to let him do things in his own time. He’d been giving me little bits of himself over the last couple of weeks, usually without any prompting on my part.

Instead of pressing him, I gave him a bit of my own story. “I started cooking when I was seven. My mom didn’t do domesticity, so when I started watching cooking shows and asked if I could make things, she just waved me off and let me do what I wanted. By the time I turned ten, I was grocery shopping alone.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yeah. I loved it. And because all the cooks on my favorite shows talked while they worked, I did too.” I swallowed thickly and dug deep for a smile, knowing he was watching me as we walked. “I pretended my dad was there, sitting at the table or on the counter beside the stove, listening as I prattled on about the food and school and the books I was reading about art. I wanted him to like me, since my mom didn’t. I never knew if he’d wanted me, just that she hadn’t, so in my head, he did. To make him happy, I imagined what kind of foods he might have liked, and I learned how to make them—things like beef stew because it sounded hearty, and men, especially soldiers, needed hearty meals.”

“Em…” Ethan’s voice was filled with sorrow and his hand gripped mine even tighter.

“Every year, I tried to bake a cake on his birthday, but they always turned out like crap.” I chuckled and whisked away a tear with the hand that held Dammit’s leash. “I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why but something, somehow, would mess up every time. Either the cake was flat or hard, or the actual cake part turned out okay and the icing was runny. Baking just wasn’t my thing. I still tried every year, though, until I met Dana. She’s a wiz with desserts. So, she bakes Daddy’s cake for me now.”

Ethan pulled our hands from his pocket and let mine go so he could put his arm around my shoulders. Even through about four layers of fabric, I could feel the warmth of his body heat seeping all the way down to my bones.

When I draped my arm around his waist, I knew he felt me just as deeply, and it made me smile.

We were quiet on the way back, lost in thought, but it was a comfortable silence, and I liked to think it was a happy one, despite the sadness of our earlier stories.

Once we were upstairs and Dammit was off his leash, the poor exhausted pup darted to his bed for a nap. Laughing at the sigh of relief Dammit emitted when he found just the right spot to curl up, Ethan and I stepped into the kitchen where I refilled our mugs with steaming cocoa—and a splash of Bailey’s. Guaranteed warm-up. I’d kept the cocoa on low while we were gone for exactly this reason.

Ethan accepted his with a smile and leaned over to kiss the top of my head before nodding toward the living room.

This time, when Ethan took a seat at one end of the couch, he motioned for me to join him. I usually sat in the recliner, but he looked a little off balance since mentioning Ryan, and talking about my dad had done the same to me, so I obliged and sat on the cushion beside him.

Okay, and I wanted to be as close to him as possible without looking like I was overly eager.

He cleared his throat a couple of times, like he was working up to saying something but in the end, he sat back and silently looked at me.

Not bothered in the least, I looked right back for a while before asking, “Something on your mind?”

One corner of his mouth pulled up into a crooked smile and he nodded. “You. Constantly.”

I took a sip of my cocoa and placed the mug on the coffee table where I could watch it in case Dammit got any ideas. Turning, I tilted my head at Ethan and returned his smile. “It’s because of the secret.”

A line formed between his brows. “My secret?”

“Yeah. It’s the thrill of having someone new who’s in on it. Makes it all more exciting.”

He started to shake his head. “I don’t think—“

“Did you ever have a secret as a kid? Something you did or some girl you had a crush on; a huge secret that you only ever told to one person?”

“Yeah,” he said, cautiously. “So?”

“Did you find yourself talking to that person a lot more after you told them? Like, way more than before you spilled the beans?” He didn’t say anything, just nodded in a distracted way, like he was replaying a memory in his head. “Well, that’s what happens when you bond over a shared secret. It’s because you get to vocalize a lot of things that you were holding in. Things you couldn’t say out loud before and suddenly—because you can—you want to talk about it constantly. You have a brand-new person in your inner circle, and that’s really exciting. And maybe a little scary, depending on the secret.”

“I see what you’re saying, and maybe there’s some of that at work here, but…”

“But?”

“It’s not like I’m wanting to constantly talk to you about my paintings or the music or the double life. I just keep thinking about you. About spending time with you and wondering what I can do or say to bring out that southern twang of yours. Thinking about that almost indecent question you asked me before we were interrupted. That stuff has nothing to do with my secret. It’s just me wanting to be with you. Me flat-out wanting you.”

Way to make a girl stop breathing. I couldn’t come up with a response, so I just sat there, blinking.

He brought his hand up to brush a few strands of hair behind my shoulder. “When you think about spending time with me, is it like ‘I can’t wait to see Ethan, so we can talk about art and music because he’s famous and that’s exciting’ or is it ‘I can’t wait to see Ethan, so we can talk about absolutely nothing and just hang out because I like him’?”

I forced myself to speak, hoping that I could find the will not to lean into his hand as he kept brushing it into my hair. “The second one.”

“So, it’s not just me. This isn’t just about the band or Conspicuous, even if it started out that way. This is about us.”

I could only nod weakly.

He pulled his hand away and took a deep breath as he leaned toward me and exhaled into my neck. “Good. Because I don’t want it to be about the thrill of sharing a secret. I want it to be the thrill of being with each other.”

I swallowed so loudly Dammit looked up from his bed across the room.

Ethan trailed his tongue lightly up my neck and breathed into my ear. “I had to be sure you wanted me for me. You do want me, don’t you, Emily?”

“Yes,” I murmured, eyes falling closed. The feel of his breath on my neck, his hand snaking around my waist to land on my hip, the smell of his crisp, masculine cologne…it was overwhelmingly erotic.

“Good.” He nipped my earlobe, my tiny diamond stud earring clicking softly against his teeth. “Do you know how hard it was to stop that day in my studio? How close I was to…”

“Exploding?” I supplied, making a joke to distract myself.

He chuckled softly, his exhalation tangling through my hair. “Something like that.” His hand moved from my hip to trail up my side, and I jumped, laughing. “Ticklish?” he asked, barely prodding with his fingertips until I started trying to wiggle away.

“Something like that.” I giggled, pushing his hand higher until it was just beneath my breast. “Stay higher or lower but don’t linger in the space between.”

“Damn,” he groused, winking. “I was really looking forward to spending some time in the space between…”

Cue blushing all the way to my toes.

“Ethan, you’re terrible.”

He cupped my jaw and turned my face toward his. “You can’t spell terrific or pronounce it,” he mocked playfully. “Whatever am I going to do with you, Miss Emily?”

I raised one brow and leaned in to nip his bottom lip. “Show me how terrific you are.”

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” he countered as he closed the distance between us.

Not just with his lips, either.

With his whole body.