“Right. Like relaxing is even an option here.”
I feel him grin against my breast before his tongue darts out and circles my nipple once, twice, then again and again. I whimper despite my promise to myself to stay silent, my body spinning out of control as need rips through me, takes me over.
Above us, lightning streaks across the sky—powerful, primitive, and so, so beautiful. Seconds later, thunder booms and a warm summer rain starts slamming against the sand.
Ethan hunches into the rain as it slides over us, and then he’s licking the drops from my breast, my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. I arch my neck to give him better access, and in doing so press my sex directly against his cock.
We both moan then, and it’s my turn to rip at his shirt, to shove it down his arms and onto the sand below us. I have one moment of concern—it’s a thousand dollar dress shirt, custom-fitted for Ethan by one of the finest tailors in Europe—but then he’s running his tongue along my throat, sucking at the sensitive spot behind my ear, and any worries I have drown in the passion and the pleasure sweeping through me.
“Ethan, please,” I plead, wrapping my legs around his waist and pressing myself against him again. I need him inside me like I’ve never needed anything in my life, and he’s too busy teasing me—torturing me—to give me what I’m all but begging for.
He laughs then, his mouth skimming back down to my breast even as he rocks against me. It’s not enough, not nearly enough, but I’m too far gone to care. Too far gone to do anything but take whatever he wants to give me.
His mouth is back on my breast and I’m moaning, panting, as he licks and bites and nuzzles at me. I tangle my fingers in his hair, press myself more firmly against his lips as heat spirals through my belly. It feels so good, he feels so good, that I can’t imagine how I’ve gone the last two weeks without this. Without him.
I tell him as much as his tongue circles my nipple, and he pauses for a second, presses his face against the softness of my belly. “Never again,” he tells me in a voice choked with emotion. “Promise me, Chloe. Promise me you’ll never again walk away from me like that.”
“Ethan. Oh, God, Ethan, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize,” he grates out, echoing his words from earlier. “Sweet Jesus, don’t ever fucking apologize to me for leaving. Just promise me that you won’t do it again. Promise me that you’ll give me a chance to explain, to work things out—”
His teeth sink into my breast then, not hard enough to hurt but more than hard enough to send pleasure crashing through me. I cry out, clutch at him, and he laughs—a low, rich, dark sound—even as he licks tenderly at the bite, soothing the sharp sting with the rough warmth of his tongue.
“Say it, Chloe,” he urges in between pressing hot kisses against first one of my nipples and then the other. At the same time, he shifts his hand between my thighs and starts stroking at my clit. Not hard enough to get me off, but more than hard enough to make my eyes cross and drive me absolutely crazy.
“Ethan, please,” I choke out, thrusting my hips against the too light pressure. “You’re making me crazy.”
“Good,” he mutters. “Because you’ve been making me crazy from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
And then he’s pulling my nipple into his mouth, sucking hard enough to make me scream even as he lashes his tongue back and forth across the areola, again and again and again.
“Say it, Chloe,” he mutters in a voice gone deep and dark and sexy, so sexy. “Say you won’t walk out like that again. Say you’ll at least talk to me the next time you decide to end us.”
“I promise,” I choke out, my throat too tight with desire for me to even attempt to sound normal. “I’ll talk to you, Ethan. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please, please, fuck me!”
He growls deep in his throat, like my words have pushed him over the edge and there’s a part of me that expects him to thrust into me right now. No condom, no preparation, no nothing. That’s how far gone he is. Then again, the fact that I’m willing to let him shows just how far past sanity I’ve gone, as well.
Except that’s not what he does. Instead of ripping my underwear off and shoving himself inside me, Ethan lifts his head and starts pressing soft kisses to whatever part of my body he can reach. My breasts, my shoulders, my neck, my cheeks, my lips, my forehead. Over and over he kisses me, and in between he mutters soft words of love. So many kisses, so many words that my eyes fill with tears and my body slides right over the edge into my first orgasm in two long, excruciating weeks.
And the thing is, it isn’t even sexual. I mean, it is. Of course, it is. Just looking at Ethan is a sexual thing, let alone being held and touched and kissed by him. But it’s also so much more than that, so much more than the way Ethan’s body is moving against mine. So much more than the way his lips are pressed against my skin, the way his hot breath is caressing my ear.
Because I get it now, as I wrap myself around him here, listening to all the love words and all the promises falling from his lips. There’s a desperation in Ethan, a harsh uncertainty that I’ve never recognized before—and that gets through the shaky barriers I’ve tried so hard to erect like nothing else could have.
All along, through everything that’s happened, I’ve always believed that I love Ethan more, that I need him more than he’ll ever need me. That the way I feel about him is so huge, so monumental, that there’s no way he could possibly match it.
But in these moments, on this beach, with the wind crashing around us and the rain lashing at our skin, I begin to understand that our relationship is more equal than I ever could have imagined. Because as much as I need Ethan to breathe, to settle, to function, he needs me the exact same way.
I can feel it in the hands clutching at me, pulling at my chignon so that my hair tumbles down around my shoulders, holding me so tightly that I know I’ll have bruises in the morning. I can see it in the tenseness of his shoulders, like he’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I can hear it in his ragged breathing, in the soft words that skim across my skin like a benediction.
Ethan loves me.
Ethan Frost loves me.
Ethan Frost loves me the same way I love him. Wildly, completely, absolutely.
It’s a sobering realization, the knowledge that I hold someone else’s happiness so totally in my hands. But it’s comforting, too. Soothing. Because I know how I feel about him, know that I would rather cut off a limb than hurt him the way he so obviously has been hurting these last couple of weeks. Knowing that he feels the same way about me, that he’d do anything to keep me safe—keep me whole—is freeing in a way I never could have imagined before this moment.
Pleasure thrums through my body, crashing over me in messy waves not unlike the ones rolling toward the shore at this very moment. I shudder, arch against him, and somehow Ethan must know what’s happening to me because the touch of his lips against my breast grows much firmer, as does the stroke of his thumb over my clit.