An Inconvenient Obsession (17 page)

Cate dragged her hands down Ethan’s back, the taut muscles flexing beneath her fingers, while he clutched her hips, holding her fast as he pounded into her with savage, rhythmic thrusts. “Don’t doubt me again,” he told her between ragged breaths.

She trembled greedily against each slick, powerful lunge, and whispered against his demanding mouth. “No.”

Ethan’s eyes glittered with emotion. “I’ve never stopped wanting you … ever.” A moan rumbled in his chest as he stiffened, the rush of release pushing them both toward the peak.

And then they reached it. Tumbled over the edge.

Afterward, pressed snugly beneath his sweat-slicked chest, desire and longing and relief twisted into a knot of emotion too big for Cate to contain. Try as she might, she couldn’t stem the tide that swept through her, a bright, shimmering wave of emotion so fierce she could scarcely breathe.

Unable to contain the rush of feeling, it spilled over into tears, taking all of her defenses with it. Her chest ached. Her throat hurt. And she felt exposed. Raw. Vulnerable. Her lungs burned with the intensity of it.

Gasping, her eyes brimmed anew as wet, sloppy tracks of tears channeled down her temples and into her ears. Distressed by her lack of control, she dug her face into his chest and tried to hide. Messy and noisy, embarrassed and bereft, she fought in vain to silence her great, gulping sobs.

“Cate.” His voice, strung tight, plucked against her heart while he started to withdraw from her.

“Don’t go!” she blurted, pulling him back with legs, arms, hands and feet. “Don’t!”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he soothed as he settled back against her and then rolled them both onto their sides. She felt his hard, unyielding body against hers while one wide hand smoothed her hair back from her face.

Too overwhelmed to thank him aloud, she merely nodded while shuddering sobs racked her ribs. Hot tears leaked down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard she tried. She couldn’t. And her vulnerability terrified her.

She’d kept everything inside for so long, kept her heart and her emotions and her pain walled off from the world, that now that the dam had broken, there was nothing she could do to repair it.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing one hand over her quivering belly. He reached her hip and rolled her onto her side against him, murmuring an anguished plea against her hair. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

She mumbled a tortured no.

“Then what?”

How to explain? He’d been as wonderful as he’d always been, despite all the awful things she’d done to him, despite the wretched condition of her damaged body. She didn’t know how to defend herself against the onslaught of feelings he invoked. “I’m sorry,” she gulped, the words wrenching out in a distressed moan. “I don’t know why I’m crying like this.”

“It’s okay,” he crooned, pulling her even closer. Warm fingers trailed down her back, navigating the bumps and scars along her spine as he slowly rocked her against his chest. He held her as she wept, until she felt wrung out and empty. When she sniffed and swiped a wrist below her swollen eyes, he cupped his hand over her damp nape and whispered, “It’ll be all right, Cate. I promise I’ll make it all right.”

She believed him. Despite all her fears, despite her doubts, she knew that with Ethan, she would be safe. So she nodded jerkily and hauled in a hiccupping breath. Lifting her tear-streaked face, she leaned to press her mouth to his throat. “I know,” she said. “But will you convince me again?”

He obliged her without preamble, taking her lips in a long, sweeping kiss. His tongue gently abraded hers, sending delicious tremors through her limbs. With infinite skill, he probed and caressed and stroked until her tears dried and her mind reeled. Dizzying, languid pleasure seeped through her, the responsive ache collecting deep within, echoing against her hip, where he’d become hard again. Sighing, she arched against him and pulled him closer. Together, they rolled, her calf hooked around him and his weight settling atop her.

A low moan escaped her throat as she felt him adjust her pelvis and then enter her, until she had accommodated every inch of his length. She lifted her hips and her eyelids fluttered closed, trying to draw him closer while a consuming hunger ate its way through her flesh. Her breath hitched, hung, then
rushed out in a grand rush as he slowly withdrew and then lowered against her again. Harder this time. Deeper as her body welcomed him.

Their twined fingers moved to her hips as he lifted and pulled her against him. Again and again, she writhed to seat him farther inside. The sweet craving for release increased sharply, gaining momentum with each advance and retreat. Every delicious lunge, thickening and hardening within the channel of her body, intensified the pleasure until she could contain the rapture no longer.

Convulsing against him, she arched uncontrollably while his name tore from her lips. Ethan silenced her pleas with a low growl, his mouth claiming and containing hers until his own release ripped a raw grunt from deep within his chest. He pulsed violently against her quivering flesh, his thighs flexing hard atop her limp limbs.

Spent, they remained fused together for an endless, breathless moment, their bodies clinging intimately. Cate didn’t want to move ever again. Her eyelids felt weighted, too heavy to lift. A protest hummed in her throat when she felt him ease sideways onto the bed, his softening length slipping free as he adjusted her legs and tucked her body against his.

“Better?” he mumbled groggily, his grip on her waist slackening.

Nodding wordlessly against his chest, she listened to the steady thudding of his heart as he drifted off to sleep. Clutching his broad rib cage, she realized Ethan had claimed more than just her pride and her virginity and her secrets. He’d claimed everything. Her trust, her hopes and her dreams for a future that could never be. She’d surrendered them all to him.

C
ATE
awoke to find afternoon’s light slanting across her bed and floor. It took less than half a second for her to remember that she wasn’t alone, and one additional beat of breath for her to feel the heat of Ethan’s gaze upon her profile. Knowing that the beautiful, virile man of her dreams now lay beside her, sated from their lovemaking and watching her, sent a flutter of nervous awareness through her belly.

He made her feel beautiful again. And for a moment, watching him bask in the slanted afternoon sun, she could almost believe that it would be enough. She could almost believe that her other scars, those buried too deep to see, wouldn’t matter.

But she’d be wrong.

Don’t borrow trouble,
she heard Mrs. Bartholomew’s voice say.
Just take it one day at a time.

There’d be time enough for second thoughts tomorrow.

Today, she’d live for the moment. She’d steep herself in Ethan and collect beautiful memories for the bleak, lonely days ahead. She’d savor the time she had with him before reality came crashing back. Before they both remembered the reasons things could never work between them.

So she eased back to look at him, propping her head upon her upturned hand. Rumpled from sleep and with the warm yellow light softening the harsh planes of his face, Ethan
looked like some pagan god brought to life. Like the boy she’d fallen in love with so long ago.

He looked impossibly young. Accepting and open. And beautifully, wonderfully naked. Cate’s eyes drifted back to his. They glinted with amused blue fire, framed by a thick fan of lashes. Black stubble cast shadows on his jaw and neck, and he’d canted up on one elbow to watch her, his chin resting indolently against his palm. The long bulge of his biceps merged with the swell of deltoid and shoulder, giving way to the slope of his neck and the dent of sternum sprinkled with black, curling hair.

Tentatively, she reached to brush her fingertip along the ridge of sinew below his wrist. Her touch turned featherlight as she traced the faint blue line of vein to his palm, to his chin, down to the knot of masculinity in his throat, then farther south to the springy thatch of hair on his chest.

He remained utterly still as she ventured farther, his breath suspended as her fingers drew nearer to the impressive ridge of arousal heating the space between them.

His eyes darkened to cobalt when she reached her destination, a low hiss of breath escaping his throat when she flattened her palm against his hardness.

Before she’d even had time to realize what was happening, he’d flipped her over and pinned her beneath him. Their combined weight pressed her deep into the mattress, making her feel deliciously overpowered. Deliciously dizzy and aroused.

“Careful, Catydid.” Just hearing his voice, deep and tender, awakened places deep within, tuning her inner chords to the melody he’d written for the two of them so long ago.

“Or what?” she teased, reaching to stroke her fingers through the hair falling over his eyes.

He stared at her without answering, his nostrils flaring and the cadence of his breathing picking up speed. Her breasts,
tender and aching already, yearned for the heavy press of his chest. Anticipation gathered in her veins, turning to liquid fire as he settled his weight between her thighs. Spreading her legs wide, she tipped to meet him, hard against soft, as his hips nestled close within the cradle of hers. Pleasure shot through her and she felt her nipples harden. Seeing the yearning, reaching tips, he dropped to trail damp, teasing nibbles between her breasts. Then he shifted left and pulled her straining nipple into his hot, hot mouth.

She arched against him with a gasp, a moan gathering volume within her throat. But then she felt his tongue move against her flesh and lost all focus as his ministrations brought an acute edge of need to her arousal. When he switched his attentions to her other breast, she writhed against him, urging him closer with hands and fingers and hips. And still he tarried, licking and sucking and teasing while sensation coiled sharply, hot and unbearably sweet within her veins. Hungry, wanting and blinded by desire, she rocked her pelvis against his.

“Look at me,” he said, pulling free of her breast and bracing himself above her. “I want to watch you when you—”

“Not without you,” she panted, reaching for his neck as she rocked against him again. And again. Fanning the flames between them as her pleasure skirted the boundaries of pain.

“Do you know how much I’ve dreamed of this?” His eyes glittered and he reached to press his forehead against hers. “Every day and every damned night, I dreamed of this. Of you.” He moved within her again until she thought she could stand no more of the sweet torture without coming apart.

Her mouth dropped open and his name rode her pleading exhale.

Hearing her, he stopped for a moment and remained still, the undeniable perfection of their fit bringing tears to her eyes. “This is what I’ve wanted, Cate. Always.”

Desperate to show her agreement, she arched up to kiss him. And in that rough union of their mouths, she realized it didn’t matter what he did or didn’t say. She was lost. Mindless now, she rocked with him, her craving for release blinding her to all else. Heated pleasure coiled high, spreading through her limbs and sparking light on the periphery of her vision. She was close. So, so close.

“Tell me,” he urged, the muscles in his back rigid beneath her palms. “Tell me what you want.”

She whimpered, hovering at the brink and unable to find the words.

“I …” she managed. “Just don’t … oh …”

“Like this?”

She bucked beneath him, arching her head against the mattress while both hands clutched against his ribs.
Yes. Yes. Like this.

Her final thread of coherence drew taut and then snapped. Her climax gripped her, lifting her hips from the bed and vaulting her into a storm of crashing pleasure. The spasms went on and on and on, clamping hard while he thickened even more within her. When the last shuddering wave of release rippled through her quivering limbs, he dipped to kiss her, a gentle grazing of his lips.

“Good?” he murmured.

Tears gathered and she nodded, reaching to pull him close. Being with Ethan, here, like this, felt right. Like home. She was meant for this. Meant for him. And she’d be his for as long as he’d allow it.

After a moment, he resumed his rhythmic strokes. She relaxed beneath him, welcomed the weight of his body atop hers, and ran encouraging hands against the bunched muscles of his shoulders and upper arms. Soon, his own drive for pleasure overtook gentleness, and the wet, rhythmic sounds of their erotic mating filled the room.

He groaned, shifting onto his knees and reaching to lift her buttocks up onto his thighs. Strong hands positioned her while ropy tendons stood out on his neck and his chest worked like bellows with his breath. When he’d seated himself as deep as their position would allow, he gripped her buttocks and tilted her even higher, driving into her in rough, blind pursuit of his own release.

She’d never watched anything so beautiful. Knowing that she could provoke such passion in him suffused her with joy. No matter what happened tomorrow, she knew that now, right now, she was his world. And she reveled in it.

He roared and shoved deep one more time, his muscles turning to stone beneath her hands. For one breathless, shuddering moment, he swayed above her, caught in the throes of his orgasm. And then he collapsed atop her, murmuring her name in an odd combination of gratitude and exhaustion.

Smiling, she reached to lift the damp hair from his nape. “Good?” she murmured with a grin.

He rolled to her side and gathered her close, leaning to press his lips against her forehead. “With you? Always.”

She burrowed close, savoring the contrast of texture and the hint of musk that clung to their flesh. “I think I like you better naked,” she told him. “You’re not nearly so fierce without your clothes on.”

He growled, rolling to trap her between his thighs. “You wouldn’t want me gentle.”

True.
Rather than answer, she squirmed free, clambering to her knees and shoving the hair out of her eyes. “Race you to the beach,” she challenged him before launching from the bed.