Her House Divided (Beach Haven Book 1) (3 page)

Chapter Five

Ethan stood in the empty kitchen, staring at the doorway that Tara had just hurried through. He could still taste her lips and feel the warmth of her body pressed against his. He wanted to kick himself, although he wasn't sure exactly what he was angry about. Either he had just taken advantage of Tara's frailty, or he had fallen for her act; either way, it was definitely not one of his finer moments. He knew he should follow her, but he couldn't decide whether to apologize, argue or kiss her again.

In the end, he didn't have to make up his mind. There was a sudden, loud pounding at the front door. "Davis!" a loud male voice shouted. "Open the door! Stop hiding out in your Grandmother's house!"

Ethan grinned. It was Sean, the friend he had recently roomed with. They had known each other since childhood and Ethan knew him well enough to know that Sean operated at only one volume level: LOUD.

"Sean, you're going to scare the neighbors," he said, opening the door.

Big, dark-haired Sean glared at him. "Ethan, you are NOT sitting around in an old lady's house on a Saturday night," he said. "C'mon, we're going to Captain Jake's. I need my wingman."

Ethan started to say no. He really wasn't interested in clubbing, especially this time of year when the tourists took over all of their usual haunts. Captain Jake's was especially popular with the young wealthy Chicago people who moved in for the summer every year. The music would be loud, the dance floor would be crowded, and the women would probably be snobs.

He heard a sound behind him and saw a look of surprise come over his friend's face. He knew before he turned that he would see Tara standing there.

"Well, now," Sean drawled. "This explains a few things. No wonder you moved back to Grandma's house."

"I heard shouting," Tara explained. She had changed into another one of her cotton sundresses, and Ethan noticed that the fabric hugged her generous curves while the short skirt showed off her shapely legs. The soft green color emphasized her large green eyes.

He realized that he and Sean were both staring. He cleared his throat. "Tara, this idiot is my friend Sean. He always shouts, so don't worry about it. Sean, this is . . . ah, Tara. She, um, lives here, too.

"You 
dog
!" Sean bellowed, elbowing his way past Ethan. "How long have you been keeping her a secret? Tara, a beautiful woman like you deserves way better than this joker. Dump him and run away with me."

"We're not—"Tara started to say something, but stopped with a confused look on her face. "Have we met before?"

"I'd never forget meeting you," he said.

Ethan didn't like the way they were looking at each other. He told himself firmly that he was 
not
 jealous because he had no interest in Tara himself. Well, there had been that kiss in the kitchen, but that had been a mistake, hadn't it?

"I thought we were going to Jake's," he said. "Let's go, Sean."

Sean looked at him as though he had grown three heads. "Are you kidding? You can't leave your girlfriend here alone just to be my wingman."

"I'm not his girlfriend," Tara stated firmly.

"She's not my girlfriend," Ethan insisted at the same time.

Sean looked puzzled.

"I'll explain on the way," Ethan told him. "Let's go. 
Now
."

Sean drove the short distance to Captain Jake's, and Ethan explained the situation on the way. He deliberately avoided telling his friend anything about that one kiss or about how attracted he was to Tara. Instead of sympathizing with him, however, Sean was amused.

"Your grandma always was a matchmaker," he chuckled. "So you're both living there as roommates until one or the other of you gives up and buys out the other. And since neither one of you has any money, that's probably not going to happen. Which means you're "stuck" living in a small house with a gorgeous woman? Gee, I'm trying to feel sorry for you, Pal. I'm 
really
trying."

"I don't want to talk about it. Let's just go in and have a beer, okay?"

Ethan was determined to have a good time, if for no other reason than to prove to himself and Sean that he wouldn't really rather be home with Tara. He tried not to imagine what she was doing there alone. Maybe she was taking a bubble bath. He could picture her leaning back in the bubbles, eyes closed, naked body relaxing in the hot, steamy water…

He wasn't usually much of a drinker, but he kept ordering fresh beer each time his mind strayed to those disturbing mental pictures. He really shouldn't drink, he knew; the last thing he needed was to run into a parent of one of his students.

He watched Sean move from woman to woman, collecting phone numbers and flirting outrageously, and wondered vaguely why he wasn't interested in doing the same. There were plenty of beautiful women here; some had already shown interest in him, but he just couldn't shake the image of Tara or the memory of the way her body had melted against his during that kiss.

Eventually, it dawned on Ethan that he was drunk. Stupid drunk. Embarrassingly drunk.             

"Sean, Buddy, I think I've had a few too many," he mumbled.

"I noticed."

"I think…"he stopped for a moment to try to focus. Nope, he could either speak or open his eyes, but he wasn't going to be able to do both. Not unless the room decided to stop spinning, and he really wasn't up to arguing with the room. "I think I might need to go home," he said carefully, keeping his eyes closed.

"I think so, too. Can you walk at all?"

"Not by myself."

Sean hauled him to his feet and helped him stagger through the crowd toward the door. Even this late at night, the hot humid air hit him in the face as soon as he stepped outside. "Sean, are you okay to drive?" he managed to ask.

"I'm not drinking tonight. I figured you were doing enough of that for both of us."

* * *

Tara took advantage of her Ethan's absence to explore her new home. She searched out every cupboard and closet and familiarized herself with every inch of the house except Bea's room -now Ethan's- and the attic. She was tempted to see what sort of things Bea had stored up there, but she wasn't sure if she was quite ready to navigate the narrow, pull-down stairs. Stairs of any kind were still difficult for her under the best of circumstances.

She wasn't ready for the attic, but she was ready for that fabulous bathtub, she decided. The main bathroom had only a basic shower enclosure that wouldn't do a darn thing for her aching body. No, she told herself, Ethan may have won the coin toss for the master bedroom, but she owned half of this house and she was going to take full advantage of that tub.

Once she had settled into the rose-scented bubbles, Tara leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and tried to think of anything besides Ethan's kiss.

Trying 
not 
to think about Ethan made her think of Randy, which made her sink more deeply into the bubbles. They had been together for three long years, engaged in theory but without a wedding date. She had thought his eagerness to share an apartment and buy furniture together meant that he was ready for a commitment, but she realized now that Randy had never had any intention of marrying her. He had been perfectly content with things just the way they were, and she was too caught up in her own wedding fantasies to realize that things weren't moving forward.

Until everything changed with a car accident that stormy May night.

Tara grimaced as those memories flooded her mind. She could still hear the thunderstorm that had popped out of nowhere; she could see the trees whipping back and forth in the wind, illuminated by the jagged spears of lightning that cut through the dark sky. She felt the impact again and listened to the glass breaking and metal crunching . . .

With a small sob, Tara forced herself to open her eyes and look at the smooth white tile walls of the bathroom until her breathing slowed. The accident itself had been bad, but what happened after was worse in some ways. Randy deserted her, unable to cope with the extent of her injuries. When she was finally released from the hospital, she discovered that he had taken everything from their apartment. The furniture, dishes, everything but her clothes. Worse, she soon learned that had not only skipped the rent payment in her absence, he had also cleaned out their joint bank accounts.

She had nothing. And she had no way of starting fresh, because her injuries made it impossible for her to return to work as a cosmetologist. The neurosurgeon had made it clear to her that she was lucky to be alive and able to walk at all; standing on her feet for eight or more hours per day was out of the question. As her bills piled up and her recovery seemed to slow down, Tara could only wonder how she was ever going to be able to dig her way out of this mess and find a way to support herself.

The Seashell was a Godsend, even if it meant she had also inherited a roommate. Ethan seemed to be a nice enough guy, she admitted to herself. As long as she they kept things on a friends-only basis. No more kissing.

Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. 
Crap
, she thought; the whole "friends-only" thing was not going to be easy if he walked in and found her naked in his bathroom. She made a panicked grab for her towel. Moments later, she emerged from the bathroom to see Sean helping a semi-conscious Ethan to the couch. "Is he hurt?" she cried, after tightening the belt of her robe to make sure she was covered.

"Nah, just drunk," Sean told her. He dropped his friend on the couch. "Can you get him some water while I get his shoes off?"

She nodded and hurried toward the kitchen. When she returned, Ethan was shoeless, grinning foolishly at her while Sean just shook his head. "He's not usually like this," he told her, taking the offered glass and handing it to his soused friend. Ethan managed to swallow most of the water, although a great deal of it landed on his shirt as well.

"I hope not," Tara muttered.

"I've only seen him drunk like this a couple of times, and we've known each other forever. He's going to be really embarrassed tomorrow."

"And hung-over."

"And hung-over," Sean agreed. "Listen, I—" he stopped as a sudden high-pitched tone rang out. "My pager," he explained. "Will you be okay with him like this?"

"I can handle it. Go ahead."

". . . 'bye, Sean!" Ethan called out to his friend, after the door had closed. He smiled up at Tara.

She wasn't sure what to do next. With Randy, she would have worked his arm over her shoulders and helped him into the bedroom, as she had done countless times during their years together. But Ethan was so much taller than Randy, and she was so much weaker since her accident; she seriously doubted that she could move him anywhere without injuring one or both of them. And in all honesty, she didn't trust herself anywhere near a bedroom with him, not after the way her body had reacted to his kiss.

"Guess you're sleeping on the couch tonight, big guy," she muttered. He had closed his eyes and seemed to be either asleep or passed out, with his head tilted back at an awkward angle. Sighing, she retrieved a decorative pillow and was leaning over him to place it under his head when she felt his hands on her breasts.

Startled, she looked down and saw that her robe had fallen open and he had reached up to gently cup a breast in each hand. He had an expression of sheer wonder on his face that would have been funny under any other circumstances.

"Nice," he murmured. He brushed his thumbs across her nipples, which tingled against the flimsy fabric of her nightgown.

"Ethan—" even to her own ears, her voice didn't sound right.

His left hand slipped inside the robe and around her waist, gently drawing her near, between his legs. With his right hand, he tugged at her gown to reveal a breast. His fingers traced slow, easy circles around her nipple.

She tried not to moan with pleasure. Everywhere his fingers touched was deliciously on fire. She felt a crazy need to have him touch more of her, to explore more of her body.

Ethan pulled her even closer and she felt the bulge of his erection. He raised his head and flicked the tip of his tongue across her nipple he had been teasing. The warm, wet sensation set off explosions inside that made her knees feel weak.

"Wait," she whispered, unsure if she was talking to herself or to Ethan.

"Wait for what?" he rasped. Without waiting for an answer, he switched his attention to the other breast—caressing and teasing every bit of over-sensitized flesh. She sat on his leg and leaned into him, feeling again the bulge inside his jeans.

He made a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a groan. Tara didn't resist when he twined his fingers in her curls and pulled her face toward his, seizing her lips in a strong kiss. His tongue pressed her lips apart, and she tentatively met it with her own while his other hand slid down from her waist to toy with the hem of her gown.

Tara tasted the beer on his breath and suddenly realized just what a fool she was. The man was drunk, so drunk that he very likely didn't know what woman he was feeling up. He probably wouldn't even remember this encounter in the morning.