Damaged Beauties (Romanced by the Damaged Millionaire (Erotic Romance)) (7 page)

Hit by a freight train.

At least, the way his mouth gapes open suggests that.

He finally stammers, “Y-you want me to make a pass at you?”

My heart sinks. OK, I’ve gone too far. He doesn’t find me attractive, and this will be the cold dose of reality my mother says I sometimes need when I used to misbehave.
Not every boy is trying to get into your pants just because you’re a blonde. So get over yourself.
Besides, he didn’t really deny that he was gay. He may prefer brunettes. Or someone more intellectual, more artistic, more –

I freeze.

He is leaning very close to me now, and his hand lightly touches my cheek. His eyes are large and magnificent and reflecting every single known color in the universe.

He says in a strangled whisper, “You have no idea . . . just no idea how much I want to . . . how much I’m trying to stop thinking about . . . ”

I seize the moment.

I dart my lips forward and engage his mouth in a kiss. The moment our lips clash, my skin becomes electrified. His lips are oh-so-soft and oh-so-nuanced. I taste the faint traces of coffee on them, and indeed, that was what he drank at breakfast. I drink in his contact, the delicious moment of being in such close proximity to him.

I meant it to be a quick kiss. More like a peck – to show him I find him sexually attractive and that I would be open to more before my visit is over. That is, if he would like to explore any further.

But his reaction astonishes me.

Instead of the quick, chaste kiss I envisioned, his mouth opens against mine. His tongue hungrily slips inside my mouth and roams thickly against the landscape of my palate. He licks my tongue, my teeth – stroking each smooth, round molar as though it’s an erogenous zone.

I moan despite myself. A rush of heat crests between my legs. His tongue dips across the back of my throat. He’s practically drowning in my mouth, devouring me like some voracious animal who hasn’t kissed a woman in years. His hands grasp my waist, my hips, wandering up, up, up, to pause at the swell of my breasts.

I want him so much to touch me. I want him to grab my aching mounds and squeeze my nipples. I want him to rip the clothes off me and lower me down to that soft, leaf-strewn ground beneath the shady umbrella created by the trees – with the wind softly rustling their tops – and press his body against mine. I want him to part my thighs and grind his hips against mine.

I want to see his manhood. I want to kiss and taste and suckle his cock. I want him to do things to me that only a man can do to a woman. I’m aroused now. Visibly so. My skin is flushed and the color is high on my cheeks. There’s an ache within my pelvic region that can only spell a brimming, overwhelming need.

But he stops – as if he has come to his senses.

He withdraws his luscious tongue.

I immediately feel a withdrawal, as though my life force is being pulled away from me towards him. I have never been so magnetized by a man before. I believe it’s a culmination of his beauty, his sophistication, the fact that I know he is much more than he portrays himself to be, and that element of danger unknown lurking beneath his seemingly normal façade.

I’m breathing very hard, and so is he. Across the divide between our bodies, we gaze at each other in confusion. My heart is drumming a war tune in my chest, and his eyes are inexplicably filled with an emotion that I can only describe as pain.

Pain
. . . but why?

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I shouldn’t have done that. Forget it ever happened.”

I reach out with my hand to touch his face, but he flinches. He quickly scrambles to his feet. A few stray leaves spiral to the ground from his lap.

Suddenly, it’s as if he needs to get away from me as urgently as possible, as if I’m a contagion.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

Abruptly, he turns and strides quickly away down the slope where we came. I am left sprawling on the ground, my desire unquenched, my blood roaring in my ears like the combined falls of Niagara and Angel, my disappointment flooding me in an engulfing tide.

What am I doing?

10

When I finally trek back to the house, Ethan is nowhere to be seen. I make myself as noiseless as possible, not wanting to disturb whatever equilibrium this house has managed to maintain for years.

Too late for that, don’t you think?

I make to ascend the stairway, but the low rumble of voices creeps to me from beyond the back patio.

I pause.

I would not be my reporter self if I didn’t attempt to eavesdrop. My mind is still reeling from Ethan’s rejection. I tell myself it’s not rejection. If his kiss is anything to go by, he wants me as much as I want him. And yet, something is holding him back.

I pad softly in the direction of the patio and flatten myself against the wall to listen. Ethan is speaking to Jeffrey in soft, tortured tones.

“I couldn’t help myself. God, I wanted to restrain myself so bad . . . but when she came on to me, something inside me exploded.”

“How long has it been?” Jeffrey’s measured voice. “Years?”

“Two years.”

“You’re not a monk, Ethan. Things are not the same anymore.”

“I wanted her.”

“I know.”

“I wish I knew what the triggers are. They’re not the same anymore.”

There’s that word again – ‘triggers’. The one in the diary.

Jeffrey says, “Indeed. You can only try . . . and find out for yourself.”

“But what if – ?”

“Don’t think about it. I will know what to do.”

A pregnant pause stretches the air.

“Did you hear something?” Ethan says.

I freeze and try to melt into the wall.

After a long while, Jeffrey says, “I’ll prepare dinner. Your favorite scampi. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah.” I can hear Ethan’s voice smiling. He says, “Do you mind bringing it up to my room? I don’t feel like facing her.”

“I understand.”

My gut wrenches a little to hear this. My mind in turmoil, I detach my body from the wall and quietly scurry upstairs.

11

Ethan did not come down for dinner. I sit alone at the table, disconsolate, wondering how the hell I got myself into this mess. I’m not supposed to feel anything for my subjects. But I knew, even before I came to Kelowna, that I would not be able to completely separate myself from my teenage object of adoration.

Only, he is no longer David Kinney – the man boy who filled my fantasies all those years ago. I am infatuated with Ethan Greene, the man he is today.

I lie in my bed. It is dark. The clock on the wall ticks softly, like a time bomb.

I get up. I am dressed in my nightgown – a sheer, faux silk number from Victoria’s Secret. I have a mission. I am going to set my assignment back on track.

I’m going to read Ethan Greene’s diary.

After that, if he wants me gone from the house, I will go to Aberdeen and track down that hooker called Marla Sanchez. And then I will pay a visit to the police to find out exactly what they were investigating Ethan Greene for.

My feet trawl the carpet of the dark corridor. The window at the end portrays a pale moon hidden by wispy clouds. The moon gives me just enough light to find the door of the study.

I try the handle, and it resists three quarters of the way.

The door is locked.

I furrow my brow. Does Ethan suspect I have been going through his things? I recall his tale about the man who owned this house previously who killed himself behind these very walls – in that very room. Did he hang himself from the lamp in the ceiling? Was it a gunshot to the head? I didn’t get the chance to ask Ethan and he didn’t volunteer.

I turn away from the study. My restlessness will not allow me to sleep for a long, long while. My gaze is drawn towards a white rectangle down the corridor – the door to Ethan’s bedroom. Like a magnet, I am drawn to it.

I shut my eyes and open them again. My pulse thrums like a hummingbird’s wings.

Be bold, Ginny
.

My feet pad on their own volition to his door. I raise my fist to knock, and then think the better of it. My hand closes around the doorknob instead. Why does he have a knob for this room and an old-fashioned handle for his study?

The knob turns fully and does not resist.

My heart fluttering in my throat, I push the door open.

The room is lighted only by a single lamp on the bedside table. I have never been in Ethan’s bedroom before.

Ethan is lying in bed, covered by a white sheet. His shoulders and chest are bare, and I don’t know if he’s wearing anything else underneath. Like the one in my bedroom, his bed has four posts and a canopy that falls around it in waves. Its sleeves are tied back to the posts by golden tassels.

He does not seem unduly alarmed that I am here. His features are serene, almost as though he is expecting me. His liquid eyes gaze at me as I enter and softly close the door behind me. Perhaps he has worked out his inner demons where I am concerned. But then, I can never be sure.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t at dinner tonight. I wasn’t feeling well.”

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.”

Well, this is certainly awkward. Then I remember what he told Jeffrey:
I wanted her
. That conviction that he was speaking about me gives my feet the courage to move towards his bed. He doesn’t stop me, and he never takes his eyes off me either. I can see my own desire mirrored on his face.

He wants me all right.

And I want him. Desperately. With all the heat between my thighs.

I am on the bed before I can stop myself, and he is not stopping me. He holds his arms out to me and I go to them. We are a tangle of entwined limbs before I can register what is happening. He’s kissing me and I’m kissing him – long-drawn, passionate, sucking kisses. All tongue and meshed lips and taste.

His hands are on me, my breasts, and suddenly, he is shucking off my nightgown over my head. I help him by slipping off my fragile panties.

And I’m naked, and he is naked. The sheet is off. His penis rises – hard as brick. I seize it, my need escalating. He flips me onto the bed so that my back is pressed deep against the mattress. I’m sinking into it as his hips straddle mine. My skin is overheated and the ache in my loins actually surpasses anything I have ever experienced before.

He murmurs, “I need you, I want you. Please – ”

Such is his urgency that I don’t caution him when his bare cock stubs my pussy hole. I’m already so wet I’m practically oozing. We are too caught up in our shared fervor for condoms. Besides, I’m on the pill, and he hasn’t had sex with anyone for two years. So I’m willing to take the risk.

Little did I know then that the risk I’m taking will be far eclipsed by what will be coming.

“May I?” There is such heat in his voice.

His eyes burn into mine, and I nod.

His cock plunges into me. It occurs to me that his unbridled lust is more out of prolonged abstinence than any raging attraction for me. OK, maybe both. It certainly hasn’t been two years for me (not even two months, I believe) and my vaginal canal is once again pushed apart by that familiar rush of spearing flesh.

He begins to move inside me in earnest – short, sharp bursts of penile activity that is more enthusiasm than technique.

As he fucks me, his mouth bends down to kiss me again. He is a phenomenal kisser, even if he does not have as much finesse as a stud. But I don’t mind. He is perfect in every other way. Thank goodness he is huge. His girth stretches me and fills me right up to the cone of my cervix.

I lie back and let him move within me. I close my eyes to savor him. I almost can’t believe it. I’m making love to David Kinney. I envision all the girls on my old Internet fan board turning green with envy.

His breathing grows more labored. His cock stabs me with more effort and alacrity. I brace myself to ascend the familiar upslope. I need him to give me more time. I try to angle my hips upward to meet the force of his thrust, but he quashes me flat.

Just as I want to whisper to him to give me more space – to allow me to shift a little – he utters a cry and floods my vagina with his semen. Oh! I sink back into the mattress and let his warm tide gush into me. I’m disappointed because I haven’t come yet, and there appears to be no chance of that now because he is pulling his softening and very wet penis out of me.

This was not how I envisioned my first sexual encounter with Ethan Greene to be. I had expected more . . . fireworks. I wanted more time and latitude and longitude. I wanted to be fucked out of my brains. I wanted to scream into the ceiling and be infused with so much pleasure that my head would burst. I want him to make me cum and cum again until I’m hoarse and ragged and out of my wits.

He rolls off me, still panting. I manage to catch his eyes, which are glazed as if he is on a drug trip. Has he taken any drugs before I came in? I doubt it. I certainly haven’t seen any lying around. He was perfectly lucid.