Chapter 7
Ethan helped Charlie into the passenger seat of his BMW 6 Series convertible—date night meant a date car, so the Range Rover remained in the garage—then skirted the front bumper to slide into his place behind the wheel. He glanced over to see her nervously smoothing the skirt of her striped dress. His gaze ran over the skin left bared by the vee neck and the thin straps, her throat, neck, and shoulders a golden, summer brown.
She smelled like summer too, and it made his mouth water.
He’d hardly had a thought that wasn’t about her taste, her smell, the feel of her, since she’d caught him in the shower and he’d caught her on her escape out his bedroom door. It had been a bold move to continue stroking himself well-aware she was a witness, but she’d been in his masturbation fantasy, and then she’d been just a feet away in real life.
Ethan had gone for it, his inner urges unstoppable.
“You look beautiful as always,” he said to her now. “I don’t know how you manage to blend ladylike and sexy, but you do.”
Instead of smiling at the compliment, she made a face. “If I could figure out how to drop the ladylike and just do the sexy sometimes, believe me, I would.” Then she sighed. “Emmaline’s tried, but it never takes.”
Ethan frowned. “I like them both combined. Merged together in your own unique way.”
“That’s nice of you to say.” She threw him a quick smile.
Which only made clear she didn’t believe him. And that she was still very nervous.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’ve not dated much,” she confessed, sliding a glance his way. “Beyond the afternoon with Roland…I can’t remember the last time I went out with a man.”
Hmm. So his efficient, capable butler was not as confident when she had left her domestic manager-mode behind. Then he frowned again. “Wait—what about all those men my age ‘and more’ you claimed to have dated?”
She squirmed in her seat. “Oh. You remembered that.”
Little fraud. He pinned her with a mock-stern look. “What else have you fibbed to me about in the last year?”
Her body tensed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
And he didn’t know why he’d started down this road. Tonight his purpose was to make her comfortable with him and the idea of them entering into a partnership. A marriage. The kind built on respect and companionship instead of love—the sort he had to offer and that she’d said she wanted. Instead, now he’d somehow put her on edge.
Shit. He watched her tongue dart out to nervously lick her lips.
And bowing to impulse, because that delectable mouth should be his—and because their relationship could be built on respect, companionship, and a combustible sexual attraction—he leaned toward her and cupped his palm around her nape.
She sucked in a sharp breath, and he took it as an invitation to slide his tongue inside her mouth.
God. He closed his eyes. It was like her pussy had been last night—sweet and hot and wet. Maybe he should have taken her to bed before heading for dinner, working out her nerves between the sheets so he’d have a compliant, blissed-out little butler by the time they made their way to the restaurant.
Sliding his hand into the bodice of her dress, he covered one of her breasts lightly, feeling the instant stab of her nipple jutting into his palm. He groaned, his cock rising to attention at her immediate response. His tongue drove deeper into her mouth. Yeah, bed.
Then an alarm pinged, a tinny sound he didn’t recognize.
Breaking the kiss, he glanced around then down at Charlie, who had swollen lips and a wash of pink over her cheekbones. Beautiful. And sheepish, as she lifted her arm to show him the watch wrapped around her wrist.
“I set a reminder. So we’re not late for our reservations.”
“Of course you did,” he said, grinning. Then he lifted his hand from her breast as he pressed a short kiss on the pretty mouth of his oh-so-efficient butler. “I suppose we’ll go then.”
When he started the car, she huffed out a little vexed sound and wiggled in her seat again.
“Problem?” he asked, grinning once more.
She slid him a dirty look.
“What?” he asked, all innocent. “That kiss didn’t settle your nerves?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she didn’t deign to reply. Her obvious frustration drew out another laugh, and as he took off down the freeway, with the top down and the wind in his hair, well-being settled on his shoulders like the warmth of summer.
It remained there as he braked in the restaurant’s valet line and tossed his keys to the attendant. Then he took Charlie’s hand in his to lead her through the double doors.
When the hostess seated them at a cozy corner table by a window, the rays of the setting sun cast a glow on his date’s face like the blush of the very well-kissed. He smiled, just drinking her in. After a moment, she eyed him suspiciously, then self-consciously smoothed her hair.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m having a gigil,” he said, still smiling.
Her lips twitched. “Okay, I’ll bite.”
“It’s a Filipino word that describes the impulse to pinch or squeeze something—someone—that is irresistibly cute.” Reaching out, he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, holding her face just so for a light kiss.
When he pulled back, she put out her hand to brush it over his hair.
“Cafuné,” she murmured. “It’s Brazilian for, well, this.” She did it again.
He smiled. “You touch Wells like that all the time.” With a casual affection that always warmed his belly.
Charlie’s fingers hesitated. “It’s not that exactly. Cafuné means the act of running your fingers through a lover’s hair.”
As her hand slid away, he caught it and pressed a kiss to her palm. “Is that what we’re to be then, Charlie? Lovers?”
She tugged, and he released her. “Have you been studying up on foreign phrases that have no English equivalent?”
“I may have,” he admitted.
“Because you thought this might be awkward?” She indicated the two of them. “A dinner out with just us?”
“Because I wanted to see you smile.”
“Oh,” she said, looking adorably nonplused.
“I have another. Seigneur-terraces—it’s not an internet find, though. I heard it in Paris.”
She tilted her head, lifted her brows.
“Literally it means ‘lords of the terrace’ but it refers to people who sit at café tables for hours spending little or no money.”
The corners of her mouth tilted up. Yes, there was the smile. She was relaxing now.
“That’s new to me,” she said. “But I have a French one too. L’esprit de l’escalier—that feeling you get when you know just the perfect comeback a little too late.”
Their server interrupted the shared linguistics lesson, but they found plenty to talk about through drinks, appetizers, and their entrées. She circled back to words when he filled her wine glass for a second time.
“I’ve never asked…where does the name Wells come from?”
“Michelle’s mother’s maiden name.”
The sun had gone and their table was bathed only in the glow from a candle at its center. The low light cast mysterious shadows over Charlie’s face, and he took her hand, needing her touch.
“Were you going to use it for a girl’s name too, or did you have something else picked out?”
“Audrey, her mother’s first name.”
Charlie hesitated now, and he could sense a return of her nerves. He played with her fingers, trying to get her relaxed again. “Is there something else you wanted to ask? About the adoption maybe?”
“No. I’m just glad it was you. For Wells, I mean. That you and Michelle were the ones who adopted him.”
He squeezed her hand. “It was our privilege and continues to be mine.”
Charlie’s downcast eyes hid what he might see of her expression in the dim light.
She cleared her throat. “We should talk about his birthday party. We’ve only—”
“Let’s talk about you instead.”
Her gaze jerked up. “Me?”
“We don’t want to be one of those couples who get away for an evening and can’t stop talking about the kids. At least not yet, when I don’t know you nearly as well as I want to.”
Oh, he’d spooked her now―his capable butler’s fingers quivered in his hold.
“You’ve seen my resume.”
“I’ve seen a listing of where you worked and your time spent at butler school. Now I want to understand what brought you to the places you went. I want you to tell me what you’ve always wanted and what you’ve forever dreamed about. ”
The server came by with dessert menus. Charlie shook her head and Ethan ordered a slice of cheesecake and coffee for both of them. Subtext: We’re sitting here until you share something of yourself with me.
Yes, the idea of rushing out of there and driving Charlie home and into his bed had desire throbbing low and slow in his veins. But he wanted to know more about the woman sitting across from him than her easy way with his son and the power of the sexual dynamic that was growing between them.
There was that guarded heart of hers and why she protected her privacy with such fierceness.
For a marriage to work, there needed to be honesty.
He waited until the dessert had been served and she took a sip from her cup of fragrant brew. She glanced at him over the rim, the candlelight flickering in her eyes, another mask to her mysteries.
Instead of pressing her again, he forked up a bit of cheesecake and held it toward her mouth. She froze, looking warily at the morsel as if it might bite back.
Oh, baby, he thought. You’re so skittish.
“Open,” he whispered. “Let me in, Charlie.”
Another second’s hesitation, then she leaned closer and her bow-shaped lips obeyed. He fed her, satisfaction surging through him. His cock stirred. Patience, he reminded himself.
He watched her chew and swallow then take another sip of her coffee, all the while not trying to hide the intensity of his gaze.
She carefully set the cup back in her saucer and linked her fingers on the table. “Growing up, my mother often warned that if I didn’t watch myself I’d just end up as some man’s servant.”
His eyebrows rose. “So you set out to prove her right?”
A little smile curved her delectable lips. “I was young. And I had good reasons to rebel.”
He’d leave those for now. “So, you left home…”
“Her house, not home,” Charlie corrected quickly. “And the rest is really what you already know. I went to a summer program at the butler school and from there worked at a small boutique hotel in Beverly Hills where there was a butler assigned to every floor.”
“Then you were working in Santa Barbara.”
She nodded. “For an older couple I met at the hotel. I stayed with them until they decided to retire to Mexico. Then back to the Continental Butler Academy for the full-year program.”
“And after that a return to Southern California.”
Another nod. “The butler school has contacts with elite placement agencies all over the world. I said I was interested in working in a household with children and…”
“Then you were referred to me. It’s been eleven months now.”
She looked surprised.
“Hey, I can count.” He forked up another bite of cheesecake and swallowed it down, then portioned off another morsel for her. This time she leaned in without thinking first.
“And obviously for about ten-and-a-half of those months I was deceiving myself that I only admired my butler because of her talents in running my home and tending my child,” he continued. “The truth is, you make me horny as hell, Charlie. I can’t wait to get you in my bed and do all sorts of intimate things to you that will make you blush.”
Her body jerked and she choked, then hastily grabbed up her glass for a swallow of water.
He tried to hold back his amusement. “Are you all right?” he asked politely.
“Yes.” She looked at him. “But you could warn a woman…”
He smiled. “Now where’s the fun in that?”
“So…you’re truly serious about this? About us. And…about marriage.”
“I am.” He kept his gaze on her face. “I think we could do well together.”
“There’s no guarantee…”
“Not about anything in life,” Ethan said, and took her hand in his.
Her cool fingers curled into his palm, and he felt as if he was holding the fragile blossom of a rose.
Charlie nibbled on her lower lip. “I usually avoid trying something if I don’t know how it will conclude. I’m not much of a gambler.”
“I can’t agree with you on that, Charlie. You went to butler school twice. You’ve worked for the hotel and two families. Every move was an opportunity for success—”
“Or failure,” she finished for him.
He stilled, nodded, and then just looked at her without speaking. What else could he do but wait on her decision? Patience.
But he wanted her. In his bed. In his life. Permanently.
After a long hesitation, she sucked in a breath, let it out. “All right. I…yes.”
Satisfaction surged in him, and his fingers tightened on hers possessively. Mine, an inner voice cheered, and the covetous thought surprised him, spiking his blood with a shot of pure adrenaline. Mine.
They drove home with the car’s top up and the heater creating a cocoon of warmth around them. No words were spoken, but anticipation hummed in the air. He stole glances at her, but the dashboard’s glow didn’t give away her expression.
All right, she’d said.
He’d make it so. Right. Every second of it.
Hand-in-hand, they entered the house. He directed them toward the kitchen to turn off the lights that were on.
“Shall I bring some wine upstairs?” he asked.
Her gaze was circling the room, taking in everything from Wells’ artwork on the refrigerator to the basket on the island with its jumble of sunscreen tubes and sunglasses, and Ethan’s own sweatshirt hanging on the back of a barstool where he’d tossed it earlier in the day.
“This is what I always wanted,” she said softly. “What I dreamed about.”
He looked around himself, seeing more signs of their shared domestic life—the book she was currently reading stacked on top of his, the calendar color-coded in her handwriting with all their activities and obligations, her favorite mug cozied next to his by the coffee machine.
“A home?” he guessed.
“A warm and welcoming home. A real family.”
Oh, Charlie. Concern cast a pall over him. What was he doing? Was it fair of him to take her for himself in the kind of arrangement that wasn’t built on the foundation of love? She should be some man’s special and rare, like his wife had been for him.
“What?” Charlie said now, apparently reading his expression. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“I…” He gathered her into a loose embrace. “I should have them,” he admitted. “You deserve more than what I’m offering.”
“I agreed though, eyes wide open.”
“Yes, you did.” He briefly closed his own. “But you don’t know…”
“I do know.”
He studied her face then, taking in the flush that made her blue eyes that much more riveting. “Charlie…” Bending, he pressed his lips to her forehead and then to her nose. “It’s just that—”
“I know when you’re treating me like I’m a child,” she said, wrenching out of his arms in a sudden fit of pique. “I know when you’re being condescending and patronizing and…and…”
God, she was right. He caught her arm and reeled her close again. “And a superior asshat?”
She was stiff in his arms. And angry, her usual cool elegance edged with heat and temper. It fired his blood and made ashes of his last-minute misgivings.
“Yes,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “That.”
But she wasn’t retreating anymore, and he could feel her little body beginning to heat.
“If you want out…” he said, hauling her closer, making certain she’d feel the thickness of his pole-hard cock. “This is your last chance.”
“Fat chance,” she countered, and shoving to her toes locked her mouth to his.
Ethan’s hold tightened on Charlie as she kissed him. She wound her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his, his shaft firm against her belly. His tongue slid between her lips, and a shiver rocketed down her spine, desire wrapping her body in heat. She curled one leg around his calf as her loud moan echoed in the room.
Embarrassed by the plaintive noise, she pulled back, but he caught her chin in one big hand, keeping her gaze trained on his.
“What? What is it?”
Swallowing hard, she tried to drag her dignity back over her shoulders. The hallmark of her professional life at every job, including with the Archers, was her calm demeanor. Her ability to least appear unruffled. Ethan had already caught her in the act of wicked voyeurism, and following that she’d let him touch more of her while still standing up than every other complete sex act she’d ever engaged in.
But if she was going to be his wife—God, she was going to be his wife!—shouldn’t she react with more decorum and poise? Wouldn’t he want her demure and quiet?
Ethan’s expression softened. “You’re thinking too much. I can hear the gears in your head turning.”
But she had to keep her brain engaged! There was too much at stake. If emotions ran too high, who knew what might come out of her mouth beyond a tortured moan? “Ethan…”
“Baby,” he whispered and lowered his head to press his mouth to the side of her neck. “This doesn’t need analysis.”
She shivered as he sucked on the tender skin then soothed the little sting with the flat of his tongue. His lips feathered up to her ear where he bit the lobe. Her legs went noodly, and she sagged against him, his arm a steel band at her waist to keep her upright.
“You need to let go, Charlotte,” he whispered, his breath hot on the side of her face.
Oh, no, that was the last thing she needed! But then his palm found her breast, and he tested its weight, scraping the edge of his thumb over the bunching nipple. Her head spun and her mouth lifted blindly to his, suddenly needing another kiss in the same way she needed another breath.
He obliged, his tongue driving into her mouth as she allowed her head to fall back. His hand slid from her breast to cup her throat, his fingertips stroking over her pulse point. She felt it jump then begin to thrum wildly, her body responding with instinctive fear to the sensation of a palm across her windpipe.
But she didn’t want a millimeter of space between them, and she remained still in his hold—trusting him completely even while adrenaline coursed into her system, her primitive brain preparing for fight or flight in the face of the menace of a large, male creature.
It should have frightened her that she found the combination so damn erotic.
As if he knew, Ethan’s hand tightened on her throat. No air was impeded, but it added to the sensation of being overpowered. The big male conquering her doubts and concerns.
Her yielding to it seemed to please him. He made a sound low in his throat and then swept her up in his arms.
“I need you in a bed,” he growled, and headed for the stairs.
For a second Charlie thought about reminding him of the lights that remained on, of the need to check the locks. That she should program the coffeemaker to brew first thing in the morning. Instead, she closed her eyes and turned her face into his neck and breathed in his scent, man-skin and lime-tinged aftershave. Her mouth opened to get more of it into her lungs, and she thought of the many times she’d pressed her face to his pillowcases before guilt had made her toss them into the waiting washing machine.
Now she clutched at him, reveling in his heat and muscle even while reminding herself to temper her responses.
Pausing, he hitched her higher in his arms, and she opened her eyes. They stood on the threshold to his room, a mere few feet from his bed. Her arm shot out and her hand curled around the doorjamb to halt their progress.
His room? His bed?
“Maybe we should go to my cottage,” she said, staring inside, the space lit only by a low bedside lamp. Her gaze fixed on the mattress. She’d changed the sheets only a few days before, and now it seemed a lifetime ago. One momentous decision ago.
Her belly tightened and she turned her head, burrowing into his shoulder. “Oh, God.”
“Hey.” Ethan strode toward the bed, forcing her hold on the jamb to loosen. “Are you okay?” he asked, sitting on the edge with Charlie in his lap.
She peeked over his shoulder at the pillows, lined up like plump little soldiers against the headboard. Ethan’s bed that he’d most recently only ever shared with his wife.
“Are you sure that you’re okay?” she whispered. “You said it’s been more than four years…”
He swept her hair off her forehead with his hand. “Michelle…is that what’s on your mind?”
Charlie nodded.
“She never lived in this house, you know that,” Ethan said. “And she was never in this bed.”
“Oh.” So Charlie wasn’t intruding on the other woman’s actual, physical space. “All right, but…”
“There’s no one here beyond us, Charlie. We’re not betraying another person. When I was married before…that’s past.”
Maybe Ethan could compartmentalize too, separating sex in the now from that lost love from before. That thought eased her, and tension left her shoulders. Now, as his thumb brushed over her bottom lip, she instinctively chased it with her tongue. When it came back, she dipped her head and took it into her mouth, sucked.
Ethan’s muscles turned rigid.
“Charlotte,” he whispered hoarsely, then shook his head as if to clear it. He rubbed his thumb along her tongue, then pulled it free and used the moisture on it to paint her lips. “You’re making me crazy again.”
Like a scuba diver going overboard, he flipped them both to the mattress and rolled to lie on top of her. Her pulse scrambled again, that delicious and wicked sense of threat coursing through her once more. She tested his strength, trying to move out from beneath him, but he only pressed his weight deeper into her body.
Thrilling at the sense of being overpowered, and slightly ashamed at the way it only made her blood run hotter and the place between her legs go wetter, Charlie wiggled, and he settled firmly into the cradle of her hips.
Then he lowered his head. Devoured.
All the other kisses between them had been tame lead-ups when compared to this—the aggressive surge of his tongue and the steady pressure of his lips on hers. In the first instant, she yielded, letting him take the lead.
Letting him take over.
Her mouth felt puffy and swollen when he finally lifted his head, and he looked down on her, amusement in his eyes.
“Baby,” he said, his voice laced with an affection that she responded to like a flower to the sun. “I’ve mussed you up.”
She put her hand up to smooth her hair, but he caught her fingers and brought them to his mouth. His teeth nipped at her knuckles.
“I like how you look…when you’re all buttoned-up and tidy too, but knowing I can disorder my oh-so-orderly butler fucking turns me on.”
It was evident in the heavy press of his penis against the juncture of her thighs. She tilted her hips, closing her eyes at the sweet clutch of her womb as she rubbed her clit against him. He pressed his palms to the mattress and lifted his upper body from hers so he could take that over too…rolling his hips so that the head of his shaft nudged the bundle of nerves.
She writhed, wanting more, needing more. Then his hands were on her, striking fires everywhere as he tipped off her sandals then stripped her from her dress. He hesitated a moment when she was bared to only the underwear Emmaline had bought her, but then those garments were gone too.
His next kiss threw her into delirium and when he lifted his head this time, she was fever-hot all over and her breasts ached.
He began to move off, and she clutched at him, preparing to beg him to stay close. “Ethan…” But the throaty neediness in her voice made her mouth clamp shut.
“Charlie.” Ethan pushed back, his gaze running over her face.
He was fully dressed, she was naked and breathing hard enough that her breasts trembled with every inhalation. Acute embarrassment made her flush all over, and her hands fluttered up, intent on covering herself.
Ethan caught a wrist in each hand. “I’m going to insist on one thing, Charlie.”
She quivered in his hold. “What?” It came out like a mousy squeak.
“When we’re here, together, like this,” he halted, his mouth turning up in a small smile, “or when we’re somewhere else, but like this…”
He shifted both of her wrists to one hand, then ran his palm over her bare breast.
Charlie clamped her teeth on her bottom lip and felt another gush of moisture at the juncture of her thighs.
“What is it you want?” she managed to ask.
“Your complete honesty,” he said. His gaze dropped to watch his hand toy with her breast and nipple. “We have something…fierce going on between the two of us. Physically. I want to explore it. Explore you. But you can’t hold back from me. Not your reactions, not your wishes. You have to tell me when something feels good and when something doesn’t. I want to hear every moan and every whimper. If you want more, find a way to tell me.”
More.
But Charlie’s mouth had gone dry at the word fierce. It seemed exactly right. It spoke of passion and strength and intensity.
We have something fierce between us.
A shiver overtook her body.
He frowned. “Cold?”
She shook her head, then tugged her wrists from his hold.
Eyeing her, he let them slip free of his grasp. Then she took a grip of his shirt at the collar and pulled him down over her again.
He laughed. “What’s this?”
“Honesty,” she said, and kissed him.
It sounded perfect to her, to Charlie who was always so careful and disciplined with her heart and mind so that she’d never expect too much from anyone, so that she never took anything for granted. Ethan demanded her physical sincerity, the truths of her body. Those she could give, she thought. She could abandon herself to this man and set free the responses he coaxed from her with a touch. A kiss. A look.
While still holding on to the one thing he could never know about her.
Through an exchange of ravenous kisses, he undressed. Then he stood by the side of the bed, looking down at her with hunger in his gaze. His erection stood tall, and she greedily absorbed the other details of his body—muscled shoulders, arms, and thighs, those rippled abdominals that she’d admired when she happened upon him shirtless.
She dared another glance at his thick member, the plum-shaped head ruddy and near-painful looking. For her. Because of her.
He ran a palm down the underside, as if to calm it. “Open your legs, baby. I want to see how wet you are.”
Her skin burned like he’d set a match to it, but then she complied, her heels sliding along the cool satiny cotton of the duvet she’d smoothed just that morning. Air touched her damp folds, and she felt his gaze there as he continued to stroke himself.
“Bend your knees,” Ethan said.
Her heels now slid up toward her butt, and she stared at him, mesmerized by that moving hand and the stalk of flesh he gripped with it. Her inner muscles clenched, feeling empty. Charlie licked her lips, thinking of how to say what she needed.
Then he dropped to his knees and slid his hands beneath her, palms on her behind, so he could drag her closer to the edge of the mattress. To his mouth.
She whimpered in anticipation, wondering if perhaps she’d die from the intimacy of this type of kiss. But her hips arched as his tongue stroked over her flesh. He made a sound, a man enjoying a new flavor, and she clutched at the duvet with desperate fingers as he explored her folds.
He kneed closer to the bed and widened her legs with his arms. Charlie put her hand over her mouth, but then Ethan looked up, his eyes narrowing and his lips wet with her juices. Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest.
“Every moan,” he reminded her. “Every whimper.”
Her hand slid back to her side and he returned to his hungry licks and laps. For every swipe of his tongue, more liquid leaked from her, and when he slid two fingers into her channel, it was so slippery they parted her walls with ease. She moaned, lifting to him again, wanting to rub herself all over his face.
Then the orgasm pounced, hitting her like a wild animal’s attack, and she moaned, her body undulating, pleasure waving from her center and rushing outward to burst from her fingertips and toes. Ethan’s tongue and fingers encouraged each new swell, only slowing their movement as the climax receded from her body, leaving her limp and breathing hard.
He crawled onto the mattress, pressing little kisses from the top of her mons to her throat. His mouth touched hers and she tasted herself, smelled herself, and it caused a renewed tingle in her clit. Wow.
Ethan hovered over her and she had to open her eyes, even though each lash felt as if it was weighted. His hand pushed back her hair. “There’s a word for what you look like.”
“A foreign word?” Her voice slurred, sounding half-drunk.
“An English word.” He smiled. “I’ve besmirched you, baby.”
“I think I liked it,” she confessed.
One of his eyebrows rose. “You only ‘think’ so? I guess I’ll have to try harder.”
And with that, he slid down to her breasts, caressing and licking at first, tender and sweet, then upping the sensation as she began to move restlessly on the mattress.
“You like me to suck on your nipples?” he asked, the question obviously rhetorical. “I can’t wait to find every single secret this pretty body is going to give up to me.”
Her head lolled and her hand sank into his hair. She could surrender secrets such as those. Yes.
When he had her panting again, he glanced up, a blaze of color across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.
“Turn over, Charlotte,” he whispered.
Made boneless by pleasure, she complied to his urging hands. Then he lifted her hips so she was forced to her knees, her shoulders and cheek against the mattress. His hair-roughened thighs parted her own, and she was so aroused that the only thing she could think about her position was the eroticism of it.
How she hoped it was turning him on. Ethan Archer, the man who was to be her husband.
It was his hand she felt next, guiding himself to her. She deepened the arch of her back and he groaned, his free hand stroking down her spine.
“Just like that,” he whispered. “Now take me in.”
He made her work for it, his condom-covered erection breaching her wet and willing flesh by slow degrees. They both groaned now, and he caressed the curve of her ass as he continued to feed her his long, hard shaft.
Once in, he paused and curved over her, his mouth at her neck. He kissed her there, sucking at the skin, and she pushed her bottom into him, every inch of her flesh hyper-sensitized. Her whimper was one of surrender, and he seemed to know it, because he began to move, pulling out and pushing in again with greedy strokes that reclaimed every inch with each deep drive. He’d said take me, but instead Charlie felt taken.
Wanted.
Desired.
And it was so delicious that she wiggled her hips and he slid his hand around to her clit, reading her body’s signals already. His thrusts sped up as he played with her there, and she felt the next orgasm gather.
Ethan’s harsh whispers were low, like the sound of the ocean outside the bedroom windows. Sweet God. This feels so good. Yeah, baby, tighten down on me. Oh, hell. You’re better than any fantasy.
Then, his fingers became rougher on her clit, and his strokes more jerky. She could feel the powerful muscles in his body tensing, his own climax imminent. He stalled, then started again on a low groan, and she came just a second after him, both of them shaking with the pleasure of it.
She returned to herself some minutes later, to find she was flat on her belly with Ethan next to her on his side, one hand lazily stroking along her spine. She turned her face toward him.
His smile was somehow both feral and lazy at the same time, and it raised the little hairs all over her body. Warning. Anticipation. Both at once.
“Every single secret,” he whispered.
Except one, she told herself, closing her eyes in case he might see it there. Her most tightly held secret, the one locked away deep, deep in her heart…
That she was the biological mother of Ethan Archer’s son.