Perfectly Toxic (Sterling Shore 9)

This time, I’m the one confused.

“All healthy relationships are based on the ability for each person to compromise. It’s why my parents are still married and happy.”

Little butterflies rattle around in my stomach, but I don’t know why.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not done having fun,” he goes on, and those butterflies burst into flames as my body tenses.

I’m so not sharing him with other women, so that had better not be where this is going.

“Oh?” I prompt as he stares at me with a knowing grin.

“Yeah. While I like hanging around your place with you on occasion, I’m not quite ready to be a Netflix and chill couple all the time. I want you to start coming to my parties and having fun with me.”

Ah hell. Frat parties are so not my thing anymore.

But he’s right about compromising, and so far he’s only been doing things on my comfort level. And going to a party is definitely better than him wanting other women, which is where I thought this was going.

“Deal,” I finally say, watching as his grin spreads.

“After you’re completely better,” he goes on.

At least there’s that.

“And wild bathroom sex,” he adds, causing me to laugh. “I’ve never had wild bathroom sex, and it’s on my list of things to do.”

“That I can handle,” I tell him, sighing as my eyelids start growing heavy.

“You want your soup?” he asks as I get comfortable.

“I’ll make it in a second,” I mumble, getting sleepier by the second.

His lips brush my forehead, and he lifts away from me. I feel the bed jostle as he gets up, but my eyes are too heavy to open to investigate. It feels like a second later he’s rolling me onto my back, and I open my eyes to see a steaming bowl of soup in his hands, letting me know it was much longer than a second.

A naked caretaker who looks like him is definitely better than Allie.

Ethan Noles is nothing like I ever expected.

“What happened?” I ask as I sip my soup.

“What do you mean?” he asks as he stands up and walks over to pull on his boxers.

“To you. What happened to make your mind shut down the response to feel?”

His lips thin as he studies me.

“Communication,” I remind him. “I know something happened, and I want you to be able to talk to me about it. You can trust me, Ethan.”

He groans while sitting down. “It’s not like that. It doesn’t bother me to talk about it, but it usually upsets someone when they finally hear it.”

Putting my soup down, I sit up a little better in bed, pulling my knees to my chest. He grabs the shirt he wore last night from the floor and hands it to me.

“I can’t tell you this while you’re naked. It’s distracting enough as it is.”

“You’re the one who made me naked,” I remind him, pulling on his shirt.

His eyes rake over me, taking in the way his shirt swallows me. At least I have another shirt to add to my Ethan-Collection now.

He shakes his head as though to clear it, then he drops back to the bed, lying across the bottom of it as he stares up at my ceiling, keeping his feet on the floor.