Page 87 of Ethan

“I’m saying it now.” She held his gaze. “I love you, Ethan Harrison. Even when you make me furious.”

He laughed low as he pulled her against him. She wrapped her arms around him and held on and let the hot water run over them both.

“Don’t ever push me toward something like that again,” she said into his shoulder.

“Never,” he said. No hesitation.

“And don’t go to Billings for two days.”

“I make no promises about that one.”

She lightly punched him and he laughed, the sound of it filling the shower.

He cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers, then slid his hands down her arms, her waist, and around to lift her. Her back met the wall, and she wrapped her legs around him without thinking.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured against her ear. “I needed to get home to you.”

The words moved through her like heat.

“I needed you home,” she said.

He started to lower her. “I have to get a condom.”

She tightened her legs. “No. I’m on birth control.” She met his eyes. “I want to feel all of you.”

He went still. “You’re sure?”

“I’m positive.” She arched against him. “Please, Ethan.”

He took a slow breath, then eased into her, inch by inch, until there was nowhere left to go.

Then he moved. Long, deliberate strokes that made her grip his shoulders and forget her own name.

She tightened her legs around him, pulling him tighter to her, and he chuckled low against her ear.

“I never knew you were so impatient.”

“Ethan.” She growled it against his ear. “I swear you’ll pay for this.”

She took his earlobe between her teeth, he groaned and the teasing was over. He moved harder and faster until she was strung as tight as a bow, and then she snapped, crying out his name, her whole body shaking with it.

He groaned low and deep and she felt him throbbing inside her.

A tear rolled down her cheek. He raised his head, looked at her, and kissed it away.

“I will always want you in my life,” he whispered. “Always.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder and cried quietly while the water ran warm over them both.

This was what it felt like to come home to someone, and she hadn’t known she’d been looking for it until she found it.

Naomi woke in Ethan’s bed with his arm around her and the early light coming gray through the curtains and thought that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this settled. This safe.

She lay there for a while listening to him breathe and didn’t move.

Eventually she slipped out from under his arm, dressed quietly, and went to start the coffee. She’d just poured the first cup when she heard a car in the yard.

She looked out the kitchen window.