My eye follows Ethan through the room as we chat for a bit about my classes and then about his new pool.
When Ethan disappears into the kitchen, I get all jittery and excuse myself.
I swing back to Randy who’s eating all the chips and spinach dip by himself. “Give me that,” I say as I yank the bowls out of his hands. “I didn’t mean literally eat them all. They were to pass around.”
He looks at me with confusion—spinach dip dripping from his chin—as I storm off into the kitchen.
I stop with a gasp when I see Ethan hugging Christine’s mom in the kitchen. She has her hand on his wide back (the lucky bitch) as she tells him to grab a beer from the cooler on the deck.
I’m just standing there, holding the two bowls and gawking at him as he opens the sliding doors, leans over, and fishes a beer out of the cooler.
“Have you no shame?” Christine whispers as she walks over, shaking her head. “Ogling my guest slash uncle’s ass?”
“I wasn’t ogling,” I whisper back, but even as I say it, I can’t seem to rip my eyes away from his ass.
She just laughs and heads over to him. “Hey, Uncle Ethan,” she says as she gives him a hug.
His face lights up when he sees her. “Hey, Chrissy!” he says as he wraps his big arms around her. He’s the only person in the world who can call Christine Chrissy and live to tell about it. “How have you been? Has Matt proposed yet?”
He takes her hand and looks at her empty finger. “Nope. But he is buying me a bird feeder for Christmas, so there’s that. I saw it in his closet.”
“Birds are nice,” Ethan says with a sympathetic shrug.
I leap forward, desperate for an opening. “I like birds!” I say nervously. Christine grins as she watches me flounder pathetically. “Penguins. Ostriches. Sparrows.” I gulp. “Seagulls.”
Oh, crap. I’m really starting to sweat now. Ethan is staring right at me!
I have to save this disaster of a moment. “What is your favorite bird, Uncle Ethan? I mean, Ethan!”
Christine snorts out a laugh as she looks up at him. “You remember my friend, Mandy?”
He’s holding his breath as he looks at me with the sexiest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. “I do,” he says, his voice deeper and raspier than before.
“I have to go get some wine bottles from the garage,” Christine says as Ethan’s heated eyes lock onto mine. “I’ll leave you with Mandy to talk some more about… birds.”
She leaves with a laughing snort and it’s just the two of us standing here. He has new lines on the sides of his eyes, but they suit him. He’s not clean-shaven like the last time I saw him three years ago. He has salt and pepper stubble all over his cheeks and chin. I swallow hard imagining what it would feel like against my smooth cheek, or better yet, rubbing against the inside of my thighs.
He’s so frigging hot. This man gets hotter as the years go by.
And for this moment, he’s all mine.
I screwed up my opening, so it can only get better from here.
Right?
Gulp.Chapter ThreeEthanI can’t believe the goddess standing in front of me is Chrissy’s cute little friend. I remember her playing as a ten-year-old in the backyard with her shy toothy smile and the way she would always giggle uncontrollably the few times I spoke to her as a teenager, but I wasn’t expecting this.
She’s dressed in a sexy red dress, looking like the devil coming to tempt me.
I’m tempted. I’m really tempted.
My whole body is strumming like a tuning fork as she nervously rambles on in that sweet silky voice. She’s playing with her hands in front of her, fidgeting as she tells me that she doesn’t normally talk about birds so much.
My eyes narrow in on her luscious pink lips and when I see her wet tongue behind those bright white teeth, I swallow hard. Dirty thoughts are penetrating my brain and I don’t know if they’ll ever go away. I want to rip off her sexy red dress and see if her supple body is as ripe as it looks.
“That’s enough about birds,” she says with a cute awkward laugh. “How are you?”
She swallows nervously as she waits for my answer. I can barely think let alone talk in front of this angel. Her brown hair is twisted up in a bun, showing off her gorgeous slender neck. All I can think about is pressing my lips all over it as I tug on that bun and let her hair fall loose.
“Do you still own that radio station?” she asks, cutting the silence with her sweet innocent voice.
“I own three of them now.”
She smiles again. I love that smile. She grew into her teeth, but she still has that shyness in it. My breath quickens when I see a little pink in her cheeks.