36 Inches (Size Matters 3)

“Are you more intimidated by the question itself, or by answering me?” Ethan asks.

I gulp in a breath and look him in the eyes. “Are you more excited by me answering that question or by the answer to the question?” I lick my lips. “It is more than you being attractive or caring about something other than getting high or wasted. When I read, I get to be somewhere other than my boring life…and I’ve never had that feeling of belonging like that with anything or anyone else, until that night you saved me. You made me feel so safe,” I say. I push some of my hair behind my ear. “Answering you is still the more intimidating part of that, because I’m not afraid of the truth. I’m afraid of how it makes me feel.” I meet his eyes again, and watch the way Ethan scrapes his bottom lip on his teeth. He likes that answer.

“I’m more excited by the answer,” Ethan answers. “I can be surrounded by peers, by students, by anyone, and I’m never met by anyone like you. An equal, and at once…so innocent.”

An equal? I think I stop breathing for a second. My whole body feels taut, hearing Ethan say that. And I’m titillated by the way he called me innocent.

“You are, you know? I’ve had plenty of bright students, but you do more than interact with the work, or challenge it. You defy it. You’re never bold in your life the way you are in your papers, are you, Emmaline?” Ethan is in full-on professor mode, questioning me like we’re in the lecture hall.

But we’re in his leather-bound library and I can sense my arousal in the air…

Oh God, if I can smell my pussy, is Ethan breathing in the scent of how badly I want him? The musk of my arousal seems to be so thick in the air; I can’t imagine he doesn’t smell it. Does it turn him on? Dumb guys my age, I’ve heard them talking about pussies having smells, like that’s a bad thing. But everything about Ethan is so much more mature and grown up. I remember how he liked the taste of my pussy. He told me so. I doubt he’s turned off by the scent. The fact that it probably turns him on, turns me on.

“N-no,” I stammer. I chew on my lower lip nervously, shifting in my seat because I’m aching to feel him and that’s all I can think about. The more he’s in my mind and permeating my every thought, the more I want him on my body, touching me and invading my purity. I want Ethan to demolish my innocence. “I don’t think I’ve ever had much of an opportunity. I mean, I went off on that douche, Aiden, but…well that ended up not being too smart, I suppose.” I feel stupid and I have no idea what to say to Ethan now. I feel so small, and he seems so overwhelmingly massive. The sight of his broad shoulders filling out that shirt, his firm muscles hiding behind cotton make my breathing shallow. Would I feel this small in his arms?

“You have made some not so smart decisions, perhaps, but you don’t have to lie down and take any bullshit that comes your way,” Ethan says. I see his nostrils flare for just a second. He’s angry all over again just remembering what happened.

I’m flattered honestly. It arouses me to think of him, protecting me like that. If only he could always be there when I needed saving. It’s a melancholy thought, because I’m here to get Ethan out of my system, not ache for him more. After this, that’s supposed to be it for us. That makes my stomach burn, and my eyes nearly start watering. Fuck, I can’t feel that way.

“Coming here was bold. Wanting me inside you once so you can forget me forever, it isn’t smart in some sense, but in other ways…well, I would have a difficult time saying no to that. But I want to give you one last chance…you can walk away. We don’t have to do this,” Ethan says. He’s trying to be kind, let me know that even though we both feel how this has gone too far to turn back, that we could anyway.

I see him swallow, and I’m mesmerized by the column of his throat. I look up his jawline at that stubble and ache to feel it against my skin. I want him to touch me again.

I don’t want to stop now. I want to move forward.

Ethan doesn’t believe that I can have sex with him just once, and that it won’t serve to get him out of my system.

And I’m not certain that I’m worried if he’s right. Not right now. I tell myself that I’m not going to think on it anymore. I need to be able to experience this because it has consumed my whole being. I can’t be without him. My skin will disintegrate unless he touches me.

This is more than him bragging, he’s telling the truth. I can tell Ethan is genuine. And he’s probably right.

“I want this, please,” I say, squeezing the chair as if I might rocket away otherwise.

“Emmaline,” Ethan groans. He stands and walks toward me and my heart rate thunders, and all I can hear is the blood rushing, my breathing.

I realize I'm ruining the moment in some ways, but I have to ask. “Ethan?” I breathe and look at his face, hoping against hope that I’m not asking the thing that will crush me.

“Yes?” Ethan says. His voice is low, seductive, pulling me deeper and deeper into this attraction. His hands go to my shoulders, squeezing them.

It makes me feel safe and comforted, which is what I need right now, desperately, because I know I have to ask this question. “Did you love my mother?” I ask, exhaling the words and holding my heart out for him to crush.

“I loved your mother,” Ethan says, his husky voice making me shiver. His eyes cast downward for a moment, and then return to mine. His hands don’t leave my shoulder, and their squeezing hold should make me more uncomfortable. This is all inappropriate, and I should be uncomfortable. But I can’t be. Instead, I’m something more. Aroused? Unsure? I don’t know how to describe the confusing mix of feelings swirling inside of me and confusing me. I don’t want him to stop touching me, when that’s all I should want. I should will my body away from him. This is wrong; this is strange.

“Did she love you?” I finally ask. Not at all the appropriate line of questioning for my professor. If I wanted to make myself feel like more of a child, maybe I’d be thinking, oh, he started it. But that’s not the line of thinking in my brain at all. And I don’t even know what answer I want. Is it worse if my mother loved him, or if she didn’t?

Am I his second chance? Am I his second round?

For a moment, I think I might be misreading this whole situation. Why would my professor be interested in me? The situation in which he found me, that he saved me from, that’s what put us in this strange conversation.

But I feel how his hand is on me…protector, or interest? The blaze in his eyes says so much more. More than some duty or honor, more than some past that’s lighting up old memories that he may have forgotten. Ethan's eyes are saying something to me.

And I want to hear them.

It's impossible to do anything but hear them; it's like the heated air around us is shouting.

“Emmaline, your mother always thought of me as a brother, and I was fine with that. We were friends, and that made more sense. But for a moment, when I saw you, you weren’t my student or just some woman in danger. I would certainly help either. But I saw you, and it was young Joelle and I lost all good sense I had in me. I could've killed them.” Ethan is breathing too fast, ragged attempts at capturing air. I never thought I’d see him so undone. He always has such composure, is always so calm and together. It's one of the things I’ve always found so interesting about him…yet now this state of unrest has me even more intrigued.

“So imagine my surprise when I see you again and I…I think nothing about your mother. I think about you, Emmaline, and I