“Thank you.” He sighed.
Isobel couldn’t help but smile a small private smile. Even in this he couldn’t help but be straitlaced and proper. But she knew there were two distinct sides to Ethan Masters. There was the leader and family chieftain, and then there was the lover—it was the lover who’d come to her tonight. The lover who would stoke her internal fires until she was raging with heat, until she’d explode like a supernova burning bright in a distant sky.
Ethan’s hands shoved at the waist of her pajama bottoms, making the cotton drawstring pants drop to her feet. His palms cupped her buttocks, pulling her firmly against him, against the hardness that showed her more than words could ever say, what effect she had on him.
She felt her body quicken instantly and she pulled his shirt free of his trousers and yanked his buttons open, heedless to the damage she wrought in her quest to feel his skin beneath her hands, her lips, her tongue.
He smelled divine, and she inhaled deeply, drawing in the scent of his skin and storing it away in her memory because she knew this—his presence, his overwhelming need for her—was an irregularity in his world. She’d take what she could get and she would cherish it to carry with her when she left again.
Ethan’s hands moved slowly up her body, dragging the tank top she’d paired with her pajama pants up over her body as he went, exposing her to his hungry gaze. Her nipples grew tight and her breasts felt full and aching—wanting his touch above all else. His fingers softly skimmed their roundness, barely touching her yet igniting a line of fire that shot straight to her core, making her inner muscles clench on a wave of sensation.
She pushed at his shirt with her hands, dragging it off him and dropping it to the floor, then pressed herself into the hard plane of his chest. The ache, rather than being relieved, intensified into a raw demand that had dwelt just below the surface this entire past week. Patience, never her strongest point, deserted her completely. She grabbed for his belt, tugging it loose and unfastening his trousers with surprising finesse. She shoved at his pants and slipped her hand inside the waistband of his boxer briefs, pulling the fabric away and letting the hard length of his desire spring against her palm. Her fingers closed around him and she felt him shudder. She loved the feel of him, the texture of his skin, the engorged strength and leashed power, the silken head. She stroked his length and felt him shudder again.
His fingers closed around hers.
“Not yet, I’m too close, too desperate for you to touch me like that right now,” he said in a strained voice.
“I like desperate,” she whispered in response and clenched him that little bit tighter.
He drew in a sharp breath. “Soon,” he said roughly. “Very soon.”
Ethan guided her hand away from him and caught her mouth in a kiss that claimed her totally. His hands skimmed up the length of her back, sending thrills of delight running through her. His thigh pressed between her legs, affording a brief respite to the longing that gathered at the apex of her thighs, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough for long.
She ground against him, seeking more pressure, seeking release. The muscles of his thigh beneath her were so firm, the hairs on his leg abrading the insides of her legs in a tantalizing contrast to the smoothness of her own.
“Okay, you win,” Ethan groaned, pulling away from her and spinning her around. “Hold on to the back of the sofa,” he instructed roughly.
She felt him shift behind her and bend to retrieve something from his trouser pocket. And then she felt the warm, blunt probe of his erection between her legs. She arched her back downward, raising her hips and spreading her legs that little more. His hands, warm and smooth and strong, were at her hips. She pushed back and felt his tip ease inside her.
It felt so good, but it wasn’t enough. She needed him all—all the way. Finally, he thrust against her, stretching and filling her so deeply it all but took her breath away. And then he began to move, and the pressure inside her built higher. She wanted to draw out each acute delight but her body, and his, had other ideas. Her climax rushed upon her, making her legs shake and her inner muscles spasm in tight coils of ecstasy over and over, forcing her to cry out loud, lost in the web of sensation that caught her in its thrall.
She felt Ethan stiffen, his hips pressed hard against her, his body jerking as his own climax took him. His fingers were still tight on her hips—she’d probably have marks there tomorrow but she didn’t care. How could she when they were so good together, so incendiary?
His grip softened, his palms once more skimming her heated flesh, stroking her, soothing her. He lowered himself over her back and pressed a kiss against her nape, which sent a corresponding shiver the length of her spine and made her insides tighten once more.
“I can’t stay away from you,” he said softly against her shoulder. “I’ve tried and I just can’t do it.”
Her heart contracted in response to the helplessness in his voice. She felt the same way but she knew it was a fleeting thing they shared. Isobel understood fleeting. She also knew that when something was short-lived it paid to grab it with both hands to make the most of it, and worry about the consequences later.
“Then don’t try,” she answered, her voice shaking with the aftermath of what they’d just shared.
“But why you? Why now?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” She sighed softly. “Let’s just be together, for now.”
“I can do that,” he answered, kissing her nape again as he carefully withdrew from her body.
She straightened and forced herself to turn around, almost afraid to see what might be in his eyes when she met them.
“Come on,” she said, holding out her hand. “Come to bed with me.”
He stood still as a statue, and equally as beautiful, before taking her hand in silent acquiescence. They left their clothing where it lay, scattered on the sitting room floor, and walked together to her bedroom. The king-size bed was already rumpled, evidence of how much she’d already tossed and turned in the short time she’d been in bed before Ethan’s knock had propelled her to the door. Isobel pulled back the sheets and climbed onto the bed, pulling Ethan after her.
She understood how much it had cost him to come to her tonight. He’d been aloof toward her all week, and she could see why. She could understand the level of responsibility he bore on his shoulders and why it was so important to him to live up to his family’s expectations. A life like the Masters family enjoyed was so far from what she was used to, but it didn’t mean she had no empathy for Ethan as the new head of what was arguably a dynasty.
For a man with his pride, to crumble and come to her door as he had tonight, he had to be at war within himself. And she knew all about the ravages of war. How it displaced families, how it destroyed livelihoods and both past and present. War, whether physical or mental, always exacted a price. The question was would this be at his cost, or hers?
Isobel pushed Ethan down against the bed, her hands gently roaming the curves and valleys of his body, coaxing a response from him that wasn’t driven from a place of anger or fear...or of loathing. Because that was what she was frightened of. That he might loathe her or at least loathe what this attraction between them was doing to him. That it was making him lose precious control.
This was all about giving that control back to him. Because the more comfortable he felt with the draw that existed between them, the more likely it was that he’d indulge himself in exploring it for as long as she stayed at The Masters.
She peppered a line of kisses along his collarbone then down the center of his chest. His arms came up around her, his hands drifting up and down the line of her spine. Isobel felt her body respond in degrees. The shimmering heat of desire kept building and building within her as she stoked the same heat within him. By the time she reached for the side pocket of her pack, which she kept beside the b
ed, she was more than ready to feel the heavy weight of his body within hers.
Ethan barely said a word, watching her with eyes that glittered like chips of dark volcanic glass, as she extracted a condom and slowly, carefully, smoothed it over the straining length of his flesh. She positioned herself above him and held him in one hand, guiding him to the secret part of her body that ached for his possession. He rose up as she sank onto him, her body stretching to accommodate him, her eyes fluttered closed as a sigh of gratification eased from her at the rightness of this union between their bodies.
His hands gripped her hips, holding her steady when she wanted to rock against him. Her eyes flicked open, locking with his. Only then did he loosen his hold on her and allow her to move. She moaned at that first movement, at the sensations that spread out through her body, at the intensity of the connection between them as they continued to look directly into one another’s eyes. Time blurred as she rocked against him, her movements deliberate and slow, until she could barely take it any longer. Beads of perspiration dotted her face, her body, matching the sheen across his as they remained locked together in a sensual wave of motion. A wave that built and built, taking her closer and closer to the edge.
Ethan suddenly shifted, holding her hips and maintaining their union even as he slid her beneath him and settled between her legs. He kept up their momentum, driving her to even greater heights before slowing down again. Just when she thought she was incapable of feeling any more, he upped the tempo. In seconds she was spiraling high, higher than she’d ever been as wave after building wave of pleasure resonated through her body. As her body clenched around him, she felt Ethan stiffen before he plunged into her, again and again until a shout clawed its way from deep in his throat and he shuddered against her.
He rolled to the side, taking her with him, his breathing ragged, his eyes now closed, his pulse beating like a crazy thing at the base of his throat. She leaned forward and kissed him, right there, at that exact spot that evidenced the passion they’d just shared. His skin was hot, slick and slightly salty. She stroked her hand across his chest in a lazy sweep, not wanting for a second to lose that link they’d so tenuously established.
Ethan’s eyes opened, and one of his hands closed around hers, holding it firmly against his chest.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
“Thank you?”
“For not telling me to get the hell out of here.”
She smiled. “What, and miss all this?” She squeezed her internal muscles, teasing him in voice and deed.
Some of the tension that had begun to appear on his face eased away.
He shook his head slightly. “Don’t you take anything seriously?”
“I take my work seriously,” she replied. “But everything else, well, that’s fluid.”
“What’s that like?” he asked, releasing her hand and reaching out to twist a length of her hair around his finger.
“It’s freedom. Unless it impacts directly on my work, I don’t have to worry about what other people think, or say, or do. I look after myself and I like it that way.”
“No plans to ever settle down in one place?”
She shook her head emphatically. “Definitely not. I’ve moved around for most of my life. I couldn’t imagine doing it differently, or why I’d want to.”
He relaxed a little more and she wondered for a second if he’d been worried that now they’d made love again that she might begin to put demands upon him, expect more than just the amazing sex they shared.
A fleeting pang of regret pierced her chest but she pushed it aside. She didn’t do long term. She just didn’t. This, whatever they had, was just fine by her. For however long they had it. Now that Ethan had climbed down off his high horse, maybe they could just enjoy each other for the time she was here.
“Is that why you chose photography as your career?” he asked, continuing to twirl her hair between his fingers.
“It’s certainly flexible, but that isn’t why I do it. It chose me, I suppose. When my dad and I left New Zealand, and started traveling, one of his friends gave me an old SLR camera. I played around with it—discovered I had a knack for composition. It wasn’t long before I became fascinated with the play of light and darkness on life.”
“That sounds deep,” Ethan commented with a smile.
“I don’t spend all my life doing catalog work, you know.” She laughed lightly.
“So what do you do the rest of the time?”
The laughter fled from inside her as she recalled her last photo assignment in Africa. Recalled the heat, the smells, the poverty. The destitution and helplessness of the people being rousted out of their homes and livings by a despotic and avaricious leader. And how, even in that desolation, there was still hope. Hope for something better, for someone or some nation to help. That was Isobel’s mission. To show the world the people who needed help. To bring that desperation into more privileged peoples’ and their governments’ consciousness. To help, somehow, and give those struggling people some hope.
“I take photos of people. Families, mostly.”
She worked hard to keep her voice light. There was a time and a place for discussing what she did and that wasn’t here or right now. It was why she kept a very successful blog running on her visits to areas like the one she’d just been expelled from and why, when she was away from those areas, she lived her life to the fullest, with color, with joy.
“What, like mall photographers? Grumpy babies and toddlers?”
“Not quite,” Isobel amended, weighing up whether or not to go deeper into what she did with Ethan.
The decision was taken from her hands when he let her hair go and rose from the bed.
“I’ll get rid of this and then get going,” he said, referring to the used condom.
“You don’t want to stay?”
She wasn’t upset that he planned to leave her now that his passion for her had been sated. Or at least that’s what she told herself.
“I have an early start tomorrow. I don’t want to disturb you. Besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea if we make a habit of this.”
His emotional shutters were back down. She could see it as plain as day on his face, and for some stupid reason it hurt her deep inside. What had she been hoping for? A declaration of his feelings for her? A promise to make every night as spectacular as this one had been? She gave herself a mental shake. That wasn’t what she wanted.
Liar, a voice in the back of her mind whispered piercingly through her consciousness.
She shoved the thought back just as swiftly as it came. As he headed to the bathroom to clean up, she rolled out of bed and walked naked into the living room to pick up Ethan’s clothes, as well as drag her pajamas back over her body.
He came out of the bathroom and uttered his thanks as she silently handed him his things. He gave her a brief, chaste kiss once he was dressed, and then he was gone. Isobel turned off the lights behind her as she went back to bed and curled into a ball where he’d lain. Telling herself she was all sorts of pathetic for wishing him back here at her side even as she tried not to inhale the faint traces of his scent on the pillow where his head had lain only minutes before.
It seemed that from the moment she’d met Ethan Masters her life had been thrown into a state of heightened awareness and confusion. Despite his being the antithesis to the way she lived her life, she remained inexorably drawn to him. It’s just the sex, she told herself. And yes, it was great sex. Off-the-scale sex. Better than she’d ever had in her entire life sex. But they were two very different people.
She was transient, lived her life out of a backpack and traveled wherever whim took her. He was established, had generations of history behind him and backing him from sunup to sundown. He was grounded in the earth here as much as those vineyards she’d walke
d through several times this past week. Perhaps even more so.
He was a commitment kind of guy. A guy who looked great with a woman like Shanal Peat on his arm and in his life. Try as she might, Isobel couldn’t quell the fierce sense of possessiveness that swept through her. She didn’t want to think about Ethan with Shanal, or with any woman, for that matter. But, she reminded herself firmly, she was only here for, at most, three more weeks—whereas Ethan would be here for the rest of his life.
Forever—it wasn’t the kind of thing she could commit to, nor wanted to, she told herself as she rolled to her other side. She dragged the bedcovers over her now-chilled body and told herself that the bed didn’t feel half-empty without Ethan lying by her side.
Nine
Whatever he’d been thinking by going to Isobel on Friday night, it had been the wrong thing to do, Ethan decided as he roamed the winery late on Sunday.
Everyone had gone to bed, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his work. This was his favorite stage of production, and he took his work very seriously—checking and rechecking everything. Overseeing whatever he’d delegated so thoroughly, he may as well have done it all himself. Tam teased him about being a control freak but he felt no shame in wanting to ensure that The Masters label maintained its hard-won profile in the marketplace.
Yet tonight was different. He struggled to concentrate on his tasks, his mind constantly sliding back in time to Friday. To the expression on Isobel’s face when she’d opened her door to him. To her easy acceptance of what he’d been there for. To the feel of her limbs wrapped tight around his.
Ethan pushed a trembling hand through his hair and tried to shake the images of Isobel’s long back, her tapered waist, and her rounded buttocks from his mind. She hadn’t hesitated when he’d turned her around, hadn’t balked when he’d driven into her body like a crazy man. She’d accepted everything, and then taken him to her bed where she’d given to him all over again.
Then, when he’d so abruptly left her, she hadn’t so much as batted an eyelid. Not a single plea to him to remain had passed her lips, although he knew he’d have been welcome.
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