Page 43

Ethan let out a low groan that intensified the feeling of his mouth around me. I gasped, my mouth popping open as I continued the slow, languid slide of my hips against his.

“Come on, baby,” I threw my head back, running a hand through his hair. “Please, please, just…”

Ethan popped his mouth off my breast and reached for me, holding my face in both hands as he kissed me again, bucking his hips up slowly to meet mine. The feeling was electric. The only sound in our ears was the soft, gradually more desperate panting breaths we shared as we moved against each other. But eventually, it wasn’t enough. I reached down and unbuckled his pants and then mine, and impatience must’ve made our hands more clumsy because it took way too freaking long before we were completely naked.

He reached for me again, determined to make sure we were as physically close to each other at all times as possible. “Ride my face, Ava,” he gasped. “Please. Let me taste you.”

The sharp, ugly desperation in his voice made me lean down to kiss him first, a chaste show of affection that stood in stark contrast to the crude slide of our bodies against each other. His hands were eager, urging me up his chest by my hips until I was straddling his neck. I hovered for a moment, not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

“Wait, Ethan. Are you sure you want me to sit all the way down? What if I—?” A breathless gasp cut my words short as he grabbed me by my thighs and yanked me down onto his face with a grunt. He closed his eyes, his tongue mapping out the places between my legs that drew out the most embarrassing sounds.

My body flushed hot, my breath coming in faster than I could catch it. I began rolling my hips against his mouth, my fingers flying to my breasts for extra stimulation. When Ethan opened his eyes and saw me, he groaned low and deep, the sound sending vibrations through my body and making me melt. He reached a hand down, and when I looked to see what he was doing, I almost came on the spot. He was touching himself, his tongue still working miracles on my pussy. I tilted my head back with a sigh, riding the wave of pleasure until my body pulled taut, tighter and tighter until…

I came with a gasp of his name, the cold amplifying the intensity. Ethan licked me clean with an appreciative moan, finishing with a small kiss on the inside of my thigh. My heart swelled, and even though I was still shaky with the aftershocks of my orgasm, I couldn’t just leave it like that. I needed him inside me. I needed to make him come.

I scrambled lower until I could take his weeping cock and line it up with my entrance. Ethan’s head snapped back against the ground, his broad chest heaving as his hands rested on my thighs, his fingers pressing down hard into my hips.

“Do it, Ava,” he whined. His hips gave a desperate thrust up, seeking my warmth. “Please, Ava. I need it so bad.”

How could I possibly say no to that?

I slid down onto his cock, moaning at the stretch. Ethan’s breathing grew rapid and shallow, his hands now gripping my hips so tightly I knew he’d just given me bruises as mementos. I bit my lips and started to slowly move my hips up and down, then back and forth until I could find a pattern that seemed to work for both of us. And then I rode him.

Ethan’s body went rigid, his eyes locking on mine as I continued to move. His hand came up to my mouth, cupping my chin, and I kissed his fingers and palm, closing my eyes against the second wave of pleasure until it crashed over me. My body arched, and that’s when he came too, louder than I expected from him, but that only made it so much better. A man of his size, with his usual quiet nature, reduced to a moaning mess.

I fell forward, my body spent, and he caught me.

For a few quiet moments, we just lay there together, our wet, sweaty bodies entwined as we slowly came back down to earth. He pressed a kiss to my temple, and I was about to say something when a series of frantic buzzing broke the spell. We both looked at our phones, where a barrage of messages flooded through.

Well, I guess we had signal again.

I was also shocked to realize that somewhere during the sex, the storm had died down. The rain stopped completely, not that either of us noticed. Ethan was already reaching for his phone, his face blanching as he read through his texts.

“Bad news?” I asked, cringing.

He grunted, flopping his head back against the ground. “Just reality. We should probably make plans to head back.”

But before either of us moved to get our clothes back on, I put a hand on his chest and kissed him one last time. He hummed in pleasant surprise, tangling a hand in my hair.

“Thank you for taking care of me, Ethan,” I said against his lips with a smirk.

Ethan returned my grin. “My absolute pleasure, Ava.”

25

Ava

The kitchen was a skeleton of what it used to be. Most of the cupboards and flooring had been gutted out and torn down, leaving bare drywall patched with some or other white substance that Ethan explained was called “white joint compound”, and exposed wiring tucked into open electrical boxes.

The new minimalist lower cabinets were only half-installed, with some still lacking doors so stacks of heavy, ceramic plates sat out in the open on raw plywood countertops. The only fully functioning appliance was an old vintage stove that Deacon had somehow got working, along with a smaller new gas stove I’d purchased at the general store.

We were still operating out of what was essentially a mini-cooler.

Ethan was busy at the stove, tending to a cast-iron skillet full of sizzling bacon and cracked eggs. Deacon stood at the counter, aggressively hacking away at a loaf of sourdough bread with a serrated knife and leaning against the unanchored island to steady himself. I wove between them, managing a makeshift coffee station on top of a cardboard box full of new cabinet hinges, pouring hot water into a French press while trying not to trip over the toolboxes lining the floor.

What made everything infinitely more complicated was the fact that the kitchen hadn’t yet been expanded to the open-plan vision I had nesting in my head. It was annoyingly small for the size of the lake house, not to mention the floor space being cut in half by tool chests and loose building materials. Every movement was a physical negotiation.

When I reached past Ethan for the salt shaker, my forearm brushed his bicep. He didn’t move away. Instead, he deliberately leaned into the contact, his skin hot from the stove and head tilting just enough that I could feel his breath against my temple as he muttered a low, private joke about burning the bacon.