by Elise Faber
He leaned in, nipped her bottom lip. “Really. It’s a travesty. Clearly, sand is beige, not yellow.”
“You have permission to smack him,” Calle said, glancing over her shoulder with a smirk. “No man should be that at ease when he’s trying to win over a woman he likes.”
Ethan bent in again. “For the record, I’m not at ease.” His eyes flicked down, drawing hers to follow, to see that he was hard in his slacks.
“Oh,” she murmured, biting her lip.
“But I am trying to win over the woman I like,” he said. “Now, it’s my turn to ask some First Date questions, okay?”
Her heart stuttered, that kitty with its ball of yarn making a reappearance, as the bus pulled onto the freeway, as Ethan began peppering her with more First Date questions. Which she was fine with answering, so long as she was able to get his answers in return. She nodded, whispered, “Okay.”
He smiled.
She smiled.
And by the time they got on the plane, she’d learned his favorite TV show, food, place he’d traveled, animal, and superhero movie—The Office, steak, New Zealand, lion, and Captain America: Civil War. She’d approved of all his choices, aside from the steak, as clearly a Caesar salad was the best food on the planet, and while she liked all the Marvel movies, her favorite supe flick was Wonder Woman (the first, clearly . . . because that thigh jiggle and Chris Pine and former princesses being badass warrior queens).
They kept talking as they pulled their respective supplies out—laptop for her, pens, notebooks, and reference materials for him—and then, somehow, effortlessly they fell into silence, working side-by-side without a weird transition of quiet. The conversation just stilled, they both worked until they got drowsy—or at least, she did, closing her laptop after a few hours because planes always made her sleepy.
And then Ethan did an amazing thing.
Without a word, or even seeming to look at her, he lifted the armrest, wrapped an arm around her, and then coaxed her to lie down in his lap, her head on his thigh, her shoulder pressed to his leg, his fingers stroking lightly through her hair.
Her eyes slid closed.
The rumble of the engines coaxed her under.
She was out in moments.
Chapter Sixteen
Ethan
“Hey,” he murmured.
For once, Dani didn’t jump.
She just spun in her chair and stood, crossing over to him with a smile that made him feel as though he could lasso the sun. “That was some move tonight, Korhonen.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Want to come somewhere with me?”
They were off the next day and would fly out the following evening. Tonight, however, they were in Denver, it was beautiful, and he had the need to take Dani on their first official date.
She smiled. “Yeah, I do.” She spun, packed up her equipment and shoved it into her backpack, which she swung up onto her shoulder.
Which he promptly snagged back down her shoulder and then lifted up onto his.
“You just played,” she began. “You’re tired—”
“I’m a man.”
Her brows lifted. “And that means what exactly? That I can’t carry my own bags?”
“Sass.” He tapped her nose. “No,” he said. “It just means that you don’t need to, whether they’re filled with rocks and paint or computer equipment.”
“And what can I do with my womanly, delicate arms?”
God, that arch tone brought forth his naughty librarian fantasies.
“Wait,” she said, interrupting him before he could answer that, which was probably for the best because he didn’t have a good answer for her question anyway.
However, when she continued talking, he realized he was in even more trouble.
“Why are you blushing?” She snagged his hand when he tried to turn for the door. “What’s with the red cheeks, Korhonen?”
Dani in a short skirt and knee-highs, telling him she’d check the reference stack for him, that was the cause for his red cheeks.
Also because in his fantasy, that reference stack would be on the bottom shelf.
Bending over, a glimpse of a lush ass. He’d hop the counter, lift her skirt, and—he cursed under his breath when his cock went hard.
Romance, not fucking.
Romance.
Not fucking.
He swallowed hard. “Just a post-game flush,” he said.
Her brows went up, and he knew she didn’t buy that for one second.
Which was why he slid his arm around her waist, tugged her against him, and kissed her. It wasn’t gentle or careful. It was a touch borne of need and fantasy, of that moment of dreaming about something for so long, thinking it would never come, even while wishing so fucking desperately that it would.
Sensation roiling through his skin, sparking down from lips to toes. She tasted sweet and spicy, as though she’d just had a stick of cinnamon gum but coated her lips in frosting.
Strawberry frosting.
Her tongue dipped into his mouth, fanning the flames of that spice, draping it across his taste buds, boiling the cytoplasm in his cells, heating his DNA and changing it, transforming it, morphing it into something that didn’t just exist to perpetuate his own survival, not any longer. Instead, it existed for her, for Dani, for this intoxicating, lovely woman who was quiet, but not with him. Who held her painful memories tight, but shared so he could understand. Who didn’t let very many people in, but had let him in.
Her nape was soft against his palm, her curls bouncing when she came closer, when she tilted her head back, tickling the skin of his hand, and the quiet moan, the rasp of his name transmitting from her mouth to his had him fighting the urge to strip her naked and kiss every inch of her.
Work.
They were at work.
Slowly, he wrestled with his control, first finding a slender thread buried deep, gradually drawing it forth, coiling it as he struggled to find another, and then another. Until he had a good-sized chunk of it, until he was able to slow the kiss, to lift his mouth.
His hands . . . he hadn’t yet found the control to remove them from her body.
But she didn’t seem to mind, not with every lush inch of her pressed to his front—which wasn’t exactly helping him in his quest to remove his hands. Still, the way she stared up at him, pupils dilated, lips swollen, and he wasn’t in any hurry to summon up any more control.
Dani, however, seemed to have held on to more brain function than he had.
Because the first thing out of those kissable lips was, “Why were you blushing, baby?”
Maybe it was the baby.
Perhaps it was that he’d suddenly become a living, breathing bag of blood existing only for this woman.
Or possibly his filter had been erased at the same time that the spice of cinnamon had hit his tongue.
But whatever the reason, Ethan found himself telling her the truth.
“I have a library fantasy.”
Her chin jerked, eyes going wide. “Care to elaborate?”
His brain started working, right about the time she rose on tiptoe and her mouth came to his, searing him with a blazing kiss that made his legs tremble as though Fanny had just put his ass through the worst sort of drills on the ice.
“Ethan?” she asked when she dropped back down.
“Yeah?”
“What’s the fantasy?”
And hell, if it got her close to him, had her body flush to his, her mouth on his then he’d tell her every last fantasy he’d harbored over the months and years.
“You in a short skirt and knee-highs, bending over the reference stack while I fuck you from behind.”
She froze.
Fuck.
Too strong. Too fast. Too much.
He’d just gotten her used to him sitting next to her on the bus and plane, had finally secured a date. He wasn’t supposed to skip over the rest of the first-date-getting-to-know-you stuff and dive straight
into role play and fantasies.
“I—”
Her thumb brushed over his bottom lip. “Would I wear my glasses?”
His cock twitched, a groan tumbling out of his mouth.
She smiled, no sign of shy. Only a confident, smart, sexy as fuck woman standing plastered against him. “I’m reading that as a yes.”
He bent his head, desperate for just one more brief taste of that spicy and sweet.
“Yes,” he said, when he managed to pull back. “You’d wear the fucking glasses, sweetheart.”
Her eyes were glazed, but her smile was fucking gorgeous. “Okay, then.”
“Okay,” he murmured, his hand shifting to cup the side of her neck, the other clenched on the sumptuous curve of her hip. He stared into her eyes, at her face, tracing every millimeter, committing the faint scar crisscrossing her left brow to memory, making a mental note to ask her at some later point where she’d gotten it. Ethan wanted to know everything about her. Her eyelashes were so long, nearly touching the skin of her cheekbones, her top lip plump, fading from almost maroon to a lighter mauve as it dipped inward. Her earlobes were attached and pierced, though he’d never seen her wear earrings and made another mental note to find out if, like her glasses, she just didn’t wear them to work, or if she didn’t wear them at all.
“Ethan?” she asked what could have easily been centuries later.
He couldn’t be counted on to keep track of meaningless things like time when he held this woman.
“Yeah?”
“Weren’t you going to take me somewhere?”
He blinked, mentally shook himself.
And then he found the control to release her, to lace their fingers together. “Yeah, I am.”
“Is this a kidnapping?” Dani asked as he tucked her into the car he’d managed to borrow from a buddy. Ethan had planned ahead, had his friend leave the small SUV at the arena, and would be doing Tim “a favor” by returning it to the amphitheater so Tim would have it when he got off his shift that ended—
Ethan’s eyes flicked to the dash.
Twenty minutes ago.
Meh, Tim was a good guy. They’d played in college together, and Tim had gone on to managing bands, and eventually when he’d had a family, managing venues, including this one outside of Denver.
So now, Ethan’s friend had a municipal job (the city technically maintained the amphitheater) with good benefits and a pension, a wife and three kids, and a soft spot for a man (Ethan) trying to win the heart of an incredible woman. Oh, along with the clearance to let visitors into the park after hours for a romantic date.
Keys. Romance. Check. Check.
And in return, Ethan had scored Tim and his family tickets to the Red Wings versus Avs game. Good seats, too. Club level, just two rows behind the glass.
He could have gotten better for a Gold game, but—gasp—Tim’s favorite team was not the one that Ethan was currently playing on.
So much for friendship, huh?
Fingers on his cheek startled him, and he realized he’d been quiet as he navigated his way to the freeway. Starting the date off right by ignoring the woman he was supposed to be wooing. Way to go.
“I like when you smile,” Dani whispered. “It’s like a surprise hidden in your beard, only revealed if someone looks close enough.”
He captured her wrist, pressed a kiss to her palm. “The first time you smiled at me, I almost ran into a pole.”
“What?”
“I’d been trying to get you to notice me for months, to really look at me.” He laughed. “But it seemed like you were completely indifferent, even though I was burning up for you. You’re quiet, but I always felt like there was so much more going on in your head than the rest of the world could see—”
A snort. “Yeah. Like crippling social anxiety.”
“I like you, just the way you are.” Another kiss to her palm before he placed her hand down on his thigh. “Anyway, back to my pining. Max was teasing you like he teases everyone, and then suddenly you came back with some quip about his game and how your character ‘had significantly more melee than his pathetic excuse for a paladin,’ and Max froze, his face warring between shock and horror. I laughed, because I’m a cruel asshole, and then you glanced up, gave me a full look at those gorgeous eyes for the first time, and I . . .”
“What?”
Fell for her. Right then and there.
Vowed that he’d win her over, would own her heart.
Because she owned his.
But that was too much too soon. So, he needed to temper it back, return to first date vibes.
“I knew that I had to get to know the woman who decimated Max’s video game prowess.”
She chuckled. “Do you want to know something?”
He wanted to know everything.
But first date, and all that. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Which was why he just nodded instead.
“The truth is that I didn’t even play that game. I was just really freaking tired of hearing him blabber on about it.” A shrug. “Luckily, I knew enough about it that I was able to fool him.”
Amusement was a coiled spring, one that unloaded, laughter bursting out of him as he took the exit that would take them off the highway and up toward the twisting road leading to the amphitheater. “You’re devious.”
“I couldn’t believe he fell for it.” Ethan saw one shoulder lift and fall out of the corner of his eye. “I actually felt guilty about it and wanted to tell him the truth.”
Her palm on his leg squeezed. “Why didn’t you?”
She was quiet for long enough that he expected her not to answer him. “Because of the way you looked at me.”
He’d just turned into the driveway, saw Tim standing by the gate, and braked. “How did I look at you?”
“Like you saw me.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dani
“Like you see me.”
The words had burst out of her in an unconscious blurt.
The truth.
But still, something that revealed too much.
Except . . . did it truly reveal too much? Ethan had been pretty fucking clear about how he felt about her, more now that she could recognize since she’d decided to yank the blinders off, grasp onto the attraction, the mutual like, and to take a leap of faith.
She’d spent so long being dissatisfied and lonely and sad.
Enough was finally enough.
She needed to buck up . . . or accept the loneliness.
And since that bitter isolation had grown to be a heavier burden, a tighter corset, squeezing the life from her more by the year, she’d bucked up.
Which meant she would have to accept that the whole bucking up process meant that she would be saying revealing things such as like you see me.
What she wasn’t prepared for was his reaction to it.
The way the car slid to an abrupt stop, the emotion in his eyes when he snagged her hand from his thigh and brought it to his chest, resting it over the spot where his heart pounded below—a rapid thrum-thrum that matched her own pulse.
“I see you, sweetheart,” he murmured. “And it’s the prettiest fucking thing I’ve ever had the privilege to lay eyes on.”
Thrum-thrum.
Thrum-thrum.
Thrum—
Knock-knock.
She jumped, the seat belt tightening around her shoulder, heart pounding for a completely different reason. Ethan’s lips formed a curse, and then he gently released her hand and turned to lower the window.
“Hey, Tim,” he said, shaking hands with the man who’d approached the car. “Thanks for doing this.”
“You sure you don’t want me to hang around and drive you back?”
Ethan shook his head. “I’ve got it covered.”
“All right then.” He released Ethan’s hand, tapped on the frame of the door, eyes coming to Dani, and his lips turning up. Even in the dim illumination from the moonlight, she could see he was a h
andsome man with thick, dark hair and a winning smile along with curiosity written all over his face. Though to his credit, he didn’t probe, just nodded at her in hello and said, “Park up ahead.” Another tap. “Everything’s ready for you.”
Then he stepped back, and Ethan drove forward, parking in the shadows next to something that appeared dark and forbidding—except if she squinted and turned her head to the side, she could see a few lights up at the top.
“Why do I feel like I should circle back to questioning you about your kidnapping tactics?” she asked as Ethan came around and opened her door. “Is this where you take women who’ve pried out your deepest darkest fantasies as punishment?”
He ran a finger over her cheek. “That one fantasy is hardly the deepest and darkest one I have about you.”
A little shiver of heat skated along her spine. “What other ones do you have?”
His hand found her waist, drew her close. “Why don’t you tell me one of yours?” More heat, embers coalescing into tendrils, those threads growing and twining together into a thick, heavy rope.
Her cheeks were hot.
Her pussy was wet.
But that was beside the point.
Well, maybe, maybe not, because one point—a really important one—was that she wanted him. Badly. The other important point was that even with the desire burning within her, a perpetually burning flame that threatened to incinerate her, she wasn’t sure if she could share any of her fantasies with this man.
They were too deeply entrenched, hidden behind walls she wasn’t sure she could allow him to breach . . .
This was still too fresh and difficult to accept.
And . . . maybe she was just too shy.
The backs of his knuckles brushed her cheeks, drawing her focus to his face, to the clean lines cut by his beard, the silver cast of his skin from the moonlight, the flash of white teeth when he smiled gently at her. “Rain check?”
“Wh-what?” she sputtered.
“Rain check on whatever fantasy or fantasies are bouncing around that brain of yours.”
His light tone had her smiling. “I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing to this.”