I dug my heels into the bed when he ran his fist down hard to my base, twisting his grip as he slowly stroked back up. I cried out his name when I knew I couldn’t hold back anymore, spasming in his hand as warm jets of come striped my stomach and chest.
He stroked me through my orgasm, slowing his hips until I was spent. When I finally opened my eyes, his expression was all lust and restrained need. Digging my heels into the bed once again, I rocked up against him. He released his hold on my shaft and pulled back slightly, thrusting harder and faster, his eyes never leaving mine. A guttural sound escaped him as his body tensed and stilled, his eyes closing as his own orgasm overwhelmed him. His body shook as he emptied himself into the condom, and I arched up one last time when I felt his dick spasm deep inside me with every pulse of come.
As awareness finally crept back in, Ethan gently pulled out of me, and the loss of him was almost painful. After so long without his touch, I didn’t want him to go. As if sensing my unspoken thoughts, Ethan leaned in and kissed the back of my neck. “Don’t move.”
I chuckled softly as he crawled off the bed, muttering under my breath, “Bossy.” Chuckling was better than freaking out right now, right?
His smirked over his shoulder and disappeared into the bathroom. As the sound of running water drifted into the room, I laid my head back down. I didn’t have any regrets, but I couldn’t stop the questions suddenly racing through my head. What happened now?
A movement by the bathroom pulled me out of my head, and I looked up to see Ethan leaning against the door. How long he’d been standing there, I hadn’t a clue. The light played off his long, lean body, accentuating his muscles and angles in a way that had my body aching for more of him.
When my eyes finally stopped raking over his body and landed on his face, he tilted his head. “Stop thinking and get your ass in the shower with me. We’ll figure things out...I promise.”
I pushed all my doubts and questions to the back of my mind, then eased off the bed and followed him into the bathroom. This wasn’t the time to talk. Right now, no words were needed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jamie
When I woke up in the middle of the night, I was sore in a way I hadn’t been in years. I scrubbed my hand over my face and rolled over. Ethan’s back was to me, his hands curled under his pillow and his body uncharacteristically still as he snored lightly. I wasn’t sure why seeing him still in bed with me surprised me, but it did. It was horrible to admit, but when I had finally given up and closed my eyes to sleep, I wondered if I would be waking up alone.
Now, waking up with him in my bed, I wasn’t any clearer on what today or the next week would bring us. Unable to stop myself, I leaned over his sleeping body and lightly traced the ink on his shoulder and back with my forefinger. I smiled when the muscles under his skin twitched. Unable to resist, I bent down and kissed the tip of the phoenix’s tail.
My teeth had just barely grazed his skin when he rolled to face me. His green eyes conveyed a hint of the passion I’d glimpsed last night, but I also saw other emotions reflected in them. Confusion? Doubt? Hope? As wonderful as last night had been, what I’d just seen in his eyes told me we needed to talk much more than we needed to continue where we left off.
Leaning up on my elbow, I shifted my weight away from him. “Morning.”
He paused for a second, his eyes roaming over my face, searching for something. His expression softened, the wariness in his eyes lessening as he smiled shyly and pulled me back toward him. “Morning.”
My body instantly relaxed and I settled closer to him. I still wasn’t sure where last night put us, but this was a start.
My eyes closed when his fingertips began to rub small circles on my back. I would be sore for a few days, but his fingers on my skin made all the tension I’d woken up with dissipate. We stayed like that for a few moments, content with the silence between us, watching the sun slowly creep into the room through the curtains over the window. When his fingers stilled on my skin, I took a deep breath.
“Did you—”
“Are you—”
We both laughed as I rolled away from his body so I could see his face. “You first.”
“Jesus, have we always been this awkward, or is it just me? On second thought, don’t answer that.” Ethan scrubbed a hand over his face and stretched his arms and legs, rolling to his side to mirror my position. His expression turned serious as he searched my face.
“You okay?”
I looked at his neck and throat, remembering all the ways my tongue had worshipped those areas last night. “A little sore, but I’m good. Promise.”
It was difficult to gauge where his head was at. “Are you good? With this?” I waved a hand between us.
He didn’t answer and for a split second I was afraid he was going to run. Instead he nodded. “I’m fine. Well, no, I’m not. I’m scared shitless. But I’m tired of running away from this. From you.”
My heart hammered in my chest as Ethan stared at me, his eyes full of questions. I leaned forward and gently kissed him. His breath caught and he moved to pull me closer. This wasn’t just sex between us, this was more. So much more. I swept my tongue over his bottom lip, smiling when he breathed out, his lips slowly parting for me. Giving him the only answer I knew at the moment, I kissed him slowly, infusing all my longing for him into it. I had no clue where all of this would take us, but living without him in my life for the past eight years convinced me of one thing. I wanted him. All of him.
We stayed like that, gently exploring each other’s mouths, until he rolled onto his back and pulled me down against him. I rested my head on his chest.
“What are we doing, Jamie?”
When I stilled and tried to pull away, he wrapped his arms tighter around me, keeping me against his body.
“Let me try again. I guess I’m just wondering where we go from here? I mean, I don’t even know where you live right now.”
I settled back into his arms, luxuriating in the feel of them. “In Midtown, in a townhouse you would probably hate because it’s ultramodern with a lot of whites, tans and stainless steel. I haven’t really been there enough since I bought it to do much with it. Now that I think about it, it kind of reminds me of my parents’ condo. State of the art, but cold.”
He was silent, so I continued. “You’d like the location, though. Walking distance to a lot of good restaurants. And Times Square is just far enough the foot traffic doesn’t crowd my building, but close enough I can still enjoy going there when I want.”
His fingers began tracing patterns on my back again, slowly coaxing more out of me. “On Sundays, there’s an open market in Queens I like to go to when I’m in town. There’s usually live music, and even though it’s not as big as the one in Union Square, I love it because it hasn’t been overrun by tourists yet. It’s a great place to find really good local produce without the hassle of the huge crowds.”
“Is it like the one we used to go to?”
I nodded and was thankful our positions hid my sad smile as I thought back to the days where we would scour the local farmers’ markets for quality food at reasonable prices. It was a perfect place for two foodies on a budget. “I loved going there with you. Remember the feast we had on Thanksgiving? And Claire’s horror when you told her we had bought a free-range tofurkey at the market instead of a bird?”
My head wiggled as he laughed. “I thought she was going to shit right there in the living room. Then she tore through all the bags to see if I was lying. Thank god, she finally forgave me. For months I was afraid she was going to maim me in my sleep.”
I looked up at him, smirking when I saw his huge grin. “I would have protected you.”
He snickered and my amusement shifted to indignation as something clicked into place. “Hey. You made me sleep on the side of the bed
closest to the door for a week after that happened, complaining about lumps in the mattress. You were using me as a human shield, weren’t you?”
He pulled me back down against his chest and continued tracing his lazy circles on my back. “She wouldn’t have hurt you. She loved you.” He paused, his hand cupping the back of my neck and then squeezing. “She still does.”
Not knowing how to respond, I turned and ghosted my lips over his chest.
“I used to go to them in Paris, you know. Farmers’ markets. It was the one thing I did while I was there that made me feel closer to you.”
He dipped his head to the side, but I couldn’t meet his eyes.
“There was a farmers’ market in the Marais not too far from my apartment. It was open most weekends, but one weekend a month, they went full out and pulled in more vendors and farmers. I used to walk the stalls on the weekends I wasn’t busy with school, just taking it all in, occasionally buying fresh fruit or a treat to bring back to make in our tiny kitchen. The Moroccan food I found there was the best I’ve ever eaten.”
I cleared my throat, trying to swallow the lump that had suddenly formed in it. “I always went by myself, so I could imagine you were meeting me there and we could walk the market together. As I got closer to the end of the stalls, my chest would ache because it was all just a fantasy and you were still back in Seattle, thousands of miles away. On the days when it was too much, I would walk over to the Seine and just look out over the river for hours.”
Ethan shifted, pulling me closer so we could see each other better. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about the market? Why didn’t you ever tell me about any of this?”
This particular conversation was long overdue. “It was already hard enough being away from you. I missed you like I was missing a part of myself, and I didn’t want it to affect your life back in Seattle. You were so happy for me when I won the scholarship, Ethan. I didn’t want to sound like an ungrateful shit for having pity parties on the weekends when I didn’t have enough going on to keep me distracted. The further I got into the semester, the farther apart we seemed to drift. We fought more, talked less, and blamed each other for the frustration we felt from being on different continents. I felt like if I told you, it would be laying a guilt trip on you.”
I closed my eyes to hide the pain that still lingered from those dark days toward the end of my stay in Paris. But Ethan’s strong hands pulled me closer.
“Come here.”
He never took his eyes off mine as I inched nearer. “Thank you for telling me, but you should know one thing. There hasn’t been a single day I haven’t missed you. Missed this.”
When I began to protest, he stopped me by putting his finger to my lips. “Yes, I was pissed off. And hurt. And I wanted to kill Trustfund on several occasions. But I never stopped missing you.”
The pain in my chest loosened a little and I lightly kissed his finger. “To answer your earlier question, I have no clue what we’re doing, Ethan. I have no idea what the rest of today will bring, or tomorrow, or next week. I know you live here and I live in New York and when I leave it will feel like we’re worlds away again. I don’t know what to do about my career. I’m ready to chuck it all away because I miss being in the kitchen more than I can ever tell you. All I do know is I want to try, harder than either of us did eight years ago. We didn’t do such a good job the first time we did this, and I think I’m finally ready. Because you’re worth it. We’re worth it.”
Ethan nodded and framed my face with his hands, his thumbs rubbing gently over my cheekbones. I leaned into his touch.
An alarm began blaring from the other room.
“Shit.” Ethan’s response to his phone’s alarm summed up exactly how I felt at being dragged out of the quiet bubble and back into the real world again.
We both sat up. I spent a moment admiring his perfectly sculpted ass as he got out of bed and walked into the front room of the apartment. I followed him out to the dining area, a wave of embarrassment washing over me when I saw the mess we had made in here the night before. He swiped his phone’s screen, then the annoying alarm went silent. When he looked at me, his expression was guarded, hesitant.
“I have to be at work soon. There’s been...let’s just say I can’t afford to miss another day of work right now.”
He paused, seeming to struggle with what to say next. I walked over to him, smiling as I kissed him gently.
“Go to work. Cal deserves a break after covering for both you and Claire last night. Plus, who else would terrorize poor Tyler?”
“Jamie—”
My phone chimed, signaling a text coming through and cutting off whatever he was about to say. I checked the message while Ethan pulled on his pants. Feeling a bit under dressed at the moment, I slipped back into the bedroom, rifling through my bag until I found a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. When I emerged, a fully dressed Ethan was in the kitchen gathering up the last of his supplies from last night. Without speaking, we quickly cleaned up the mess we’d made and I made a mental note to replace anything broken in our haste to reconnect.
I watched him as he set everything by the door, then turned back to face me. With a nervousness I hadn’t witnessed very often in him, Ethan framed my face with his hands and kissed me deeply. When he broke the kiss, he leaned his forehead against mine.
“I’ll be at the restaurant all day. But...”
I smiled and kissed him one last time. “I’m not going anywhere yet, Ethan. I still have one more week in town.”
He pulled back. “Give me your phone.”
He held out his hand and took it, quickly typing in his number. His phone began to ring in his pants pocket. He hit End and handed my phone back.
“Now you know how to reach me besides the restaurant.”
“Okay.”
Reluctantly, he finally released me and gathered his bags at the door. I opened it for him and felt the ache in my chest come thundering back as he moved across the threshold. Without another word, he nodded to me and then walked off without looking back.
I shut the door and leaned against it, my heart pounding inside my chest as every instinct in me told me to ask him to stay. My phone’s chime saved me from making a fool out of myself. A quick swipe of my finger called up the latest text message from Trevor. I replied, then set off for the bathroom for a quick shower.
As much as I wanted to chase Ethan down and haul him back to bed, the real world and all its responsibilities had other plans for me. I had my own work to do today, things that would no doubt be nasty to deal with, but couldn’t be put off any longer.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ethan
The kitchen was a flurry of movement and noise as we prepped for the dinner rush. I tried to concentrate on the pork chops in front of me but my mind kept replaying the events of last night. Jamie’s body under mine. The way his hands had dug into the small of my back, pulling me harder against him. And the shower afterward? The glazed look in his eyes as I laved my tongue up and down his shaft. His guttural cry of pleasure when I took him deep down my throat as he came. All of it had me sporting wood, aching to feel his skin under my fingers again.
The sudden crash behind me silenced everything, save for Eddie Vedder’s voice echoing through the speakers. My hands stilled over the pork chops I was preparing. “Son of a bitch.” Without turning around, I snarled, “I’m going to give whoever dropped that shit exactly one minute to clean up. We haven’t spent the past week cleaning this kitchen until it’s spotless to pass inspection for you to fuck it all up again.”
A chorus of “Yes, Chef” rang out behind me and the flurry of movement kicked into high gear. When I looked up, I caught Tyler and one of the waitresses carrying a huge dripping stainless steel bowl over to the sink.
When I laid down my knife and turned in their direction,
ready to rip someone a new asshole for dumping the maple glaze for the pork chops I was working on, I found myself looking directly into the narrowed eyes of my little sister.
“Was your intent to butterfly that or to create a new form of weird-ass food art? You’re mutilating the poor piece of meat.”
I turned back to the pork chop on the cutting board in front of me, picked up my knife. “I’m quite good with all forms of meat, little sister. Now leave me alone and let me go back to work. You know? That thing we’re all supposed to be doing around here? Instead of dropping shit and giving the boss a hard time?”
A steel grip fastened around my bicep, pausing my next slice through the admittedly ruined remains of the chop I had been working on.
“You. Outside. I don’t even give a crap if you blow through your entire pack of smokes. You need a break.”
I glared at her, but I set the knife down and brushed off her arm. “No one burn the place down for five minutes.”
Head held high, I marched over to the sink and washed my hands. After a brutally harsh scrubbing, I threw the hand towel across the kitchen and followed her outside. As soon as the door slammed shut behind us, I turned on Claire. “What the fuck? I really don’t appreciate you undermining me in front of the staff, Claire.”
“You know what I don’t appreciate, Ethan? You prowling around like you’ve got a stick up your ass and barking orders at us like we can’t function without you micromanaging for five goddamn seconds. What the hell has gotten into you? I’d have thought you and Jamie would have at least gotten your shit sorted out last night.”
I knew my eyes narrowed at her words. I yanked out a smoke and lit up.
“I wouldn’t have to bark orders if the staff could refrain from dumping food all over the goddamn place.”
“Stop avoiding the issue here. You two did get your shit sorted, right? I mean, you had the whole night. You had to have gotten at least some of it sorted.”
I shrugged.
In the Fire Page 20