by Natasha Tate
“I don’t mind waiting.” She rotated toward his chest and burrowed close, snaking her arms beneath his tuxedo jacket.
Ethan allowed her embrace, gradually relaxing as his breath skimmed the top of her head. They stood in silence for several beats as he scanned the street for his car until it arrived, gliding to a smooth, silent stop. With a subtle press of his palm against her spine, Ethan assisted her into the limousine. The shadowed interior smelled like him, and she inhaled sharply as she slid over the soft, heated leather.
After he’d joined her and the car rejoined the traffic, Cate gathered her courage and twisted until her knee pressed against his hard thigh. Leaning forward, her gaze traced his harsh profile while the lights of the city created moving strips of visibility along his silhouette. Trembling with a mix of fear and daring, she reached for his rigid shoulder. “Will you stay tonight?” she asked. “Once you take me home?”
When he didn’t move away, she slid her free hand into the gap between his lapels, beneath the warm weight of wool, and skimmed her fingers down the shirt and vest of his tuxedo. The muscles of his chest flexed beneath her palm.
“I’d like you to,” she told him. She shifted her hand until the insistent clubbing of his heart abraded her palm. “I’d like to spend a night with you.”
Ethan remained still, his fists knotted against his thighs. “Cate.”
“Please,” she urged. “I want to …” Cate slid closer to him, both hands shoving the sleek tuxedo jacket aside so she could work on the buttons of his vest and shirt. He did nothing to help her, as she quickly worked from his throat down to the waistband of his pants. Shaking with nervousness, she sucked in a hot breath when her fingertips finally came into contact with his fever-hot skin.
Excitement seared her as she pulled his shirt free and then spread it wide to her greedy fingers. Her palms itched to explore the shadowed textures, and she succumbed to the desire, dragging her sensitive palms down the scented, tantalizing stretch of taut skin and springy hair. Fervent determination fired her blood as she found his flat nipple with her fingertip. Expecting him to push her back at any moment, she leaned forward to graze it with her tongue.
Ethan groaned and his chest heaved beneath her questing mouth. He tunneled his fingers along her scalp and wrenched her head away from his skin, hauling her up until his mouth caught hers in a voracious, drugging kiss. Hard shivers wracked Cate’s body while his hands moved from her head to her hips. Lifting her, he positioned her buttocks over his spraddled thighs before he returned his attentions to her mouth. Several long moments later, his breath choppy and raw, he withdrew enough to stare at the stiff corset of her Cinderella costume.
The boned velvet pushed her breasts high, creating cleavage that now captured his hungry gaze. Awash with a surreal sense of bravery, she reached for his hands and pulled them to her chest. His eyes flashed hot before he twisted his wrists to brush his fingers in a reverent arc over each shadowed curve. He dipped to kiss the plump top of her left breast, then hooked a thumb over the edge of her corset and bra, bending both down until her pebbled nipple popped free.
Bared to him now, she waited, her breath suspended, until he leaned to trace the ruched areola, then the puckered tip, with his tongue. Currents of sensation shot to her core. She arched and gasped as he sucked her deep into his hot mouth, desire thrumming insistently through every cell of her body as she clutched the back of his head and pulled him even closer. When he released her with a damp waft of breath, his teeth flashed white until she twisted and moaned for more. He obliged by bending to her other side, his tongue pulling desire from deep within.
She throbbed. She wanted. She needed … Oh, he rolled the exquisitely taut peak between his teeth, scissoring with feathery, delicate pressure that sent arrows of arousal to every nerve ending. Cate was so hypnotized by the pleasure of his ministrations that she didn’t notice he’d shoved her gown up until the hard press of his bare hand against her buttocks had her arching against his long, hard erection. Breath hissed through his teeth as she ground into the tight ridge thickening the front of his tuxedo pants.
Mindless to the pleasure rocketing through her, Cate flung her arms around his neck and dragged her mouth over the thrumming pulse beneath his jaw. She pressed her bared breasts against his hard chest, squirming to get closer. He gripped her head, seized her mouth in a marauding kiss, then wrenched away with a low mutter. “Cover yourself,” he said.
“What?” Disoriented, she automatically acquiesced as he crossed her cloak over her exposed breasts.
“We’re here.” His eyes, dark and glinting, promised to continue where they’d left off. “And I’d rather Walter not see you like this.”
Awkwardly, she scrambled off his lap, shoving her feet into her discarded shoes. By the time Ethan’s chauffeur opened the door, she’d restored some semblance of order to her disheveled costume if not to her flushed skin and dismantled hair.
The man averted his eyes and handed her out onto the cement walkway, doffing his hat as Ethan emerged behind her.
“Thank you, Walter,” Ethan said.
“Yes, sir.”
By the time the chauffeur had rounded the sleek black car, Ethan had already ushered her out onto the empty tarmac of a private airstrip. A white jet stood at the ready, her pilot circling its nose to check the far wing. An abrupt surge of nervousness sent Cate’s heart into a thudding tailspin while a trickle of sweat beaded between her breasts. She stood, frozen, unable to make her feet move while Ethan pressed an arm against her back and urged her forward.
No longer awash in dreamy fantasy, reality slapped against her consciousness with brutal clarity. Waves of heat and ice sliced through her as she turned to meet his gaze. His eyes were bright in the runway lights. The piercing blue hooded beneath a fan of black lashes brought back the searing memory of her writhing greedily against him in his limo, their mouths feasting on one another while her desire for pleasure, for darkness, had blinded her to the dangers ahead.
Unsettled, Cate adjusted her coat and inhaled thinly through her nostrils while pricks of heat blossomed on her face. He continued to stare down at her, his eyes filled with a disquieting glint of command.
“What are we doing here?” she asked, though she knew with a sickening certainty what his reply would be.
“We’re flying to the island.”
Fingers of panic wrapped around her heart, squeezing hard. “I never agreed to that.”
“You said you wanted a night with me.”
“I meant here. In New York.”
“But the island will be better,” he said softly, his eyes glittering with immutable intent. “It’ll bring us full circle.”
She’d braced herself for his rejection, had told herself she could handle the risk to her heart if it meant a few hours of pleasure with the man she’d once loved. She could handle him discovering her secrets, could withstand his rejection once he saw her scars. Here, in New York, with its cold October breezes, crazy social calendar and bustling anonymity, she could lie to herself and pretend the pain away once he pushed her away. She could survive.
But being alone with him on the island paradise of their youth while he stripped her soul bare? “No,” she snapped, a panicked nervousness making it hard to breathe. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Her chilled hands grew damp within her gloves and she spun toward the safety of the limousine. But Walter had already started pulling away. She wanted to run after him, to slap at the windows and beg until he stopped and allowed her back inside. “I can’t,” she repeated, her voice thin with fear.
Ethan stared at her with a flicker of surprise. “You’re scared.”
Ducking her head while terror channeled through her, she nodded. “I’m sorry,” she confessed through chattering teeth. “It’s just that I haven’t been there since … And I … we …” She trailed off, miserable and afraid.
“Cate. You’re overreacting.” His hand cupped her elbow and tug
ged, pulling her toward the small jet staircase. “Come.”
Too overcome to wage a decent verbal defense, she wrenched her arm free and shook her head jerkily. “No. I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She inhaled sharply, readjusting her expectations of the night, reminding herself of why it had been foolish to hope for something that could never be. “I just want to go home. You said you’d take me home.”
“I will.” He reclaimed her arm, ushering her closer to the airplane’s waiting staircase. “After the island.”
“No.”
He maintained his grip, moving to tower over her despite her protests. “Yes.”
“I was tipsy,” she blurted. “I extended an invitation I shouldn’t have. Surely you don’t intend to kidnap me because of it!”
“This has nothing to do with the wine or your invitation, Cate.”
“Then what? Why are you forcing me to come to the island with you?”
Ethan’s gaze flattened and his fingers tightened against her biceps. “Because you owe me.”
“I owe you?” she shouted. “What are you talking about?”
“There was no internship.”
It took a few seconds for his words to register. “No intern—what?” She felt the blood drain from her face.
Refusing to grant her refuge from the truth, he held her gaze. “The internship with Stevenson and Sons that your father supposedly set up for me? It didn’t exist.” A grim smile curved his mouth. “Unless, of course, you consider being beaten within an inch of my life the moment I showed up to claim it an internship.”
Her mouth moved soundlessly as she processed his revelation.
“Your father lied to you, Cate, so you’d break things off with me. He played us both because he didn’t like a lowly manual laborer sniffing around his daughter. And you believed his lies because it was easier to reject me than to defy your own father.”
“That’s not why,” she whispered.
“Does it matter?”
A paralyzing shame tweaked the back of Cate’s neck. How could she have not seen it, knowing how proud her father was, how focused he was on prestige and wealth? Every muscle in her body drew into uncomfortable tautness, flogging her with guilty recriminations and agonizing what-ifs. “Ethan, I …” she gasped. “Oh, God. No wonder you’re so angry. No wonder you hate me.”
His face remained an inscrutable mask. “I don’t hate you.”
“You have to believe me! I never would have sent you away, had I known!”
“But you did, didn’t you?” He dropped his gaze to her mouth, then leisurely returned to her eyes. “Which is why you’re going to come to the island with me. Tonight.”
Suddenly, the promise she’d wrung from Ethan so long ago came back to haunt her with bruising clarity.
“Promise you won’t leave me, Ethan.”
“You don’t have to ask.”
“Say it anyway. I need to hear it.”
“I promise. I love you. Of course I’ll never leave you.”
She’d believed him, had known he loved her more than he loved himself. Time and time again, he’d whispered his devotion, his love, his commitment. And because of that, she’d known the only way to make him leave was to convince him that she no longer wanted him.
She pressed trembling hands against her stomach, guilt coiling in her chest like a living thing. She’d treated him so terribly. And he’d believed her lies. To give him a future, she’d killed his love for her. And for what? An internship that had never existed?
He must have taken her silence as acquiescence, because he escorted her the remaining distance without resistance. Her pulse rioted like an undisciplined child’s as he guided her up the small flight of steps and ushered her into the spacious cabin. When he ducked in after her, the space seemed to shrink. His large, broad body filled the room and stole all the air.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
“Cate,” he said in a low voice against her ear.
Lurching forward, she stumbled into the window seat and then gripped the armrests with trembling, fumbling hands. She dragged in several deep, cleansing breaths, like those she’d used for so many years during her physical therapy, like those she’d learned to use in preparation for pain.
As much as the seat belt would allow, she angled herself toward the window and stared out onto the empty tarmac. The double layer of glass misted beneath her breath, blurring the city’s landscape. Breathing deeply, she splayed her fingers against the cold glass and willed herself to calm. For Ethan, she could make it through whatever came next; she could survive. She could wall up her vulnerable heart and withstand the devastation of her most cherished memories. She’d be battered and wounded, but she’d live.
Oblivious to her inner turmoil, Ethan exchanged a few quiet words with the pilot and then settled in next to her. Despite the layers of wool and velvet between their adjacent thighs, she felt his heat. She smelled his scent, the drugging combination of cologne, soap and virile male. Being in such close quarters, knowing the pain she’d caused him, made her feel jittery.
The feelings only magnified as the plane took to the air and the cabin pressure changed, echoing the dizzying imbalance within her chest.
When they reached a cruising altitude, Ethan’s voice broke the silence. “It’s only for one day,” he said quietly. “While I get the specs to remodel for Dad.”
She swallowed and said nothing.
His head bent toward hers until his breath stirred the hair at her temple. One of his square hands moved to stroke the side of her neck, brushing the skin beneath her ear with a feathery touch. “I want new memories, Cate. Memories of you and me, together, on the island as equals.”
Aching tendrils of regret snaked through her belly as she nodded, bringing a burn of tears to the back of her throat. What he didn’t know was that those memories had been the only thing that kept her sane. In those years of debilitating pain, the memories of his love had kept her fighting and alive. She couldn’t bear to replace them with the harsh, bitter reality of her future. Of the woman she’d become. She couldn’t bear the reminder of what she’d lost.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BY THE time they arrived at Grantley Adams in Barbados, Ethan had watched Cate stare nervously out the window for nearly three hours. Worry pleated her brow and knotted her fingers, muddying his motives and making him want to soothe her fears. But didn’t he want her uncomfortable? Didn’t he want her off kilter and in pain?
His reactions didn’t make any sense. He shouldn’t yearn to protect her, to keep her safe. Even so, the urge to stroke her satiny skin, to explore the petal-softness of her jaw and long, thin neck had roared through him to the point that he’d had to join his pilot in the cockpit to keep from touching her. Kissing her. Soothing her and loving her and making her his in every way possible.
Ethan’s pilot had called ahead to schedule transportation to the island, so within another hour, they and the luggage Ethan had packed for them both had been delivered to the small dock just outside the Carrington beach house.
“It looks the same, doesn’t it?” he asked. The sunrise glinted gold and pink against the brilliant blue of the sea, momentarily blinding Ethan. He felt dawn’s rising heat beat upon his shoulders, a welcome change from the New York chill.
“Yes,” she agreed as they watched the boat depart. Cate had shed her coat, and stood in her wrinkled Cinderella costume, her rumpled hair drifting in the breeze. She turned, lifting a hand to shade her anxious eyes, and peered along the northern shore.
His gaze followed hers, snagging on the large, partially concealed rock while a wash of memories flooded him: Cate, sprawled lazily atop its sun-warmed surface while he stole peeks at her budding breasts; fresh pomegranate juice dribbling down her chin and forearm, trails of sticky sweetness he’d longed to lick from her skin during one of their clandestine midnight picnics; listening to katydids sing while he brushed his fingers close to he
r bare thigh and silently charted their future in the stars above.
“I wonder if my shell collection is still over there.”
He eased out a tight exhale, remembering the way she’d sorted his forfeited shells, remembering the sweet torture of banked passion. Realizing that even though he’d taken her fully less than forty-eight hours ago, it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. “I can’t imagine who would have moved it.”
“We didn’t hire anyone to replace you and your father after you left,” Cate told him as she turned toward the house. “I expect the grounds will be quite overgrown.”
Ethan cleared his throat. He couldn’t allow the sounds and scents of the island to undermine his resolve to remain aloof. Separate. Cold. He’d brought Cate here to make her vulnerable, not to drown in the past himself. “That’s okay. I figure it’ll keep Dad busy.” Ethan squinted toward the empty house and caretaker’s cottage. “Make him realize how much he’s needed here.”
When she didn’t answer, Ethan lifted the suitcases he’d packed. He began the trek back to the main house, his shoes crunching against the broken shell walkway while she trailed behind him.
The beach house, a symphony of emerald-green vines, colonial finials and white-washed clapboard, glinted on the pathway ahead. Weathered by decades of sand and sun, the two-story beach retreat belonged in the landscape of Ethan’s memories as much as Cate did. As they approached, Ethan’s eyes involuntarily rose to the trio of white-curtained windows on the second story.
Cate’s windows.
He remembered all the times he’d snuck up to her breezy balcony just to watch her sleep. All the times he’d climbed that crosshatch of vines, risking a painful fall and an outraged dismissal, just on the off chance that Cate might be awake. Up for a nighttime adventure. Or another stolen kiss.