Perfectly Toxic (The Sterling Shore Series Book 9) (25 page)

Chapter 49

ETHAN

ME: Where the fuck are you?

BELLA: You’re impatient… I’ve only been gone five minutes. Should have done cardio with me.

ME: I gave you better cardio options. You elected running. Pathetic.

BELLA: Well, I couldn’t handle yoga because I’m not that bendy. So your suggestion sounded a little… painful.

ME: I’ll make sure you feel too good to notice pain. Come back.

BELLA: Fine. You’re so damn needy. I’m coming back, but only because I’m just as needy and bored with running today.

ME: I have that book out…

BELLA: Be genital.

ME: ????

BELLA: GENTLE! This phone is such a freaking pervert!

ME: Sure it’s the phone.

The door opens, and I drop my phone as Bella walks in. I don’t really have that weird sex book open, but I do have a few things in mind as she walks to me. Her lips are drawn in a seductive smile, and her little sports bra drives me crazy.

As soon as I reach her, my lips crush hers, and she moans into my mouth, fisting handfuls of my shirt as she tries to draw me closer. I swear I can’t get enough of her, and it feels like she can’t get enough of me.

Breaking the kiss, I spin her until her hands slap the countertop, and I fist a handful of her hair as I jerk down her fuck-me tiny shorts. My lips move to her neck as she turns her body over to me without any hesitation, as if she knows she belongs to me.

My dick is painfully hard when I finally thrust inside her, and I try not to think about how right it all feels. Somewhere along the line, Bella stopped being toxic and started being perfect.

***

ME: Your panties are in my pocket. Just wanted you to know.

BELLA: Wtf?!?!?!? Why?

ME: Because we ripped that pair last night in the car, and it was pocket them or let Maverick see them.

BELLA: Damn you and your list of places to have sex. Do you have any idea what hell I could catch from Maverick for my pussies being ripped to shreds?

BELLA: Pussies

BELLA: PUSSIES

BELLA: Stupid fucking porn phone! PANTIES!!!!

BELLA: Ethan? You still there?

ME: Yep. Watching the crazy from this side is entertaining.

BELLA: You’re an asshole.

ME: Speaking of assholes…

BELLA: Hell no. You’re not getting anywhere near my ass mole!

BELLA: mole!

BELLA: Damn it!! I mean HOLE! I have no ass moles!

ME: You’ve already killed the illusion. I’ll never see you the same.

BELLA: I’ll see you later. I’m going to go break my phone for a while.

ME: Hey, I bought you something. :O

BELLA: What the hell did you buy me? I hate gifts.

ME: Nothing much. Just got one of those damn racks for your million shoes. I’ll have one built for you soon but this will work in the meantime.

ME: Bella?? You already gone?

BELLA: I’m here. Thank you. I’ll reward you in less than two hours.

ME: Countdown begins.

***

ME: Do you always have to work so much?

BELLA: I’m trying to get on at a couple of private practices. They’ll have better hours. I’m not supposed to have my phone on the floor, so maybe they’ll fire me if they catch me. ;)

ME: If I could cook, I’d start dinner for us, especially since you’ve been cooking so much. How about I have takeout ready and waiting?

BELLA: Since I’m starving, I’m good with that second option. Should be another hour, tops.

ME: I’ll grab something from that Chinese place you like. See you when you get home.

BELLA: Are you not going to ask what I want?

ME: Nope. Pretty sure I have all that shit memorized.

BELLA: That’s sexy.

ME: Me knowing what food you like? In that case, I’ll be naked when you get home. I expect another reward.

BELLA: Too hungry. Food first. Sex later.

ME: We’ll see…

***

“Right there,” Bella moans, arching as I hit the right spot. “Oh damn, you’re so good.”

Smirking, I push in a little deeper, eliciting another moan from her as she utters a few more praises between breaths.

“Ah!” She whimpers when I hit a particularly good spot, and I move my hands lower, pushing down on all the tight muscles.

“How’d you get so good at this?” she asks, even though it sounds like a moan.

“I’ve been getting at least one massage a week since I was eighteen, because my back and shoulders would be tense as hell by the end of a work week. You pick up a few things,” I tell her, sliding my hands through the oil and down her bare back, focusing on the spot just above her ass.

She moans again, and my dick decides forty-five minutes is all it can stand of all her fuck-me-now sounds. She grins when I jerk her shorts off, as though she knew this was coming.

When I flip her over, she simply grabs me by the back of my neck, and drags me down to her so that our lips find each other’s.

“You can continue massaging me after you give me a couple of orgasms,” she murmurs against my lips, causing me to smile.

“How generous of you. Just a couple?” I muse, spreading her legs wider as the tip of my cock finds her entrance and slowly starts stretching her as I ease inside.

“Maybe three would be better,” she says absently as she arches into me for an entirely different reason than before.

“Three is for beginners,” I murmur against her lips before thrusting in hard.

Bella is starting to consume me, and I fucking love it.

Chapter 50

BELLA

Two weeks pass in a blur, and the plumber has still not been out to my house. Surprisingly, living with Ethan is both fun and confusing. My heart is definitely in jeopardy at this point, because living with someone steals that guard you put up around yourself.

It’s an intimacy you can’t avoid, and even someone like me can’t escape the closeness that comes with playing house.

Ethan is on the phone when I get home—I mean,
his
house. Not home. Shit, I have to stop thinking like that.

“Just take him golfing, and let him win. Don’t let him win by too much, but just enough where he feels like he earned it on his own. He’ll cave like a domino setup.”

Business… He doesn’t get many calls from the new owners of his old company, but he does get them on occasion, and he sounds like a completely different person when he does.

With most of his friends, he’s a brooding asshole who likes to mock them. With his partiers, he’s wild, crazy, and full of fun. With the business, he’s firm, classy, and in control. With me… I sometimes wonder if I’m the only one who gets the
real
Ethan… The man he is when is guard is down. Everyone is really missing out, because the real Ethan is my favorite version of him.

Protective, thoughtful, kind, generous… Albeit, he can still have his asshole moments, but I like that part of him too. He’s a little too alpha for the future I had planned, but that future keeps restructuring itself around Ethan with each passing day.

I’m in dangerous territory, and I can’t run from it, considering I’m stuck here playing house until my home is fixed.

Deciding not to eavesdrop, I don’t bother announcing that I’m home… Damn it, there’s that word again.

I take a quick shower, smiling at how my all of my shower supplies are crowding Ethan’s few. Not that he minds. Hell, he even bought me more things, and refused to let me pay him back. That part is still irking me, because I prefer to pay for my own things, and Ethan is impossible to argue with.

He’s pretty much had me on every surface we could comfortably fuck on. And most every position we could fuck in. That’s when he’s not curling up around me, or telling me stories—the good ones—from his past. Same for me. I spare him the drama-filled details of the bad experiences, since I’ve already covered them, and stick with the happier notes.

It’s been an incredibly perfect two weeks. But that’s how we are. Perfect one minute and toxic the next. This is the longest we’ve gone without something going wrong.

Stepping out, I dry off everything, and brush through my damp hair before dressing in something comfortable and heading back to see if Ethan is finished with his phone call yet.

Unsurprisingly, none of the guys, including Rye, know anything about plumbing. Hell, Wren couldn’t even fix our sink when it was messed up. I guess that’s what happens when a bunch of rich people are your closest friends, though. Then again, I’m not rich and I don’t know jack shit about plumbing.

Sighing, I take a seat and listen to Ethan sound like a commanding, responsible, and hella sexy businessman as he continues to talk on the phone. His voice is steady, authoritative, and confident, as though he knows exactly how to handle anything and everything.

That voice is the one that makes me always feel safe and protected. Usually I’m the protector, so I don’t think I ever realized how it felt to be protected until him.

Something else? I sleep now. All night. I sleep until the alarm goes off and I have to get up. But only when I’m with Ethan.

My things have comfortably found residence in his bathroom and closet, as though they’ve always been there. Even my pots and pans have managed to wiggle into his cabinets, since he barely had anything to cook with.

While he talks, I head into the kitchen to make something to eat, since I barely had time to scarf down some fruit at lunch. Ethan must hear me clanking around, because he comes up just as I toss some chicken in a pan, and one arm wraps around my waist as he continues to talk on the phone.

“No, don’t let him know you’re considering Phillip’s company. There’s bad blood there and it could disrupt you buying in,” he tells whoever it is he’s talking to.

He kisses the top of my head as I work on cooking, and I lean back against him as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. We’re meeting the guys for drinks tonight, and Ethan is having a party tomorrow.

I don’t know how I feel about this gorgeous house enduring another party after pretending it’s my home for two weeks. It almost feels like an invasion to have strangers come in and trash the place without any concern or regard to the people who live here.

But it’s Ethan’s house; not mine. It’s what he wants at this point in his life, and I’m prepared to weather the storm, because he’s sure as hell worth it.

“Hey,” he says softly against my ear, even though I can hear the other person on the phone talking excitedly.

“Hey,” I say back, melting against him when he leans over more and kisses my cheek.

“You smell so good,” he says in a soft, deep rumble, not seeming to mind my wet hair.

“Just showered,” I say, as though it’s not obvious.

“Yeah,” he says. “Do that, and he’ll be putty in your hands.” And he’s back to talking into the phone.

I smile, impressed by how easily he can pretend to devote all his attention to someone else even as he’s kissing his way up my cheek to my ear again.

“I missed you,” he says against my ear, taking a deep breath as I turn my head toward him and smile.

His lips brush mine, but he doesn’t get to deepen the kiss, because he’s back to telling the person on the phone what to do, step by step. However, he doesn’t leave me. His body stays pressed against mine, just like it does for the majority of the time that I’m here.

When I’m not at work, Ethan is coiled around me, showing me more attention than I think I’ve ever had. It’s like he’s just drowning in this as much as I am, loving the closeness of it all.

I expected a lot of fighting and craziness. I never pictured how easy we would blend together and coexist. In fact, I think living together is easier than living apart, even if my heart is steadily falling deeper and deeper for the guy I never saw coming.