I don’t even want sex.
It was only Ethan too-good-to-resist Ash that made me forget that.
For one night.
‘Yeah.’ I nod, but it’s weak with uncertainty. ‘Look, Ethan...’ I sigh almost apologetically and a small part of my brain wonders how often Ethan Ash gets rejected. ‘I’m not looking for a relationship. The other night was great, but it was just sex. Really, really good sex...’
He nods, a droll expression on his face. ‘That’s why this is perfect.’
‘Why? What?’
‘I don’t want a relationship either.’
He sips his drink, keeping his eyes latched to mine the whole time. He replaces it on the table without breaking eye contact.
‘I just want to fuck you.’
A lightning bolt of anticipation flashes down my spine. It is so tempting. And, hell, I want what he says he wants. I want to rip my clothes off and beg him to take me right there, on the manicured lawn and beneath the sultry grey sky.
But can we do that? Can we really just fuck without getting our emotions, all of ourselves, involved? I don’t know if I have what it takes for that.
‘It’s too complicated.’ I hear the prim rejection, and somewhere a part of me is glad that I have at least a degree of common sense.
‘There’s nothing complicated about what we feel,’ he contradicts.
I shake my head. ‘I can’t get involved.’
‘Why not?’ His eyes narrow speculatively and he’s tense suddenly. ‘Are you with someone else?’
My heart turns over at the very idea. I shake my head, but the memories of my affair are too strong inside me. Being cast as ‘the other woman’ without my knowledge and without my consent. It is a wound I will probably always carry. It doesn’t matter to Jeremy’s wife that I had no fucking clue he was married. That he was a dad. I slept with her husband. I got engaged to the father of her children.
I broke up a family.
Guilt colours my cheeks and I feel the warning sting of tears out of nowhere. I push them back.
‘Look...’ He sighs again. ‘I don’t know if you heard about it—I mean, it was all over the news at the time. I broke up with my girlfriend a few months back.’
His eyes show torment when they meet mine: a torment that is matched by my swirling gut.
I tilt my head to the side, trying to remember. My Poldark knowledge is exceptional, so too my knowledge of Westeros family trees, but real-world drama...?
‘It was completely messed up.’ He shakes his head, as if dismissing tormenting thoughts of his own. ‘The night I met you I’d just found out she got engaged.’
‘And you were pissed?’ I murmur.
It’s not a question, but he answers anyway. ‘That’s an understatement. I wanted to tear the world apart.’
Something strange shifts inside me. ‘How long were you together?’
He is quiet, and my experience with Jeremy reminds me that this is a sign of secrecy. That he’s hiding something from me.
‘Forget it,’ I say sharply. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not getting in the middle of it.’
‘She’s engaged to someone else,’ he says throatily, and I hear the emotional rawness in the words. ‘There is no middle.’
‘But you’re still in love with her?’
The question catches him off-guard. It’s as if he realises the inappropriateness of talking to me, the woman he’s most recently-fucked, about the woman he loves.
‘Hell, no. Right now I think hate would be a better word to describe what I feel for her.’
I discount that. I know that pain. I’ve felt it. ‘You can love at the same time as you hate.’
‘Speaking from experience?’ he prompts.
‘Yes.’ It’s both an admission and a warning. I’m shutting the conversation down.
He seems to understand that. ‘Not with Sienna. Not after this.’
Sienna?
‘Sienna Di Giorgio?’
Now I remember. It was in the papers at the time, and on news websites, and people were gossiping about it. It was a big deal to people who cared about that kind of thing—which was almost everyone.
‘Have you spoken to her?’
‘Nah.’
Jealousy curdles inside me. ‘Maybe that’s what you need? To get some closure?’
He laughs. ‘Talking to Sienna isn’t going to give me “closure”.’ And he stands up, his manner completely animalistic, wild, untamed, as he prowls to my side of the table. ‘I want to fuck you.’
I startle at the bald-faced honesty of the statement.
‘Rebound sex?’ I prompt, some sense of self-preservation forcing me to face up to what he wants before this goes any further.
His eyes glint and I feel the determination of his heartbreak. I recognise it.
‘Something like that.’
And I want to agree. To acquiesce. To give him all of myself.
But is there danger here? Am I being foolish?
‘Just sex?’
‘Just sex.’ He nods, reaching for me and pulling me to stand.
We are body to body...so close. I hesitate and he strikes, moving even closer, speaking low and throaty.
‘I...’
He brings his mouth to my ear.
‘Want...’
He sucks my lobe between his teeth and then bites down on it. I pull in a breath.
‘To...’
His fingers find the bottom of my dress and push it up my thighs until it’s at my hips.
‘Fuck...’
His hands curl around my ass and thrust me forward, holding me tight to his arousal. He grinds his hips and I groan as I remember how good he feels inside me.
‘You.’
He hasn’t even said the last word before my fingers
