‘It’s different for us,’ Izzy said, knowing in her heart that it really wasn’t.
The three witches clearly agreed as they cackled and laughed so hard, Izzy thought they might rupture something.
‘So you have slept with him and now he’s brought you out a second time you think it’s something special,’ Pink Mini Skirt laughed again, wiping the tears from her eyes. ‘Oh priceless.’
‘Tell me, does he take you from behind?’ Red Heels said.
‘Oh I love that he does that,’ Orange Dress giggled. ‘It’s so primal, so raw. There’s no greater feeling than having Ethan Chase pounding into you from behind.’
‘I love the oral sex, he’s so good at that,’ Pink Mini Skirt said.
‘Oh yes, he definitely has a routine but I could do that routine with him every night and never get bored, the man is a god,’ Orange Dress said.
Red Heels was watching her carefully. ‘What’s your favourite part of the sex?’
‘The kissing,’ Izzy said, immediately wishing she hadn’t joined in with the gossip.
Red Heels burst out laughing. ‘You haven’t slept with him have you? Ethan doesn’t kiss, ever.’
A cough sounded from behind the women and Izzy saw Ethan emerge from the shadows.
‘Ladies, is there a problem?’ Ethan said as he stared at Izzy.
They all turned to face him, flicking their hair and pushing out their breasts. ‘Ethan, hi,’ Red Heels giggled.
Without a word he strode towards Izzy, the women parted like the Red Sea and the next moment Ethan was kissing her hard, his arms around her as he held her tight against him. Instinctively her arms were around his neck, kissing him back, he tasted sublime. There wasn’t a single bone in her body that could stop him. He pulled away slightly, leaning his forehead against hers.
‘Come home with me. I need to be with you tonight.’
Izzy stared at him, seeing the fear and confusion in his eyes. But it wasn’t just a fear for what they were getting themselves into but a fear that she would say no. There was a part of her that was screaming at her to say no to him, knowing that he was going to break her when he had eventually had his fill, but the part of her that was slowly falling in love with him was far stronger. It was pathetic, she knew that, but there was nothing she could do about it. She stroked his face and as he saw her nod, relief washed over his face. He grabbed her hand and marched out, without another glance at the women who stared at Izzy with their mouths flapping open as Izzy hurried after him.
*
Izzy lay next to Ethan as early morning sunshine blazed through the windows. He was kissing her again, his hand in her hair, the other caressing down her bare back. Her heart was still pounding from the intense sex of moments before.
She pulled away slightly to look at him and he smiled at her. He had the most dazzling smile and it was all the more special because she didn’t see it very often.
He stared at her, his eyes scanning over her, drinking her all in. His hands trailed seductively over her scars, but the affection in his eyes didn’t waver at all.
‘Tell me about these.’
‘There’s not a lot to tell, my ex-boyfriend set fire to me.’
The smile fell from his face, the cold anger she normally associated with him returned. ‘What?’
‘Don’t look like that, it was an accident. He was an ass but he never would have done anything like that deliberately. We had been seeing each other for a few months and we had a barbeque. He got blind drunk, even before the other guests arrived. He was always getting drunk. I was trying to light the barbeque and Alex had the bright idea to use brandy to kick start it. Before I could even stop him he poured half a bottle over the coals, splashed me in the process. Flames exploded out of the barbeque and I got caught in the middle. He was quick though, threw me to the ground and put out the fire on my t-shirt before it could spread any further – but the damage was already done. It was agony. He rushed me to hospital and they dressed the wounds and dosed me up on painkillers but there was very little they could do about the scars. Alex could barely look at me after that. I’m not sure if it was out of guilt but every time we were together, he was repulsed by my scars. He even said they looked disgusting. It was heart-breaking. I thought he loved me, he’d never said the words but… he was always so touchy-feely. He loved sex with me and I guess I mistook that desire for love. He clearly didn’t love me if he couldn’t see past the scars. I was still the same person, the same girl that used to make him laugh, the same girl he was always proud to have on his arm. He never took me anywhere after that, we very rarely had sex, he barely even looked at me. He finished with me about two months later.’
‘Bastard.’
‘With hindsight, yes, but at the time I was devastated. I felt so hideous, I have for years.’
‘Nothing could be further from the truth. You are beautiful, you have no idea how much you turn me on.’
Ethan carried on stroking her scars gently.
‘You don’t have to touch them to prove you’re not bothered by them.’
His hand stilled on her stomach and he arched an eyebrow. ‘If I was trying to prove I’m not bothered by them I’d do this.’
He suddenly leaned forward and started kissing every single inch of her stomach with tiny featherlike kisses, tickling her and making her giggle.
‘Stop it,’ she laughed as she tried to wriggle from his grasp.
‘Nope, I still have five thousand more kisses to administer. One, two, three…’
‘Stop it.’
‘Oh you made me lose count. One, two…’
‘Ok, ok. I get it. You’re not bothered by my scars.’
He lifted his head and smiled at her. ‘Good.’
‘We should get to work, we’re late as it is,’ she said, staring into those intense blue eyes.
‘We don’t have any pick ups today, the boys won’t be in, we could take the day off.’
Ethan resumed kissing her for a few moments but she pulled away again.
‘And do what, stay here in bed all day?’
‘Now that sounds like a plan. But I was thinking we could go out. Greater Chessingburyford has a winter market on, the food there is amazing and there’s a big ferris wheel and real reindeer.’
‘Sounds very romantic,’ she arched an eyebrow at him and his smile faded. Why did she feel the need to push him? She was scared she was going to lose him, but if she kept pushing him like this she would. ‘I have to go to work, at least for a few hours, just to reply to any emails and check the diary for the weekend. We could go out this afternoon.’
Ethan sighed theatrically. ‘Ok, I’ll come in with you.’
‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea, I’ll get no work done at all with you staring at me across the desk.’
‘I can be good. I used to work there all the time without resorting to having sex on the desk half way through the day.’
‘Ok, no kissing, no touching.’
He held his hand up in a Boy Scout salute and then pulled her against him to kiss her again. She giggled against his mouth. ‘I said no kissing.’
‘We’re not at work yet, I need to take my fill now if I’m not allowed to touch you for the next few hours.’ He ran his mouth down her throat.
His words, his need for her filled her with so much hope and she relaxed into his embrace for a moment until she felt his hand wandering down to her bum.
‘Come on,’ she shifted out of his arms and he groaned. ‘You’re such a bad influence. I have a job to do and my boss is a grumpy sod so I best keep on his good side.’
He rolled onto his side to watch her as she walked round the bed into his bathroom. ‘If you were keeping on his good side, you’d still be lying in bed with him, not parading around the bedroom stark naked driving me insane.’
‘You have to learn some self-control,’ Izzy called as she washed her face in the sink. Strong hands were suddenly around her waist as he leaned into her back, kis
sing the top of her spine.
‘With you, I have none.’
*
Izzy leaned against the doorframe of the office as the icy winter wind swept round them. She didn’t feel the cold though, not as Ethan was wrapped around her, kissing her as if he wouldn’t see her for months. It was decided that Ethan wouldn’t stay with her in the office, as he’d tried it on with her in his shower, back at her place when she was getting changed and in the car on the way over. He really didn’t have any restraint. Now he was kissing her goodbye, but he’d been doing that for the last ten minutes.
The phone rang inside and Izzy pulled away. ‘You need to let me do my job, come back at lunchtime and we can do something then.’
He smirked. ‘There’s only one thing I want to do.’
Izzy laughed as she gave him a quick peck on the cheek and moved to answer the phone. She listened to the other person talk on the other end and waved goodbye to Ethan. He smiled wistfully and closed the door behind him.
She turned and fired up the computer, answering questions and asking some of her own as she waited for the diary to load. She made a booking and was just finishing off the call when she heard the door open behind her. Smiling at Ethan’s inability to leave her alone, she finished the call and turned to tell him off, coming face to face with Dan, the man who had been beating Ethan up just a few days before.
Chapter Eighteen
‘So it’s true, you and Ethan are together. He sleeps with my wife and when she leaves me for him, he doesn’t even want her. Why would he take my wife when he already has you?’
Izzy felt her mouth go dry at the hard edge in his eyes.
‘Ethan never slept with Miranda.’
‘Is that what he told you?’
‘Did Miranda say that he did?’
‘No, but something happened between them. I cannot believe that she left me just because he dragged her into the van and tied her up.’
‘Ethan didn’t kidnap her on his own, there would have been at least two other people with him. I doubt he would have had sex with her with people sitting next to him in the van, even if he wanted to sleep with a client. Being kidnapped is a big thrill for many of our clients. The whole experience from the grab to tying our clients up on the bed, it’s part of the foreplay and the women love it.’
He took a step towards her threateningly. ‘Are you saying that our sex life was so dull that one touch from another man, one moment of excitement and Miranda ran. We’ve been together for twelve years. We have a son, she left her son.’
‘I think it was a moment of madness. A need to feel that thrill in her life. I think you should fight for her. She’s probably sitting somewhere licking her wounds around about now and probably wants to come back but is too embarrassed to do so. Go and see her, ask her to come home.’
‘I’m not going to beg.’
‘Don’t let pride come between you.’
‘It’s easy for you to stand there and give me advice when you’ve got the man you love. But he won’t stay with you, you can be sure of that. By all accounts, he’s with a different woman each week.’
‘Well if it’s going to end, I’ll enjoy it whilst it lasts.’
Dan stared at her for a moment and walked out.
She watched the door close behind him and released the breath she didn’t realise she had been holding.
*
Ethan banged into the office a few hours later, grabbed her coat off the hook and came round the desk to offer it out to her.
‘You said you’d come back at lunch.’
‘No you said that, I didn’t agree to it. I got bored of waiting. Besides we can go out to lunch.’
‘It’s half eleven.’
‘Well I can certainly think of something we can do while we wait for lunchtime.’ He unzipped his leather jacket and threw it over the back of the sofa. Throwing hers on top, he held out his hand for her.
She smiled. ‘I have two more emails I need to send, then we can go out,’ she said, pointedly ignoring his offer of sex.
He took her hand anyway and pulled her to her feet. He slid into the chair and pulled her down on to his lap.
‘Do the emails, I can be patient.’
She resumed writing the email, answering the questions of the potential client as Ethan snaked his hands round her waist, pressing his hot mouth to her neck. She closed her eyes for a second. What was it about his touch that sent her over the edge? No other man had ever had this effect on her. All she could think about was sex with him. It seemed that’s all he could think about as well.
His mouth travelled round the back of her neck as she tried to focus on the words in the email.
His hand skimmed up her body, touching her breast briefly before sliding over her neck, angling her head so he had better access to kiss just below her ear. Desire crashed through her, her head lolling onto his shoulder involuntarily. His hands traversed back down her body to the bottom of her dress and as his hands moved slowly back up, he started dragging her dress back up with them.
His mouth was adorning her with hot kisses across her neck and onto her collarbone when suddenly he stopped, snatching his mouth away.
‘You’re wearing tights.’
‘What did you expect, stockings and suspenders?’
‘No woman I’ve been with has ever worn tights, especially not thick green knitted tights.’
‘What do they all wear?’
‘Well based on where the evening normally ends, the women wear very little.’
Izzy couldn’t imagine ever going out wearing no pants, what if there was a big gust of wind, what if she had to bend over or… ride a horse. Someone would see. Wouldn’t it be cold walking along with your bits exposed to the elements? The women Ethan dated lived in a different world to Izzy, a world where sex appeal came miles before practicalities and comfort.
She glanced down at the gusset of her tights, a bit bobbly from the amount of times they’d been washed. There was nothing attractive or alluring about her green tights.
‘They aren’t very sexy, are they,’ Izzy said, pulling her dress back down to cover them up but Ethan stopped her. He swivelled her sideways so he was cradling her on his lap.
‘You don’t know what you mean to me, how much you turn me on. I have never wanted a woman as much as I want you. Being with you is never enough. Every time we make love is like eating the best dessert I’ve ever tasted but I immediately want to do it again and again. Every single thing about you is sexy Isabelle Franklin. Your hair…’ he kissed her on her head. ‘Your beautiful silvery grey eyes,’ he kissed each eye. ‘The softness of your skin,’ he kissed her cheeks. ‘Your throat, and when I kiss you here’ he kissed her neck just below her jaw, ‘I can feel your pulse hammering against my lips and that is incredibly sexy. These breasts,’ he flashed her a mischievous grin before he placed a chaste kiss on her cleavage, ‘are very sexy.’ He ran his hands under her dress, caressing her stomach and her scars. ‘These scars are very sexy.’
He was full of shit, there was no way that her scars could be sexy. ‘Do you talk to all the women like this? No wonder they’re falling over themselves to sleep with you if you’re laying on all the charm like this.’
‘There’s very little talk that goes on during my dates and I know you don’t believe me about your scars but it’s true. They are part of you – like your fingers and toes, your bum, your hands, your legs, your nose, your mouth – and every part is sexy to me.’
She looked at him, sincerity and adoration shining from his eyes. She reached up and kissed him hard and he responded as he pulled her tighter against him.
‘Including these tights?’
‘Yes especially the tights, although as sexy as they are, they need to come off.’ He yanked both boots off her feet and threw them across the room and her tights and pants quickly followed.
She giggled as they landed on the filing cabinet but the laugh died in her throat as Ethan’s hand slid between her legs.
*
Izzy eyed Ethan across the room as she finished off the last email. Temporarily sated now, he was happy to wait for her to finish her work. He pulled on his jacket and held hers for her while he stood patiently by the door.
She pressed send, logged off and came to join him as he slipped her coat round her shoulders and with his arm round her waist he escorted her out the door. Who knew that Ethan Chase had a gentlemanly side?
The drive to Greater Chessingburyford was short but Izzy loved that Ethan drove holding her hand for almost the entire trip. When he had to relinquish her hand to change gear or indicate, it was only for a few seconds before he entwined his fingers with hers again. Their relationship had moved so quickly. What had started as a quick shag had escalated within a few days to something deeper, something special to him and to her. They hadn’t reached the stage where she could call him her boyfriend yet, Ethan would freak out if she ever called him that, but it was clear this was so much more than just sex for him.
Ethan parked the car at the back of a tiny stone church and as soon as she got out, he wrapped his arm round her shoulders, pulling her to him for a sweet kiss.
‘We should get some hot chocolate first, we can get different flavours, there’s gingerbread, white chocolate, rum, it’s delicious and they serve them in real mugs.’
She smiled at his enthusiasm as he led her to the stall. He ordered a fudge hot chocolate and she ordered a mint one. They came in big ceramic mugs overflowing with a huge mountain of whipped cream and marshmallows. He took a big swig and when he lowered his cup he had cream on his top lip, nestled in the smattering of stubble. She reached up and wiped it off him and watched as a flash of warmth crossed his face.
‘I was hoping you might use your mouth,’ he flashed her a look of mischief.
‘Did you get cream on your lip on purpose?’
‘I would never do anything as underhand as that.’ He took another big swig and this time the amount of cream on his face was a lot more than last time.
Tied up With Love Page 19