Ruined (Ethan Frost 1)

The panic is rising, already eating away at the need, the desire, that was so all-consuming just a few minutes ago. I try to ignore it, to push it back down. I want this. I want Ethan. I want us to have a normal relationship, one where he doesn’t have to worry all the time about me freaking out at any second. And the only way I’ll get that is to get through this, get through it now. Because I know if we do this just once, if I feel him inside me and know that it’s Ethan and that he cares about me, that I’ll be okay. I’ll be better. And neither of us will have to worry about me losing my shit again.

Except Ethan isn’t buying into my plan. Instead of just relaxing and letting me give him pleasure, he’s stopping me. Pulling me back up his body so that we’re once again face-to-face.

“I want you,” I tell him, looking into his eyes for the first time since I threw us into this mad rush. I don’t know what I expect to see—pleasure, maybe? Arousal, certainly. The same need that is so much a part of me?

But when he looks at me, I see none of that. Instead, he’s got his thinking face on. His lips are pressed together, his jaw is set, and his eyes—instead of being cloudy with desire—are a clear, bright blue. So clear, in fact, that I can all but see the gears turning in his brain.

Shit. He doesn’t want me, not the way I want him. I fucked everything up yesterday—freaking out on him, telling him about Brandon. Is there any wonder he’s not into me? He’s probably afraid I’ll lose my shit all over again. The fact that that’s a distinct possibility is all the more humiliating.

The last of my desire dies and I push at his shoulders, start to stand. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go—

“Chloe, stop. ”

Ethan’s voice halts me in my tracks. He doesn’t touch me, doesn’t make any move to make me stay on his lap, but his voice is so commanding that I automatically obey.

I settle back onto his legs, but I duck my head. I can’t stand for him to see the hurt and the humiliation that are currently ripping me apart.

“Look at me. ”

I shake my head. I can’t. There are tears in my eyes, and after the show I put on yesterday, there’s no way I’m going to let him see me cry again.

He sighs, his hands clenching where they’re resting on his legs. But still he makes no move to touch me. “Come on, baby. I need to see your face. I need to see you. ”

Again I shake my head. But I’m lifting my chin even as I do, my eyes shooting up to meet his one more time.

I try to blink the tears away, but I know he sees them. I can feel it in the way his body tenses against mine, hear it in the “fuck me” he mutters beneath his breath.

“Don’t blame me for your frustration,” I say with the last bit of spirit I can muster. “That’s what I was trying to do. ”

He laughs. “God, I’m crazy about you. ” And finally his hands come up to touch me, his fingers tracing soothing circles on my back.

“Then why did you stop me?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something about wanting the woman I’m making love to to actually be into it?”

“I was into it!”

“No, you were trying to be into it. It’s not the same thing. ”

“It doesn’t matter!” I smack at his chest, frustrated and furious and terrified that this thing between us is never going to go anywhere. And I want it to. I really want it to, I just don’t know how to get us there.

“Yeah, Chloe, it does. ” He grabs hold of my hands, not hard enough to hurt but firmly enough to let me know that he means what he’s saying. “That’s all that matters. ”

“I’m not like other women! I can’t just—”

“You can. ”

“I won’t be able to—”

“You will. ”

“Can’t we just do it?” I wail. “Just get it over with the first time and then I’ll be better. I promise. ”

“Sweetheart, if you think I’m going to have sex with you while you are freaking out and terrified, then you have completely lost your mind. I promise you, that’s the one thing that absolutely is not going to happen here. ”

I drop my head in defeat, rest the top of it against his chest as I wait for the tears—and the crushing sense of disappointment—to pass me by. “I don’t know what to do, then. ”

Ethan puts a finger under my chin, tilts my head back up. Waits for me to open my eyes. When I finally do, he catches my gaze with his own, the deep indigo of his eyes as enthralling to me as the depths of emotion I see reflected there. “Do you trust me?” he asks.