Naked (7 page)

She rolled her eyes at me.  “Or at least call him back.”  Gaby lowered her voice to a whisper.  “He doesn’t know anything about your past...”

“I know.”  And Gaby was right.  Ethan didn’t know about me.

Gaby rubbed my arm.

“I wasn’t really mad or offended by him last night.  I just had to get out of there.  I woke up screaming in his bed and I—”

The urge to cry right now was just as strong as before.  I tried to force the impulse down.

“But it sounds like he wanted to comfort you.  He wasn’t trying to push you away, Bree.”

“But you should have seen his face when he burst into his bedroom with me howling like a lunatic.  The way he looked at me…”  I rubbed my temples.   “He’s just so intense.  I can’t explain him properly to you, Gab.  Ethan is like nothing I have ever encountered and I don’t know if I could survive him.  If last night is any indication then I sincerely doubt it.”

Gaby looked at me, her beautiful green eyes smiling with confidence.  “You are much stronger than you think you are.  I know this.”  She nodded firmly.  “You are going to go get ready for work and then after a productive day in service to the great masterworks of the University of London, you’re coming home to get ready for our night of decadent pleasures.  Benny’s already on board.”  She poked me in the shoulder with her finger.  “Now move it, sister.”

“I knew it.  Ben outted me the instant he could.”  I smiled at her, the first genuine one I’d felt in twelve hours and heaved my ass off the sofa.  “I’m on it, Gab,” I said, rubbing where she’d poked me, “I surrender.”

~*~

I’d been at work for a few hours when Rory came through the back with a vase of the most gorgeous deep purple dahlias I had ever seen.  He marched up to me with a beaming smile on his face.  “A delivery for you, Miss Brynne.  You have an admirer it seems.”

Oh shit!
  I did a double take.  The bow on the vase was not really a bow.  It was his silk purple tie from last night.  Ethan had given his tie to me after all.

“Thank you for delivering them back here to me, Rory.  They are gorgeous.”  My hand shook as I reached for the card on the plastic holder.  I dropped it twice before I was able to read what he’d written.

Brynne, Last night was a gift.

Please forgive me for not

hearing what you were trying

 to tell me.  I am so sorry.

Yours,

E

I read his note a few dozen times and wondered what to do.

How did he manage to confuse me so readily?  One moment I felt sure I needed to flee Ethan and the next I wanted to be with him again.  I looked at my purple flowers once more and knew I most definitely needed to acknowledge his gift and that handwritten apology though.  To ignore it would be cruel.

Text or call?  That was a hard decision.  Part of me wanted to hear Ethan’s voice, and another part was scared to hear mine when I tried to answer his questions.  In the end, I went with a text and felt like a total wimp.  I had to power up my phone first and the barrage of missed calls and message alerts that flashed when it turned on made me ill without even listening or reading.  It was too much for me at the moment so I ignored everything and fired up a blank text screen.

Brynne Bennett:  Ethan, the flowers r beautiful. Ty.  I
♥
purple. –Brynne

As soon as I pressed send I contemplated turning my phone off but of course I didn’t.  Curiosity killed the cat or in my case made me do stupid things.

I went over to the vase of my flowers instead and removed his tie from the arrangement.  I put it up to my nose and inhaled.  It had the smell.  The sexy Ethan smell I adored.  I was never giving this tie back to him.  No matter what happened or what did not happen, the tie belonged to me now.

My phone lit up and started buzzing.  My first instinct was to turn it off, but I’d known he’d call.  And the selfish part of me wanted to hear him again.  I put the phone up to my ear.

“Hi.”

“Do you really love purple?”  The question made me smile.

“Very much so.  The flowers are beautiful and I’m not returning your tie.”

“I fucked up badly didn’t I?”  His voice was soft and I could hear a rustling and then a breath exhaled.

“Are you smoking, Ethan?”

“Today more than usual.”

“A vice…you have one.”  I traced over the tie spread out on my desktop.

“I have several I am afraid.”  There was a moment of quiet and I wondered if he considered me one of his vices, but then he spoke, “I wanted to come to your flat last night.  I nearly did.”

“It’s good you didn’t, Ethan.  I needed to think and that’s very hard for me to do when you’re close.  And it’s not anything you did last night.  Not your fault.  I—I needed some space after we were…together like that.  It’s just—it’s just the reality of me.  I am the one that’s fucked up.”

“Don’t say that, Brynne.  I know I didn’t listen to you last night.  You told me what you needed and I ignored you.  I pushed too hard, too fast.  I broke your trust and that’s what I regret the most.  I’m deeply sorry—you have no idea how much.  And if it ruins my chances of being with you then I deserve it.”

“No you don’t.” My voice was just a whisper and there was so much I wanted to say but did not have the expressible words to phrase it.  “You don’t want to be with me, Ethan.”

“I
know
I do, beautiful Brynne.”  I could hear him exhaling from his cigarette.  “And now the only question is will you?  Will you be with me again, Brynne Bennett?”

I couldn’t help it. His words made me tear up.  My only saving grace was Ethan couldn’t actually see me crying through the phone but I was pretty sure he could hear me.

“And now I’ve made you cry.  Is that good or bad, baby?  Tell me please, because I don’t know.”  The yearning in his voice broke my resistance down.

“It’s good...”  I laughed awkwardly.  “And I don’t know when.  I have plans tonight with Benny and Gaby.”

“I understand,” he said.

Was I agreeing to see him again?  We both knew the answer to his question.  The thing is Ethan drew me in.  From the first night since we’d met he’d held me captivated.  Yes we had moved fast into sex.  Yes he had pushed me a little, but it had brought me to a place that felt wonderful when I could forget about my past.  Ethan made me feel very, very safe in a way that surprised me and forced me to consider the reasons for it.  I didn’t have a ton of faith that we might work out, but it sure as hell would be an affair to remember.

“Can we take it slow, Ethan Blackstone?”

“I’m taking that as a yes.  And of course we can.”  I heard the soft brush of an exhale again.  A pause as if he was gathering his courage.  “Brynne?”

“Yes?”

“I am smiling so wide right now.”

“I am too, Ethan.”

7

The
club scene in London is pretty damn awesome.  We didn’t do it often but a good club crawl was just what I needed.  My poor psyche was on maximum overload in a conflict of emotions, fears, and guilt.  I needed to dance and drink and laugh but most of all I needed to forget about all the shit.  Life was too short to dwell on the dark parts, or at least that’s what my therapist said.  I had an appointment with Dr. Roswell tomorrow at four o’clock and a dinner date with Ethan after.  Our first step in the take-it-slow agreement we’d made on the phone.  He’d told me he wanted to lay the cards out on the table and I have to admit I liked that.  The truth works best for me.  I really don’t have anything to hide; it was more being careful about what I wanted to share.  And I didn’t know how much I could share with Ethan either.  There was no guide map to help me.  I had to ride the wave and hope I didn’t crash into the reef and drown.

“Try this.  It’s magnificent.”  Benny handed me a tall orangey-red drink in a hurricane glass.   “They’re calling it an Olympic Flame.”

I took a sip.  “Nice.”  We both watched Gaby banging it out on the dance floor with some guy who would definitely not get lucky tonight.  We’d hit three clubs so far and my feet were starting to put up a protest.  My dark purple boots looked great with my one shouldered floral dress, but three clubs in and I was ready for some fluffy socks.  “My cowboy boot fetish is coming back to haunt me I think.”  I smirked at Benny and lifted a boot.

“You own like ten pairs of them.”  He shrugged.  “I think they look hot.  You know,” Ben said thoughtfully, “nude in boots would make some delicious portraits.”  He nodded quickly.  “Your body and your boots.  Am I right?  I want to do it.  I can light it very dark and cast the boots in color.  You have so many different shades—yellow, pink, green, blue, red.  They’ll look brilliant.  Just art, nothing overt.”  He looked at me.  “Will you do it, Bree?”

“Well…sure I will.  If you think it’ll make good pictures then of course I’ll sign a release for my boots.”  I stuck my tongue out at him.  “My mother will have a coronary.”  I waited for Ben’s sarcastic comment.

“Your mum needs a good rogering.”  Ben did not let me down.

I burst out in laughter at the absurd image of Clarice Huntington Bennett Exley ever being rogered at any time in her life.

“Hell, nobody ever said you had to have an orgasm to get pregnant, and I’m pretty sure my mom only had sex the one time with my dad.”

“I think you could be right, my luv,” Benny said.  Ben had met my mom a couple of times so he knew what he was talking about.  “At least she got it right and made you if it was just the one time,” Ben joked and I laughed some more.

My parents divorced when I was fourteen—probably from a lack of regular rogering and the realization that they had absolutely no interest in each other, but to be fair, they’d both stayed in the same general area until I’d graduated high school.  My mother would hop across the pond to London when the mood struck and I would take great delight in shocking her with my friends, lifestyle, and general obnoxiousness until she’d had enough of that particular visit.  Her new husband, Frank, was much older than her, much richer than my father, and probably delighted when she left San Francisco on her trips.  I doubt she got much rogering with Frank either.  Maybe Frank got some when she was traveling but who the hell knew.  My mother and I were at odds most of the time.

Now Daddy was a different story.  He’d always been my go-to parent.  He called me regularly and supported my choices.  He loved me for who I was.  And in my darkest hour was the sole reason I am still here walking the earth.  I wondered what Dad would think of Ethan.

Ben took off to chat up some hot blonde as a possible lay and I stayed and sipped my Olympic Flame.

“Hey, lovely lady, those are some purty purple boots you got on there.”  A big guy with red hair, sporting his own pair of boots, western jeans, and a belt buckle in the shape and size of Texas loomed over my table.  An American for sure.  There were tons of people filtering into London for the Olympic Games and this guy definitely looked like a European virgin.

“Thank you.  I collect cowboy boots.”  I smiled at him.

“You collect cowboys, huh?”  He dragged his eyes over me leeringly.  “Then I s’pose I’m in the right place.”  He sat down next to me, his big body crowding me on the lounge seating.  “I’ll be your cowboy if you want,” he muttered the rest under his alcohol breath, “you can ride me.”

I scooted over on the seat and turned away.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“My name is, I’m-not-interested.”  I stone faced him.  “And my middle name is, You’ve-got-to-be-kidding-you-drunk-pig.”

“Now is that any way to be friendly to your American guests all the way here from Texas?”  Big Red leaned closer and laid his arm on the back of the seat, pushing up against my side, his leg plastered next to mine, his breath blowing in my face.  “You don’t know what yer missin.”

“I think I have a pretty good idea.”  I leaned back as far as I could from him and scooted further down the seat.  “Do they teach you manners in Texas or do the girls there like obnoxious drunks who proposition them in public?”

Big Red did not take the hint, or maybe he was too dumb to comprehend my question because he grabbed my hand and lurched to his feet, pulling me along.  “Dance with me, honey.”

I balked but his grip was so strong I didn’t have a chance against his tremendous mass.  He was like a hairy red caveman who’d had too much grog, jerking me against his body and slithering us around the dance floor.  His hand covered my ass and started creeping up my skirt.  That’s when I picked up my boot and rammed the heel down as hard as I could on his toe.

“Get your hand off my ass before your balls become pom-poms for my boots.  You have two balls and I have two boots—one for each.”  I gave him a fake smile.

He grunted at me and narrowed his eyes.  I could tell he was contemplating if I was serious or not and then he made a sneer and backed off of me.  “Cold, English bitch,” he muttered, weaving through the crowd, off to harass some other poor person most likely.

“I’m an American, you asshole!  From the good part of the country!” I yelled at his back before spinning into the hard wall of a male chest.  A chest I’d been up against before.  A body that carried the scent of pure intoxication for me. 
Ethan
.

He did not look happy as he scowled at the retreating bulk of Big Red and then back at me.  Ethan pressed his hand to my back and pushed me toward a table.  I could tell he was pissed.  But even angry he still looked beautiful in his black t-shirt, dark jeans, grey jacket, and that wickedly serious glare on his face.

“Why are you here, Ethan?”

“It’s a damn good thing I am, isn’t it?  That ape was all over you—his mitts on your ass—no telling what he would have tried next!”  He glowered at me in the plush seat, his jaw a hard line, his lips set in a slash.

“I believe I handled him very well all on my own—”

Ethan took my face in his hands and kissed me, holding me trapped to his mouth, pushing his tongue in, demanding I allow him access.  I moaned and kissed him back, tasting only mint and the faint taste of beer.  I still couldn’t believe he was a smoker.  I could never smell it on him.  Even if I’d wanted to deny his kiss, saying no to Ethan was next to impossible.  I always wanted him.  He pushed all the right buttons for me and for that reason he was dangerous.