"Are you hungry?" he asked.
"Just getting some water."
"I'll get it for you."
"You don't have to..."
He was already rising to his feet and heading toward the kitchen. The shorts he wore hung low on his waist, revealing the v-shape of muscles at his hips and the trail of hair leading to an enticing place she yearned to touch again. Her heart raced as she followed a few feet behind him. He pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and handed it to her.
"Thank you. Has Tristan done anything tonight?" she asked.
"Not so far."
"Do you plan to stay awake all night?"
"I can't sleep anyway." He leaned against the counter to study her from those strangely red and green eyes.
Emma took a sip of water as she studied him. Her fingers twitched as she fought the urge to touch his smooth skin. She would give anything to ease the tension in his shoulders. Anything to turn the color of his eyes back to the vibrant green she loved so much. Unable to hold his gaze, her eyes darted to the fridge. She frowned at the massive dent in it.
"What happened?" she inquired.
He barely glanced at it. "I lost my temper the other night after what happened with Tristan and punched it."
Emma's eyebrows shot up as she stared at the massive dent in the middle of the heavy-duty appliance. The amount of force behind the punch must have been about the same as a charging bull. "Remind me not to piss you off."
"I'd cut my hands off before I ever touched you in anger."
Her eyes flew back to his; her heart melted at the absolute conviction behind his words. "Ethan, I don't want to hurt you."
"You're not, Emma."
"Your eyes—"
"I'm all right."
"My family—"
"I know how important family is. You've met some of the crazies who are a part of mine."
She chuckled as she took another sip of water. "They're not so bad."
Her body heated and tingled as his stare burned over her skin. She took another drink to wet her parched throat as she prepared herself to ask her next question. "Did you want to do to me what you did with those other women?"
She could feel the color creeping into her face at the question. She barely heard her own words, but he inhaled harshly, and his hands clenched on the counter.
"No," he hissed. Her eyes flew up to his. "Not once did I ever think about doing such a thing to you, or having you do anything like that to me."
"Did you..." she broke off and swallowed heavily, she was pretty sure if she touched her face right now she might burn her palms. "Did you miss it? Was what happened between us lacking in some way for you?"
He clasped her chin as she ducked her head and nudged it upward. "Look at me, Emma." He didn't speak again until her lashes reluctantly fluttered upward and she hesitatingly met his gaze. "Nothing was lacking between us, nothing. What is between us is something pure and wonderful. What I did with those women was lacking, and I never want to experience it again. I've never been as fulfilled as I have since meeting you."
"Ethan," she breathed as tears filled her eyes. She didn't think she'd ever heard such amazing and beautiful words before in her life
"But you're still not ready for me, are you?"
"It's not that."
"You're not ready for my world. If you were, you wouldn't be asking me questions."
"What would I be doing?" she whispered.
"You'd be taking me to bed."
She smiled tremulously at him. "I don't think that's a good idea right now."
His hand slid away from her chin. "Maybe you should try and get some more sleep."
She was thrown off by the change of topic, but his eyes started turning a deeper shade of red as he watched her. "You're right," she mumbled. "Thank you for the water."
A trickle of apprehension slid through Emma as she noticed his hands clenched around the edge of the granite countertop and the corded muscles standing out in his arms. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. She did this to him; she was doing this to him.
"Ethan." She stepped closer to him to try and comfort him. She had to do something to ease the awful look on his face other than just walking away.
"Eternity, Emma—blood, death, your death." His eyes pinned her to the spot as they became the color of a stop sign and seemed to convey the same message. "You remember those things when you come near me; you remember those things when you think you might want to touch me again."
Her hand lifted toward him before dropping back to her side. "I want to touch you all the time," she whispered. "I'm scared. I've just found out something I thought was only a legend is real, and my ex is trying to kill me. Even through all of that, I want to touch you. I'd like nothing more than to have you hold me because I think it would make it all better, but I can't hide behind you. I have to face this, but no matter what happens you have to know, I will always want to touch you. No one has ever made me feel like you do, you're like a drug to me, and if I'm not careful, I'm afraid you're going to burn me out and destroy me just like a drug would."
She didn’t realize she was crying until the first fat drop fell onto her hand. She hastily wiped it away and then wiped her cheeks. Ethan stared at her with a mixed look of awe and horror. The red faded from his eyes, and this time it was him who took a step toward her.
It felt as if a ripple of static electricity slid over her skin as he came closer to her. Oh yes, she wanted to touch him, just as badly as a heroin addict craves their next hit, and with as much knowledge the next hit might kill her.
"I have to go," she gushed out and turned and bolted from the room.
She felt like a child as she fled into her bedroom and quietly closed the door. Her hands shook as fresh tears streamed down her face. What an awful mess all of this was, what an awful, heartbreaking mess.
And yes, as she stood there leaning against the door and weeping uncontrollably, she realized that was exactly what this was. For the first time in her life, her heart was shattering.
* * *
Emma let her hair drop back down before plopping onto the bed beside Jill and Mandy. She couldn't do anything with it anyway, and right now she didn't care. Her eyes were still bloodshot, and felt as if someone had thrown sand into them. She'd barely slept last night, she didn't look much better than she felt, and her hair was not cooperating with her at all.
She turned back to her friends, it was on the tip of her tongue to tell them what Ethan revealed to her yesterday about mates, but she held back. Though she didn't understand it, she knew his revelation was something extremely private. He’d spoken of a bond that went even deeper than human love, and he wouldn't appreciate it being shared with others.
"I'd like to get out of this house if only for an hour," she muttered.
"I don't see why we can't, there are still plenty of daylight hours left for us to enjoy," Jill said cheerfully.
Emma stared at the balcony doors as she thought over those words. "The humans they control can move about in the daytime though."
"I'm not saying we go out there alone, I'd like to keep you alive, but our vampires are completely capable of moving about in the sunlight."
"Our vampires?" Mandy asked.
Jill tossed back her hair as she flashed a smile. "I wouldn't mind making one of them mine for at least a night or two."
"You're incorrigible," Emma told her.
"Have you seen his brothers, I'm only human after all."
Emma shook her head. "Yes, you are, and you're annoyingly accepting of the fact they could eat you in the middle of the night."
Jill waved her hand dismissively. "You're still alive, so I'm sure I'll survive."
Emma couldn't help but laugh at Jill's cavalier attitude as her friend fairly bounced on the bed.
"But we have to get out of this house before we all start to go stir crazy and try to kill each other,” Jill said.
Emma agreed as she walked over to the mirror and tugged her
hair into a loose knot against the nape of her neck. There was nothing she could do about her eyes, so she grabbed a pair of tinted aviator sunglasses and slipped them on. It wasn't much of an improvement, but at least she didn't look like she'd just been on a weeklong bender anymore.
"Let's go see if we can get an escort out of this place," Mandy said and climbed to her feet.
Emma took a deep breath and braced herself before opening the door. She felt like a kid trying to catch Santa, but after the events of last night, she wasn't sure how well she was going to be received by Ethan. She wasn't surprised to find all of them gathered on the patio. Ethan was leaning back in his chair, legs out before him, and his arms crossed over his chest. A pair of black sunglasses covered his eyes, and though she couldn't see them, she felt it the instant they landed on her.
Any words she'd been about to utter died. Thankfully, Jill wasn't as easily overwhelmed by a man as she was. "We were hoping to get out of this house for a bit," Jill said.
Ethan remained silent as his gaze stayed locked on Emma. It was taking everything he had not to fall apart, not to give in to the spiraling pit of madness he felt opening just beneath his feet. The sight of her helped take away the edge of his impending insanity. But like the whiskey, it was only a temporary fix, one that would only dull the agony until his mind splintered apart and he would finally have to be put down. It was a conversation he planned to have with Stefan and Brian when Brian finally arrived; it was time to face the reality he may have to be destroyed when all this was over.
If not beforehand...
No, he would keep his sanity until he ensured her safety. He could keep control of himself long enough for that to happen, or at least he hoped he could. Even now he could feel the monster within him slithering through his mind, urging him to take her, to change her, to ease his misery and screw the consequences. She would forgive him over time; she would have no other choice if he completed the bond. He would never forgive himself though, and he loved her too much to violate her in such a way.
"I think that might be a good idea. I wouldn't mind checking out some things," Aiden said.
He loved his siblings, but there were times when he would really like to choke them. His jaw locked as his gaze slid toward Aiden. "So would I," Ian said.
"It's too dangerous," Ethan grated out from between his teeth.
"No more dangerous than in here. You said yourself they can’t move around in the daylight," Ian reminded him.
"There are more humans out there; any one of them could be under Tristan's influence."
"And any one of them could try and get in here," Jill pointed out. "As long as we stay together, we'll be fine."
Ethan's teeth ground together; his fingers dug into his biceps as he took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. They couldn't possibly know every part of him hurt, even his hair. They didn't understand all he wanted was to tear the throat out of someone, feast on their blood, and give in to the relief he knew the insanity would offer him.
"It would be good to get out," Emma agreed.
Ethan could feel their gazes burning into him as they all turned toward him. He felt the force of the no burning in his throat, but the hope in her voice kept his tongue nailed to the roof of his mouth. The only thing she'd asked from him since all this started was time. She didn't hate him for keeping this from her; she hadn't run screaming from him even when he'd tried to get her to do so. How could he deny her something so simple?
"I don't think it's a good idea," Isabelle said.
His arms dropped down to his side as he sat up in his chair and focused on Emma. "If you agree to stay by my side, I'll take you wherever you want to go."
"I'm not sure about that, Ethan," Stefan cautioned.
Ethan rose to his feet and stepped closer to Emma, and the closer he got to her the less the bloodlust building within him tore at his insides. Unable to stop himself, he rested his hand against her elbow. A breath of relief escaped him as the feel of her skin soothed him even more. It took all he had not to crush her against him and ease the burning, but her words from last night still echoed in his mind, and he'd be damned if he was the one who destroyed her.
Her head tipped back to look up at him. Through the shaded lenses of her glasses, he could see the beauty of her bloodshot and swollen eyes. The sound of her crying had drifted to him last night and torn at his soul. There was nothing he could do to make it better for her though, not while she was still trying to figure out what path she was going to take.
"You have to stay by me though, Emma," he reiterated.
His words probably should remind her of Tristan's overbearing demeanor, maybe they should be a warning, but she didn't take them as such. Tristan would never walk away from her. No matter what this did to him though, Ethan would let her go.
"I will," she promised.
He forced a smile as he bowed his head in acknowledgment of her words. The last thing he wanted was to be out around other humans, to have her out around other humans, but she'd already been caged by someone else, he wasn't about to cage her too.
"Where do you want to go?" he asked.
She looked to Mandy and Jill who shrugged in response. "The beach," Mandy suggested.
"Volleyball," Jill said with a grin.
"Is that okay?" Emma whispered to him.
He squeezed her elbow. "It's fine. We just have to change."
"So do we." Emma turned and hurried away with her friends.
Stefan waited until Isabelle, and his brothers went inside before stepping next to him. "Are you sure about this?"
Ethan barely glanced at him before nodding. "It's what she wants."
"And what about you? Can you control yourself?"
"I'm going to have to."
He said the words, but he wasn't entirely sure what he was capable of when they got around all of those people, and all of those blood-pumping, painfully tempting heartbeats.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emma settled onto one of the lounge chairs and dropped her feet down on either side of it. Ethan sat beside her; he was holding himself as carefully as someone holding the most priceless vase, on a ship, in the middle of the Bering Sea. Watching his almost mechanical movements was excruciating.
This was an incredibly bad idea, she realized as she studied his rigid profile. He'd barely said two words since they left the house, and now his nostrils were flaring as if he'd just run a marathon. Unable to resist touching him, she rested her hand on his arm.
Emma marveled when he visibly relaxed at her touch. He was the strongest man she'd ever met, yet she had this incredible effect on him. She was weak and small, and he needed her. A lump formed in her throat, and her hand curled around his forearm as she tried to give him more comfort.
"We can leave," she offered.
He didn't even turn his head to look at her. "No."
Emma frowned at him before turning to search the crowd around them. Isabelle was sitting in the lounge chair beside her, but strangely enough, Stefan settled beside Ethan. It was the first time she'd ever seen the two of them sit separately. Aiden and Ian joined Jill over by the volleyball game, and Mandy sat on the other side of Isabelle. The dull thud of the volleyball bouncing back and forth, and the grunts of the people playing, filled the air.
Ian looked up and frowned when he spotted Stefan sitting beside Ethan. He elbowed his brother and said something before breaking away from the game and coming over to join them. Yes, this most definitely was a mistake, if Ethan's actions weren't a big indication of that, the reactions of his family members were.
"I'm fine." Emma stared at Ethan as his head finally swiveled toward her. His eyes remained covered, but she knew they weren’t green. "Relax."
She couldn't relax though, not when he looked as if he were going to fracture at any second. Emma squeezed his arm again and released him. A shudder went through him, but when she went to touch him again, he shook his head. "Don't, Emma."
Her hand hovered in th
e space between them; frustration filled her before she dropped it to her side. She folded her hands before her as Aiden and Jill jumped into the game and started playing. Though she enjoyed watching them, she couldn't get herself to sit back in the chair, not when Ethan was in such obvious discomfort. Ethan stiffened suddenly; his head turned as he seemed to catch sight or smell of something.
Emma almost jumped to her feet when she spotted the three men in the bar walking toward them from across the beach. Ethan was already up and moving. His hand went in front of her like her mother's used to when she was forced to hit the brakes too hard in the car. A low growl escaped him as he stepped in front of her.
"Grab him!" Isabelle hissed at her.
Emma glanced at Isabelle as Ethan's sister rose to her feet. Her eyes were intense on Emma as she gestured toward Ethan's extended hand. His rigid posture made her realize he was about to launch himself at the men, something that couldn't happen in public. She didn't understand why these men set Ethan and Stefan off so bad, but Ian also rose to his feet as they continued to approach.
He'd just told her not to touch him, but the instinct to keep him safe caused her to grab his hand. It clenched around hers as he visibly relaxed a little again, but she could feel the hostility still running through his body. The men's eyes were wary as they stopped before the group gathered around her.
"Can we talk to you?" the shortest one asked Stefan.
"You can say whatever it is you have to say, here," Stefan told him.
Ethan stepped further in front of Emma as the red head's eyes landed on her. Ethan glanced at Emma and then back at the men. They couldn't know they could speak freely in front of her. They couldn't have any idea she knew about their species while she was still human.
"Stefan, go and speak with them," he said gruffly.
"Ethan—"
"It's fine," Stefan interrupted Isabelle. "I'll be right back."
"I'm coming with you," Isabelle said.
The Vampire Awakenings Bundle: Books 1-5 Page 78