“Are you okay?” Somehow he asked the question and she nodded, cheeks flushed, eyes fixed on his as if he was the only stable thing in a shifting universe.
He eased deeper, keeping the same steady rhythm, and he felt the change in her, felt her body open to his and then close around him in silken intimacy. He paused, dropped his head to her shoulder, trying to delay his own release, but she was moving her hips, urging him on and whatever control he had slipped away from him. It was wild and crazy, so all-consuming that everything else faded into the background.
He heard her cry out and felt her nails dig hard into his shoulders. Then she tightened around him, her body ensuring that any attempt on his part to hold back would be fruitless. She called out his name as her climax tipped him over the edge and sent him into a free fall of pleasure.
SHE LAY SECURELY wrapped in the circle of his arms, feeling weak and sated. Her heart was still hammering and her skin was warm and damp against his. If there had ever been a more perfect moment she couldn’t remember it. She couldn’t believe that he was here, in her bed, solid, strong and real.
She hadn’t planned to end the evening in bed with him, but nothing had ever felt more natural. Maybe she was better at stepping out of her comfort zone than she’d first thought.
Maybe she really could be bad-girl Harriet.
Or maybe not.
She’d promised herself she wasn’t going to read anything into this but it turned out it wasn’t as easy to control her mind as she’d thought.
“So—” She was out of breath. “If that was lesson one of your dating master class, what happens in lesson two?”
His eyes were closed. “Give me a minute, and I’ll show you. Lesson two might be about to run into lesson one.”
She snuggled closer, making the most of the fact that he was here in her bed. “So—sex after a first date. Does that qualify me for bad-girl status?”
“I don’t know, but if it didn’t I have a few ideas of what I could do to you to help you earn that badge. Happy to help you live out your bad-girl fantasy.”
“You’re all heart.”
He opened his eyes. “Definitely not that.”
“You really think you don’t have a heart?”
She didn’t know how he could possibly think that given what she knew about him.
He had more heart than any man she’d ever met.
He brushed her cheek with his fingers. “I don’t seem to find it easy to feel anymore. Early in my career I struggled with feeling too much. Every damn day I’d come home emotionally drained and I learned to manage it, but the price I paid is that now I don’t seem to be able to switch it on again easily.”
“But you did when you were married?”
“No. That was part of the problem. And Alison was the same. She was a news reporter. Some of the things she saw in the newsroom, raw footage, were probably almost as bad as the stuff I was seeing. And it has an effect on you. You learn to detach. You have to. It’s how you continue to function and do the job you’re supposed to do. But the downside is that you can’t just switch it on and off again. You don’t just flick a switch and become a normal human being again.”
“You seem like a normal human being to me. And I don’t know how you do what you do.” She was humbled by it. She knew there was no way she would be able to cope with the emotional pressures of his job, let alone the rest of it.
“Hey, I don’t know how you do what you do.”
She laughed. “I walk dogs, Ethan. That is not rocket science.”
“It is to someone like me. I’d find the responsibility terrifying. I’d bring them all back dead or injured.”
“This from someone who spends his days saving the lives of someone’s loved one, although having seen you with a dog, I’m not going to argue with the point you make.” She rested her head on his chest and smiled as she felt his fingers gently stroke her hair. “You were right, by the way. This is my first ever one-night stand. If I’d known how much fun it was I might not have waited so long.”
And she wondered why, when it felt like that, anyone would ever stop at one night.
She hated the idea that she’d never have a night like that again.
Was that how it was for Fliss? Daniel?
No. They were in love. It was different.
Ethan was silent for a moment. “I hate to break it to you, but that wasn’t a one-night stand.”