Thick & Thin (Thin Love, #3)(30)

“Baby, are you okay?” Ethan said, shutting the door behind the last of his clerks as they left the office. There were small lines in between his eyebrows and I wondered if a kiss would make them disappear. He had such a handsome face—striking features that belong on the cover of GQ, not in some small but growing law office in New Orleans. When he stepped closer, when that rich, smooth scent that I always loved came off his skin, I closed my eyes, letting him hold me, resting my cheek against his chest because it was warm. I hadn’t been able to shake the chill that had set inside my bones since I left Ransom.

“You interrupted me so I’d hold you?” There was a satisfied, almost amused inflection in Ethan’s voice and I smiled at the sound, liking how easy it was to please him. There was no pressure with him.

Not like…

Modi.

“I’m sorry,” I said, stepping back to look at him. The frown had left, but those lines remained and I pushed my thumbs over his face, my fingers tickling when he closed his eyes, breathing me in.

He seemed to enjoy how I touched him, the slow, sure stroke of my nails against his scalp, along his temples, the press of my thumbs massaging his shoulders. For a minute, Ethan relaxed against me, head back, a smile ghosting around his mouth.

Then I kissed his neck because it was exposed. I kissed it because he was beautiful and kind and generous, because I wanted to prove to him that I could be spontaneous. That I really did want to change for him. I kissed him, nibbling the skin between my teeth because I could, because Ethan had given me something I hadn’t had in years and I wanted to return the favor.

I wanted to silence that niggling voice in my mind, the repeat of Ransom’s curse that promised that we could never stay in the past.

“Aly, baby…” Ethan panted when I moved my lips, my tongue up his throat, tugging him closer to get at his mouth. He stopped protesting for a minute, giving back to me all the attention I demanded, kissing me with the same desperate strength I’d come to expect from him. “Baby…” he said again when I closed my eyes tight, trying so damn hard to clear away Ransom’s voice.

“Ethan…” Another kiss, longer, slower this time and he walked backward, stumbling when his legs hit the desk.

“Aly…wait.” Ethan fell on top of the desk, still clinging to me, but cautious, hesitant. He stopped my hands when I went for his tie. “What’s going on here?”

“I wanted to see you,” I said, moving closer, nibbling up his neck again, pulling his earlobe in my mouth. “I needed to taste you.”

“Christ.” And then Ethan let me play—my hands clawed and tugged, untucking his shirt, succeeding in getting that tie loose and nearly off. When my hands weren’t busy, my mouth was. Teeth against that smooth, pale skin, the low, barely audible sound of his groans, the flustered, frantic way Ethan responded to my touch. “God, baby, what are you…”

We’re it. We’re always.

Damn him. He was wrong. He had no clue what I could have with Ethan and here was my moment to prove it.

“Ethan, I want you.”

Those words hung in the air—like the slow descent of feathers from a plume moving silently to the ground. I couldn’t take them back. I wouldn’t and Ethan’s reaction was immediate. His kisses became harried, eager and though he’d never asserted himself, though he’d always made me move his hand, direct him closer, kisses deeper, now he took over. That one sentence from me seemed to be all the consent he needed and I reacted to him, enjoying the feel of his warm mouth on my neck and the brush of his thumb against my nipple.

It may have gone on that way. We may have continued to move, point and counterpoint until we were naked, until the folders and documents on his desk were brushed away, lost in the fray to be together, completely together, but then Ethan’s attentions slowed, his kisses weren’t as aggressive and when my mind replayed the touch of Ransom’s hand and the smell of his skin filling my senses, I fought back with my body, pushing Ethan against the desk, disturbing the computer monitor and the collection of neatly organized files as I straddled him.

“Woah…wait a sec.” He tried sitting up, but I went at his neck again, lifting only far enough to unbuckle his belt before he grabbed my hand. “Aly, stop.” He pushed me up, helping me stand as he slipped off the desk. “Jesus.” He looked at me as though I was strange and unusual and he didn’t know what to make of me at all. “What the hell are you doing?”

I blinked back as he adjusted his clothes, the muscles around my brows tightening. “I…I just thought…” My voice sounded weak, pathetic and I cleared my throat, ignoring Ethan as he watched me, pulling himself back together as though we hadn’t been just about to move things along quickly.

“Aly, you can’t just come to my office and expect…”

“Why not?” It was an honest question. My motivation might have been less than honorable, but the intent wasn’t. If we were married, I’d have no problem visiting him at work and inventing reasons for keeping his door locked. Isn’t that what people in love do? Isn’t it impossible for them to keep their hands off each other?

“Why not?” He laughed, the sound was incredulous and mildly scandalized. “Because I work here.” He bent to pick up a couple of files that had landed on the floor during our deluge. “My God, Aly, I’m all for being spontaneous, but this is just…” Ethan slid his fingers through his hair, tightening his tie with that same stunned expression on his face.