Ruined (Ethan Frost 1)

Knowing that, I shouldn’t be surprised when I open the box, but I am anyway. How can I not be when sitting there in front of me is the blender I so inauspiciously returned to him this morning? In place of the note I taped to the top of the blender sits a large envelope of the palest, purest blue.

For long seconds I just stare at the damn Vitamix, which is quickly becoming the bane of my existence. Then, because I don’t know what else to do, I throw my head back and laugh. And laugh. And laugh.

No wonder he didn’t mention the blender to me this afternoon. He’d had no intention of taking it back, no intention of letting me win this round of our power struggle. Oh, I’d read that about him when I researched him—that Ethan Frost doesn’t take defeat lightly, that he always likes to win—but I’d thought that was in the business world. I hadn’t realized it extended to things as minor as an unwanted present.

In retrospect, I probably should have. His personality is so large, so in-your-face, so determined. Why wouldn’t that spill over to every aspect of his life instead of just those that deal with business?

Either way, I’m left with a problem. I obviously can’t carry this thing back into his office tomorrow morning—today certainly bore out what a disastrous plan that had been. But I can’t keep it, either. And not for the same reasons I was determined to return it yesterday. Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s too much. But that’s not the real reason I have to give it back.

No, I have to return it because this isn’t just about a blender anymore. It isn’t just about a silly meeting in the cafeteria or him giving me a gift. No, with this new delivery, Ethan has turned this present into a battle of wills, one I can’t afford to lose. Not when that blender is beginning to feel suspiciously like a collar.

Returning it a second time might actually get across the message that I’m not interested. God knows I tried to do that today. Several times. And it might actually have worked if I hadn’t let him go down on me in his office this evening.

I still can’t believe I let that happen, can’t believe he so easily got around my fears and my objections. My knees weaken at the memory of him kneeling in front of me, his hands on my thighs, his tongue deep inside my sex. My body flushes. My panties grow wet all over again. I’ve never felt anything like what I did during those moments with Ethan, never imagined I could feel such brain-numbing pleasure.

I want to feel it again.

It’s addicting, overwhelming, and there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to surrender. To give Ethan what he wants so that I can feel like that again. And again. And again.

I want his mouth on me. Want his fingers deep inside me. Even more surprisingly, I want to do the same to him. I want to kneel in front of him and take him deep into my mouth. To taste and explore him. To bring him the same kind of pleasure that he has brought me.

The idea arouses me even more, has me pressing my thighs together to stop the incessant ache. But at the same time, nervousness skitters down my spine, a precursor to the fear I know is coming. Because it always does.

Refusing to go there, I focus on the damn blender and try to figure out what I’m supposed to do. I think about keeping it, about taking it into the kitchen right now and using it to whip up a strawberry smoothie. But are those thoughts really mine, or are they the fantasies of this other side of me? The side that Ethan breathes life into, that has me wanting to do his bidding simply because it will make him happy? Can I do that? Can I just blindly do his bidding and trust him to catch me if I fall?

I think about the stairs today, about that strong hand reaching out and grabbing me. Pulling me against him so that I could feel the too-fast beat of his heart against my own. He did catch me. But can I count on him to do it again?

It’s the million-dollar question, and the fact that I’m even thinking about it makes me cringe a little deep inside. I push the blender away, promise myself that I’m not going to go down this path again.

I’m not the same girl I was at fifteen, won’t ever be her again. Not for Ethan. Not for my parents. Not for anyone. Not anymore.

I spent years being the good girl, doing whatever my parents asked of me even when what they asked was wrong or dangerous or just plain bad for me. Even when what they asked broke me into a million pieces.

It took me years to get away from them, to stand on my own two feet, to put myself back together into the mismatched mess I am today. I’ll be damned if I just give that all away again. If I just turn it over to Ethan with his gentle hands and domineering ways. Because I may still be working on putting myself back together again, but I’m doing it, one painful piece at a time. And I will not turn control of my life—of me—over to someone else ever again.

I turn to walk away, to put as much distance between the blender and myself as I can. But as I do, my eyes once again fall on the blue envelope resting on top of the blender. It’s large and bumpy and obviously holds something other than just a letter.

I want to know what’s in it. Which is why, even as I tell myself that curiosity killed the cat, I’m reaching for it. I can no more leave it there than I could fly to the moon under my own power.

As I touch the envelope for the first time, it hits me yet again how different our lives are. I gave Ethan a typed-up note on flimsy computer paper in a standard envelope. He sends me an envelope of the most exquisite stationery, thick and soft and obviously expensive.

Did he do it on purpose, to highlight the difference in our circumstances? To show me that he’s rich and eventually he’ll get whatever he wants, even if what he wants is me? It’s a terrible way to think about a man who has been nothing but kind to me, but I know how rich men are. How they take what they want and to hell with whoever gets in their way.

It’s why I’m here in San Diego, in fact. Because it’s as far away from Boston—from my family and everything that happened there—as I can get and still be in the contiguous United States.

So many reasons for me to put the envelope back into the box and walk away.

So many reasons for me to not even think about Ethan, let alone stand here like a lovesick fool wondering about the words he wrote.

I spent hours on the letter I sent him, brief and impersonal though it was. I know he spent not a fraction of the same amount of time on this, a metaphor if ever I’ve lived one. And yet…and yet I want to know what he has to say.

Being careful to not rip the envelope, I slowly ease the flap back, then reach in to pull out what turns out not to be a card at all, but a collection of mismatched items.

Two herbal tea bags.

A long, thick green satin ribbon the exact shade of my eyes.

A seashell that still has sand on it, like he picked it up from the beach only hours ago.