Ruined (Ethan Frost 1)

We enter the house, then walk down a short, winding hallway that leads to a huge, state-of-the-art kitchen. Now, I love cooking as much as the next girl—probably even more—but I think the fact that I am chomping at the bit to get back to the garage says everything you need to know about me.

“Are you hungry?”

“Not really. The ice cream sundae you bought me at the zoo contained enough calories to keep me going for the next week. ” Especially considering the fact that I ate an entire pint of Cherry Garcia by myself last night. When I finally start running again, my heart and my ass aren’t going to know what hit them.

“Don’t worry. You’ll work it off. ” Ethan’s grin is wicked as he propels me through the kitchen and into a formal dining room with a table that will sit twenty-four comfortably. I don’t even know twenty-four people I’d want anywhere near me, and Ethan throws intimate dinner parties where he doesn’t even have to put a leaf in the table to entertain that many. It boggles the mind, and underscores just how different we are in so very, very many ways.

Ethan doesn’t seem to notice my discomfort at his friend and furniture situation. He’s too busy throwing open the huge double doors that make up a large portion of the dining room’s back wall. “Come on,” he tells me. “You can get changed out here. ”

Relieved because his words don’t sound sexual in the slightest—not that I actually thought he would jump me or anything—I’m still a little wary as I walk out onto his mammoth patio. There’s a gigantic vanishing-edge swimming pool directly in front of me, and sixteen chaise longues in the exact same shade of blue-gray as his roof.

“We’re going swimming?” I ask cautiously. It doesn’t sound like that bad an idea, actually. I’m a little sticky from a sunny afternoon spent at the zoo, and the pool does look inviting.

Except Ethan has crossed to an outdoor closet at one end of the small pool house that graces the right side of the property. And he’s not pulling out swimsuits for me to try on. He’s pulling out wetsuits.

“Even better,” he tells me. “We’re going surfing. ”

Chapter Seventeen

“But I don’t know how to surf. ”

“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you. ”

I glance out at the ocean, which I have a perfect view of from his patio, by the way. Not to mention from every room on this side of the house. It’s kicking up some pretty massive waves, actually, churning and spitting all over the place, and I feel more than a little bit of trepidation. My athletic prowess isn’t great at the best of times. Pitting it against a seething, pissed-off ocean seems like a really bad idea.

But Ethan looks so excited, so happy, that I can’t just say no. I am the one who asked how he handled the pressure, after all. And besides, I may not trust the ocean, but I do trust Ethan to keep me safe. He won’t let me drown.

Which is how I find myself in a dressing room a few minutes later, trying to figure out how the hell to put on a wetsuit over the new bikini I found in one of the drawers. It seems self-explanatory, but the truth is it’s a lot more difficult than it looks. The thing is tight and clingy, and no matter how hard I try, it doesn’t quite want to go where it’s supposed to. Instead, it sticks in the most unflattering places until I’m about to scream with frustration.

Ethan knocks on the door more than once, just to check if I need help, but there’s no way I’m going to open the door when the wetsuit is strangling my boobs and somehow riding up my ass all at the same time. There are some things no man needs to see. Especially when I can’t help wondering how many other women he’s loaned this wetsuit to—and how much better they must have looked in it than I do.

Finally I get it sorted out, or at least as sorted out as I can make it, and hope Ethan won’t laugh too hard when he sees me. I open the door to find him waiting on one of the loungers, two surfboards next to him as well as a small picnic basket. How long was I in there, anyway, if he had time to do all this and change into his wetsuit as well?

Deciding to chalk it up to the fact that he obviously has way more practice at this than I do, I stop myself from apologizing for keeping him waiting. He’s the one who wants to do this, after all. I’m the one who is about to risk death simply because I want to impress him. And I’m going to do it in an ill-fitting yellow wetsuit.

So not my finest hour.

Ethan doesn’t complain at the wait, however. He just smiles at me and gestures for me to come closer. Which I do, warily. I’m not sure I trust the look on his face.

But all he does is grab my wetsuit in the back and tug a little. Suddenly it seems to slide into place and everything—front and back—feels a lot better.

“Thanks,” I tell him, blushing a little.

I’m not looking him in the eye at this point, so he puts a finger under my chin and tips my head up until our gazes meet. “You’re welcome,” he says, right before he bends down and brushes his lips across mine.

Then, before I can even process the taste and feel of him, he’s pulling back. Handing me my surfboard. Leading the way to the very edge of his property.

I guess I thought we’d go through the front and back down to the beach that way, but here, on the edge of the cliff, Ethan has another surprise for me: a rocky set of stairs carved into the cliff itself that leads down to a small, private beach alcove.

Here, in some of the most prime, most expensive beachfront property in the world, Ethan has his own little slice of paradise. And it’s perfect.

Ethan drops his surfboard close to the water and I do the same. “Are you ready?” he asks, excitement gleaming in his eyes.

“Not even a little bit,” I answer.

He laughs, then positions my surfboard so that the tip is facing the water. “Okay, get on it,” he tells me.

“And here I thought surfing took place in the water. ”