by Louise Bay
“Dad is a dentist, too. Mom stays at home. They have the perfect life. Did you hear about Uncle Alec?” Jessica asked Ethan.
Ethan nodded. “I spoke to mom yesterday.”
I excused myself to pop to the restroom while they caught up on family stuff. This was a new Ethan. Family Ethan. Loyal, proud. It was nice. But I didn’t need a reason to like him more.
Chapter Eight
Ethan
I was mad. She’d finally told me about the ex. But despite me asking a number of times in New York and her refusing to discuss him, she casually tells my sister everything at dinner. And he turns out to be a total prick and she’s not safe in her own home. I’m mad at her, I’m mad at her ex and I’m mad at myself for not getting this information out of her sooner.
I’d managed to push it to one side during dinner but after leaving my sister’s it crept back into my head and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
We were in a cab, going back to her apartment, but there was no way we were staying there. I wasn’t fucking her in that bed, where she’d fucked other men, especially men who didn’t deserve her. Jesus, the thought made me want to punch something.
“You’re quiet,” she said. I’d not said anything since we’d left Jessica and James’s.
Her hand was in mine, as it had been for most of the night, and I squeezed. Trying to give her reassurance of something. I wasn’t sure what.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Ben. I know you’ve asked me.”
“Don’t say his name to me,” I said, staring straight ahead.
“I didn’t bullshit you,” she said finally. She was right, technically she hadn’t lied but I hated that there was so much of her I didn’t know. She was mine and I wanted to know everything.
When we pulled up outside her apartment, I could tell she was wondering if I was going to come in. As if I would leave her. She wasn’t spending another night in that apartment, certainly not alone.
She tried to let go of my hand as I paid the driver but I wouldn’t let her. We made our way into the apartment. “I need you to pack a bag. We’re staying at my hotel tonight,” I said, still not looking at her.
“Ethan—”
“Don’t argue with me. Not about this.”
She didn’t. I released her hand and she made her way around the apartment gathering her things. I stayed by the front door, waiting.
I felt better when we were out of her place and back in another cab. But not good enough to be able to have a conversation with her. I was concerned I’d lose it. I wasn’t used to dealing with shit like this. She hadn’t done anything wrong but I was still angry at her for not telling me. And for dating other people before me. It was irrational but it was how I felt. I was angry at myself, that I’d not met her before this prick Ben, before all the other guys she dated.
When we arrived at the hotel, I picked up my messages at the desk and led Anna to the elevator bank, wheeling her suitcase behind us. She’d packed a decent amount, which was a good thing because she wasn’t going back there.
“When does your apartment sale go through?” I asked as the elevator doors opened.
“The week after next.”
I nodded. “Which apartment that we saw today did you like?”
“They were all amazing.”
“Which one do you prefer?”
“It’s not for me.”
“Anna.”
“The second one.”
I nodded. “Okay, I’ll speak to the realtor. It’s empty so we should be able to move in quickly. We’ll stay here until then.”
“Ethan—”
“Not a fucking word, Anna.”
“I don’t get to speak?”
“Not yet.”
“Then when?”
“When I’ve fucked you so hard you’ve forgotten what you wanted to say.”
She didn’t respond and as we entered the hotel room, the door slammed behind us. I set her suitcase down and walked across the living area to the bed.
“Come here,” I said, trying to disguise the anger I felt. It was anger mixed with lust. I couldn’t look at her as I undid her shirt and peeled it from her shoulders. I concentrated on her soft, smooth skin. I wanted to mark it and I tipped her head to one side and attached my lips to her neck. I sucked hard. There would definitely be a mark and the thought increased my need for her and took the edge off my anger. She made no complaint, just held herself steady against my shoulders. I moved to the other side and did the same.
“Take the rest of your clothes off,” I ordered as I started to undress myself.
Silently, she complied. I could feel her looking at me, trying to catch my eye. I wasn’t ready to face what I’d see there.
Naked, I knelt before her. I could smell her perfect pussy right in front of me. I grabbed her bottom and her hands went to my hair. I pushed my tongue against her. She was soaked and I couldn’t hold back a groan. Fuck, she was delicious. I always loved going down on women. With most of them it was because it unravelled them to a point they’d do anything I cared to suggest. With Anna, it was the clouded look in her eyes that did it for me. The way she seemed to go to a slightly different place. She started to throb against my tongue almost immediately. She was so ready. One hand pushed her perfect ass against me, and I used the other to trace the wetness across her folds, then pushed my fingers into her and she tightened around me. Jesus, my cock started to pulse at the thought that it would soon replace my fingers. Her breath became shorter. She wouldn’t last long but I wasn’t going to make it that easy for her.
“Ethan,” she mewed.
I pulled away from her, refusing to give her release against my tongue. That’s not how it was going to happen. She wasn’t going to be rewarded so easily. I stood up and lifted her roughly onto the bed.
“Turn around,” I barked and she flipped over onto her stomach.
Kneeling behind her, I pushed her knees under her, raising that perfect ass of hers, ready for me while her face and chest remained flat to the mattress. I moved off the bed to get a condom and a better view.
“Stay still,” I said as she went to push her chest off the bed. Again she complied without argument. This is what I needed. I needed her to show me that I was the man she wanted. That she would do whatever I asked of her.
Anna
I’d never experienced the Ethan that I’d seen today. He seemed on the verge of losing control. Maybe it shouldn’t have been, but it was hot.
I felt a breeze over my sex as I lay there, exposed, my ass in the air. I knew he was looking at me, watching me ready for him. I had to stifle a moan at the thought. He’d brought me to the brink with his tongue and then stopped. I wanted to scream at him in frustration but I also wanted to give him what he wanted, what he seemed to need. He was trying to deal with his frustration by punishing me. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was okay with that. I wanted to give him everything.
His large hands covered my ass and the bed dipped behind me. I stayed still. I knew I shouldn’t break position. I was his to do with what he wanted.
He ran a finger from my clit to my ass and I bit down on the comforter to stop from showing my pleasure.
“I can feel you, so ready for me, Anna. But this isn’t about your pleasure.” He growled and then thrust into me and pulled out straight away.
My heart was pounding and all I could focus on was him. His voice felt like it was coming from inside me, as if I were a part of him and him a part of me. He thrust again and my hands gripped the bedcovers.
“You feel this?” he asked, pushing in to me again and then starting a relentless rhythm. “You feel what my dick can do to you?”
I gasped in response.
“No one can do this to you, can they Anna? No one fucks you like I do?”
“No. No one.” I gulped.
“You can’t help yourself can you? You come so easily with my dick inside you. But not yet. I’m not going to let you come yet, do you hear me?”
His words sent sweet sensations to my clit and I knew that with a few more of his punishing strokes my orgasm would overtake me.
“Answer me,” he growled.
“Ethan, I’m . . .” I was close and I couldn’t stop, it was like a freight train hurtling toward me. And then he was gone. He was no longer inside me and his hands had left my hips. A small whimper escaped me along with my orgasm.
I collapsed flat on my front as Ethan went into the bathroom.
Shit, he was really pissed at me. A loud bang came from the behind the door and I scrabbled to my feet and across the room, poking my head around the door.
Ethan was sitting on the edge of the bath, his head in his hands, his knuckles scrapped.
I knelt in front of him, placing my hands on his thighs. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.
He didn’t look at me. “You’re angry because I kept something important from you. And although I didn’t lie, I should have told you when you asked me and I’m sorry.”
“It’s more than that,” he replied.
My heart lurched. What was he going to say? That he couldn’t get past it? A fleeting thought of him leaving filled me with dread.
“Tell me.” It was all I could manage.
“I hate the thought of you with someone else. Anyone else.”
It wasn’t what I was expecting and my dread gave way to warmth.
“I’m not with anyone else. I’m not sure I ever have been.” Ethan was different. I knew that, right at that moment.
His eyes lifted to mine, as if trying to see more of me. I wanted him to see inside me. I meant what I’d said to Ethan. Men before him were irrelevant to me. Time before him was irrelevant to me.
He traced a thumb across my cheek. “This is difficult, I feel like I’m fucking this up.”
Too difficult? “I only want you, Ethan. I’ve only ever been looking for you and you’re not going to mess this up—I won’t let you. And you’ve got to stop me from messing this up, too.”
He looked pained and his hands dropped to my shoulders. I took one of his hands in mine and kissed the knuckle.
“What did you do?” I whispered.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“Don’t go punching walls. Talk to me. As much as you want me to communicate to you, it’s got to work both ways. We’re still getting to understand each other, it’s going to be lumpy but you were right when you said that talking things out is the way through the bumps.”
He nodded. I stood up and held out my hand for him to take it. Instead he pulled me toward him and wrapped his arms around my waist and leaned his head on my chest. I kissed him on the head and pushed my fingers through his hair.
We stayed there for long minutes, things settling between us. We had revealed new and hidden parts of ourselves today. Not deliberately, but fundamentally. We lay exposed and vulnerable. As if we had just climbed to the summit of a mountain, it felt like we needed time to recover and recuperate before we got up and enjoyed the view.
Eventually Ethan stood and led me back to bed and we lay our limbs intertwined and our bodies as close as they could be, reassuring ourselves and each other.
Ethan kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry for overreacting,” he said.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I do. I underestimated you, me, us. I tried to punish you.”
“Ethan, you fucking me will never be a punishment. It’s all pleasure.”
He pulled me closer. “Are we okay?”
“We’re more than okay.”
“Can I fuck you properly now?” he grinned at me and I laughed at him.
“Anytime baby.”
Before the words were out of my mouth he had my body pinned to the mattress with his hips, his hard-on pressed against my thigh, his lips on my neck.
“I’ve left a mark,” he said.
“Always,” I replied, my hands trailing down his back.
He brought his head up to look at me. “I’m serious, Anna. Your neck.”
“It’s fine. I like it.”
“You like it?” He cocked his eyebrow at me.
“I do. It says that I belong to you.”
“Jesus, you’re making me hard.”
“And I like that as well,” I said as he started to rub himself up and down my thigh, getting higher and closer.
“You do?”
I nodded. He nudged at my entrance and I brought my legs up around his hips.
“You’re insatiable,” he said, trailing his cock up to my clitoris. I arched against him.
“Only for you,” I whispered.
I grabbed a condom from the bedside table and he quickly sheathed his erection.
He plunged into me and stilled, filling me body and mind. He pressed himself close to me, his forehead against mine, and moved slowly, pressing deeper and deeper. His weight on me made me feel safe and protected, his hands under my shoulders were pushing me toward him. The heat and sweat built between us, intermingling.
“Anna,” he breathed into my mouth and I dug my heels into his bottom, urging him closer to me. I thought it couldn’t get better between us but this was different, closer, more intimate. I reached for his face and trailed across my fingers his cheekbones.
“Ethan,” I whispered back.
It washed over me. Love. I loved him. All of a sudden, I was clear—all the emotions of the day had coming crashing down because I was trying to squash what we had together—what I felt for him. I was in love with this man. The beautiful man that was above me, inside me. “Ethan.” I didn’t say what my whole body felt. Today had been complicated enough. There would be time.
I brushed my lips against his and squeezed my muscles around him and he groaned. I loved to hear what my body could do to him—it was such a turn on. My nipples hardened against his chest, dragging across his skin as he shifted above me. His pace quickened but his movements were still small and intense. His muscles clenched as if her were putting every ounce of his energy into his small movements.
He circled his hips slightly and my moan caught in my throat. He watched me as I held my breath. He thrust again and again, reaching farther and farther inside and then we were both there. Right at the same time, in that white light, together, watching each other.
His body was rigid for a few long seconds and then he collapsed onto me, his head against my neck—panting, licking, sucking.
“Fuck, beautiful,” he growled breathlessly.
My breathing slowed “Hmmm” was all I could manage and I trailed my fingertips up and down his spine. I wanted him to stay on top of me like that forever.
Chapter Nine
Anna
After that, things were still complicated but easier. Our relationship was everything it should be. What was between us was more than just a summer fling or a holiday romance—our hearts were open to each other.
My flat sold but I only went back with Ethan to pack things up. I didn’t stay there again. I moved some of my things to Ethan’s rented apartment and the rest I put in storage.
I should have started looking for a new place but that meant thinking about the future and what I wanted to do. I’d agreed with Ethan that for the first time ever, I was going to live in the present. I wasn’t going to worry about the future. In the present Ethan was in London and that’s exactly where I wanted to be. I didn’t want to fast forward this relationship—the thought of him meeting my parents, or us moving in together properly, the thought of him as a father, us married—all that stuff that I used to think about with previous boyfriends, I couldn’t let myself think about with Ethan. All that mattered was the here and now.
I managed to extract myself from working directly for Ethan, claiming I was too busy with another client’s work and my excuse wasn’t questioned. There were plenty of people lining up to take my place, wanting to impress the New York office. It was easier like that. I could separate work Ethan from my Ethan. Well, most of the time I could separate them
. Every now and then we would pass each other in the corridor and our eyes would slam together and my underwear dampened and I knew he would be fighting a hard-on.
Our sexual attraction to each other didn’t dip, not even for a second. He was inside me every chance he got and he was right when he said I was insatiable. I couldn’t get enough of him. My body ached for him in the evenings while I waited for him to emerge from the office. Ethan worked hard, too hard. He always worked later than I did. He came home, it felt like our home, exhausted and stressed and I would pour him a whiskey, which we inevitably ended up sharing and then he would have me. My body was his. I would often be shuddering with anticipation by the time we were naked, as if his body was something I got to experience rarely, rather than every day, several times a day. Each time was better than the last as we fell deeper and deeper into each other.
Friday evening Ethan and I left at a similar time, earlier than the rest of the week, wanting to extend our weekend together to as long as possible. Even when we did leave the office at similar times, we never left together. No one at work knew we were together—it was against the rules. The other associates speculated about Ethan’s love life and there were various rumors about an American girlfriend or a British gay lover. I listened, unconcerned. I was pleased they didn’t know Ethan. I wanted to keep him for myself.
As I let myself into the flat, Ethan stood facing away from me, staring out the window, his forehead pressed against the glass. He turned as I closed the door and smiled at me. A tired smile, but a smile nonetheless.
Ethan
“Hey, beautiful.” How did she manage to look so fucking amazing all the time? My cock stirred just at the sight of her. It had never occurred to me that I could remain physically attracted to a woman for this long. And the sex between us only got better. She seemed to know my body so exactly, she knew when to squeeze, bite, moan and beg for maximum impact. All these weeks later, I still had to concentrate on not getting a hard-on when I saw her in the corridors at work. Especially when she shot me that look. The look that made me feel like I really was her god. Fuck.