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They’d been going around in this circle—Eloise trying to keep her distance and Deborah trying to reel her back in—ever since Eloise had first announced her intention to move out of state but somehow it always surprised her. Maybe it was the lengths Deborah was willing to go to, the wildness of the excuses she was willing to fabricate out of thin air.
“This is different. They tried to rob an armored truck, for goodness’ sake. Next they’ll be robbing banks and where will that put you? Half a step away from danger, that’s where. If you were behaving sensibly?—”
“I’m always behaving sensibly.” Eloise’s eyes were still locked on Ethan, and she saw him tip his head skeptically. “As I told you last time, I’m perfectly safe and perfectly boring.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry, Mother, I really need to go. It’s late and I need to wake up early in the morning.”
Ethan managed to stay quiet long enough for Eloise to get her mother off the phone but the call made her jumpy. Just hearing Deborah’s voice was enough to make her feel guilty about what she had allowed to happen between them.
“Your mind is a million miles away again,” he observed, watching her closely as she hung up the phone and dropped her face into her hands.
“She makes me question every decision I’ve ever made,” Eloise admitted. “Nothing I’ve ever done is good enough for her.”
Ethan, already at home in his usual spot on her couch, pulled her into his lap. “Forget about her,” he said. He kissed her once, firmly and decisively. “You can’t live your life for her. You’re enough for your friends. Enough for me. Enough for yourself. You don’t need to be anything else.”
They hadn’t talked about what this was—what they were doing or what it meant to them—but his words were soothing. She meant something to him, there was no doubt in her mind that at least that much was true. It was in the way he looked at her, the way he pulled her close to him in his sleep and held her like she was something precious that he needed to protect.
It made it easy for her to sink into him, to find her solace in the taste of him and the warmth of his embrace. He was able to read her well enough by now to know when she needed him to be gentle and when she wanted to feel the scraping graze of his teeth on her as he nibbled at her lips and let his hands roam over now-familiar curves.
She didn’t need kindness after dealing with her mother. She needed distraction and Ethan was happy to provide it. Every time before this, he had let her lead him upstairs and waited while she carefully closed the curtains before making love to her.
But not this time. Her eyes flew open when he began to work at the small buttons on her silk blouse.
“What—”
“No one can see you.”
She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the windows facing the street. The blinds were drawn, and the curtains closed, but she still felt exposed in a way she never had in the bedroom. Kissing him on the couch had been one thing, but she knew they weren’t in that place anymore. If he started touching her here, she knew where that would lead.
“Someone might come to the door.”
He finished opening the line of buttons and pushed the silk down over her shoulders. One large hand came up to cup her breast as he shook his head. “Then we won’t answer it. We’re busy.”
“You’re busy,” she protested, but it sounded weak even to her and her fingers were already fisted greedily in his hair. “I’m trying to get you to be busy in the perfectly good bed upstairs.”
He flicked the clasp of her bra open in response and grinned at her small indignant huff. “Live on the wild side just a little and I’ll show how perfectly good the couch downstairs can be.”
Eloise chewed on her bottom lip as his thumb traced patient circles around her hardening nipple. If she really wanted to go upstairs, she knew he’d take her, but Ethan had a way of tempting her to push her own boundaries. She was a little scandalized, yes. Worried, certainly, about being seen and feeling a little guilty at the impropriety of being nude in any room that wasn’t her bedroom or bathroom.
All the shame that she realized suddenly came from her mother.
He was giving her the chance to reject that small, judgmental voice in her mind that so often sounded like the woman who’d raised her, and instead listen to her own desires.
“Okay,” she agreed quietly, nodding more to reassure herself than him. “We can stay here.”
“Yeah?” His smile was mischievous as he waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively. “You’re gonna let me fuck you here?”
“Ethan.” She groaned it, his name an admonition as embarrassed heat flooded her cheeks. She should be used to it by now, but he always found a way to fluster her, like he could sense exactly what words would do the trick.
He’d managed it at least once every time they’d been together since the morning she’d woken up in his bed to find him already awake and watching her with lust in his eyes. Her vague plan to slip out unnoticed had been abandoned, a blush spreading rapidly as he described in detail how beautiful she looked in the early morning light. It had been impossible for her to leave after that, and she’d found she had no regrets when he’d started their day by pushing into her and driving her to two orgasms before she’d even had her first cup of coffee. She’d never let a man see her with her hair tousled or makeup smudged but it felt natural with Ethan.
She’d never let a man peel off all her clothes and pull her onto his lap in her living room either, but somehow this, too, seemed inevitable. He pulled things from her that she hadn’t known existed and made it seem like they’d been there all along.
Ethan didn’t seem to mind her distraction as he stripped her down to her bare skin. Her frequent glances over her shoulder and the warmth of her blushes only seemed to amuse him. He liked keeping her off balance and watching her squirm, something that might have bothered her if it hadn’t been for her own arousal.
She worried for a moment that one of them would have to run upstairs for a condom but he pulled one out of his wallet. It wasn’t the best storage place and she’d lecture him about that later, but for now she decided it was good enough. As sexually active as she’d bet he was before he met her, it was unlikely the thing had been in there for long. That caused a little twinge of jealousy but he was already moving to shift her into place and she forgot about anything but the press of him between her thighs.
