An Inconvenient Obsession (16 page)

“I don’t hate you.”

“I thought I could do it. I really thought I could. But your pity? Your disgust? Here, in the only place I’ve ever been truly happy?” She twisted her hands against her cramping stomach, the certainty of his response already tightening her chest and throat. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

The intensity in his eyes scalded her as he shook his head, reaching for her.

Scared of what would happen if he touched her again, she jerked backward, avoiding him. “You make me forget the
risks. When you kiss me, it’s too easy to delude myself into believing I can handle the pain …” She hesitated, her heart thudding wildly. “But I …” Fear crowded her chest, closing in on her hitching breaths. “I can’t bear to see your reaction, to watch your desire turn to pity …”

Ethan reached for her again, his eyes flashing with stony resolve, and this time he moved too fast for her to escape him. Swiftly, Cate flung her hands between them, gripping his wrists to hold him at bay. “Don’t!”

The muscles beneath her fingers turned to granite, his shuttered expression concealing his thoughts.

“Please don’t,” she whispered. “I know you want new memories and I know you feel like I owe you … but I can’t.” Tears scalded the backs of her eyes. “It hurts too much.”

He processed her words for a moment in silence, then slowly twisted his forearms until her fingers could no longer hold him. She fought a wave of fear, swallowing against the salty tears that gathered in her throat. He pressed her hands down, anchoring them against her thighs, then stepped close enough to brush his chest against hers. She felt herself blanch, then redden, her body flushed with fear and worry and wanting.

“You think I pity you? That I’ll turn from you in disgust?”

She nodded clumsily, biting the insides of her cheeks while he backed her against the side of her white bed. Anxiety dampened her face and neck, cooling her heated skin.

Ethan exhaled, one hand rising to align with her jaw. He tipped her face and waited. “Look at me.”

When she finally did, she saw that her confession seemed to have solidified the layer of icy anger within his blue gaze. Where she’d expected only pity, disgust and rejection, she read banked fury and heated rage. He leaned down until his face hovered mere inches from her own. “Do you honestly think
I’m so shallow that I would desire you less simply because of a few scars?”

Trembling, she closed her eyes and pressed her lips hard against the urge to cry. “You haven’t seen them.”

“Then show me.”

“No!”

“Yes.” Reaching for her hips, he pressed his thumbs against the twin ridges of misaligned bone. Her body jerked and his hands went still. “Does that hurt?”

She shook her head miserably. As much as she wanted to lie to him, she couldn’t. Not anymore.

“Show me.”

Her skin burned beneath her dress while perspiration collected on her hands and upper lip. “I can’t, Ethan … please don’t … .” The sweet torture of his hands against her damaged body was more than she could bear. But she didn’t know how to fight him. How could she, when he was all her heart had ever wanted? Miserable and scared, she remained stiff and upright as he slowly pulled her close and bowed over her shoulders, splaying both hands over her back.

“I’m sorry you had to go through it alone,” he breathed, his fingers warming her through the rumpled velvet of her dress. “I wish I’d been there for you.”

The urge to weep surged anew within Cate’s throat, but she swallowed hard to keep it contained. “I wanted you to be,” she mumbled against his curved shoulder. “Apparently, when I was out of my mind with painkillers, I talked to you. Mrs. Bartholomew told me I begged you to come back. I even, on occasion when the pain was too much, dreamed you held me. They told me it was the drugs talking.”

He lifted his head, his lungs working in ragged, unsteady pulls. Slowly, his hands resumed their circuit from shoulder to waist and back again. “So this is why you didn’t want to
be with me,” he said in a low voice. “This is why you pushed me away.”

She dipped her chin in a single, curt nod.

“You don’t have to hide from me. Ever.” Ethan leaned to kiss her with soft, satiny caresses of lip and breath that skimmed her brow, her cheek and the corner of her mouth. She stiffened when he reached for the zipper beneath her left arm, but forced herself to remain still as his fingers moved inexorably from rib to hip. The costume unfurled like the casing of a ripened fruit and tumbled to the floor, a tent of boned blue velvet against the beige sisal rug.

A hot blush fired her chest, contracting her nipples into hard points beneath the constricting white lace of her bustier bra. His fingers returned to her breasts and soon, her bra joined her corset on the floor. He pulled back to look at her, his eyes glittering as he explored her bared chest. “You’ll always be beautiful to me, Cate. Always.”

Shivers rode her skin as she stood half-naked before him, and the sheer force of her will kept her arms at her sides.

His eyes never left hers as he lifted his hands to trail along her rib cage, his fingers exploring the quivering tightness just beneath the final rung of bone. He then proceeded to unfasten the clasp of her skirt, lowering the zipper with a soft, snicking rasp. She swallowed repeatedly, shifting her weight clumsily as he lifted first one leg and then the other to divest her of skirt, panties and hose. He brushed her hip bones with his knuckles and then moved farther north, skimming her abdomen, her ribs and her inner arms.

She felt faint when he leaned to whisper soft, indecipherable nothings against her temple and his hands drifted up and back to her tense shoulder blades. She gripped his shirt and closed her eyes, unable to feign strength when he wandered perilously close to her damaged flesh. Holding her breath, she dipped her forehead against the knobby knuckles of her
thumbs and waited, apprehension mounting behind her closed eyelids. With gentle tenderness and unexpected mercy, he skirted her naked back in favor of her hair. Threading his fingers through the slippery strands, he shook the cool length down her spine.

She shuddered, grateful for the temporary reprieve. His fingers skimmed her downturned jaw, then Ethan tipped her face up and aligned his lips with hers. He feasted on her mouth with a deep kiss that made her tremble. Made her want to weep. Her nipples grazed his crisp cotton tuxedo shirt while he adjusted the fit of their mouths. The fit of their bodies.

Her lips parted to welcome his demanding tongue, and he took advantage of her acquiescence, sealing her mouth with a dizzying combination of heat, moisture and drugging suction. He drove his tongue deep, delving the warm depths and dancing an intoxicating rhythm against her tender flesh.

She whimpered when his free hand dropped to chart the length of her spine. The ridges of her scars burned beneath his touch and he murmured soothing sounds into her mouth before detouring to the rounded shape of her buttocks and left thigh. Gripping her hip, he nudged her backward and up, stopping only when she felt the rigid swell of his erection tightly contained within his pants. He rocked against her, forcing her to acknowledge his burning eagerness to join with her.

A small sob caught against her throat and she ripped her mouth aside, gasping for breath. Giving her no time to retreat, he lifted her until she tipped above his hand, one knee cocked high against his hip while her buttocks pressed securely against the edge of her bed. Grappling for balance, she looped her arms over his shoulders and closed her eyes as his fingers slowly parted her, stroking the intimate flesh.

Cate trembled involuntarily as he slid one long finger inside her, a low moan escaping her lips. He bent to reclaim her mouth, quieting her with another kiss. Helpless within
his arms, she undulated against him until he answered the demand of her body with a second, then a third finger.
Yes,
she breathed silently, hard shudders of pleasure mounting.
More.
She wanted Ethan with every cell of her body. She wanted to feel him everywhere. Inside, outside, until all the empty spaces were filled. Until she felt whole again.

He lifted her until both her legs clamped around his waist, fitting the ridge of his clothed erection against the damp notch above his fingers. Slowly, the delicious friction heated her sensitive flesh. The pleasure built, driving higher, intensifying until the lazy, unfaltering rhythm became too much. She felt herself tightening, throbbing, reaching for that bright moment of release. His lips claimed hers again, his tongue mimicking the motion of his fingers and hips, flooding her with a poignant ache. Oh, Ethan …
“Ethan!”

“Shh.” Ethan lifted his head and his fingers slid free just as the rocketing longing neared its peak. “Hold on,” he whispered while she trembled against him.

“I can’t,” she managed, her breath coming out in thin, thready filaments of need.

His finger mapped the taut line of her jaw. “You can. I’m going to keep you on the edge until you accept how much I want you. Still. No scar can ever change that.” Ethan lowered her to her feet and then slowly turned her stomach toward the mattress before gently pushing her shoulders toward the bed.

“Oh, Ethan, please don’t,” she said, twisting miserably in an attempt to block his view of her mutilated back.

He ignored her protests, catching her flailing arms and pulling them taut until she lay stretched out before him. With one quick shift of his hands, he manacled both wrists between his fingers and thumb. Still clothed, he dragged his free palm over her bared back, skimming the rigid bumps and quivering valleys of her scars while humiliation scalded her lungs.

It was the worst place he could have touched her, smoothing his warm palm along the most damaged part of her body, the part that kept her from feeling like a true woman. Icy dread flooded her, and she buried her burning eyes into the unforgiving mattress so she wouldn’t see revulsion mar his beautiful features. “Ethan,” she moaned, as the insistent heat of his fingers continued to press and probe, drawing shivers from her sensitive flesh. “You don’t have to—”

“Stop talking,” he said gently, then he dipped his head to silence any additional complaints. Warm lips pressed against the base of her spine and then slowly moved higher, nuzzling her wounded flesh in tender, coaxing acceptance. His mouth and tongue touched each sensitized track of pain left behind by her surgeries, stroking and petting her as her insecurities gathered and crested. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured against her nape before reaching to rub the swell of her buttocks in small, soothing circles. A thumb drifted up to press against one of the twin dimples at her lower back, then he dropped his forehead to rest quietly against her crooked vertebrae. “All of you, whether it’s scarred or not,” he breathed.

When a whimper formed her only response, he gently rolled her to her back and ordered her to open her eyes. A violent blush scalded her chest as she miserably shook her head and covered her face with her hands.

“Look at me,” he insisted, forcing her palms away from her cheeks. When she finally acquiesced, he stepped from between her thighs and tore at his clothing until he stood before her, naked and rampantly aroused. “Does it look like I want you any less than I did before?”

Wordlessly, she shook her head, her throat thickening with unshed tears.

“I’ll always want you, Catydid. No matter what.” Tenderness softened his features as he bent between her knees and then
spread her thighs wide with his hot, commanding palms. “Always.”

Biting back her moan, she relaxed her legs and arched her weeping center toward his mouth. White light claimed her vision as she felt his hair brush her inner thighs, then spun into colors as he dragged his tongue along her exposed skin. Small, nibbling kisses teased her, then became greedy as he probed deeper. He sucked, long, dragging pulls against the musk-scented opening of her body while her senses narrowed to heavy, thudding awareness of his mouth against her flesh. Again, she neared the flashpoint of rapture, pleasure and aching pain mingling as she teetered precariously at the edge. He drew back slightly and blew a cool, teasing exhalation against her abraded sex, then dipped to toy with her again.

Excruciating, exquisitely light strokes made electricity surge along her thighs, behind her eyelids and deep within her core. She arched toward his mouth, lifting, pressing and begging him with ragged, panting sounds.

When she thought she could bear no more, he withdrew again. “I want you,” he repeated. With his gaze locked on hers, he straightened to stand naked before her. A tightly muscled chest, covered with a smattering of crisp black hair, and his long, knotted arms bore mute testimony to his tempered strength. “Tell me you believe me.”

Unwilling to lie, she hid behind an upflung arm.

Stepping close again, Ethan slid his palms beneath her buttocks and tipped her tender flesh toward him. Her breath hitched as she adjusted to the sensation of his skin against hers. “Tell me.”

She squirmed to bring him closer, hooking a leg around his buttocks and tugging hard.

Still, he resisted, drawing out the torture of their almost-joining until she whimpered.

“Look at me.”

She opened her eyes to find him staring at her with focused intensity. His hard, lean limbs, damp with sweat, the startling width of his shoulders and chest and all the lovely places where hair-roughened skin stretched over hot, twitching muscle brought a swell of emotion to her chest.

“Tell me, Cate.”

She lifted shaking fingers to the tight muscles of his abdomen. How could this beautiful man still want her? How? Tears blurred her eyes and her breath escaped in a great, shuddering rush. “I believe you.”

Thick lashes fanned against his cheek and he bent to press his forehead to hers. “Thank God,” he answered on a gruff exhalation. He surged forward, pushing her back on the bed and then joining her there, his knees pressing her thighs wide. Leaning down, he caught her mouth with his while his hand lowered to guide himself inside her.

Delicious pleasure rocketed through Cate as he filled her, sliding deep until they aligned, hip to hip and groin to groin. They gasped in mutual pleasure as the contrast of soft against hard, of driving pressure against yielding acceptance, formed an achingly sweet union of their flesh.