We went like this for a while until I was covered in sweat, panting above him, and he was flushed red. I gripped his shoulders and he held my hips tightly. I felt him tense beneath me, his hands tightening, and then his release.
He pulled me against his chest, my head resting on his shoulder, as we both panted. He had to catch his breath before returning his attention to me. “Your turn,” he said simply.
It took him moments to bring me to orgasm and then, exhausted and spent, we curled up on the couch where we slept.
Epilogue
It had been almost a year since Ethan waltzed into my shop like he owned the place. Things had changed a lot since then. The shop had expanded, now twice its original size thanks to the renovations on what had been the convenience store. Ethan had funded the whole thing, insisting that expansion was the only way to make a business work these days. I thought he just wanted walls that weren’t painted moss green. That side of the shop was the blue he’d liked so much in the first place.
“It’s a man’s area,” he’d argued with me when I said I wanted it all the same color. “It should be blue, a manly color.”
I’d raised an eyebrow at him and said, “It’s baby blue.”
He waved me off like my point was irrelevant and I just accepted that half my store was going to be blue. We even made a theme of it, painting a new register half blue and half green. It was a little corner, but I felt it was symbolic of our partnership.
The bell over the door, which hadn’t changed a bit since the day I opened, rang as an older man with his son came in. “Hello there. What can we do for you?” I asked from a chair set aside for me so I could look over some paperwork.
“I’m here to make sure my grandson understands the importance of a good haircut,” the older man informed me.
The kid beside him rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. I held back a smile. “Oh, well, in that case, we’d better get you set up. Paul?”
“Yes, Diana?” asked a young man of dark complexion and hair colored to look almost like honey. He’d been working here a couple of months now and came from some hot shot salon in New York. I’d had to hire him and a few others after the expansion and I found he was one of my favorites.
“Would you help these fine gentlemen today?”
He nodded. “You bet. I’m a little slow today anyway.”
The older man thanked me and escorted his son to barber side of the shop. I went back to my numbers. Now that I had more help—and business in general—I spent less time cutting hair and more time doing the business side of things. I still had a few customers that asked for me specifically, but other than those few I kept myself otherwise occupied.
The bell rang again and I glanced up to see Ethan. Since we’d decided to have a relationship, both business and personal, we agreed it was unrealistic to expect us to keep it under cover. Between Louis stopping here with shipments and me going to see Ethan, it was impossible to keep everyone from saying anything. So we embraced it.
“Hey,” I greeted with a smile, standing to meet him.
He smirked at me and gave me a quick kiss. “How’s it looking?” he asked, motioning towards the clipboard. He wasn’t just referring to the salon, but also the secondary business.
“Let’s talk in my office,” I told him and led the way towards the back. We’d put it in after Jessie had walked in on us entwined intimately in one of the chairs. She’d accused us of being sex-crazed teenagers then told us to get a room. Ethan took the suggestion to heart.
As I passed Jessie who was working on an older woman’s hair, trying to talk her into a more exciting color than brown, I put my hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to be in the back for a minute. Call me if you need help.”
She rolled her eyes a little, but offered a smile and nodded anyway. To Ethan she gave a quick glare, then went back to her customer.
“She’s just never going to come around is she?” Ethan asked quietly as he followed me to the office.
I opened the door and stepped inside. It was fairly small given that there wasn’t a lot of space to expand from the back rather than the side, but it did the trick. A desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. I had a laptop set up, too. “No, probably not.”
He closed the door after him, then shrugged his shoulders. “Her loss. I was serious about her watching us.”