by Elise Noble
But for how long?
CHAPTER 46
ETHAN STIRRED ME from a hazy sleep with kisses the next day, starting at my neck and peppering down my collarbone until he got distracted by my breasts. I moaned in pleasure as he licked and sucked my nipples into peaks before continuing his journey south.
He paid particular attention to my belly button, but rather than heading to the sweet spot, he trailed a digit along my belly.
I froze, fully awake now, a cold finger of fear tracing along the path he’d just taken. The sun was high in the sky, a beam cutting across my bare stomach. And that meant he could see what I always kept hidden with dim lighting or strategically placed clothes.
“Stop.” It came out barely audible, and I tried again. “Ethan, stop.”
Those blue eyes stared up at me, kindness turning to confusion, and I began shaking as I scrambled away from him.
“You need to go. Please.”
Hurt replaced the confusion, and Ethan’s shoulders slumped.
“Dani, what’s wrong?”
I shook my head, struggling to hold back the tears building behind my eyes. “I can’t.”
“Tell me what I did, and I’ll fix it.”
“Nothing.”
And I was still naked in the bright light. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I fled into the bathroom and slammed the door. It was only once the lock clicked that I dissolved.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Dani?” Ethan’s voice sounded muffled through the door. “I don’t know what just happened, but please don’t do this.”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. My legs gave way and I slid down the wall to the floor as a wave of old emotions crashed over me. Fifteen years, and the wounds were still as raw and painful as the day I woke up in hospital with Emmy by my side.
My phone rang in the bedroom, but I ignored it. Leah could deal with the problem, or Emmy if it was important enough. Today, I needed the time on my own.
Time to weep for the son I’d never known. I ran my own finger along the stretch marks that still showed up when the light was right. Fifteen years, and they’d faded from an angry red to pale silver, but they’d always be there as a reminder of what I’d lost.
Why had I let things go so far with Ethan last night? I’d been selfish, taking what I wanted, and now I’d hurt both of us in the process. Far better to spend a few hours with a faceless hookup who wouldn’t remember my name in the morning.
Now I was in a world of trouble, and I needed to dig myself out. What should I say to Ethan? How did I break the news that I wasn’t relationship material? That one night was all I could offer? A simple “sorry” just wouldn’t cut it.
An hour passed as I shivered in my bathrobe, then two, and I still had no clue. Words were totally inadequate in a situation like this.
I crawled over to the door. “Ethan?”
Nothing, so I tried a little louder.
“Ethan, are you there?”
Silence. He’d gone. Of course he’d gone. What kind of man would sit outside a bathroom for two-and-a-half hours waiting for a crazy woman to come to her senses?
I opened the door, and Ethan fell backwards and landed at my feet.
“What are you still doing here?” I snapped. “Why didn’t you answer?”
The hurt that crossed his face made my chest spasm. “Because you wouldn’t have come out, would you?”
I folded my arms over my chest as he stood up. His gaze dropped, and I realised my tits were bulging out of my bathrobe. I quickly tugged it shut.
“Would you?” he repeated.
“No, but I told you to leave.”
“You were upset. Still are upset. What kind of man would I be if I’d listened?”
“I’m fine.”
“The hell you are.”
“Please, just leave me alone.”
I put my hands on my hips and glared. Normally that would be enough to send a man running for the hills, but Ethan stepped forward, pushing me backwards until his hips trapped me against the bathroom vanity.
“I spent most of last night inside you, and this morning you flip out and want me to leave? Well, I’m not going to, not until you tell me what’s wrong.”
My carefully rehearsed speech flew from my mind. “It was a mistake,” I croaked out, gripping the edge of the marble until my knuckles went white.
“Once, we could have written off as a mistake, Dani. Twice, even. But not six times. Six times you screamed my name and came apart around me. Six times you made me feel like no other woman has before. So get this, I’m not fucking leaving until you talk to me, and I don’t mean some bullshit about this being a mistake.”
I thought I’d cried all my tears, but it turned out I was wrong. As one after another ran down my cheeks, Ethan kissed them away, and when the stream became a river, he wiped it with his thumbs. Then he held me.
“Those marks on my stomach,” I whispered. “They’re stretch marks. The kind women get when they’re pregnant.”
He tried to look at me, but I turned my head away.
“You have a kid?”
I couldn’t answer. All I managed was a strangled cough.
“Dani? You have a kid?”
I quickly shook my head. “He was stillborn.”
Ethan held me tighter and didn’t let go even when I tried to push him away.
“When?” He spoke close to my ear.
“He would have been fifteen next week.”
“How are you old enough to have a fifteen-year-old son?”
“I’m thirty-one.”
He quickly did the math. “Fuck, baby, you were sixteen. That wasn’t even legal.”
“I know.”
I took a deep breath, remembering the night I lost my little boy. The same night I’d met Emmy. She’d been the one to take me to the hospital, the one who’d covered my medical bills and given me a place to live afterwards.
My eyes got wetter. “But a good kicking took care of the problem, and I can’t have another child.”
Now Ethan would leave, right?
Wrong. His fingers dug into the tops of my arms. “Who was he? I might not have killed anybody before, but it’s not too late to start.”
“It’s dealt with. Even back then, Emmy was somebody you didn’t want to mess with.”
His grip loosened, and he hugged me tightly instead. “Dani, I’m so sorry. That a man did that to you. That you lost your baby.”
“My son. I lost my son.”
Sobs wracked my body as the pain that had been festering inside me for over a decade leached out. Pain and guilt and sadness and anger. And Ethan took it all.
“Is that why you run?” he asked, finally.
I nodded. Not many men would stick around through what he’d just witnessed.
“I’m gonna tie your fucking feet together, then.”
I giggled. Seriously, giggled. I couldn’t help it. “Won’t that make a repeat of last night a little difficult?”
“On the contrary, the added friction can be extremely pleasurable.”
As could the warmth coming from his smile.
“Really, Mr. White?”
“Allow me to demonstrate.”
And so it was that Ethan stopped me in my tracks.
CHAPTER 47
EARLY AFTERNOON, AND my lunch had consisted of Ethan. I’d even gone back for seconds. My stomach grumbled, and I knew we should get up for some proper food, but neither of us had the energy to move.
Ethan spooned me, one arm wrapped around the stomach I’d hated for so long. As the sun climbed higher in the sky, he’d kissed every inch of it, erasing my fears and melting the last of the ice around my heart.
And the Queen Bitch was totally on the money. Usually, I hated when Emmy was right, but this time I couldn’t get upset. I loved Ethan, no matter how much I might try to deny it.
My fingers wrapped around his, holding his hand against my heart. I was trapped, and what was more, I wanted to be.
Hi
s breath tickled the back of my neck, and my eyes were closing when he began to speak.
“I was born in Minneapolis.”
I froze. Was Ethan finally going to open up to me? Let a little of his own pain out? I held my breath until he continued.
“My name wasn’t Ethan White back then. It was Ethan Briand.”
Holy fuck! That was why Mack had never been able to find him.
“Like you, I never knew my real father, but I had a replacement. His name was Frank White, and I was nine years old when my momma met him.”
Ethan’s breathing turned rough, heavy, and I felt the agony in his voice.
“You don’t have to do this,” I whispered.
“Yeah, I do.” His tone had a finality about it, a man who’d accepted his fate. “They never married, but after a few months, Frank moved in with us. There was no way I could ever be mistaken for his real son, but he treated me like one. It was him who taught me piano and guitar. I still hear his voice speaking to me as I play.”
It hadn’t escaped my notice that he talked about Frank in the past tense. “What happened?”
Ethan’s arms tightened around me, a far cry from his reaction last time I’d asked that question. “Kids at school weren’t very kind. First, I was the mixed-race boy with two white parents, and second, I wasn’t great at reading. Frank tried to help, but nobody had ever taught him properly either. I got the crap beaten out of me at least once a week by the older kids, and back then, the teachers did nothing to stop it.”
He paused for breath, chest shuddering. Should I turn around? Comfort him? Or would having to look at me make him clam up again? I couldn’t take that chance, so I just kissed his palm instead.
“One Tuesday, I came home early because the worst group of bullies had stolen my shoes. Frank took one look at me and said enough was enough. He marched out of the house to go and complain to the principal, and that was the last time I ever saw him.”
“He died?”
“They killed him. The kids. The same ones who hurt me. They were smaller than him, but there was a whole gang of them, and they hit him and kicked him until he died. The witnesses who had the guts to come forward said they accused him of being in league with the devil for bringing up a black man’s child.”
We were both crying by that point. I’d known kids could be cruel—hell, I was bullied myself—but I’d never experienced such outright hatred.
“Did they catch the children that did it?”
“They got sent to juvie. The ringleader got two years. Two years for a man’s life.”
I understood now. “Your sentence lasted a lot longer than that.”
I felt him nod.
“What happened afterwards? Did school get any easier with them gone?”
“No, because I never went back.”
“What about your mom? Didn’t she make you?”
“Momma told me Frank’s death was my fault. That if I’d learned to stick up for myself better, it never would have happened.”
“Was she crazy?”
“A little. Mostly drunk. She told the truth once she hit the vodka. Told me I was the biggest mistake of her life. That was when I left.”
“And you were twelve?”
“Almost thirteen by then.”
Fuck. How could somebody say that to a twelve-year-old child? Her twelve-year-old child. I couldn’t think of words to describe her. She made my mom look like a damn saint.
I twisted around in Ethan’s arms and cupped his face. “That’s why you wore the mask, isn’t it? Because you were ashamed of yourself? Of your skin?”
He nodded.
Shitting hell. That bitch had fucked him in the head for years.
I kissed him on both cheeks, then his lips. “You’ve got a beautiful face. Don’t ever let anybody tell you different.”
“Maybe one day I’ll believe that.”
“You’d better, because I’m gonna remind you every day for the rest of our lives.”
It was his turn to stiffen. “You still want to be with me?”
“Yeah, I do.” I managed a smile. “Although sometimes I’m not sure why when you act all frustrating.”
He hugged me tightly against him and squeezed the breath out of me. “I’m never letting you go.”
“Not even for lunch?”
“Not yet.”
“So, how did you get to where you are now?”
“When I left home, I took Frank’s old Martin guitar, and I started busking. I had to keep moving around in case someone called social services, but I made enough to eat. And in the evenings, I went to the library and pretended I was doing school assignments. Taught myself to read properly and do math and all that other bullshit even if I never got a piece of paper to say so.”
“Where did you sleep?”
“Anywhere I could.”
Shit. I hugged Ethan back and wrapped my legs around his waist for good measure too. When I first met him, I never imagined how much pain lurked under the surface, and now I knew, I was kind of in awe of everything he’d done.
“Ethan, I’m so fucking proud of you.” He didn’t say anything, but a minute later, I felt dampness in my hair. “What’s wrong?”
“Nobody’s ever said that to me before.”
Oh, hell. We were such a mess. A big, wet, sloppy, teary mess. And after we’d had wet, sloppy, teary sex, I wiped Ethan’s cheeks dry and he did the same for me.
“Dani, the past is the past, and we can’t change it, but for the first time, I’m looking forward to the future.”
“Me too. But you know what I want now?”
“What?”
“Food. I’m starving.”
Eventually, Ethan and I untangled ourselves and put some clothes on. My stomach was grumbling worse than Nate by the time we sat down for a meal that was too late for lunch and too early for dinner. What would you call that? Dunch? Linner? Eating spaghetti with one hand was quite difficult, but Ethan hung onto the other in a death grip.
Emmy walked in as I tried to catch a forkful with my tongue, and she looked down at our joined hands.
“Oh, bollocks. You did it, didn’t you?”
Ethan went still beside me. I gave a tiny nod and Emmy sighed.
“Shit, I had next Thursday. I never win these fucking things.”
She grabbed a carton of orange juice and stomped out.
“What was she talking about?” Ethan asked.
“It appears they were running a pool on when we would sleep together.”
His eyes widened. “Who does that?”
“My friends. They bet on everything from office romance to beach volleyball.”
We got interrupted again, this time by Bradley. “Before or after midnight?”
“Bradley, can’t you leave us alone for five minutes?”
He put his hands on his hips. “No, it’s important.”
“Well, I don’t know. I had better things to do than check my watch.”
Bradley just stared at me. Clearly, that wasn’t the answer he’d been seeking.
I turned to Ethan and gave him a helpless look. “Any ideas?”
“Uh, I’d just finished watching the eleven o’clock news bulletin when I woke you.” He shrugged. “Didn’t take long after that.”
“Yes!” Bradley shouted, pumping his fist in the air. “And I am fifty bucks richer.”
He skipped out of the kitchen, leaving us in peace once more.
“Is it always like this?” Ethan asked.
“Yeah, pretty much.” I squeezed his hand. “Does that bother you?”
He stared out the window for a few seconds, then shook his head. “This place is special.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone’s different, but everyone’s the same. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white, rich or poor, old or young, gay or straight. Nobody differentiates.”
I chuckled, because he was right. “Unless you’re an asshole. Nobody likes an asshole.”<
br />
Except… I clenched my butt cheeks together. No, it was too soon for that.
Ethan let go of my hand and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to kiss the top of my head.
“Eat your food, Dani. I’m getting hungry again.”
CHAPTER 48
AFTER A DISCUSSION that lasted all of two seconds, Ethan moved his things into my room. I’d wasted enough of my life waking up alone, and I didn’t intend to keep making the same mistake.
I’d thought that giving myself over to a man would feel wrong, based on the fact that the longer I’d spent with every man in the past, the more awkward it felt. What I hadn’t realised was that when I found the right man, the opposite would happen.
I couldn’t get enough of him.
The next morning, Ethan woke me with his tongue. Not so much a kiss but making love to my mouth, deep, hot, and utterly satisfying. That led to more, and I didn’t roll out of bed for another hour. Screw my first meeting. I’d just have to be a few minutes late. It was only a catch-up with Emmy and Black, and I’d spent ages laughing at them for the exact same thing, so I figured I’d be getting a dose of my own medicine today.
I figured right.
The jokes carried on when I got to the office and opened my drawer. Some enterprising asshole had rigged it with a spring mechanism to fire half of the Trojan factory’s morning output at me. There were hoots of laughter as I got showered, but I had to join in. At least that would save me from buying any more condoms for a week.
When I got my laptop out, I found Nate had changed the screensaver. Instead of the Blackwood logo, Ethan and I sailed down The Tunnel of Love in an oversized pink swan while the speakers played “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Meatloaf. The sentimental old git. Nate, not Meatloaf.
Before I jumped into work, I paused by Mack’s desk. “I need another favour.”
“Honey, you’re so deep into the red with favours, I’d go so far as to say you’re bankrupt.”
“Just one more,” I pleaded. “It’s more of a personal one.”
“All right, but it’ll have to wait until I’ve finished this report for Nate.”
I gave her a grateful smile. “Can you look up this name for me? In Minneapolis?”