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Hehadrescued us, but he’d also pretended to be a hooker. But I couldn’t blame him for the games he played when I’d so easily fallen into needing sex.
I’d been a starving man, and he’d been an all-you-could-eat buffet of lust.
“Dad, you’re doing it again.” Ben elbowed me then rolled his eyes.
“I was thinking important things,” I hedged.
Ethan raised a single eyebrow in question. I couldn’t hold his gaze, so I talked about how the fajitas were awesome, that the ice cream we found at the back of the freezer was cold (go figure), and that the cocoa was sweet. Ben kept rolling his eyes at my inane chatter, but he was smiling while tidying the kitchen, which was a miracle. He had a shower, dressed in his PJs, and I read him a book. Then, with Ethan locked in the comms room, I tucked my son into his side of the bed in my room. He’d demanded we stay together after he arrived, and I would never say no—in fact, I was damn pleased he’d asked me.
We’re safe in the same room.
I padded back out to the kitchen, restless, not able to see in the comms room with its shut door, and I turned off all the lights apart from the one over the stove, relishing the peace and knowing I had to sit down and think things through. I finished the rest of the cocoa we’d made—a weakness of mine—and rinsed the mug before placing it in the rack, all the while lost in my head, thinking about Ben, and hearings, and cocoa, and the best fajitas I’d ever tasted.
I turned to head for my room and walked straight into a brick wall.
“Sorry—”
“I was just—”
We both stopped talking, and I blinked up at Ethan, waiting for him to talk. Instead, he stared at me before raising a hand and brushing my bangs away from my eyes. His touch was so familiar, a heat in his expression that made me want more, and I think I moved to do something—god knows what—only he steadied me with a hand to my shoulder.
“I wish I didn’t want to taste you again,” he murmured.
“Huh?” I couldn’t get my head straight. Should I understand the subtext here? Should I stick to my principles? What was he saying, exactly? Was he using me again? Would he fuck me the way he’d done before? I was hard, and I was so close to him I could smell the spices on his skin. I was so gone that if he bent me over the nearest surface, I’d stay there and demand that he—
“I can’t,” he whispered, although he’d moved enough I could take a small step and I’d be pressed against him. Was he hard? Was he capable of something like sex outside of his job? Where did I fit in?
“What is happening?” I asked in a whisper.
He sighed then, cradled my face, and rested his forehead against mine, and I knew there wouldn’t be any kissing right now. He’d decided for us both, and I should be relieved. Right?
“We need to talk,” he murmured.
“About what?”
“About what I did to you, and about what I want to do with you again.”
Oh shit!
He wanted to talk about what he’d done. He wanted to do it again.
A surge of lust caught tight in my chest, wrapped itself around my guilt so I couldn’t breathe.
“Huh?” Coherency had fled.
“First, I wanted to apologize again, because—”
“Jesus Christ!” Now I’d heard it all. About how I was a means to an end, that he was sorry, blah, blah. “Stop fucking apologizing for fucking me! I’m not some innocent who you fucking defiled. I don’t need sympathy or apology. I need more.” I slammed a hand over my mouth as my temper spilled out of me. I didn’t swear. I was the calm one in the room; I was the one people looked to for how tobecalm. I’d been so buttoned up and proper my entire life, but one night of being fucked and I was cursing and snapping and losing my shit and telling him I needed more sex like some kid who couldn’t keep it in his pants. I needed perspective on this, and I needed it stat.
“It’s okay.” Ethan placed a hand over mine as he spoke, then released it when I stepped away from him. “I won’t apologize again, although you have to know how bad I feel that… ” He scrubbed at his hair and twisted his fingers through it. Yeah, I knew. I knew how sorry he was to have touched me because he kept freaking telling me. Who would want a serious accountant who’d kept his sexual identity a secret for so long that he sometimes thought he’d imagined he wanted sex at all, let alone with men?
“Shit,” I murmured as anxiety raised its ugly head. “Shit,” I repeated, and took another step away until the backs of my knees met the sofa and I slumped to sit down.
For the longest time, Ethan stared at me, examining me as if I was a puzzle to solve. His frown deepened, his lips thinned, and I did my best to hold his steady gaze until I couldn’t anymore.
“Okay, so this is me not apologizing.” Ethan took the chair opposite me, settling into the leather and sighing. “I’m s—not going to apologize again, but maybe I can make you understand what I did and why I did it?”
“There’s no explanation you can give me that justifies what you did. None.”
