Thick & Thin (Thin Love, #3)(9)
“More wine?”
A small prayer flitted around my thoughts as the waiter refilled our glasses and I took the interruption to pull back my hand, to rest it in my lap so that Steph wouldn’t see my fingers shaking. So Ethan wouldn’t.
“Twenty minutes more, I promise,” he whispered against my ear. There was a trace of humor in his words, the smallest seduction and my fingers shook worse knowing what he’d ask of me tonight. My head was muddled, filled with warring thoughts of confusion and desperate desire. I wanted him but wasn’t sure I should. I’d given Ransom so much, sacrificing my happiness, my dreams just to be with him, hanging onto every broken promise he gave, crushed when he never kept one. What if I got into this, really gave myself to Ethan and ended up right where I’d been when I left Miami? Flighty and confused were things I never wanted to be. I’d slap myself silly if it wouldn’t have made me look like a loon. I knew what Ethan wanted. Especially since he’d put that ring on my finger.
“It’s fine.” My glance was quick, and hopefully convinced him that I was only tired, not nervous. Still, when Ethan tilted his head, when he moved so close that I could smell the bourbon truffles we shared on his breath, I worried that he’d finally learned to read me.
“What is it?” His cologne had faded, but still lingered on his skin—another form of excess; his warm scent reminding me of leather and sandalwood soap and something purely male.
As always, I was able to pass off his worry, distract him with the small brush of my fingertips resting in his palm. “Long damn day, cheri.”
At my endearment, Ethan forgot his question. He forgot that I was not solely tired, that there might be some worry I didn’t share with him and he moved in closer, kissing my neck just below my ear.
“There is nothing sexier than your Creole sweet talk.” His lips against mine, the pressure of his fingers in my hair, my vanilla reaction seemed enough to satisfy him. “Well,” he said, inching back to stare at my mouth. “I imagine there are far sexier things where you’re concerned, beautiful. But…”
He let that hang, as though I didn’t know what he wanted from me. As though I had not spent the past nearly four months rejecting his advances, laying one excuse after another in front of him when his kisses became too heated, when his hands roamed too surely over my body.
“Ethan…” But he bypassed the rejection before it came, sitting upright when his sister cleared her throat.
“Aly, we’ll have to coordinate our schedules.” Steph was demanding, a perfect counterpart to her twin brother. Where Ethan exuded subtlety, a coolness when he was after something, Steph went all determined, mildly insistent. Even their looks were a disparity. Steph reminded me of a winter nymph, pale skin, bright blue eyes and dark blonde hair. There was a fairy quality to her features—the bones beneath her fair skin elegant, fragile, a subtlety that made her look ethereal, a wholly feminine quality that drew attention; one that I envied.
Ethan looked more exotic, with his dark, wavy hair, piercing gray eyes and olive skin that seemed to always catch a tan within a half hour of being under the sun. His features were more angular than his twin’s, with a rugged quality hidden beneath the polished, well-groomed surface; like a woodsman pulsing beneath the educated lawyer, threatening to break free given half the chance. I had noticed those differences and similarities the moment I saw them in the same room together.
“Once you’ve set a date, we’ll need to find a venue. Hmm, let me see…”
Ethan shook his head, his smile easy when his twin pulled out her phone, and the calendar app lighted against her face. Before I could stop her, Ethan waved me off. “Steph, pump the brakes. I’ve only just asked her tonight.”
“Yes, but I know how you are.” She glanced at me as though she expected me to have her back before her gaze returned to her brother’s face. “You don’t like waiting…”
“Steph,” Micah started, but was rebuffed when his wife scowled at him.
“This isn’t a secret, is it?” Again the blonde looked at me, ignoring how tense her brother had suddenly become. “You’ve told her why…why we’re so…spontaneous?”
“Wi, cheri. But even without an explanation I would have known,” I offered, hoping my smile would ease the tension around the table or at least get Ethan’s shoulders to relax and his finger clenching the napkin to untighten. “I’ve seen you both skydive over the Mississippi to see who could withhold their chute the longest and let’s not forget the ridiculous Ferrari drag racing along the dirt roads in Manchac. I think I’ve sorted out that you two don’t live by normal rules.”
Trying to make an awkward situation less so was nearly impossible. Then that sibling difference kicked in. Steph’s flustered, impatient face contrasted Ethan’s easy expression.
“But it’ll be within months, right? I can’t imagine…” Steph started.
“Months?” The question slipped from my mouth without any thought at all and then the tension crystalized around us.
Ethan purposefully broke the moment by pulling my hand onto his thigh all while smiling knowingly. “That’s not something we need to get into yet. There’s time.”
The eagerness in his eyes made them seem lighter. He was placating me, I knew that. But it wasn’t some passive aggressive move meant to make me feel bad for my worry. Ethan lived with urgency, with fervor, with a keenness that would have cut others to shreds. He’d explained it to me the first time he kissed me—all passion and eagerness, verging on desperation. When I pushed back that night, confused and afraid because he had never shown that side of himself before, he opened up and told me about his past, and why he felt so compelled to live life full throttle.