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“Ethan.” She calls my name softly as her eyes slide closed. And then she’s moaning low in her throat, her finger moving around her clit in slow, precise circles that have my heart pounding and my breath stuttering in my chest.
I’m transfixed as I watch her, gaze glued to her trembling hand, her arching hips, her desire-slicked sex. She’s totally open to me, totally exposed, and she’s never been more beautiful.
Her movements are still a little shy, a little nervous, and somehow that only turns me on more. Well, that and the knowledge that no other man has seen her like this. And that no other man will ever see her like this, now.
I’m a little shocked at the primitiveness of my response, of the jealousy that rips through me at just the thought of another man seeing what I am. I’ve never felt like this for a woman, never cared enough to wonder about who came before me…or who would come after me.
But from the very beginning, things were different with Chloe. She’s like water, so fluid that even before I knew about our twisted pasts, it felt like she would slip through my fingers the first chance she got. Maybe that’s why I feel the need to brand her, to mark her as mine. The belly chain, the bracelet, the love bites, the wedding ring with a diamond big enough to warn off any other man who might think about looking at her.
“Ethan.” She calls my name again, this time as her eyes flutter open.
“I’m here, love.” I cup her cheek in my palm, stroke my thumb softly across her lips.
I mean the touch to be reassuring, thankful, worshipping, but then she does something unexpected, as only Chloe can. She opens her mouth and bites at my thumb, hard. Then sucks it into her mouth, laving the small hurt with the tip of her tongue.
I’ve been hanging on to rational thought by a thread, here, and the feel of her mouth around me—warm and wet and willing—is enough to snap the last tenuous tether.
I all but throw myself over her, pulling my thumb out of her mouth and crushing my lips down on hers in one smooth movement.
And then my tongue is in her mouth, my dick is in her body and she’s wrapped around me—arms and legs and hair holding me to her with the same kind of desperation that I’m feeling. The same kind of desperation that drives me to take her over and over and over again. To claim her. To make her mine. To make sure everyone knows that she’s mine and will always be mine.
Suddenly, she rips her mouth from mine. “I love you,” she gasps. “I love you so much.”
That’s all it takes to send me up and over. Orgasm hits me hard, turning my blood to molten lava and raking claws of unspeakable ecstasy down my spine. Desperate to take Chloe with me, I slide a hand between us. Stroke her clit, once, twice. Then she’s coming, too, crying out as her body clenches around mine.
I’m dazed, overwhelmed, in absolute awe of this woman who I now get to call mine. I tighten my arms around her, pulling her closer, until the sweat on her skin mixes with the sweat on mine. Closer, until her breath mingles with mine. Impossibly closer still, until her heart and my heart beat in perfect time.
She relaxes against me, her lips brushing my neck. Her cheek resting against my shoulder.
It’s almost enough to keep the rest of the world at bay.
Almost.
Chapter 10
He doesn’t know I’m awake and I don’t do anything to change that fact
. For a moment, I think about rolling over or sitting up or even calling his name. But if I do, he’ll hang up. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. And while I very much want him to crawl back in beside me, to pull my back against his front so that I can feel every part of him against every part of me, that won’t tell me what I want to know.
The thing is, if you’d asked me an hour ago, I would have told you there wasn’t anything for me to know. After all, we’ve been here four days and I’ve been with Ethan pretty much every second of every day. Except for a couple trips to the spa or the shops with Tori while Ethan hung with Sebastian, we’ve had an amazing honeymoon. We spent the entire day after our wedding holed up in this suite, making love, eating the most decadent treats room service had to offer, talking about nothing—and everything. It was wonderful, the longest Ethan and I have ever gone without our pasts intruding in any way. It was better than wonderful. It was glorious.
After the first day, Ethan insisted we actually take advantage of some of the things Vegas is known for. We gambled at the high-roller tables at the Atlantis, saw the fountains at the Bellagio, dined at some of the finest restaurants the city has to offer, got great seats at an Imagine Dragons concert one night and the Atlantis’s Cirque show the other night—and this time we actually went. We lazed by the private, high-roller pool, even made love in the hot tub late last night when no one else was around.
Ethan insisted on taking me shopping, then pouted when all I’d let him buy me was a Las Vegas T-shirt and some new underwear to replace the ones he’s been ripping at an alarming rate. But that’s because he still doesn’t understand. I’ve got him. I don’t want anything else. At least nothing that his money can buy me. And what I do want—respect, a career I can be proud of, a chance to use my law degree to help people—won’t mean anything if he hands them to me. Even on our honeymoon. Especially on our honeymoon.
Of course, Ethan insists that this isn’t our real honeymoon. For that, he wants to take me to Paris or Greece or a small island near Bali that he just happens to own. But I don’t need fancy trips, any more than I need the fancy ring he bought me. I just need him and a few days for us to be together without the pressure of the outside world creeping in.
Oh, I know that news of our marriage has leaked. I was on Twitter for a few minutes the morning after we got married and saw that #EthanFrostbrokemyheart was trending, along with #Chloewho? But Ethan’s publicists have worked their magic and none of it has touched us. Until now.
Which is why I lay here, listening, as Ethan whispers into the phone. Ethan’s assured me over and over again that he’ll take care of me, that he’ll make sure no press agency runs any kind of exposé on my past. But how much can he really do? How long before some intrepid reporter digs up the NDA I signed and the money my family was paid for my signature? They won’t know what the agreement was about, but they don’t have to. Speculation is often as harmful as real facts.
Ethan gets up from where he’s been perched on the side of the bed and crosses to the door, still whispering. I know he’s moving because he doesn’t want to wake me, doesn’t want to upset me with what can’t be changed. But if news about my past is about to break—if what happened all those years ago is about to become a liability for Ethan—I want to know about it.
Except, as I listen closely to what’s being said, I realize that this call has nothing to do with the press or with me. No, he’s talking to whoever is on the line about someone named Nico Valducci. It’s not a name that I recognize, nor does Ethan say anything specific about the man besides his name. Still, there’s something about the energy in the room that gets my attention and makes my blood run cold.
He’s being quiet, so quiet that I can barely hear the words even before he moves from the bedroom into the suite’s main living area. I do roll over then, actively straining to hear the rest of the conversation. I don’t catch much, just that whoever is on the other line has set up a meeting between Ethan and this Valducci person for later this morning at some Italian restaurant. And that neither the person on the phone nor Ethan expect the meeting to be amicable.
He’s still talking, but he’s crossed to the small mini-fridge in the bar now and there’s no way I can hope to hear him unless I actually climb out of bed and resort to eavesdropping at the doorway. And since spying on my husband isn’t how I want my marriage to start—or how I want it to continue, for that matter—I roll back toward the nightstand.
