“Thanks, man.”
As they shook hands, I blinked back my surprise, my face turning warm.
Brent gave me a final look, all but winking at me, and then he was gone, the door thudding shut behind him.
I stared at Ethan with pure disbelief. “Did you, like, get his approval for us to fuck in here?”
“Does that bother you?” His smile was wicked. “He owed me a favor.”
Before I could say anything, he took my hand and pulled me deeper into the rickhouse, away from the windows. Our footsteps creaked quietly across the wooden floor until we were surrounded by the tall, long walls of racks. It was darker here, but there was still enough yellowy light to make out the different years marked on the barrel heads.
Ethan pulled to an abrupt stop, dropping my hand, and turned to face me. He braced his hands on his hips, showing off the lean sculpture of his frame, and gave me that intense look I craved. “I have to tell you something.”
My pulse picked up as I gave him a skeptical look. “You brought me in here to talk?”
“Among other things.” He wrapped an arm around me, one of his large hands settling on the small of my back and urging me forward until I was pressed against him. His other hand found its way to that same spot, locking me in his embrace. “I have plans, Olivia. Plans of getting you to tell me what I want to hear.”
“Spoken like a true CIA agent.”
He gave a smile that would please the devil.
My breath caught, and the irises of his eyes heated to inky pools, darker than black lava.
Oh, I didn’t have a chance in hell of resisting him, and I was sure he knew. One of his hands slipped beneath the bottom of my sweater and the camisole I wore beneath it,touching the scarred skin there, before sliding toward my stomach. His warm palm glided up, up, up... until it gripped my bra-covered breast. I moaned just as his mouth covered mine, his kiss passionate and uncontrolled. Like there was no more need for restraint and no need to rush.
It was just us now, all alone in these stacks of bourbon.
“Do you want me?” he asked.
God, with every cell in my body. “Yes.”
“Why?”
I stared at him, unsure how to answer, but he continued to move. He lifted the sweater and camisole together, peeling them up and working the fabric over the unsexy cast on my arm so he could drop them to the floor. He used the pad of one fingertip to trace the edge of my bra, dragging it slowly across the cup of one breast, down the hollow between, and over the top of the other. Goosebumps burst across my arms.
“Because,” my breathing went shallow, “I... need you.”
No hesitation. “Why?”
His fingertip following the band around my body, and a moment later my bra went slack. He set his mouth in the crook of my neck, his unshaven face brushing over my bare skin, his lips following my bra’s descent.
I’d had just an ounce of bourbon, but I felt drunk. Dizzy. It grew in intensity when he bent me back over his arm and used his mouth to capture my nipple. My body responded to him immediately, tightening to a hard bud, and a soft whine escaped my lips.
The desire for him threatened to crush me into a million pieces. Just the soft pass of his lips over my skin and I was coming undone.
“Tell me,” he whispered.
My eyes fell closed. I tried to focus on the sensation and the fire burning hot inside me. When my hands found wool beneath them, I gathered it up, pulling the shirt up his back, yanking it over his head. He straightened and finished takingit off, turning to toss it away, and I saw the black stitches holding his wound closed.
Thank God that knife hadn’t taken him from me.
“Ethan,” I said, a half plea.
The feel of his warm skin against mine was erotic and dangerous. It was hurling me to the point of no return, and I was going to have to make my final stand. I wrapped my arms around him, trying to get as much contact as possible, my cheek pressed against his chest.
“You make me feel alive,” I whispered.
His hand slipped between us and captured my chin, tilting my face up to his, but I kept my eyes closed tight.
