machine at times, but his mouth was slowly turning her back into a woman as he lingered at each step. Penny closed her eyes in bliss as his mouth moved lower still and with each measured stroke she lost a little more control but gained mounting pleasure. Her hands pulled tight on his hair as Ethan revelled in the taste of her. The scent that had been alluring him for weeks was now his to savour and he carried on kissing her deeply there as she throbbed to his mouth and he returned her to herself. A new self.
‘Ethan.’ Penny lay catching her breath, went to say something, she didn’t know what. She wanted to sit up and face him, wanted to go down on him. It took a moment to realise it wasn’t her decision to make. He was over her, sheathed and poised at her entrance.
‘Love-thirty,’ he said, sexy and smiling and not a moment too soon for Penny, through with being patient.
She moaned as he filled her. Ethan folded his arms behind her head so that her face was right up to him, and she had forgotten how lovely sex could be. Or rather, Penny amended as he moved deep inside her, she’d never really known just how lovely sex could be. Then, as Ethan shifted tempo she made one final amendment before she lost rational thought. She’d never known sex could be so hot.
She didn’t get poor-Penny sex; she got the full bull in Ethan. A surprise birthday present that had her as wild as him. One of his arms moved down to her hips and he practically lifted her off the bed each time he thrust into her. Had Penny ever had any doubt as to all those times she’d thought him aroused, they were gone, because every missed opportunity, every subdued thought Ethan had had seemed to be being banished now over and over deep in her centre.
His want, his desire, the absence of tentativeness had Penny flooded in warmth, her legs wrapping around him, her skin scalding, grinding into him as she tipped into climax.
‘Penny …’ Ethan was trying to hold on, but feeling her shatter, feeling her jolt as if she’d been stunned, by the time he felt her strong, rapid clenches Ethan was on the way to meeting them.
Almost dizzy, he collapsed on top of her and then moved to the side, pulling her with him, more than a bit bewildered about what had happened, because Ethan loved sex but had never had sex like that, and while going down on her his intention had been to be gentle.
‘Did we land on the beach?’ Ethan asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Penny admitted. ‘I can’t actually see.’ She felt a gurgle of laughter swirl inside her, only it wasn’t laughter, she realised, just this glimpse of being free. ‘And it’s actually thirty-fifteen now,’ Penny said. ‘You forfeited the last game if I remember rightly.’
He’d had no idea what to expect when he’d arrived tonight at her door, but felt as if, in that small conversation, he’d met the real Penny, the one that he’d sometimes glimpsed. Or was it more that it was a different him? Usually Ethan was snoring his head off right about now, but instead it was Penny dozing as he went and dimmed the lights before climbing into bed beside her.
‘Happy birthday, Penny.’
And as she lay there, feeling his big body beside her, she thought that it really shouldn’t have been a happy birthday; it had had every ingredient for it not to be, except it had just turned into her most memorable, possibly favourite one.
‘Thank you,’ Penny said, and then turned over to him. ‘You were right—it wasn’t the drugs.’
‘IT’S MY MUM.’
Unfortunately Penny hadn’t come into the bathroom to join him in the shower later the next morning. They were up to deuce after a much more tender lovemaking session and Penny was fixing some breakfast while Ethan showered when the intercom buzzed. ‘I know this sounds like I’m eighteen …’
‘You want me to hide?’ Ethan grinned as she pulled on her nightdress and then her dressing gown.
‘Not hide, just don’t come out of the bedroom,’ Penny said. ‘She’ll tell Jasmine and, honestly, by the time we get back to work they’ll all have us engaged or something.’
‘Mum!’ Penny opened the door and stood as her mum gave her a cuddle.
‘I’m so sorry, Penny, I wish I’d been here. I told you not to try till after my trip.’
And there were so many things she could have said to that, but Penny buttoned her lip and forced a smile.
‘How was the cruise?’
‘It was amazing!’ It must have been because Louise looked amazing! She was suntanned and relaxed-looking and wearing new clothes and jewellery, and her hair was a fabulous caramel colour and very well cut. ‘I had the best time, Penny. You’d love it!’
‘I think I might,’ Penny said, because till her mother had set off, she’d never even considered one, but she was seeing the benefits now.
‘All you do is eat and be pampered—I’ve got so much to tell you!’
And Ethan lay on the bed, reading magazines, listening as Penny did her best to limit his exposure to her mother’s love life, because Penny kept asking her to describe islands, but her mum just kept talking about a man she had met. ‘I go all the way to Greece and Bradley’s from Melbourne and he’s so romantic. One night—’
‘Hold on a minute, Mum,’ Penny interrupted. ‘I’m just going to get changed.’
She brought Ethan in a coffee, which she would pretend she’d left in her room, not that her mother would notice. She was way too busy discussing Bradley and comparing the differences with Penny’s father.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s interesting.’
It was, and it became more so because Penny could not stop her mother from talking, and Ethan heard how useless her father had been and that maybe Louise had been a bit harsh in her summing up of all men to her daughters, because Bradley was nothing like that at all.
They were serious, in fact, he heard her tell Penny.
‘It’s a month, Mum.’
‘And I’m old enough to know what I like and that this is right.’
‘Well, why not just see how it goes now you’re back?’ He could hear Penny’s wariness and then her mother’s exasperation.
‘Can’t you just be happy for me, Penny?’
‘Of course I am.’
But they all knew it was qualified and then the strain was back in Penny’s voice, especially when her mother asked how she felt about losing the baby.
‘It wasn’t a baby, Mum! I got my period.’ Ethan closed his eyes. Kate had been right—it was different for everyone, because Kate had had photos and named every embryo. ‘It just didn’t work.’
‘Okay, Penny.’
They chatted some more and then with Penny promising to
