From my place by the window, I can see his whole room. The soccer stuff jammed in the overflowing duffel by the door, the stack of textbooks on his desk next to a couple of fantasy novels I haven’t noticed before. His bed is unmade, the top sheet pushed back, and there are deep creases in the fitted sheet formed by the heat of his body.
‘Can we start this over?’ I ask, all at once desperate to rewrite the story of Ethan Taylor, to replace the version of him I brought with me from Marshall with the man before me. ‘Just the truth from now on. Tell each other exactly what we’re thinking, exactly what we want.’
He lifts his chin in agreement.
‘What do you want, Ethan?’ I ask in a voice soft enough not to disturb the air.
‘I already told you. Last night.’
‘Maybe.’ I’m shaking now, trembling from head to toe, andI have to squeeze the windowsill to hold myself down. ‘But I don’t know if I remember.’
He crosses the room slowly, so slowly, and my mouth is dry when he stands in front of me, not quite touching, something and nothing keeping us apart. One hand comes up to my face and brushes my hair back over my shoulder, just barely grazing my cheek but still enough to set me alight.
‘It might help if I heard it again,’ I tell him. ‘If that’s okay?’
My breath comes in short, sharp bursts, and when he takes one more step to position himself between my feet, his hips pressing against my waist I’m glad for the window at my back. If it weren’t for this beautiful old building holding me up, I wouldn’t be able to stand at all.
‘I want you, Mia,’ Ethan murmurs. ‘More than anything.’
He already has me, even if I didn’t realize it until now.
41
Ethan
She’s trembling.
Her lips are parted, her soft cherry-red lips, but I’m not ready to kiss her. Not yet. I want to make this last. Tilting her chin up until our eyes meet, I feel a jolt, a physical reaction that shoots right through me. The sapphire blue I’ve been dreaming about for a month has shifted into something darker and deeper, full of need. She wants me. Not nearly as much as I want her, that isn’t physically possible, but there’s no mistaking that look. My cock is throbbing against my shorts and I know it wouldn’t take much. I could take her right now, a million different ways. Up against this window, bent over the desk, on the bed. Just thinking about it makes me dizzy and I have to pull back. If she touches me, if she even looks at me the right way, it’s all over.
So I don’t let her.
The window is open, just a crack, but it’s enough to let the air in, a slight breeze that makes her hair dance around. A strand blows across my face and I hear myself gasp. One hand cupping her face, the other bracing myself against the window frame, I study her face, the blue eyes, the pouty lips, her eyebrows, two straight lines that give away her emotions more than she knows. Right now they’re pulling together, like she’s holding herself back but afraid to make the first move at the same time. I graze her cheekwith my thumb and her breath comes harder and faster. I’m barely even touching her.
One kiss. The lightest possible brush of my lips against hers, then I pull away, a sigh catching in her throat and testing my willpower. Her eyes are closed now and I run my hand all the way down, learning the contours of her face, her throat, her chest, skirting between her breasts and over her waist and hips. When I grasp her ass with both hands, her eyes flutter open and she bites her lip. I can’t imagine how I must look. Hungry. Desperate. Obsessed. She’s wearing that long skirt again, the one that buttons all the way through, and without breaking eye contact, I slowly lower down to my knees and start to unfasten each button, working my way from the bottom up. It’s a simple task but my hands are shaking and my cock is straining against my shorts, leaving me with a non-zero per cent chance of unloading before I’ve even touched her.
The final button at the waistband of the skirt tests my dexterity under pressure, but finally it’s undone, and so is Mia. She looks down at me as I kneel in front of her, her skirt on the floor and both my hands wrapped around her thighs. This time it’s me who has to look away, breaking eye contact to concentrate on her underwear, light blue and silky, narrow on the sides, cut high in the back making it easy for me to grab her ass, filling each hand and squeezing until she moans.
‘Your turn,’ I say, my voice hoarse with self-restraint. ‘What do you want, Mia?’
‘You.’
The word slips out of her without hesitation.
‘And what do you want me to do?’
I look up and see her hands gripping hold of my windowsill like she’s going to pull it off the wall.
‘I … I don’t know.’
My mind is a dark, hazy swirl, and any second now I know I could slip over the edge, lose myself in unfathomable depths, but I can’t, not yet. I have to keep control. I have to show Mia how I feel. So, I slide one hand between her legs and let it glide up and down the inside of her thighs.
‘Do you like me on my knees?’
‘Yes.’
So quiet I can only just hear her, but it’s all the permission I need. With the tip of one finger, I trace a line over the top of her underwear, all the way from front to back, groaning when she sways and stumbles. I move her ever so slightly outwards, spreading her legs to give me more room. She’s wet already, I can feel it, I can see it, and when I press that one finger against the warmest spot between her legs, Mia gasps.
‘Tell me again,’ I demand. ‘Tell me what you want.’
