Ruined: An Ethan Frost Novel; A Loveswept New Adult Romance (23 page)

“Now, Chloe.” His hands clamp on my hips like a vise. “Please. I need you, now.”

And just that easily, I yield control. This is Ethan and I trust him more than I’ve ever trusted anyone else. He’ll take me where we’re both so desperate to go, and take care of me when it’s done.

He reaches between us, strokes his thumb over my clit. With his other hand, he pulls me down hard even as he lifts his hips and thrusts into me. And just like that, we plunge over the edge of the world together.

I
stay with Ethan all day. Making love, having that evening picnic we never got a chance to have yesterday, talking about a million different unimportant things. Like fireflies and caramel versus peanut butter and what our favorite bands are. And while his taste in music is not something I can get behind, I’m willing to overlook it considering just how talented he is with his tongue.

It turns out Ethan’s insatiable, and now that I’m past the stress and insecurity of that first time, so am I. We make love everywhere—in the pool, on the beach, on the patio, in his bed, on his kitchen table.

That might actually be my favorite time. We’re in the kitchen, making something for a late lunch in a belated effort to keep from collapsing under the sheer number of times we’ve made love. Ethan, who is rummaging inside the fridge for cold cuts, turns to me with a can of whipped cream in his hand and a mischievous look on his face. The rest is history…but suffice it to say I’ve never had so much fun with a dairy product in my life.

Under duress, he drops me off at home late Sunday evening. He wants me to spend the night with him, and while there is nothing I’d like more, I feel like I need to put some boundaries on the relationship. Some boundaries on myself. At this moment I’m so caught up in him that I want nothing more than to stay in his bed forever. I want to wrap myself up in him and never, ever let go.

But that’s a problem. We’ve only known each other a week. Normally I take longer than that to decide on buying a new pair of shoes. The fact that I chose him as a lover in a lot less time than that makes me nervous even as it makes me smile, and I need a little time to process. To decompress.

Which is why I let myself into my apartment late Sunday evening, though Ethan is pouting in the car while he watches me. Or at least doing the best impression of pouting a strong, brilliant, beautiful man can pull off. It’d be funny if the steamy look in his eyes didn’t make me want to run back outside and hurtle myself back into his arms. To hell with distance. To hell with perspective. Ethan Frost is mine and I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

Even the truth.

The second the apartment door closes behind me, Tori pounces on me. She’s been patient for two days, sending little text messages to make sure Ethan hasn’t chopped me up into little pieces and hidden me in his fridge. Every time she texted, I made a point of answering her back, but I didn’t give any details.

Tonight she wants details.

“Oh. My. God,” she exclaims as my legs—still shaky from Ethan’s last explosive bout of lovemaking—refuse to carry me any farther and I collapse on the couch next to her.

“I know.”

“Oh. My. God.”

I close my eyes, bury my face in my hands. “I know.”

“Oh. My. God! Is that a hickey?” She points to a bruise on the side of my neck, then leans closer to investigate. “Forget hickey. Are those hickeys?” she screeches, her finger tracing one bruise after another. “There must be fifteen of them!”

And those are only the ones she can see.

“Is he an honest-to-God vampire? Because there’s no other explanation for that!” She points at the ring of small love bites that circles my collarbone.

Except there is. Ethan found out during those first moments of lovemaking that the teeny-tiny bite of pain that comes with getting a hickey grounds me. It gives me something to hold on to in the maelstrom of all that pleasure. And it brings my own pleasure to a whole other level. I’m not sure how I feel about it—I’ve never been one to find anything pleasurable in pain before this—but Ethan has no problem with using it to keep me immersed in the moment. To keep me from losing myself in the torment of my past when my head can threaten to spin completely out of my control.

I don’t tell Tori any of that, though. How can I expect her to understand what I myself can’t quite grasp? So instead of owning up to the truth, I grab a pillow from the corner of the couch and smack her with it.

“Yes, he’s a vampire. He spent the last twenty-four hours keeping me prisoner in his lair and doing unspeakable things to me while he sucked my blood.”

She eyes my neck and shoulder. “The way you look right now, I can believe that.”

I roll my eyes at her. “I guess that’s my cue to go rummage through my closet until I find something to cover most of these.” Somehow I don’t think Maryanne will be impressed. And since I have no intention of telling her her boss gave them to me, my best bet is to find a shirt that hides them.

But Tori just snorts. “I recommend a turtleneck—and some industrial strength concealer.” She taps a small bruise right on my jawline.

I should probably be upset with Ethan for marking me up so conspicuously. But I’m not. One, because it gave me such pleasure for him to do it. And two, because I understand his need to mark me. To claim me. Though I didn’t act on it, there’s a part of me that wanted to do the exact same thing to him.

“Okay, then.” I filch the last sip of wine from her glass before standing up. “I’m off to bed. I’m exhausted.”

“I bet. I’m exhausted just looking at you.” She pouts. “But tomorrow I want every single detail, no matter how small and insignificant.”

I roll my eyes. “We need to get you a boyfriend.”

“You are preaching to the choir, baby. Maybe you can check and see if your gorgeous, sexy man has a clone somewhere.”

“Nope, sorry. I’m not sharing.”

She laughs. “You didn’t even pretend to consider it.”

“No, I didn’t. Ethan Frost is all mine.”

“Does he know that?”

I think of the way he held me as I cried. The way he patiently, determinedly claimed every part of my body for his own. The way he growled that he was never letting me go—and how I told him that went both ways. “Damn straight,” he told me right before he drove me to another explosive orgasm. Thank God.

“He does,” I say to her, dropping a kiss on the top of her head before I walk toward my room.

“Ew,” she says, pretending to wipe my kiss off. “Careful! Who knows where that mouth has been!”

It’s my turn to laugh as she intends me to. “I know exactly where it’s been.” I pause for dramatic effect. “Everywhere.”

She groans, then reaches for the bottle of wine and pours herself another glass. I don’t want to fight, so I pretend not to see that the thing is more than 75 percent empty. Which means that before I got here, Tori was doing nothing but sitting alone in the living room and drinking. Something she seems to be doing more and more of lately.

I’m going to have to find a way to talk to her about it, one that won’t make her shut down, as she is wont to do in situations where she doesn’t like what she’s hearing. I know we’re college students, I know it’s summer. But she can’t go through a bottle and a half of wine or more every night and think that she’s doing okay. Because she’s not.

Tomorrow, I tell myself as I make my way down to my room. Or maybe Tuesday, during movie night, when she’s relaxed and the conversation is not so fixated on my new and exciting sex life. I don’t want to give her a chance for any ammunition.

“By the way,” she calls down the hall after me. “Your mother called a few times. She says it’s important.”

“Thanks.”

I get to my room to find three sticky notes on my door, each with the time my mother called and exactly what she said when Tori answered. My best friend is nothing if not an excellent message taker.

I rip them off the door, toss them into the trash can under my desk. Whatever she wants can wait. I have better things to do with my time tonight than worry about her. Especially when there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to climb into bed and go over every delicious thing Ethan did to my body today.

Processing, I tell myself as I strip down and climb into my pajamas, my fingers lingering for long seconds on the belly chain that fits like it was made for me. I did say that I needed to process, after all…

I get to work early on Monday morning so I can run by Ethan’s office to see him. And to drop off the blender.

His assistant ushers me right into his office, his eyes on the blender the entire time. I don’t know if that’s because he’s fascinated by the endless possibilities presented by the Vitamix, or if it’s because I missed a hickey in the great love bite cover-up that took the better half of my morning and he’s desperate not to focus on it.

Either way, I figure it’s not going to take much for the rest of the company to start talking about us. Strangely, I find that possibility much less concerning now than I did even a couple of days ago.

That old song about the difference a day makes is right on…or maybe it’s just that my perception has changed. Either way, I’m not going to let worry over that color these few stolen moments with Ethan.

He’s on the phone when I walk in, but he immediately smiles when he sees me. At least until he notices the blender I’m carrying.

“I’ve got to go,” he tells the person on the other end of the line. “Something’s come up.”

Then he’s walking around the desk to get to me, everything about him just a little more predatory than I remember from yesterday.

“Hello, Ms. Girard,” he says as he shuts the door.

“Hello, Mr. Frost.”

He takes the heavy blender from me, drops it on the corner of his desk. “I thought we took care of the whole present thing yesterday.”

“Maybe you took care of it. I certainly didn’t.”

“What’s the big deal? It’s a blender.”

“Exactly.” I smile as I repeat his words back to him. “What’s the big deal? It’s a blender.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble one day.”

I play coy, glance up at him through my lashes. “I thought it already had.”

He groans then, pulls me into his arms. “I missed you last night.”

“I missed you, too.”

He bends his head, nuzzles my neck. “Tonight you’re staying with me.”

“It’s customary to ask, you know.” It’s my turn to moan as he pulls the high collar of my blouse out of the way so that he can lick at the bruises on the side of my throat. Despite my determination to keep things professional during business hours, my head lolls to the side in an effort to give him better access.

“I asked yesterday and all it got me was an empty bed. I’m not making that mistake again.” His hands wrap around my waist, his talented fingers sneaking inside my waistband to rub against the sensitive skin of my stomach. At least, that’s what I think he’s doing until it registers that he’s playing with my belly chain.

“You’re wearing it,” he says, his voice rife with satisfaction.

“I said I would.”

“But you won’t keep the blender.”

“It’s a different thing entirely.”

His hands slip under my skirt to palm my ass, his fingers skating down to toy with my sex. I’m wet already, just from the feel of his lips on my neck, and I moan as he slips first one finger and then a second inside me.

“How is it different?” he asks as he pushes his fingers in before slowly sliding them back out. In and out. In and out.

I moan and spread my legs for him. “How is…what different?” Suddenly I’m having a difficult time keeping up with the conversation.

Ethan’s thumb glides through the tender folds of my sex, finds my clit, circles around and around it in a lazy rhythm that has my eyes closing and my breathing turning ragged.

“The blender,” he murmurs, even as he bends down and presses hot, open-mouthed kisses to the sensitive spot behind my ear.

“What blender?” My voice and my body shatter as he bends the fingers he has inside me so that he’s rubbing gently against my G-spot.

“Forget the fucking blender,” he growls right before he sinks his teeth into the tender skin of my shoulder. At the same time, he twists his fingers deep inside me, a move that intensifies my orgasm and has me screaming his name. Thank God his office is soundproof.

He draws out my climax, pulling every single ounce of sensation from me that he can. Only then, when I’m little more than a puddle of satisfied mush, does he grab on to my panties and yank.

They’re lace, so it doesn’t take much to rip them right off my body. I gasp and he groans, even as he unbuttons his custom-tailored suit pants and slips on a condom I never even saw him open. Then he’s palming my ass again, lifting me up. Wrapping my legs around his waist.

And then he’s inside me, his strong hands lifting and lowering me in a rhythm that has my eyes crossing and need building inside me all over again.

“Fuck,” he gasps as I tangle my hands in his hair and drag his mouth down to mine. And then there are no more words as I lick and suck and bite at his mouth, desperate for him despite the orgasm that just rocketed through me.

Whirling around, Ethan takes a few steps to the right and suddenly my back is against one of his office walls. “You okay?” he demands, one hand still on my ass while the other comes up to squeeze and pet and stroke my breasts.

“Yes,” I gasp, rising to meet each of his thrusts. “Please, Ethan. Please.”

“Please what?” he snarls, his hips pistoning against my own with so much power that I figure I’m going to be adding a few fairly spectacular ass bruises to my collection. But that doesn’t matter now; nothing does but the desperate, clawing need currently tearing through me.

“Let me come again,” I whimper. “Please. I can’t—”

He bends his head down then, bites at my nipple through the thin fabric of my blouse, my bra. At the same time, he reaches between us and pinches my clit. It’s the edge I need, the tiny little pinprick of pain that sends me hurtling over the edge into oblivion.

Seconds later, Ethan follows me, his strong, powerful body shuddering in my arms as he pours himself deep inside me. I hold on tight through it all, determined to keep him in my arms as long as I can. I don’t ever want to let him go.

“Damn, baby,” he says after he gets his voice back. “I’m sorry that was so fast.”

“Do I look like I’m complaining?” I smile up at him, trail a hand over his neck. Relish the flare of heat in his satisfied eyes.

“You look like you’ve just been fucked,” he murmurs in my ear.