Yours to Keep (17 page)

She closed her eyes. Apparently Ethan hadn’t told Theo they were a no-go. Probably that meant she shouldn’t tell him, either. But she felt bad for him, with his hopeful expression. He was obviously rooting for them. He deserved the truth, or what passed for it in her life. “Your dad and I aren’t going to see each other anymore.”

Theo’s expression sagged, and she instantly regretted her decision to go with honesty. “Does he know that?”

“Yes, he knows that. Let’s get back to work.”

They began conjugating irregular verbs, but before they’d even finished another exercise Theo turned to her again and said, “Is he okay with that? Because I think he really likes you.”

Against her will, she felt herself warm at those words.

“I like you, too. Not that way—” he said hastily. “But I like having you around. Why don’t you want to go out with him? You should. He’s a good guy.”

She wished they weren’t having this conversation. She didn’t want to start lecturing Theo about race and socioeconomics and immigration. But she couldn’t say that she wasn’t interested in his father. Aside from its being a patent lie, Theo might repeat it to Ethan, and she couldn’t stand the thought of hurting Ethan’s feelings. Not even to put an end to this crazy conversation.

She heard the garage door.

She began grabbing her stuff and shoving it into her backpack.

“It’s only five fifty. We have ten more minutes.”

Hell. He was right. She removed her notebook, put her backpack on the floor.

“Can we do more vocabulary? The next unit is going to be music.”

“I don’t know a lot of technical terms for musical stuff. But we could talk about
musical styles and genres.”

When Ethan came into the kitchen, Theo was singing “Feliz Navidad” in the style of a Brazilian lounge singer.

Ethan closed the door and leaned against it. Ana’s throat felt dry. He was such a presence, those broad shoulders under his stone-colored barn jacket. The muscles of his thighs faintly visible under his dark khakis. She tried hard not to look directly at him, but he drew her gaze. When she peeked at his face, he was staring at her with eyes gone so dark with emotion that she had to look away.

“Rap,” she instructed Theo, and he segued into an improvised hip-hop version of “Feliz Navidad,” complete with dance moves:

“Y Santa Claus sabe

que he sido

un chico malo

muy malo.”

“Next week,
deportes
,” Ana told Ethan with false cheer.

“Does that mean we get to play soccer?” Theo paused with a leg suspended behind him.

“Sure, if that’s okay with your dad.”

Ethan shrugged. “Fine with me.”

Ana looked at her watch. “Time for me to go.”

She packed up her things, and father and son walked her to the door.

“You have homework, Theo?” Ethan asked.

Theo shook his head.

“You must have
something
that needs doing upstairs, right?”

Theo’s eyes got very big, and he nodded fiercely. He ran out of the room, and they heard him taking the stairs two at a time.

She felt exposed, alone with Ethan in the foyer. When he spoke, his voice was low and dark. “Whatever it is that’s freaking you out, we
will
fix it.”

Despite herself, she felt a surge of joy at his words. He sounded so—male. Tough. Certain. She wanted to believe him. Believe that he could make her safe.

“Ana.” He’d crossed the empty space between them, and now his breath was warm on
her ear, sending tingles everywhere. “The other night—we need to do that again. I want to kiss you like that again. I want to hear you make that whimpering noise you make when you get turned on.”

Heat flooded her. She couldn’t help herself. She turned her head toward him.

His mouth slid onto hers, trapped her, hot and slick and insistent. Her brain turned to jelly. She heard herself moan softly. Her hand tangled in his soft hair, clutched him down to her.

Ethan broke off the kiss. He scrutinized her, his eyes moving over her face as if he were reading her. She could feel the heat in her cheeks, knew her eyes were bright and her mouth was red from the kiss. She turned away. She was very angry with herself. She was weak and stupid and headed for disaster.

“I can’t be involved with you,” she said softly, and then she fled, pushed past him and out the door, and ran, literally ran, out of the house. She heard the shuttle coming up the street, perfect timing for a rescue, and she didn’t turn around. As far as she could tell, he didn’t call her name or chase after her, and by the time the shuttle reached the bus station she was crying silently, her shoulders shaking, tears running down her face.

When she got to Duarte, she flushed her face with cold water and examined herself in the mirror. Better. Her students wouldn’t notice that anything was wrong. Her quiet sobs had left her with a slight hitch, like a hiccup, in her breathing, but that would go away soon enough. She went back out to the cafeteria and laid her lesson plan on the lectern. She had a lot of time to kill before her class began.

She should be happy. There was no way Ethan would pursue her again after that. He’d declared himself, had kissed her—God, and what a kiss—and she’d run away without looking back. No man had an ego strong enough to withstand that. Things were over between them for good, and even her own weakness, her own overwhelming desire to run back to him and beg him to kiss her again, wouldn’t change that now.

Tears swam again, but she willed herself to be strong and brushed them back. This was what she wanted. This was what she’d been trying to achieve. She’d finally shown him the foolishness of chasing after her. Now all she had to do was get her mind off him. She’d see if Cara had anyone to fix her up with. Ricky and Cara had brought home guys on
occasion, and once or twice she’d gone out with these fixer-upper dates. They were polite to her and treated her like a fragile knickknack. She didn’t fit into their world any more than she fit into Ethan’s. But she’d have to find a way to. This whole incident had shown her that.

She taught the two classes through a daze of fatigue, the students’ faces a blur. In her first class, she forgot that she was teaching beginners and started hurling instructions at them in rapid-fire English. During the second, she forgot that she was teaching advanced students, and they stared at her with exasperated befuddlement as she slowly ticked through the steps of their homework assignment. There was extra time at the end of the class, which meant that her pacing had been off, and she let them start their homework while she stared at the cinder-block walls of the cafeteria and tried not to think about Ethan, or his kisses, or his words.

When the students finally, finally filed out, she gathered up her things, reassembled her pack. She shut off the lights and pulled out her keys. She followed the last two students, who were chatting amiably in Mandarin, out the door. She locked the door behind her and turned to start her cold walk home.

He was there, at the edge of where the security spotlights cast their glow, sitting in his car, waiting for her.

She’d frozen at the sight of the car, but now she started toward it. He lowered the window on her side as she approached. “What are you doing here?” Her breath made a puff of white.

He leaned toward her, smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Beautiful. “I figured you’d need a ride home.”

She smiled back. She couldn’t help it. He hadn’t given up on her. “How long have you been here?”

“A while. I didn’t know what time you got out.”

He’d sat here for God knows how long in the cold, waiting for her. Warmth spread in her chest, became heat in her stomach and thighs.

“Are you going to get in?”

She opened the door and slid in. The car smelled like him, his deodorant and his musky male sweat. She pulled the door shut.

“I’ll drop you at your apartment. Or nearby. I know you’re trying to keep a low profile.”

“No.”

He looked at her questioningly.

She hadn’t meant to say no. It had burst out of her. “Can we go to your house?”

The words hung in the air. Even though they were her own words, they were enough to set up a small vibration in her—she was like a guitar string stretched too tight. A slow pulse beat between her legs.

His eyes were huge and dark.

“Oh,” she said, suddenly. Disappointed. “Theo’s there, isn’t he?”

He wouldn’t take his eyes off her face. His gaze was so superheated it almost hurt. She wanted to turn away, but something kept her from doing so.

“Ana?”

“What?” she whispered.

“Are you married?”

Laughter found its way around the lump in her throat, burst out of her in a big, frank flash of genuine mirth. Now that was funny. Her, married. “No.”

“Good.” He reached out one finger and laid the tip of it on her bottom lip, setting off a chain reaction of sensations. “Theo goes to bed early and sleeps like a rock.” Then he withdrew his finger before she could obey her impulse to nip it, turned the key in the ignition, and said, “So, my place, then.”

Chapter 16

The silence in the car on the way back to Ethan’s house was like none she’d ever experienced before. It had weight, taste, dimension. Neon signs and street lamps filtered streaks and blobs of light across their laps as they drove back along the same route they’d traveled earlier. She ached, hollow with desire—her lips, her breasts, her belly, between her legs. She pictured what would happen when they arrived at his house: She’d reach for him as he killed the ignition, grabbing his shoulders, angling her mouth over his. She’d climb over the transmission and brake to straddle him, feeling his hardness press up against the seam of her jeans.

She was breathing hard. Could he hear? She was self-conscious, but she wanted him to know how she felt, like someone poised on the edge of a high dive, her body edgy and tuned to his. She wanted to tell him, tell him that she was already wet, that she’d been so wet that night at the brewery that he could have had her in a single stroke.

What would happen? They had to be discreet, she knew. They couldn’t tear each other’s clothes off in a mad rush for the bedroom, leaving a trail behind them. Would there be polite small talk? Would he try to offer her a drink, something to eat? She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. Her hunger was a vague, far-away ghost, barely audible behind the roar of her sexual desire.

She was out of her head around Ethan, far, far gone.

They were back in Beacon now, turning past the train station toward his house. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

Her face got hot. Could she tell him? She had wanted to, a moment ago, but now she found that she couldn’t speak. It was easier to reach out a hand. She rested it on his thigh, not far above his knee. She could feel his heat through his khakis. The muscle bunched under her touch. She heard his breathing change.

“Is that what you were thinking about?” he asked, a low murmur.

“That. And other things.”

He shifted under her hand, and she felt the restrained strength of him again. “What
other things?”

She hesitated. It had been much easier with the joking and innuendo the other night. Telling him what she imagined seemed a whole lot more personal.

“Should I go first? Do you want to know what I was thinking?”

She nodded, although she wasn’t sure if he could see her in his peripheral vision.

His voice was low, almost a growl. “I want to feel how hot you are.”

A tiny noise, a sigh, escaped her. She dug her fingers into the hard muscle of his thigh.

He groaned in response.

Heat rippled through her stomach and groin.

“Your turn,” he murmured.

“I’m not just hot.”

He groaned again. “Say it.”

She arched her back a little, her head back against the seat. The hand that wasn’t on his thigh found its way involuntarily between her legs. “I’m so wet that you can feel it, here.” She took his hand and guided it.

“Fuuuck,” he groaned, and his strong fingers explored her through her jeans, which dissipated the intensity of the touch just right, the friction like a fantasy or a suggestion.

He turned into his neighborhood, his hand still on her, his palm moving in slow circles. She panted and moaned, moving her hand higher on his thigh until she felt the bulge of his cock straining into her hand. “Stop. You have to stop,” he said abruptly, and she took her hand away, and he took his away from her, which was agony. She wanted him back; she wanted him right now. She’d felt, for half a second, the head of his cock under her thumb, and she wanted to feel it again, to run her thumb back and forth along that ridge until he couldn’t stand it anymore. She put her thumb to her lips instead, and dreamily sucked on it. The answering pull between her legs shocked her.

He looked over at her and saw what she was doing, and the car veered sharply. She yelped, and he adjusted his steering, guiding them the rest of the way up the street, into his driveway, and into the garage without mishap.

He turned the key, and the engine died. He pushed the button to release his seat belt and turned toward her. “Here,” he said, and he slid his thumb into her mouth.

She sucked it, and his breath huffed out of him as if he’d been punched, and he dived
for her, his hands yanking her hair. There was a confusion of hands and mouths, sucking and kissing and licking. Then he abruptly pulled back and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever said this before in my life, but I am seriously afraid that if we don’t get on to the main event there will not be a main event.”

She took a deep breath and gathered as much of her senses as she could, and they got out of the car and walked around to the garage door. He reached for the knob, and she put her hand on his chest, lean muscle under her touch, and both his arms came around her, and he crushed her between the whole warm, strong length of him and the solid door. “Unless you want it just like this?” he said.

She shook her head, breathless, and he let her go. “I doubt Theo’s awake, but—”