She could see the thick bulge beneath, and she could feel him too. She was nervous and trying not to show it as she imagined that long, thick length inside her.
‘Take it out,’ he commanded roughly.
Merida was hesitant, her fingers shaking as she unzipped him. When she had freed him he sprang free, and she held him warm, strong and alive in her hand. She felt her lips press together, nervous and unsure of herself.
He closed her hand with his, tight around his solid length, and she watched, mesmerised, as together they stroked, feeling the power they generated building with each movement.
He released her then, and impatiently backed her against the wall with firm kisses, his hands pulling down her dress. As she stepped out of it she looked up to see him sheathing himself.
Her knickers were the only barrier left, and now he was back to kissing her hard, tearing the silk with his big hands. She had never known such male power.
‘Ethan...’
His face was rough on hers and he felt delicious, but she knew she could not let it go unsaid.
‘I’m a virgin.’
He halted, wondering if he’d misheard, or if it was a game.
And then he looked into her eyes, glittering with both lust and terror, and understood what Merida had meant when she’d said she’d never done this before.
He should halt proceedings—he knew that. In fact, he tore off the condom. But then he saw her unshed tears, and the battering of old memories, his fears for his father, were all swept aside by her gaze.
‘Do you want to be here?’ Ethan asked her.
‘Yes!’ Merida almost wept, and then she attempted the impossible: an assured smile.
She moved in to resume kissing him, but Ethan pulled his face back. ‘Then stop pretending,’ he said, for he knew now that her confidence was a lie.
‘I don’t know how to!’
It was the most honest admission of her life.
She did not know how. How to stop smiling and saying things were fine when they weren’t.
She did not know how to voice her needs.
Acting was easy, for she was playing a part and being told how to be. In the real world she simply did not know.
He kissed her, hard and rough, and she felt the bruise of his lips when she wanted tenderness, the scratch of his jaw as she matched his fervour.
Again he hauled himself back. ‘I told you to stop pretending. Stop trying to please me.’
She felt as if she might cry, for it was as if he had discovered her naked beneath a lifetime of disguises.
And then he spoke. ‘You’re doing it anyway.’
It was the nicest thing he could have said, and when a tear fell he dusted the apple of her cheek with his mouth until her lips parted of their own accord and tears rolled down.
Each kiss, no matter how softly delivered, felt like a chisel, tapping away and exposing the real Merida beneath.
He tasted the salt of her tears and carried her to the bed. He stood over her and took off the pearls, her shoes, and even her hair tie until she was utterly naked.
The condom had gone, and his jacket was back in the lounge. At the sight of her triangle of copper curls he mentally cursed, for there were some moments that should go uninterrupted.
For the first and only time that night she sensed his distraction as his eyes darted from where she lay on the bed to the door.
And then she understood. ‘I’m on the Pill.’
‘Never, ever say those words to a bastard like me.’
‘Not even one that I’m crazy about?’
A flag should have been raised. He was being warned that she was in too deep. But he ignored it.
Ethan did not want her crazy about him. But there was a tug of satisfaction all the same.
And then he saw the flare of curiosity in her eyes. Her hand reached out and then pulled back.
He caught her fingers. ‘You touched me before...’
But she’d been lying then. And so she touched him again—tentatively this time, and without his guidance.
Had she known, Merida wondered, when she first held his hand, that she would hold him so intimately that very night?
Her amateur hand delivered bliss.
The pearl bead at his tip spread to become a silver pair, and he ground his teeth at the hunger he felt.
And then she lowered her head.
The tip of her tongue was a tease, and the heat of her lips elicited a moan from Ethan. How he wanted to push down her head, and how she ached for the boldness to do the same.
Lest he thrust—lest he come—Ethan raised her head up and lightly pushed her shoulder, so that she lay back, half on and half off the bed. Then he hitched her legs up and laid her straight.
Ethan looked down at her, taking in the riot of hair that splayed over the sheets. Her stomach was devoid of freckles, and he looked down further to the curls that hid the part of her he yearned to devour. She squirmed at the intimate perusal.
He leaned over her then, crawling up her body with cat-like stealth, until Merida got both his weight and a hot kiss, and in equal measure they were divine.
And then he looked down at her, and her wish was granted, for she had found out just how it felt to be in the path of his gentler gaze.
He parted her thighs and his mouth came near her ear. His ragged breathing was a delicious sound as she felt the first nudge of him at her entrance.
She squeezed closed her eyes and moved her hands to his hips, as if holding him back. But he pushed deeper in, then pulled back at her cry.
Merida could not get air into her lungs and her thighs shook at his sides. There was no slow torture with Ethan. He seared deep inside and she screamed.
So intense was the pain it was as if a mirror had broken before her eyes. And as he stilled, as she tried to gather in air, she wondered how the hell she had thought she could feign this.
When he started to move she wanted him to stop, to give her time to adjust to the feel of him inside her. But there was no way he could not move.
The tight grip of her, and the heat they made, rendered it impossible for him to stay still. His body insisted that he thrust, and the fight within him was limited to trying to go slowly so he could savour it.
Ethan came up on his forearms and looked down at her, to discover her anguished look, but as he moved and gentled his strokes he watched the suffering recede.
‘Never pretend,’ he told her as he increased the pace.
And when her hips began to move with him, when her hands clawed at the pillows by her head, he moved her legs so they were wrapped around him.
‘Ethan!’
She was screaming—not from pain, but from being taken, from being discovered, from being found.
He started to thrust harder. She felt the rhythm build and her hands left the pillows, began scraping his back.
Hot and urgent, he built within her a frenzy she never wanted to escape.
And the real beauty was his intensity.
He shattered her defences and then gathered her again, her climax so intense that she felt as if she’d left her body. And then came the velvet of his moan, and the breathless shout of his release as Ethan spilled deep inside her.
He collapsed atop her and she lay there, feeling her senses slowly return and then the softness of his kiss.
‘Never lie like that again,’ he warned her.
And sated, pliant, a virgin no more, Merida nodded. For in the gentle afterglow she truly believed she never would.
Ethan knew her.
CHAPTER SIX
MERIDA NEVER WANTED to lift her head. It lay on Ethan’s chest and his hand was idly stroking her arm.
There was an absence of awkwardness.
Neither pretended to be asleep, and she lay there thinking of t
heir night.
It had been amazing.
For both of them.
The oddest thing for Ethan was that it still was.
It seemed incongruous to think that his father was right now being wheeled down to the operating theatre.
Because of that, he turned on his phone.
When it immediately rang, Ethan answered it. ‘Hey.’
‘Did you manage to visit the gallery?’
It was Khalid.
‘I did.’
‘And?’
‘You have nothing to worry about,’ Ethan said. ‘Can I call you back later?’
‘Of course.’
He lay there, thinking about all that had taken place, and winced inside when he thought of how he’d very nearly taken her standing, never for a moment thinking that it might be her first time.
‘Any regrets?’ Ethan asked.
‘None,’ Merida said, and then she amended that. ‘Well, there is one.’
‘What’s that?’ He frowned. ‘Did I—?’ He had been about to ask if he’d hurt her, but she smiled and interrupted him to tell him the only regret she had.
‘I have to go soon.’
‘Ah, yes—your audition.’
She untangled herself from his arms as a worrying thought struck. ‘I left my bag and my coat in the restaurant! I always wear my kilt for my auditions. It will be bad luck otherwise...’
‘I’ll have it sent up.’ He interrupted her momentary panic and picked up the bedside phone.
She lay there as he ordered breakfast too. ‘I don’t have time for breakfast,’ she said.
‘You can take it with you. I’ll have them bring up some takeout containers.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No problem.’
As he ordered Merida couldn’t help but think that he was nothing like the demon she’d read about or been warned of. She had never felt more looked after in her entire life. The way he had taken such care of both her body and her feelings last night...
‘Ten more minutes,’ Merida said when he pulled her back into his arms. ‘You make a very nice snooze button.’
‘Push there,’ he said, and took her hand.
She felt him tumescent beneath the sheet, but though she lingered a second, exploring him, Merida didn’t trust either of them not to lose track of time and pulled away.
Ethan knew then that he had to have her back in his bed that night.
‘Ethan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you book this suite before you asked me to dinner or while we were dancing...?’ She looked up at him. ‘Were you so certain that I’d say yes?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Then he gave her arm a squeeze to show he was teasing. ‘I have a permanent suite here.’
‘Oh.’
No wonder they all knew him, and his likes and dislikes.
‘What’s wrong with home?’
‘Home’s fine,’ Ethan said.
It was more that he kept his home address private. Certainly no lovers were invited there, and yet he was lying here now considering doing just that.
Merida’s phone beeped, but she didn’t need to check to know who it was. ‘That will be my friend Naomi, wishing me luck.’
‘Is she here?’
‘No, in England.’
‘Is she an actress too?’ Ethan asked, wanting to know more about Merida and her world.
‘No, she’s a neonatal nanny.’
‘What?’
‘A maternity nanny. She looks after newborns and gets them into a routine before the permanent nanny takes over.’
‘I could think of nothing worse.’
Merida laughed. ‘What are you doing today?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Ethan said. Usually by now he’d be showered and sitting in his office. In fact, he had a meeting at eight. ‘I should call Abe...’
‘Your brother?’ Merida checked sleepily, remembering what she’d read about him.
‘Yep.’
‘Are you close?’
‘We work together.’
‘But are you close?’
‘Not really,’ Ethan admitted.
‘What about with your father?’
He felt a touch of discomfort at the personal questions, but then he remembered that last night he had asked her the same.
Only it wasn’t just her question that had caused discomfort to spike in him.
It was the answer.
‘Not really.’
Merida looked up and met his dark eyes.
‘We’re too similar,’ Ethan explained.
‘Then I like him already.’
He hadn’t been expecting that. Ethan hadn’t even expected to give such an honest response, but lying in bed, relaxed and turned on, he was being more open than he’d ever been.
He lowered his head and Merida stretched her neck so that their lips met. She was loving his morning kiss. The scratch of his mouth on her chin and the promise it held... God, his kisses were potent.
Their tongues were lazy but their responses were not. She felt as if he’d hit the accelerator, because with just the stroke of his hand on her naked breast she wanted to give in to his touch and climb on top of him.
But Merida hauled herself back from the edge and peeled herself from his mouth. ‘I have to get ready...’
‘Pity.’
She disengaged herself from his warm strong body and climbed out of bed.
He saw the bruises his mouth had made last night, and the sight of them on her thighs served as such an explicit reminder it went straight to his groin—she smiled at the lift in the sheet.
‘Want me to take care of that for you?’ Merida drawled, and when he blinked at her sudden forthrightness she laughed. ‘Not really. I’m just getting into the part for my audition.’
‘Tease.’
Ethan watched her walk off and seriously considered following her into the shower. But he knew that time was tight and that this audition was important to her.
So he lay there, thinking not just about last night but about the one ahead. He realised it wasn’t just the night he wanted, but the day too.
Ethan checked his phone. There was still no news from his father, but he called Helene and, for the first time in a very long time, cancelled his work day.
Merida took her time showering. Though she should have been rushing, in her tiny shoebox of an apartment her shower ran hot and cold at intervals. This morning she stood under jets of delicious, perfectly temperature-controlled water, lathered her hair with a shampoo that smelt of lemongrass and soaped her body, tender from Ethan’s ministrations, with a gel that smelt heavenly.
What happened next? She couldn’t help but wonder... She really was so very new to all this.
Out of the shower, she squeezed the water from her hair with a thick white towel and then pulled on a fluffy white robe before heading out to find Ethan still in bed and a table laid with breakfast. The drapes had been opened and she looked out over a foggy Central Park.
There were light-as-air pancakes with mascarpone and cinnamon, and strong coffee in a takeaway cup. If she’d ordered herself Merida could not have chosen better.
‘What?’ she asked when she felt him looking at her as she took mouthfuls of food while going to the wardrobe. Sure enough, there was her trench coat and her bag.
‘You are on the Pill?’
‘Yes,’ Merida said. She usually took it each night, before bed, but she’d be taking it the very second she got back to her apartment. ‘I use it so that I don’t have to worry when I’m performing.’
‘Merida...’ He was about to lecture her—tell her that, in future, she shouldn’t have sex without protection.
Ethan wasn’t being a hypocrite; he had never risked it until last night. And he
wanted to point out that men were basically liars, and that she should—But there his thought pattern halted, because he could not stomach the thought of her with anyone else.
She glanced over and saw his serious expression.
‘Honestly, don’t worry,’ Merida said. ‘I’m covered.’
‘Good.’ He watched as she ran a wide comb through her hair. ‘I was thinking...’
‘I am not coming back to bed.’ Merida smiled. ‘And please, please, please don’t try and tempt me. I’ve a terrible feeling that I’m open to persuasion, but I really do need this job.’
She took a breath. The butterflies in her stomach were having a field-day—because not only did she have pre-audition nerves, she had an extra flock of the beautiful, nervous little creatures entirely devoted to him.
Having eaten breakfast, she sat on the bed and pulled from her bag her tights and bra and proceeded to put them on.
‘What?’ she said again, because he was still looking at her, and she could feel he still had a question on his mind.
Ethan did—and that was unheard of the morning after. Usually he was aching for a lover to leave, not considering prolonging things.
‘I could come with you. Not to the audition... But I could hang around and we could go for brunch after.’
His offer was utterly unexpected.
Like a delicious jolt to her spine.
She had been bracing herself to remain dignified at their parting.
Merida pulled on her jumper, and when she’d tugged it over her head she looked out of the window to a foggy New York City morning and knew she would never forget that moment.
Ever.
It wasn’t an ending.
At least not here, and not yet.
No goodbye, no holding in tears, would take place here.
She could look at the skyline and at this stunning hotel and remember for ever an utterly perfect night, because it did not end here.
‘Yes,’ Merida said in a voice that sounded a touch calmer than she felt. ‘That sounds wonderful. I have to stop by my apartment first, for my papers and things, and to get ready.’
‘Then we’d better get over to yours.’ He reached for the phone. ‘I’ll call my driver.’
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