by P. Dangelico
I glance at my iPhone. Ten past midnight. Throwing off the covers, I march out of my room and head for the one two doors down without bothering to put anything else on. I’m in my shorts and tank top and too mad to give a damn. At my quiet knock, he says, “Who is it?”
“Your beard.”
Without waiting for a response, I enter and find him in bed––naked. By the look of the sheet barely covering his privates, the only thing he seems to be wearing are his reading glasses…I think I just felt an egg travel down my fallopian tube.
He places down the book he was reading, and regards me curiously. His brow quirks up.
“I can’t sleep,” I huff.
“I see that.”
“Because I’m fuming.”
He sits up in bed, clutching the sheet to that winning six pack, his expression alert. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like the way they treated you at dinner.” The tension on his face eases. Mine doesn’t.
“That’s what they do. They don’t mean anything by it.”
I couldn’t care less what they mean by it. I. Don’t. Like. It. Their casual ribbing resulted in me watching a man I respect and care for, a good man when everyone knows there aren’t a lot of ‘em out there, a man that is most of the time good humored and upbeat, turn into an ice sculpture. Fuck that. Not on my watch.
“Get out of bed.”
“What?”
“Get out of bed.”
“You’re starting to worry me, Jones.”
“Do I have to ask again?”
He breathes out a tired sigh. “Turn around.”
“Why?”
“Because I sleep naked.” Oh sweet baby Jeezus. “My pants are on the chair.” Instantly, I’m picturing the monster that lives between his legs in all its glory. Triple sigh with a back flip. Heat flares up my neck and south of my waist. Time to implement my plan before I forget what I came here for.
“Oooohh. Ooohh, yeah.”
“Jones?”
“Ooooohh, oh, God. Ethan don’t stop,” I moan a ton louder this time. Then whisper hiss, “Are you decent?”
I get a cough, a clearing of the throat, and a muttered, “I guess.”
As soon as I turn, I’m confronted with the reason for the strange reply. Ethan is standing at the foot of the bed, pajama bottoms hanging low, with an enormous hard-on he’s trying and failing to hide under his hands. I mean…
“Ignore it,” he mutters.
Umm, yeah, sure, like traipsing through the desert and trying to ignore the oasis in my freaking face. Welcome to my theater of pain.
I walk over to the foot of the bed with my eyes aimed above his neck. And he’s not fairing any better. Eyes wide, jaw locked, a streak of color across his cheekbones, he presses down on the kick stand in his pants and it bounces back––with force.
“Ooohh, God. Oooohh, God. Ethan, don’t stop. Whatever you do, do not stop, baby.”
I push the bed and it makes a loud thump. Eyebrows raised, he smiles and I smile back. Then he helps me shove the bed against the wall.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Ethan. Yes, like that! Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m coming so hard, baby!” My throat will definitely be sore tomorrow. “So hard. I’m coming. I’m coming. Yes! Yes! Yessssss!”
Falling backward on the bed, I say, “And the Oscar goes to…you think they heard?” I pick my head up off the bed to get a load of his reaction.
“The neighborhood heard,” he says, chuckling, his bright grin stretching from ear to ear. My heart keeps doing things it’s not supposed to at the sight of that smile.
“I’m sleeping in here tonight.”
“Okay.” His smile broadens. Ugh, be still my stupid heart.
“But you’re keeping your bottoms on.”
“Okay.”
“And your man parts on your side of the bed.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I say as I crawl into bed.
He turns the lamp off and the room descends into darkness, his features outlined by a dim nightlight. I tuck my hand under my face and watch him get into bed, his eyes steadfast on me. This isn’t the first time we’ve shared a bed. It’s the first time I’ve been genuinely nervous, though.
“Is it hard for you to see them together?”
He gets comfortable. Barely twelve inches separate us as we lay face to face. “No,” he answers without hesitation.
“And the baby?”
He shrugs. “I’m happy for them.”
Nothing in his demeanor tells me he’s dissembling. “Did she break your heart?”
I’m pressing. I know I am. Part of me hopes he says yes, that if I can torture myself enough for it to be really painful it will put an end to this ridiculous crush I have on him.
Slowly, he reaches over and tucks a loose strand of my hair behind my ear as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, as if he’s done it a million times. My breath hitches and my stomach feels weightless, suspended in the moment. I want to touch him too. I want so badly to reach over and touch him that I grip my pillow to stop myself.
His gaze lingers on my ear. “She didn’t.”
“But you were in love with her when it happened?”
His long lashes lower as he thinks it over. “At the time, I thought I was.”
“What do you mean?” I say, when what I really want to say is, Why did you love her? What made her special, and why didn’t she break your heart? A thousand questions are begging to be asked. I keep them all to myself.
His gaze moves between my eyes and mouth. “She was my first girlfriend…in hindsight it was more like puppy love. I was in awe of her. With her relentless drive to achieve her goal of turning pro and ranking.” In the pause, his unguarded eyes seek mine. “She didn’t break my heart. My brother did.”
“You guys didn’t talk at dinner.”
The hurt and frustration in his eyes is hard to miss. I send up a silent prayer for Jake to get his shit together and reach out to his brother.
“No,” he says with unmistakable longing in his voice. “When we were kids, I worshipped him. Remember when I told you how sick I was?”
All I can do is nod. The way he keeps playing with the loose ends of my hair puts me under a spell, quiets my mind and soothes the frayed edges of my emotions.
“I didn’t have any friends because I was always in and out of hospitals. My mother was always pulling me out of school. And because I couldn’t eat without getting sick, I was small for my age.”
Stop. Please stop, my mind keeps saying while my poor heart bleeds in silence. I can’t take much more of this. One more sad story and I’ll start to cry.
“By the time I started feeling better I was around eleven…Jake was fifteen so, yeah, I was eleven,” he repeats. “He was always popular. Always had friends over. I would follow them around. It used to annoy the shit out of him,” he adds with a small chuckle.
“They would party in the woods behind our home in Westchester. And I would follow and get him in trouble with my father. Eventually he got tired of getting busted and let me stay. After that, we were tight.”
“Until you brought Hope home for Christmas.”
His gaze moves to my lips. He looks lost in the memory. His mouth curves up on one side, the smile sad. “I should’ve seen it. He never acted that way with a woman before, and he went through a lot of them.”
“Hmm, what a shocker.” In understanding, he gives me a brief smile. “Why haven’t you dated anyone since then?”
The pause is heavy. As if we’ve reached a critical point in the conversation––and our friendship.
“I haven’t met anybody I want to spend my life with.” Life? Err, I said date. “I’ve dated. Nothing serious, though…remember Jane?”
Ugh, Jane. I knew it. I knew it. Rolling onto my back, I stare at the ceiling. Anything is more appealing that watching hearts appear in his eyes for Jane. “Yeah, I remember how you gushed and preened.”
His laugh i
s low and soft and makes my heart hurt. I love hearing him laugh. It’s on my list of favorite things.
“I did not preen, or gush.”
I sense amusement even though I can barely make out his features. He gets up on an elbow and stares down, the space between us crackling with sexual tension.
“Did you sleep with her?” I sound bitchy, I know I do. But I can’t manage to hide my feelings anymore. I am downright exhausted from hiding my feelings. Exhausted.
“Yes. On and off over the years. We were both busy with our careers.” I sneak a quick peek and find him watching me with a soft smile on his face. “We saw each other when we could… no questions asked. She’s was a good friend, is a good friend. We met in law school.”
Good friend, my ass. Justin is a good friend and I have no desire to play hide the salami with him. Not even for convenience. Not even out of desperation. I’ll shut up now. I’ll shut up because if I open my trap I’ll say stuff I shouldn’t.
“She’s also happily married.”
“So she broke it off. Otherwise you’d still be with her.” I refuse to look at him. I refuse to see the longing on his face for Jane.
He remains quiet, which of course compels me to look at him. He’s wearing that lopsided grin I hate to love. But it gets worse. He rakes my hair back and I almost scream from the pleasure, from the sense of connection a mere stroke of his fingers in my hair invokes.
“Don’t be mad.”
“Mad? Why would I be mad?”
“I know when you’re mad…I know when you’re trying to be mad and failing. I know when you try to hide that you’re mad. I know every single one of your countless emotions.”
This is not going to end well for me. Every word he speaks makes me wish for things I can’t have. Not with him.
All of a sudden he grabs me and pulls me closer, my back to his chest. I don’t move a hair or utter a word. For a second I contemplate asking him what’s gotten into him but change my mind just as swiftly. I don’t want to discourage whatever has gotten into him. I whole-heartedly approve of whatever it is that’s gotten into him.
“She works in tech and lives in Silicon Valley,” he murmurs in my ear. I shiver at the feel of his breath on my skin, at the feel of him wrapped around me. “At least, she did. The flying back and forth got to be too much and we decided to take a break. She met Scott a month later and they eloped shortly after that.”
“Sounds rash.”
“When you know you know.”
“That’s ridiculous. How could you possibly know if someone is right for you in such a short amount of time?”
“Some of us know right away.” The determination in his voice causes me to look over my shoulder. The gaze that meets mine is committed, unwavering. For a minute I think he might kiss me, that he might actually do it this time.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he murmurs with a rasp that says given half the chance he would fuck me dead. And I am this close to begging him to do just that.
“Like what? I barely looked at you.”
“Like you want me to kiss you.” Before I can start to argue, he holds me closer, his lips on my ear, his nose in my hair. “When I kiss you, it won’t stop there…and that’s not happening here.” Grabbing my hips possessively, he pulls them back into his groin, my ass crashing into his raging hard-on, while I suck in a shocked gasp.
“I should probably go back to my room.” He shakes his head.
“Ethan,” I say, desperation ringing loudly in my voice. He snuggles closer, his nose in my hair, the steady beat of his gorgeous heart against my back. Tucked into the safe harbor of his body, I breathe out a sigh of relief and breathe in a sigh of contentment. I’m content for the first time in forever.
“Go to sleep, Amber.” Seconds later, a sense of peace steals all my apprehension away. I sleep like a rock through the night. No battery operated book boyfriends required.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next morning I wake to an empty bed. By the looks of the clothes on the floor, Mr. Perfect went for a run. I get ready and head downstairs only to catch him on his way up to get me. I try my best to not look awkward considering the turn of events last night while he looks…blank. Judging from his expression, it never happened––except it did.
His eyes do the slow crawl from my vintage Rolling Stones t-shirt, to my black jeans, down to the black Gazelles. His eyes settle back on the Stones t-shirt.
“Favorite song?”
I give him a look of serious disappointment. “Sympathy for the Devil, obviously.”
“Obviously,” he responds with a slight lift of a sexy brow.
“You?”
“A tie between Start Me Up and Beast of Burden.”
“Figures.”
“Come on. Let’s go home.”
Home. Something in the way he says it sticks in my craw. I shouldn’t like hearing him call it that, and yet…
We find his father, Jake and Hope, and a few more family members on the patio having brunch. Every single one of them gives us a queer look. Except for his father––his father smiles broadly. I’m guessing my little ploy worked. Ethan kisses Norma. I get a suffocating albeit nice hug from the Honorable Judge Vaughn. We say our goodbyes and depart.
“Why don’t you know how to drive?” Ethan says. Ahead of us, traffic crawls to a stop.
Talk about a loaded question. I’m riding the crest of a good mood. The last thing I want to do is talk about my childhood. After last night, however, it feels petty to hold out on him.
“Yeah, driving around in a hearse would’ve done wonders for my popularity.”
“A hearse?” That got his attention. He’s watching me now.
“Eyes on the road, Fancy Pants. Traffic’s moving. It’s the only car my grandmother owned.”
“Why would she own a hearse?”
“Because she owned a funeral home. We lived upstairs.”
He side-eyes me, assessing whether I’m messing with him by the looks of it. Whatever he finds convinces him. “Holy shit,” he says with a bark of laughter.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Hmm.”
“What’s up with Norma? Why would you agree to have her set you up?” Then it dawns upon me. “Unless you’re fine being set up with women.”
“No,” he says, before I even finish. He sighs, his eyes shifting back and forth from me to the road. “My mother was her only daughter, and the baby. Norma took it the hardest. Sometimes I think harder than my father.” He shrugs and squirms in his seat. “I started spending a lot of time with her because I was scared she would…she was really depressed. Since then, I’ve always been closer to her than anyone else.”
“Hmm. You think she would’ve hurt herself?”
“I don’t know…at the time it sure seemed that way. We helped each other. She kept my mind off my mother, that’s for sure.”
“So you indulge her.”
He shrugs. “It makes her happy, and it wasn’t a big deal when she was setting me up with women.”
The thought of him going on dates makes me cringe. His phone starts ringing. Glancing at the screen, he frowns and answers it. I listen to him bullshit with one of his client’s family members, a brother or uncle or something, for a time I deem far too long. He hangs up and briefly glances at me.
“I’m leaving in a couple of days for the draft.”
“How long?”
“Two weeks. Try not to miss me too much.”
Glancing sideways, I catch him wearing a shit eating grin. I can’t keep from returning a smile of my own. “I’ll try my best.”
“Get dressed.”
“No.” I burrow deeper under the covers and shove my head under the pillow. Two bartenders called in sick last night, leaving me to man the bar on a Saturday with only one other fellow bartender. Practically crippled, I stumbled in the door at three am.
“Get dressed now.” I feel the bed dip beside me. With a woosh, my pillow is gone.
> “Hey!!!” I screech and cover my head with the blanket. That’s when I feel a large body straddling me. The blanket is ripped down and I’m staring up at the determined expression of a soon to be dead man. “Do you have a death wish?”
“Get dressed.”
“You’re a New York minute from being murdered by dragon breath,” I growl. It’s definitely a growl.
He hops off the bed and before I know what’s what, he rips the cover away, grabs me by the arm, and throws me over his shoulder. I scream. He slaps my ass, throws me into our newly remodeled bathroom, and slams the door shut, holding it closed from the other side.
“Have you lost your ever loving mind?!” No answer. Not even a peep. “I guess that’s a yes!” I turn on the shower and begrudgingly divest myself of t-shirt and underwear.
“I don’t have time to sweet talk you into it. Get going.”
“Sweet talk me? When have you ever––”
“That’s my point, Jones,” he says, interrupting. “You’re so clueless, you don’t even notice when I’m doing it. That’s why the change of strategy. Art of War and all that.”
“Art of War, my ass. I wrote that book, Vaughn. And you’ll pay for this.”
He won’t. But I’m having too much fun. I get under the hot jet spray of the new shower. I shouldn’t be smiling like a loon. I shouldn’t be. But I am.
Twenty minutes later I’m riding shotgun in Fancy’s Audi headed who the heck knows where. The sun is out. A dust of green coats the trees, signaling that spring is finally here. Despite that I’m a total train wreck, I’m enjoying myself. However––I’d flay myself alive before I’d ever admit that to him.
“Do you derive some kind of sick pleasure from torturing me?” I mutter with my head in hands.
“What a stupid question, Jones. You know I do.”
“I need, like, three more Monster drinks right now just to hold my head up. I hate you.”
“You love me. You can’t stand how much you love me.”