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“Tell me the truth,” he says after a few seconds of awkward silence. “Why were you ducking out of the party?”
I laugh then, and it’s more bitter than I intend it to be. At least until I realize he wasn’t joking. He really doesn’t know why I had to leave. “I couldn’t stay,” I tell him once I can get the words past the lump in my throat. “You may be used to this, but I’m not. I’m not any good at it.”
“Good at what?” he asks, looking totally confused.
I turn my face away, refuse to answer. I’ve already humiliated myself enough tonight, thank you very much, especially considering I just finished all but whimpering in his arms.
“Chloe? Answer me. What aren’t you good at?”
I shake my head, whisper, “Nothing.”
But my non-answer isn’t good enough for Ethan. He grabs my hands, squeezes them tightly. When that isn’t enough to get me talking, he slides his hands slowly, softly, up my forearms to my elbows, past my elbows to my biceps, past my biceps to my shoulders. His fingers brush against the sensitive skin that stretches across my collarbone and then his fingertips are skimming up my throat to my chin.
“Ethan.” His name is a strangled sigh ripped from deep inside me.
He smiles softly at the sound, brushes his thumb over my lips even as he slides his hands up to cup my jaw. And then he’s slipping his thumbs under my chin, pushing gently but insistently until I lift my face to his.
Our eyes meet in the shadowy darkness and it’s my turn to flinch a little. Though I’m fully dressed, I feel naked. Defenseless. Like Ethan can see deep inside me to the parts of myself I’m trying so desperately to hold away from him. The parts I’m trying so desperately to keep just for me.
His lips tighten and for a moment I think he’s going to back off, to step away. But then he asks, “What. Aren’t. You. Good. At?” His voice is as implacable as ever, his face set in determined lines and I know—I know—that there’s no way I’m getting out of this without talking to him. Without telling him everything, even those things I don’t want him to know.
The knowledge makes me reckless. Or maybe it’s the pain throbbing inside of me that does that. Either way, I toss my head back and all but shout, “What do you care? Why does it matter to you if I stayed at that stupid party or not? What does it matter to you what I do?”
“It matters because you ended up out here with that asshole. If he’d done something to you—”
“We were in full view of the restaurant,” I say dismissively. “What was he going to do?”
“You were in full view. But it only took a couple of steps for me to get you into the shadows, Chloe. Who’s to say he couldn’t have done the same thing?”
“Damn it, Ethan. Are we really going to do this? Nothing happened. Nothing. Happened. So can we please just forget it and go back inside?”
This time I do shove against his chest, and I keep shoving, until he finally steps away. He lets me walk past him, lets me almost make it back into the light before he grabs my hand.
“What were you doing out here, Chloe?” he asks for a third time. But there’s no insistence in his voice now, no anger. Just a low, aching need that reaches deep inside of me.
“I told you, it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Why?” I’m all but pleading with him now, and I can tell from the way he locks his jaw, the way he looks away, that he can hear the entreaty in my voice.
And still he doesn’t let go of my hand.
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“Because you ran away from a party I threw for people we both work with and I want to know why. Did someone do something to make you feel uncomfortable—”
“Are you kidding me with this?” I demand in a voice that sounds like I’ve been swallowing glass. “Did somebody make me feel uncomfortable? Did somebody do something to me—”
His jaw flexes. “That’s what I’m asking.”
“Jesus Christ, Ethan! I left because I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with you for one more minute!”
He rears back like I hit him. “I made you feel uncomfortable?” he demands incredulously. “I didn’t even look at you.”
“Believe me, I am well aware of that,” I tell him harshly.
“Well aware of what? What the fuck are you talking about?”
