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‘Not really,’ Ethan admitted.
‘What about with your father?’
He felt a touch of discomfort at the personal questions, but then he remembered that last night he had asked her the same.
Only it wasn’t just her question that had caused discomfort to spike in him.
It was the answer.
‘Not really.’
Merida looked up and met his dark eyes.
‘We’re too similar,’ Ethan explained.
‘Then I like him already.’
He hadn’t been expecting that. Ethan hadn’t even expected to give such an honest response, but lying in bed, relaxed and turned on, he was being more open than he’d ever been.
He lowered his head and Merida stretched her neck so that their lips met. She was loving his morning kiss. The scratch of his mouth on her chin and the promise it held... God, his kisses were potent.
Their tongues were lazy but their responses were not. She felt as if he’d hit the accelerator, because with just the stroke of his hand on her naked breast she wanted to give in to his touch and climb on top of him.
But Merida hauled herself back from the edge and peeled herself from his mouth. ‘I have to get ready...’
‘Pity.’
She disengaged herself from his warm strong body and climbed out of bed.
He saw the bruises his mouth had made last night, and the sight of them on her thighs served as such an explicit reminder it went straight to his groin—she smiled at the lift in the sheet.
‘Want me to take care of that for you?’ Merida drawled, and when he blinked at her sudden forthrightness she laughed. ‘Not really. I’m just getting into the part for my audition.’
‘Tease.’
Ethan watched her walk off and seriously considered following her into the shower. But he knew that time was tight and that this audition was important to her.
So he lay there, thinking not just about last night but about the one ahead. He realised it wasn’t just the night he wanted, but the day too.
Ethan checked his phone. There was still no news from his father, but he called Helene and, for the first time in a very long time, cancelled his work day.
Merida took her time showering. Though she should have been rushing, in her tiny shoebox of an apartment her shower ran hot and cold at intervals. This morning she stood under jets of delicious, perfectly temperature-controlled water, lathered her hair with a shampoo that smelt of lemongrass and soaped her body, tender from Ethan’s ministrations, with a gel that smelt heavenly.
What happened next? She couldn’t help but wonder... She really was so very new to all this.
Out of the shower, she squeezed the water from her hair with a thick white towel and then pulled on a fluffy white robe before heading out to find Ethan still in bed and a table laid with breakfast. The drapes had been opened and she looked out over a foggy Central Park.
There were light-as-air pancakes with mascarpone and cinnamon, and strong coffee in a takeaway cup. If she’d ordered herself Merida could not have chosen better.
‘What?’ she asked when she felt him looking at her as she took mouthfuls of food while going to the wardrobe. Sure enough, there was her trench coat and her bag.
‘Youareon the Pill?’
‘Yes,’ Merida said. She usually took it each night, before bed, but she’d be taking it the very second she got back to her apartment. ‘I use it so that I don’t have to worry when I’m performing.’
‘Merida...’ He was about to lecture her—tell her that, in future, she shouldn’t have sex without protection.
Ethan wasn’t being a hypocrite; he hadneverrisked it until last night. And he wanted to point out that men were basically liars, and that she should—But there his thought pattern halted, because he could not stomach the thought of her with anyone else.
