by Rian Kelley
He had watched her the whole time, his gaze commanding hers, and by the time he’d knelt in front of her and lifted her legs over his shoulders, she was trembling with a profound need that was as much emotional as physical.
“Watch me, Shae,” he’d demanded and she had, noticing the flush of arousal on his face but also the softness of emotion.
He’d buried his face in her sex then, stroked her deeply with his tongue, and suckled her clitoris. He’d courted her climax, controlled it, so that when she was ready he lowered her to the bed, planted her feet firmly against his shoulders, and entered her. His eyelids fluttered, but he maintained eye contact. As her body clenched around his shaft, his jaw flexed. He thrust deeply, withdrew with an agonizing slowness only to claim her again with a slow, steady stroke that stole her breath. And she watched how it affected him, as his eyes darkened, his pupils dilated.
Joining like that had been all about emotional sharing and Shae still felt a little exposed.
He released his hand and wrapped it around her nape to pull her close. His kiss was slow and seductive. He stroked her lips with his tongue, then opened his mouth over hers, slipping inside to taste her. Shae followed his lead, tangling her tongue with his.
He pulled back. “It’s almost quitting time,” he said and Shae glanced at the clock on the computer screen.
“What do you think about skipping the surf tonight and having dinner out instead?” she posed. “You know, somewhere we actually have to wear a shirt and shoes?”
He nodded. “I’d love to.” He smoothed a lock of hair back from her face and sat down in the chair next to the desk. “What are you doing over here?”
She usually curled up with the Tablet on the big cushions next to the windows.
“Research.”
An eyebrow rose in question. “What kind?’
“War. Deployment. Servicemen. That kind.”
“What did you learn?”
“I’m still thinking about it.”
“Give me the gist,” he pressed.
She shrugged and pushed back in her chair, raised her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Stress,” she said simply. “You know, there are different kinds. I mean, we all know that, right? But military personnel get a whole lot more, and its concentrated, bigger, digs deeper. You’re constantly on, always ready, and know the result if you’re not.”
“Death, usually,” he said.
“Yes, which just adds to the stress. It’s like being in a perpetual state of emergency. No one can live like that.”
“And yet we must.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “And you can’t just shake something like that.”
“Meaning what?”
Nervousness made Shae’s hands flutter. “Is the screenplay your first attempt at working through this?”
He nodded. “Guys aren’t big on talk. Not about the important stuff. I never was, anyway. I guess we decompressed a little by joking about it, finding levity wherever we could. And I have a buddy, Chad. We served together, we’re partners in Absolute Cinema.”
“But you never really talked about any of it?”
“Not in detail, no.”
“A lot of men and women in the military have a tough time transitioning home after deployment,” Shae said.
“It’s hard finding normal after crawling around in the desert, watching for incoming.”
She nodded, caught his gaze and held it. “I’ve bookmarked some pages—” She nodded at her lap top. “I think you should look at them.”
She stood, which put his face on level with her breasts. She wasn’t trying to seduce him. She wanted to offer him comfort, infuse him, somehow, with strength, but she sensed that he didn’t need that right now. So she traced his jaw with her fingertips and slipped her hand into his hair. It was silky, a lighter shade of blond than her own, and tickled the sensitive skin between her fingers. She tugged gently so that he tipped his head back and connected with her gaze.
“Come find me when you’re done.”
Ethan sat in the office chair, tipped back and swiveled around so that he was looking out the windows. He loved this place. He kept a condo in Los Angeles so he’d have a bed to lay in on those days when production went late into the evening or called for an early start, but he felt the same way Shae did about The City—like it was populated by pretty, well-dressed zombies who would sooner rip your heart out than smile at you. Santa Barbara reminded him a lot of San Diego, with the Spanish architecture, the gracefully sloping beaches and fish markets. A lot needed to be done with the house, but the grounds were glorious with natural plants and a view of the Pacific from the master bedroom. It was close enough he could count whitecaps and freighters. When the wind stirred it carried the scent of the ocean to him and that alone made it worth the price tag.
Behind him the fan on Shae’s computer kicked on. He looked at his watch. He’d spent close to two hours reading through blogs, more than a dozen personal accounts from men and women of the military, many of which had felt close and familiar.
Shae had pegged it right. With each new deployment, he’d retreated deeper into himself, and coming home had been a difficult transition. It often took days to dig himself out, and even then nothing had felt right.
He hadn’t known that others were experiencing the same thing. And Tina hadn’t known, either.
They had floundered, clinging to each other through arguments probably neither of them understood. Then drifting, allowing the currents to pull them apart.
He had loved his wife. He had turned to her for solace until one day he’d simply stopped. And she hadn’t come looking for him. Instead, she’d turned to someone else. And that still burned. But it didn’t draw blood, not anymore. It hadn’t in a long time.
The divorce rate among military personnel was high. And there was reason for it.
He rubbed his hands through his hair and rocked in the chair. Shae was somewhere in the house. She had given him time and space but now he wanted her close. Shae knew him inside and out. He felt like he knew her better than he’d ever known any other woman, but that was probably due to the unnatural dynamic of their relationship. He wondered if they could move beyond that. Was it possible for them to have more than a few moments together stolen from the normal course of life? Or, when they were finished with the screenplay, and defining Ethan’s past, would they simply fade to black as well?
And there was that word again. Normal. He knew better than most that the term was a standard with as many deviations as there were rays from the sun. That didn’t make any of them wrong. Different was usually a more profound way to live than charging along with the rat race.
Their work wasn’t done. There were more revelations to come inside the screenplay. A secret or two unearthed from Ethan’s past. One in particular that, given Shae’s current state of mind and heart, could have her sprinting away from him.
He couldn’t change the past or how he’d reacted to it. But he was in charge of his present. He could make decisions about his future. And that was saying something. Until today, until he’d sat down and read the blogs, he hadn’t the confidence to look beyond the moment at hand.
He stood and padded through the house. Shae wasn’t in the kitchen, but there were dishes in the sink that hadn’t been there earlier. She wasn’t in the living room, but she had passed through, straightening throw pillows and tying back the curtains so that the sun filtered through the blinds and warmed the room. He stopped at the door to the guest room, which was ajar, and pushed it open with his fingers.
Shae sat at the bureau, her long hair piled on top of her head with several curls loose around her face. She’d applied lip gloss and maybe some mascara. She didn’t need either. Shae was a natural beauty. She was wrapped in a thick towel, so her shoulders were bare and the creamy skin called to him. He remembered the taste of her, the scent of her skin, and he strode toward her. She caught his reflection in the mirror and smiled.
“So what do
you think?”
He could tell that she was tense—her smile was pulled a little too tightly, her eyes were round, curious but cautious—and knew that his answer was important to her. He’d found himself in the reading and that was a giant leap forward in understanding the man he’d been and the mess that had become of his marriage. And in that knowledge was the peace he’d been searching for. Not complete. Not yet. But close. And she deserved to know that.
He dropped his hands to her shoulders, his fingers tracing her collarbones. The color in her cheeks deepened.
“I think you could be right.”
“Then you’re willing to consider it?”
“I read those blogs, Shae, and it was like I was reading pieces of my own life. Yes, I’ve already started considering it.”
She stood and stepped back from his touch. “I’m glad.”
“I need to read more about it, understand better what was happening to me during those years,” he explained, “but there was a big shift in my thinking when I was going through those personal accounts.” He paused. “It feels right. I feel like I have new direction. And you’re responsible for that. Thank you.”
“I’ve been your compass,” she said. “Really not much more than that.”
She was more. A hell of a lot more, but he said, “Sometimes that’s all a man needs.”
She moved to the bed where she’d draped a silky dress across the mattress. She picked it up and showed it to him. It was blue, sleeveless and had a deep V neckline.
“I found this is the closet. I’m guessing it belongs to Emme?”
Ethan shrugged. “Possibly.”
“Well, I mean, Eva is a lot taller than me. Nothing of hers would fit.” She held the dress in front of her. The hem skimmed her knees. “Emme is closer to my height.”
“It could be hers,” Ethan said. “You can borrow it.”
“Could it be someone else’s?”
He frowned. “Whose?”
Shae gave him a men-are-dense look. “I don’t know, Ethan, another woman’s? I don’t have a lot of choices here with me and I would like to borrow the dress, but not if it belongs to someone you’ve dated.”
He cringed inwardly at the thought and didn’t have to ask why. He got it. He didn’t want to see her in a dress worn by a woman he’d been with, either. Shae was not at all a part of that world. Somewhere along the way, he’d separated his life into before and after—before Shae arrived he was stuck, treading water—since she’d gotten here he felt like he’d swum miles, broke free of a riptide and was getting closer to shore.
It was hard to believe they’d known each other only a week. Ethan supposed the forced intimacy of their situation created the closeness he felt for her. She disturbed him, during each of their evening conferences challenging his perspective on his past and knocking him off his equilibrium. She stirred him, and often times managed to do it with just a glance, or the slow curving of her lips in a sultry smile intended to unravel him. She revived him, because with her he felt the fluttering of new emotions. It wasn’t like anything he’d experienced before. Certainly not the surface encounters he had with the woman he’d dated since Tina. And not the pubescent thrill of love he’d felt for his wife. With Shae, there was something else at work. A startling find, like the red bud of a flower opening over a landscape of snow. Unexpected. Uncommon. Unparalleled.
And while the situation they found themselves in was created by artificial means, the intimacy was the real deal. He felt it keeping time with his pulse. He felt the familiar urge to flee wrestle with his desire to stay. He dug in his heels. Felt his hands flex into fists. He wasn’t running away. Not this time.
Shae was worth fighting for. So was his freedom. Were the two a tight combo or was she just his ride to the show?
He could offer no promises, not that she was asking for any. But damn how he wanted to.
“Ethan?” she prodded.
He cleared the gravel from his throat and assured her, “You’re the only woman I’ve brought here Shae. I have a condo in The City. I used that when I was dating. But it’s been a while,” he tacked on that last bit, wanting her to have that reassurance.
“You stopped dating?’
“Months ago.”
“Why?”
“It was futile.” All of his relationships began with an expiration date.
Chapter Eleven
Shae studied the wine list. She wanted to make it good—soon there would be none of this for her for a while. And not just during her pregnancy, she planned to nurse and to give up anything that was even suspected to cause harm to an unborn fetus or infant. She’d done her reading and so far the only thing she’d miss was her morning coffee. A small sacrifice.
“I’ll have the Pinot Grigio—Napa Valley,” she told the hovering waiter. A taste of home. A reminder of her intentions. And she needed it.
Ethan cleaned up well. He wore a dark green, button-up shirt that brought out the color of his eyes and was opened at the throat so that a swirl of chest hair was visible. It was clearly tailored to fit the breadth of his shoulders and contain but not hide the obvious strength of his body. He paired it with black slacks, belted at his trim waist, and wore a pair of leather top-siders—a reflection of his love for the water.
He caught her looking and smiled at her.
“Like what you see?” He arched an eyebrow and his smile deepened, exposing just about every one of his perfect teeth. He was quite pleased with himself and maybe the most relaxed she’d ever seen him, off the water. And then he returned the favor, allowing his eyes to move over her from the top of her head and the casual arrangement of her hair in its up-do, to the creamy slope of her neck, where heat ignited in his gaze. When he got to her shoulders, bared by the spaghetti straps of the dress, his gaze became a physical touch, his smile faded as passion intensified.
“I think the appreciation is mutual,” she said, her voice thick with the need he stirred in
her.
He nodded but had to clear his throat before he spoke again.
“Not into beer?”
And Shae had to clear her mind before she understood what he meant. He’d ordered a dark on tap and had encouraged her to do the same. He was changing the subject, retreating to safer ground. She pointed that out.
“Would you rather I take you here on the table?” he challenged.
“I’d take you anywhere,” she returned, knowing it would push at his control. She watched a muscle twitch beside his left eye and his fingers clench over that washboard stomach.
“Don’t do that, Shae.” His voice was low, deep, lethal. “I want us to have this meal. To talk. There’s more I want to know about you.”
Shae studied the flush of his cheeks, the intent in his eyes, and gave in.
“Like what?”
“How about family?” he suggested. “You’re close?”
Shae nodded. “I have more in common with my sister, Kara. I guess we’re the artists in the family. She plays classic piano and attended Julliard.”
“Impressive.”
“Definitely. My brother’s a bit of a lone wolf.” She thought about that for a moment. Jude was the oldest of the siblings, and always the most responsible. He’d believed in Shae and even sent her a little cash every month when she was still finding her place in Hollywood. She loved him dearly.
“Why?”
Shae shrugged. “He was in a car accident when he was nineteen years old. His girlfriend was killed.” And Shae didn’t think he’d ever gotten over it.
“Was he at fault?”
“No. A drunk driver ran a red light.” And even though Jude understood the facts, Shae believed he was haunted by what he could have done differently. She expelled the heaviness from her chest. “I think that’s why he went into law enforcement. He needed to make a difference.”
Ethan nodded. “I understand that.”
It was the reason he’d joined the Marines.
“Even if it didn’t turn ou
t the way you wanted?”
“It seldom does.”
“No,” she agreed. Jude left the police force a few months ago. He didn’t say why and Shae wasn’t sure if it was a permanent decision or a leave of absence.
“What about your other sister?”
“Nikki. She’s a school teacher. Kindergarten.” And Shae laughed, thinking about some of the antics her sister described the last time Shae was home for a visit. “She loves her job and
she’s very good at it. She’s also the family dare-devil.”
“How so?”
“A few months ago she was free rappelling in Belize. Last summer, it was bungee jumping and sky diving.”
“She’s an adrenalin junkie.”
“I think so.”
The waiter was back at their table and Shae hadn’t even looked at the menu.
“The sea bass is locally caught,” Ethan suggested. “They’ll cook it any way you want it.”
His gaze, no longer a heated caress, was still warm with awareness. His voice was smooth, deep and pulled at something feminine in her, made her body feel more liquid than matter. He sat back in his chair, his hands folded over his stomach, and watched her. It was a casual pose, but Shae felt the leashed power in his body.
They’d had sex more often than sleep the past few nights and in the predawn hours, too. And each time, Ethan had been generous but demanding, bold but also soft towards her when they had finished and were in the afterglow.
They felt more substantial than temporary, but there was danger in feeling that way.
They were drawn together out of necessity. She shouldn’t forget that.
It occurred to her that this evening felt like a date. And if that was the case, they’d done things in a seriously backward way. It also put a different cast on whatever was developing between them. When a man and woman had a fling, they didn’t share dinner at a four star restaurant, did they? Wasn’t it all about the bedroom? Shae wasn’t sure of the rules of short-term engagement, but it disturbed her.