AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER NINE
ETHAN
––––––––
For the past threehours, I’d been laying in the bunk beneath Ivy with a hard-on that refused to go away. Every time it started to recede, I thought about her on top of me, and then I thought about heron top of me,and back to full mast it went again.
Damn. That kiss had nearly caused my mind to explode. It had been so shocking, so brazen, but it wasn’t just the abruptness of it that had sent my mind spinning. It was the emotions that had awakened inside of me when her lips collided with mine. Feelings I had never experienced before surged through me, and the most primal, powerful emotions I’d ever felt had taken over my body.
Mine.
That was all I could think of as I’d kissed her back. This woman was mine. Such a strange word to encompass my feelings for her considering my love for a single, commitment-free existence.Minewasn’t something I had felt before. Usually, I just enjoyed the moment with a stranger before happily bidding her goodbye. But after that kiss with Ivy, goodbye was the farthest thing from my spinning mind. I couldn’t remember anything I’d wanted to do so much as to pull her into my arms and claim every inch of her body and mark it as my own. But as fast as she’d turned things on, she’d turned them back off again and left me laying there reeling.
The soft sway of the train started to slow, and the announcer called out our stop. A dizzying blend of emotions swirled inside me as I realized Ivy and I were about to part ways. She’d head back to her life in Chicago, and I’d grab a rental car and head north to Door County.
Will we ever see each other again?
Just two days ago, I hadn’t even known she existed, and I was completely content with my choice of not having a woman in my life. And now, all I envisioned ahead of me was a long ache of wanting to see this woman who had somehow crawled inside of me and taken up residence in a place I’d long thought boarded up. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Not yet.
“I guess we’re here,” she said, then her bare feet appeared as she swung them over the edge of the top bunk.
“Yep. This is it. Your last stop on our crazy journey.”
She hopped down to the floor. “And what a journey it’s been. Never in a million years would I have thought my trip to Paradise Isles would end up the way it did.”
I rose and stretched, squeezing into the small standing space with her. The nearness of her body had my dick twitching in her direction again.
Down boy.
“And was it a bad thing to end this way?” I squeezed past her to grab our bags.
Ivy pulled her hair into a ponytail and secured it with a band, then turned to face me. “No. Not a bad thing at all. In fact, these past couple days have been some of the best of my life. Thank you for everything you did for me. You really changed me in just a short amount of time, and I’m going to go home and reevaluate things. Look at my life as a single woman for the first time and really figure out whatIwant without anyone else clouding my judgment. My whole life, I’ve always swung from one relationship to the next, like a monkey swinging from the branches and never touching down. But not anymore. I’m going to take a dating sabbatical until I figure out exactly whatIwant. Just like you. And I’m going to push the envelope more and do more things that scare me.”
I grinned. “Ah. So, I rubbed off on you a bit?”
She smiled back, and my heart did that thumping it did everything she beamed at me. “Yeah. You did. Thank you for opening my eyes to a different way of living. This has been really incredible for me. I’m excited to figure out exactly what it is I want out of life.”
The train slid to a stop, and with it, my heart stopped too.
This is it. Our journey together is over.
I grabbed our bags and carried them through the train and out into the platform. Ivy followed along behind me, and when we got outside, I set her bags down.
“Do you need help getting a cab?” I asked, hoping she’d say yes so I could spend more time with her.
“I can grab one, but thank you, Ethan. Seriously. I can’t imagine what I would have done without you. I don’t even know how to thank you.”
I leaped at the opening. “Maybe you could give me your number, so when I’m back in Door County in May, I could visit you? Or you could come up and visit me?”
It had been ages since I’d been nervous with a woman, and I felt like a teenager asking a girl on a date for the first time.
Her eyes lit up. “Really? You want to see me again? I thought you didn’t do anything other than one-night stands?”
I scrubbed a hand across the back of my neck. “Yeah. I normally don’t. But I’d love to see you again if you’re open to it.”
Her smile widened. “Yeah. I am. Definitely. Hopefully by then, I’ll have my shit together, and you’ll be visiting a whole new Ivy.”
She pulled out her phone and handed it to me. I punched in my number, then sent myself a text with hers.
