by Zoey Parker
Ethan gave a single quick nod. “Fine. I’m taking Diana home. If there are any more problems, you call my cell. No one else. Understand?”
Louis assured him that he would call if there were any hang ups. Ethan walked me to his car, even opening the door for me. I was pretty sure it was only because I was in shock, but I appreciated the gesture just the same. Sliding down into my seat, I was grateful when Ethan got in and started the car.
The ride was blissfully silent, but when Ethan pulled into my driveway, he turned to me. “Have you reconsidered after your little taste of life in the fast lane?” He offered me a smirk and clearly was trying to play this off as no big deal, but I sensed that my answer was important to him.
I tilted my head to the side so that I could look at him. I was exhausted, so I didn’t try to be snarky. Instead, I just said, “No. I meant what I said. I’m in. Partner in full, so don’t forget it.”
His smirk widened into a grin and he nodded once, then got out of the car.
Groaning, I made myself open the door and got out. Together we walked to the door and I unlocked it, then pushed it open and headed inside. I half expected him to tell me he’d see me later and leave, but instead he followed me inside. We lingered just past the door and for a moment I had no idea what to do. Then I remembered I was an adult and we’d already hashed all this out.
Louis was taking care of the bodies, which I refused to think about because that would probably make me have to deal with whatever psychological drama that caused. My son was safely tucked away at Jessie’s. There was nothing else to think about except the fact that Ethan Chambers was standing in my living room looking just as sexy as he had when he appeared on my doorstep a couple of hours earlier.
“Do you want to have a seat?” I asked, gesturing to the couch.
He smiled at me. “Sure. I’ll sit, but only because I want you to ride me.”
Fire ignited within me, eager after the danger and the death tonight. I felt it run along my skin beneath my clothes, spreading until heat coalesced between my legs. I let out a shaky breath and when he started confidently walking to the couch, I followed him.
He sat down, slouching in the middle of the couch. His legs were spread wide until it seemed like he was taking up all the available space. Then he looked up at me with dark, lusty eyes and he motioned for me to sit. On him.
I swallowed and did what he wanted. I straddled him, putting one leg on either side of his hips until my core hovered just above his manhood. His jeans were strained and my underwear was wet. I thought briefly about standing back up to undress myself, but then his hands were on either side of my face, pulling me to him. His lips crashed against mine, insistent and ravaging. I lost myself to him.
His hands went to my rear, squeezing me and pulling me against him, encouraging me to begin moving over him. I gasped when I felt his hardness beneath his jeans.
I began to move on my own, grinding myself against him, wishing we’d paused long enough to get undressed. I moaned into his mouth when he squeezed my butt again, and kept moving as his hands traveled up higher. They slipped beneath my shirt to find bare skin, rising higher and higher up my back until they could confirm that I wasn’t wearing a bra.
He had to momentarily break the kiss, because his hands hadn’t stopped moving, but they couldn’t lift the shirt any farther while we were connected. So I pulled back slightly and lifted my arms, letting him push the shirt up until my breasts were exposed. I jerked the shirt off the rest of the way, and threw it on the couch beside us.
Ethan took a moment to appreciate my breasts, which he loved from the beginning. His hands went to them, weighing them in his palms and then squeezing them.
I gasped, “Yes!”
His thumbs ran over the nipples until they were hard pebbles, and then I felt a spark of pleasure and surprise when I felt his mouth slip over the left one. I groaned as his teeth grazed the hardened peak, my hands going to his hair to rake through it.
I held him to my breast, grinding my core against him at the same time, working us both up into a frenzy.
“Ethan, yes, please,” I murmured.
His left hand drifted from my breast, down my waist and to the waistband of my jeans. Moving towards the middle, he found the button and popped it. Then he undid the zipper so he could slip his fingers down the front to find my aching, wet core.
The door opened. I froze.
“Oh my god, Diana!”
It was Jessie and she was horrified.
Chapter 18
There was a long awkward moment where Ethan continued to suckle my breast and slide his fingers along my moist center. And it still felt good. My body was begging me to just let go, to ride Ethan’s hand towards my own satisfaction, but my brain just wasn’t having it. This wasn’t like when Louis watched us. He understood parts of the situation that Jessie never could. And Louis also knew now that Ethan and I had reached some sort of understanding, though he hadn’t been told outright.
But Jessie? All Jessie was seeing was Ethan blackmailing me into being a whore.
“Jesus,” she breathed, her eyes huge as she looked at us. Then her expression began to shift to one of anger. “Get the hell off of—”
“Jessie, wait.”
I covered my exposed breasts—well, breast, since Ethan was still lapping at the other one with his tongue—and reached between us to grab his wrist. I tugged on it to get his hand out of my pants. For a second, he didn’t budge. It was more than obvious that he didn’t care if someone was watching us; he wanted me, damn everything else.
“Ethan,” I hissed.
A moment later, he sighed against my breast, his hot breath cascading over my skin and making me shiver involuntarily. Then he pulled away and when I tugged on his wrist again, that, too, gave in. He removed his hand from my pants and I hoped to god Jessie couldn’t see that his fingers were shiny with my own natural lubricant.
Reaching across Ethan, I grabbed my t-shirt from the couch and quickly slipped it on. Then I moved to dismount Ethan, not looking at Jessie for fear of what I might see there.
This isn’t going to be a fun conversation, I thought.
I managed to get one foot on the floor, my leg under me, but then Ethan’s large hand grabbed the other by the thigh. “Take care of this quickly,” he said in a low, husky voice, motioning towards Jessie with a jerk of his head.
I swallowed thickly and found myself nodding. My eyes momentarily darted to his lips. The movement caused them to form into a sultry smirk.
He released my thigh then and let me stand fully while he settled further into the cushions and folded his arms behind his head, watching me.
I didn’t have to be told I was blushing profusely as I zipped and buttoned my jeans. I could feel the burn on my cheeks. Turning away from Ethan, I forced myself to walk towards the hallway where I could get a little privacy with Jessie. When I didn’t hear any movements behind me, I reluctantly glanced up to see Jessie. She was shooting daggers at Ethan, her jaw clenched tightly in anger.
“Jessie, please. We need to talk.”
Jesus, I sound like I’m about to break up with her.
Jessie hesitated. She didn’t seem thrilled with the idea of Ethan being here at all, much less of finding us together on the couch as she did. The thought made me blush harder, embarrassed at being caught. It was like being sixteen all over again.
Eventually, Jessie ripped her gaze from Ethan and followed me into the hall. As soon as there was a wall between us and Ethan, she burst out, “What the hell is going on? I thought you guys never did your…you know, thing at home.”
I winced. I’d told Jessie about Ethan’s deal, because what else could I do? Now, I was seriously regretting it. How would I explain that he was here now because I wanted him to be, not because he was an asshole demanding sexual favors in exchange for protection?
Yeah, this’ll be a fun conversation.
Still, I had to have it. So I squared my shoulders and li
fted my chin. “This isn’t about the deal.”
Jessie’s brow furrowed and she folded her arms across her chest. “What?”
“It’s not about the deal. I…I asked Ethan to be here.”
Well, I didn’t exactly ask him, but I wanted him here. I certainly hadn’t wanted him to leave.
“You have got to be kidding me! I can’t believe he’s here! And if you wanted him here, then what the hell was…was that?”
I shook my head. “It’s complicated, Jessie.”
“Complicated? No, it’s disturbing! He’s a drug dealer!”
I felt a spark of irritation at that. Not that he wasn’t a drug dealer. I just didn’t think of him like that specifically. He wasn’t some ratty, dirty gaunt man on a street corner peddling cocaine to a bunch of kids. He was a businessman offering a product to people who would pay.
And, sure, that was definitely a little distorted in my mind, but to me there was a difference. I’d seen that difference tonight when I watched him forgive Louis. It hadn’t seemed like much from the outside, but I knew that really it had been huge.
I was trying to figure out how to explain that to Jessie when I thought of something. Why was Jessie here?
“What are you even doing here? You’re supposed to be watching Cody.” And now that I’d thought of my son, my world took a dive. “Jesus, is he okay?”
Jessie waved off my worries. “He’s with my friend at my apartment, clearing out my stash of gummy worms at poker because he can’t sleep. I’m here to pick up his teddy. Didn’t you get my text?”
I made a face, squishing my nose up and pulling my lips together, squinting my eyes almost completely closed. I had gotten the text. Right before Todd pulled a gun on us and started shooting. “Shit. I’m sorry. I completely forgot about that. Things got…crazy tonight.”
I briefly considered telling her about the dead bodies, but quickly rethought that train wreck. The less Jessie knew about what had happened tonight, the safer she was. And the less likely she was to insist I go to the cops this time, corrupt or not.
“Because of this?” she demanded, waving a hand at the wall to indicate the living room and Ethan still on my couch.
I was about to tell her that hadn’t been it, but then I realized that was the perfect excuse. And if I were honest with myself, it was also partially true. Ethan had made tonight pretty nuts, dead bodies or no. “Well, yes. He really cares about me, Jessie.”
She let out a bitter laugh, very clearly not agreeing with me on this point. “Are you serious? Do you even hear yourself?”
“Jessie—” I began, but she quickly interrupted.
“No, this is bullshit. He blackmailed you and coerced you. Not only did he do this so that he could store drugs in your perfectly legal store, but so he could put his thing in your thing and do the dirty between the sheets! And that doesn’t even cover the fact that he burned down your store!”
“Half,” I corrected automatically. “He burned down half the store. And now he’s paying for repairs.”
“Because he’s storing drugs there!”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache begin there. I could see her point. From the outside, this whole thing was preposterous. No one falls for the man who used and manipulated her. And, yet, I did. Or was in the process of doing so. “Jessie, I know how this looks, okay? But things between us have…changed. We’re on the same page now.”
“You’re being insane right now, Diana. Seriously insane. I mean, like, Stockholming it to the max.”
“He didn’t kidnap me for Christ’s sake,” I reminded her in irritation.
“That’s about all he didn’t do!”
I took a deep, slow breath, and tried again to explain. “I have feelings for him.”
Her expression softened slightly as her shoulders slumped, though I would be stupid to assume that this fight was over. “Seriously? Please tell me you’re not one of those women who think they can change a bad boy. Like, he’s just this poor, wounded soul that needs a little TLC and you’re just the saint to give it to him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. Ethan’s an ass. He’ll always be an ass. But he’s also a fair man. And he sees us as partners. That’s more than any man has seen me as before. I know he’s not perfect, but he’s not the devil either.”
She raised an eyebrow at me, suggesting she disagreed with that last part, but she didn’t say anything about it. “What about Cody? Are you seriously going to expose him to this kind of life?”
A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth because Jessie had finally hit the nail on the head. Whether I wanted to take a walk on the wild side or not, did I really have any right to drag my son into that? And yet…“I’m not going to.”
Jessie’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “You’re not? So you’re going to end it with Ethan?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not. But I’m going to set up some ground rules, the first and most important one being that Cody never knows. Not now, not twenty years from now.”
“You really think you can keep him out of this when you’re eyeball deep?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know. But I know being a good girl hasn’t done shit for me. It’s gotten me in trouble and left me struggling to pay the bills. This gives me a chance to really do something with my life and I’ve got to take it.”
Jessie still didn’t look happy, but I could tell that I’d worn her down some. She glanced towards the doorway that led to the living room. She pursed her lips together for a moment, then let out a sigh. “Is there anything I can say that will make you come to your senses?”
I smiled a little, then shook my head. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“Fine. But for the record, I don’t like it and he’s a creep.”
“But you’ll support me?”
“I guess. I won’t bitch about it anyway.” She paused, then gave me a half smile. “Well, not too much.”
I laughed, then went to her. I gave her a hug and after a moment, she returned it. “You’re a good friend.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
Finished with our conversation, we headed out of the hall and into the living room. Jessie gave Ethan—who was now shirtless, but otherwise in the exact position I’d left him in—a frosty glare. “I don’t like you.”
He smiled amiably. “Feeling’s mutual.”
She cursed quiet enough that I barely caught it. “Bastard.” To Ethan, she said, “Just treat her right. She deserves better than the likes of you.”
“I’ll do more for her than any other man ever will.”
Jessie rolled her eyes, not as confident in his words as he was, then turned to me. “I’m going to go and—shit, the teddy.” She winced and headed back into the hall, presumably to Cody’s room to grab the stuffed bear.
I looked towards Ethan, my gaze moving on its own down his muscled torso. He really was built like a god and I appreciated that now more than ever. I swallowed thickly and when my eyes met his again, he was watching me, grinning wickedly.
“Like what you see?” he teased.
I folded my arms across my chest, reminded that I wasn’t wearing a bra. “Maybe.”
“Good. Because I definitely do. Though I think you’re a little overdressed.”
“Oh? Should I take something off?”
He lifted a shoulder like it wasn’t important to him, but I saw his eyes darken with desire. “I took my shirt off. Fair is fair.”
I laughed at him. “I think it’s a little different for you to take your shirt off than it is for me to take mine off.”
“Not based on the way you were just devouring me with your eyes,” he pointed out.
I flushed and couldn’t help but grin a little in embarrassment. He was sexy and I had been ogling him. “So you’re saying I should let you devour me with your eyes?”
“Yes,” he said in a low, husky voice.
My eyes darted down again and this time di
dn’t stay on his chest. They trailed over his abs to his crotch which was straining against the zipper of his jeans. “Maybe we’re both a little overdressed.”
Instantly, his hand moved to his jeans and he undid the button. He was pulling down the zipper when Jessie came back. “Oh, god, please. I already saw way too much of you guys earlier. You’ve got great tits, Diana, but I really didn’t need to see them.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled in embarrassment, but Ethan just laughed.
“You say that, but maybe you’re just trying to hide the fact that you were turned on.” He winked at me. “Maybe you really want to stay and watch.”