a bit then and she noticed.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Ethan shrugged. He just didn’t like the image of her frantically trying with someone else.
‘I’m not very fertile—I’m sub-fertile. Isn’t that the most horrible word? It put a terrible strain on our relationship. It wasn’t just that, though, he was …’ She was about to say it didn’t matter, but Ethan hated it when she did that. ‘Vince was all for the modern working woman, or so he said, yet I was the one who was going to be the stay-home mum.’ Ethan looked at her. ‘I earned more than him, yet it was just assumed that I’d be the one to stop work.’ She saw him frown. ‘What?’ Penny asked again.
‘Why, if you’re doing all you can to have a baby, would you want to work?’
‘I love my work, I’d go crazy without it, but I would certainly slow things down. It wasn’t just that, though, there were other things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like I was starting to resent that it was always me stopping at the supermarket on the way home from work and getting dinner. Aside from the fact that I can’t have babies, I don’t think I’d make a very good wife.’
‘What’s for dinner, Penny?’
He made her smile.
‘What about you?’
‘I have no idea,’ he said, and turned and smiled at her now-frowning face on the pillow beside him. ‘I’ve never had my fertility checked.’
‘You think you’re funny, don’t you?’
‘I know I am,’ Ethan said, ‘because you’re trying really hard not to smile.’
‘I meant, have you been in a serious relationship?’
‘Apparently,’ Ethan said. ‘Though I didn’t know it at the time.’ He sighed at the memory. ‘I thought it was great, she wanted to move in …’
‘Oh.’
‘Or look for somewhere to live, or get engaged and then married and make lots of babies one day.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Caitlin. I led her on apparently, but I didn’t know that I was, I just thought we were having a good time. I didn’t realise it had to be leading somewhere—so now I make things a little more clear from the start.’ He waited, his eyes checking that he had.
‘I get it, Ethan.’ She gave him a smile and then she told him. ‘Jasmine said I should have a wild fling with you before I got pregnant.’
‘I’m that much of a sure thing, am I?’
‘Apparently,’ Penny said. ‘She thought I should forget about making babies and just enjoy myself for once.’
‘Have you ever had sex for the sake of it?’ He screwed up his face. ‘I mean, how long since you’ve had sex without trying for a baby?’
‘A very long time.’ She looked at him. ‘There was one time that I would have, but he declined.’
‘Well, maybe he was just being all male and territorial and couldn’t quite get his head around …’ He screwed up his face again, tried to spare the details. ‘You know in a few days’ time you …’
‘Might have been pregnant?’
‘No, not just that.’
Penny frowned and then got it. ‘With someone else’s baby!’ She actually laughed. ‘You are a caveman!’
‘Nope, just a normal man.’ Ethan grinned, glad to see her smile. ‘And the only one I want you frantically describing is me.’
And he was getting his words wrong, because he meant that he didn’t want to sit here and listen about her ex and her in bed, or did he mean that he wanted to give her something to frantically describe?
That wasn’t what he’d come here for.
‘I’m going to go.’
He pulled up on his elbow and gave her a kiss, though it was a bit pointless to pretend it was a friendly one, given what they’d been like, and that they were lying on the bed, but Ethan did kiss her with no intention other than to say goodbye.
Except he’d forgotten just how much he liked kissing her till he was back there, and Penny was remembering all over again too. It was so nice to be lying down being kissed by him, nicer too when a little while later his hands crept to her breasts that clearly didn’t disappoint because she could feel him harden against her thigh as he stroked.
Only this time he did what he had wanted to that time, his mouth moving down, slipping down the fabric and licking around the areola and then taking her in his mouth.
She was on her back, his expert mouth suckling her hard, and Penny was gasping, wanting to turn to get to him, to explore him too, but loath to end the bliss of his mouth.
He turned her to him, gave her other breast the same attention. Ethan, who loved breasts, actually loved that she hardly had any. Penny was grappling to pull out his top, desperate to feel his skin as his mouth sucking her breast drove her to higher pleasures.
But Ethan moved her hands away, his intention to take his time, but as his hand slid down the jut of her hips, her nightdress had ridden up and he found his hand cupping her bare bottom. ‘Hell, Penny,’ he moaned, ‘have you been walking around all this time with no knickers on?’ He blew out a breath, remembered then the reason he was there, and when Kate had said to be ready for anything, he was quite sure she hadn’t meant that. ‘Sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘Taking things too far.’
‘You’ve never taken things too far,’ Penny said. ‘You haven’t taken things far enough.’
They were at each other again, a knot of arms and legs and deep kisses, her hands going to his buckle, but he halted her.
‘Penny.’ He took her face in his hands and he wrestled with indecision, not sure if it was Hot Mess Penny he was talking to, whom he completely adored and could deal with, or Baby Making Mode Penny, who terrified him, and she got that much.
‘I’m not asking you to get me pregnant.’
‘Isn’t it too soon?’ Ethan checked.
‘Nope.’ And she thought of sex for the sake of it, and how lovely he had been and how badly she wanted the rest of that chocolate bar out of the fridge now. And so too did Ethan. They were back to kissing, only pausing to strip the other off and pray for condoms in his wallet, which, hurrah, there were.
She buried her head in his chest and smelt and felt close-up and naked Ethan. He was stunning, muscled but not too much with a smooth tanned chest and flat brown nipples that shifted from view as his mouth slid down again, only this time not to her breasts. He licked down to her stomach and he did what he
