Toni’s eyes darkened with sympathy. “I’m sorry—I know how that goes. My dad left when I was the same age. I haven’t really seen him since. He didn’t even come to Michelle’s funeral.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not always the men who leave.” He didn’t know why he was talking about his mom. He never talked about her with anyone, never wanted to see that pitying look everyone used to give him that first year.
Poor kid, losing his mom like that.
He didn’t need anyone’s sympathy.
Toni
knew.
Her look was different. Shit, Toni was different, but hell if he understood why. It wasn’t her looks. Yeah, she was beautiful, especially when her lips were red and puffy from kissing and her cheeks were flushed from coming her brains out. But Ethan had dated, slept with, women who could have graced the cover of
Sports Illustrated
’s swimsuit issue.
It was something more, something deeper that made him want to dig down and find out everything there was to know about her.
The hell of it was, she thought he considered her just another piece of ass, another notch, another meaningless lay. Hell if he knew how to convince her otherwise. He was good at the sex but sucked at anything that smacked of a real relationship.
“Are you even listening to me?” Her question snapped him back to her description of the files on Jerry’s computer she’d gone through so far.
“Absolutely,” he lied.
“There’s also a bunch of stuff he deleted that will take me awhile to recover,” she said.
Ethan nodded. “And we’re tracking his car and we know anytime he leaves the house.” He made a mental note to put a man on Jerry. While he still wasn’t convinced Kara was anything more than a runaway, Jerry’s recent activity left him with a sense of foreboding.
Toni got out of her chair, twined her fingers, and stretched her hands to the ceiling. Her arms dropped wearily to her sides and she rubbed the back of her neck. “Maybe you’re right—I can’t see how this all links together. Maybe Kara taking off for the beach is just some weird coincidence.”
She looked at Ethan. He could see a flicker of something in her expression and he knew she was thinking about her sister.
He got up and went to her, needing to touch her, to comfort her, even knowing she wouldn’t welcome it. His hands settled on her shoulders, kneading the tense muscles, sliding in to work on her neck.
Her entire body stiffened and she tried to move away.
“Relax,” he said, murmured, tightening his grip on her shoulders. “It’s just a neck rub.” But what had started out as a comforting gesture morphed into something else the moment he touched her. The smooth skin of her neck heated up against his fingers, and he focused on the tender patch of skin where her neck and shoulder met. He wanted to sweep his tongue across it, close his teeth over it, leave a love bite for her to remember him by. Her muscles quivered against his hands, and she tried again to step away.
“I don’t need a neck rub,” she said stiffly.
He dug his thumb into a knot at the juncture of her neck and shoulders, and her right knee buckled. “Really?”
“I carry a lot of tension in my shoulders,” she conceded, her voice a little breathless, “but I don’t need you to help me work it out.”
He leaned in closer, inhaling the fresh scent of her shampoo coming from her still-damp hair. Instead of sleek and straight, this morning her hair fell in loose waves that just brushed the delicate line of her jaw. A curl bounced against her cheekbone as she turned to face him.
“Can you stop touching me, please?”
Not on your fucking life.
He spread his hands over her shoulders. “I like your hair like this,” he said. He could hear her breath speeding up as his thumbs swept over her shoulder blades.
“It does this when I don’t have time to dry it.”
“It’s sexy.”
She jerked away from him as though propelled by some unseen force. “Don’t do this, okay?” She spun around, eyes accusing behind their heavy frames, a rosy blush slashing across her cheekbones.
“What?” he asked, honestly bewildered.
“Look, I’m a big girl, okay? I know what the other night was, and what it wasn’t. But I’m not really good at sleeping with guys and pretending it doesn’t mean anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “I never said it didn’t mean anything.”
She cocked her head and shot him an incredulous look. “Please. Don’t feed me some bullshit line about my being,” she lifted her hands and did air quotes, “‘special.’ You don’t have to bother convincing me that I’m any different from any other woman. My self-esteem isn’t that fragile. I can handle reality.”
He could tell from her posture that she believed every word she said. She really believed he’d just been looking for a warm place to stick his dick, and she’d happened to be close. If he was smart, he’d let her believe it. The way she managed to tie him in knots and throw him completely off his game should have been warning enough.
“You want to hear about my reality?” He grabbed her and pulled her to him, wrapping one hand around her upper arm and the other around the back of her neck. “Yeah, I’ve fucked a lot of women. And you’re right. After I leave, I don’t spend much time worrying about their feelings or thinking about when I’m going to see them again.”
“Such a gentleman,” she spat out.
“But I’m honest. I don’t feed women lines of bullshit. I don’t have to.” He pulled her closer, let her feel his thickening cock surge against her firm belly. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but you
are
different. And I know because I’ve been thinking about you nonstop for three days straight, wondering where you are, what you’re doing, when I’ll see you again. I gave my brother a black eye yesterday for even joking about asking you out. And now that I’ve fucked you, I can’t get the feel of you out of my head, and I think I’m going to go crazy if I don’t have you again.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but whatever she said was muffled by the hard pressure of his mouth. He took full advantage of her surprise, thrusting his tongue between her parted lips, his fist tightening in her hair when she would have pulled away.
She splayed her palms and pushed against his chest, but he wouldn’t give an inch. He knew he was being obnoxious but he couldn’t stop himself. With her, he wasn’t capable of any disconnected, calculated seduction. He was wild, out of control, driven by the need to prove she was different. By the need to have her.
He caught one of her hands in his and dragged it to the fly of his pants. His cock surged, hard as a spike against the unwilling pressure of her hand. She let out a muffled sound of protest even as her fingers wrapped reflexively around the thick shaft.
He rocked his hips against her hand, already so turned on he was seconds from coming in his pants like a horny teenager. “Feel that?” He nipped at her bottom lip and released her hand, groaning when she kept it firmly pressed against the front of his pants. “I’m like that every time I get within ten feet of you.” He thrust again for emphasis. She responded by giving his dick a firm squeeze. He cupped her face in his hands and began to kiss her in earnest, his tongue tracing her lips and probing her mouth. He kissed her the way he wanted to fuck her, sweeping in and out in a slow, hungry rhythm.
Her hands slid down his back and up again, catching the hem of his shirt on the way. He hissed at the feel of her cool fingers on his overheated skin. He yanked the hem of her T-shirt up her chest and dragged it over her head, his dick swelling against his fly when he saw what she was wearing underneath.
Her bra was made of sheer mesh decorated with patches of lace and did nothing to hide the pale skin and dark pink tips. He covered her with both hands, brushing his thumbs over the rock-hard peaks. “Please tell me you’re wearing panties that match.” He groaned aloud at the thought of tasting her plump pussy lips through the thin veil of see-through mesh.
Gripping her around the waist, he lifted her off the floor and moved the short distance to the kitchen table. He sat her down and stood between her legs, kissing her all the while. He wanted to suck her tits into his mouth, bury his tongue in her cunt, but he couldn’t get enough of her sweet, succulent mouth. He loved the way she tasted, the way her tongue chased his back into his mouth, the way her lips sucked at his, the breathy little moans she made in the back of her throat.
She shifted to fit herself more firmly against the hard ridge of his erection. He could feel her heat through the fabric of his pants and hers. He unbuttoned her jeans, and the buzz of her zipper was the most erotic sound he’d ever heard. He slid his hand over her panties. They were drenched, soaked with the evidence that as much as she tried to hold herself back, she was as hot for him as he was for her. “I’ve been dreaming of fucking you again,” he murmured, pressing his fingers against her hot slit. She breathed a shaky sigh into his mouth as his finger barely brushed her clit through the insubstantial fabric of her panties.
“I was thinking I would take it nice and slow.” Another brush of her clit and she jerked as though hit with an electric shock. “I want to spend hours sucking on your tits, licking your pussy. Making you nice and soft and ready for me to fuck.”
A soft “Oh God” whispered across his cheek.
“You liked when I went down on you, didn’t you?” His long, firm stroke teased out another surge of moisture. “You got so wet, just like you are now. I want to taste you again when you come.” He held his hand still, pressed against her pulsing sex, keeping her hovering on the edge. Her hips rocked against him imploringly, and his cock answered with a throb so intense it was nearly painful.
He began working his fingers in a slow, circular motion. “I want to go down on you for hours, make you come so much you beg me to stop.” She was moaning now, matching the rhythm of his fingers with her hips, hovering on the edge. He slid his hands from her pants, ignoring her shocked noise of protest.
Stepping back, he yanked her pants down her legs and bent his head to her stomach. He knew he wouldn’t last long, knew he wouldn’t have the willpower to tease her the way he wanted, but he couldn’t resist going in for one sweet taste. His lips slid across the sweat-slicked skin of her belly, skittered across her hip bone. He lowered to his knees, hooked her leg over his shoulder, and pressed his mouth against the soaked fabric of her panties.
He hooked his fingers in her waistband and was just about to tug them down her miles of legs when his cell phone played Nine Inch Nails. Derek’s ringtone.
“Let it go to voice mail,” she pleaded.
He was right there with her. Ignoring the insistent ring, he tugged the panties off her hips, following their progress with soft sucks and nips. The phone went silent. Ethan had licked and sucked his way halfway down Toni’s leg when Derek called right back.
He tried to shut it out, but a still-functioning corner of his brain reminded him that his brother wouldn’t keep calling if it weren’t an emergency.
“Fuck!” He roared, tearing himself away from the perfect creaminess of Toni’s thigh. Snatching his phone off the table, he answered it with a curt, if slightly breathless, “This had better be good.”
He barely heard his brother’s voice as he watched Toni scramble for her clothes. “Don’t move,” he whispered, holding up a hand as if to stay her. But it was too late. She’d already tugged her pants up her legs and was scooting into a seated position as she yanked her T-shirt back over her head.
Lust was still roaring in his head so loud Derek’s words didn’t quite register. “What did you say?”
“I just talked to Dad. There’s been an accident.”
How did this keep happening?
Toni thought as she tucked her T-shirt firmly into her waistband. What was it about Ethan? All he had to do was kiss her and suddenly her clothes were flying off and she was ready to do him on her secondhand kitchen table. She snuck a glance at him as he began pacing in agitation around the room. Whatever the news was, it wasn’t good. She took advantage of his distraction to pull herself together, smoothing her shirt and pulling her hair back into a twist. She finger-combed the loose waves, trying not to think of Ethan’s husky voice in her ear telling her that her hair was sexy.
Halfway composed, she turned her attention to Ethan, trying to pick out the details of his side of the conversation. His tone was quiet, calm to the point of coldness, even though she could make out words and phrases like “airlift” and “Will he need surgery?”
Her concern deepened when Ethan finally paused in his pacing by the sliding glass patio door. His broad shoulders hung in a defeated slump.
She moved off the couch and over to her desk so she could see and hear him better. His side of the conversation was now limited to murmured “uh-huhs” and monosyllabic responses. The harsh set of his mouth deepened the grooves on his cheeks until he looked older than his thirty-two years.
Finally, he hung up, exhaling on a weary sigh. He stared out at the parking lot with unseeing eyes for several long moments.
She wanted to wrap her arms around him in comfort but couldn’t bring herself to approach him. Funny how she’d been ready to screw him on the kitchen table, yet offering a hug felt far too intimate. “Is everything okay?” she asked tentatively.
He started as though he’d forgotten about her presence. For a split second his face was open and unguarded, and she could see what looked like decades of weariness clouding his eyes. But the vulnerability was gone in an instant.
“My father and my older brother got in a car accident while traveling in Indonesia.”
“Oh, my God. Are they okay?”
“Danny broke his nose on the steering wheel and dislocated his shoulder. My dad has a few scratches. But they’re fine.”
“Still, that’s so scary, especially when it happened so far away.”
He shook his head, brushing off her concern. “Nothing but the usual Taggart family drama. I’ve gotten used to it by now.”
She got up from behind the desk and went to stand beside him. Not brave enough to touch him but wanting to comfort him nonetheless. “Yeah? Like what?”