nostrils flared as the silence stretched between them and she could feel the coiled intensity of his muscles. He wanted her. She could see that. Hell, half an hour in his company and she wanted him too.
But, unlike last time, she wanted all of him. She wanted his story and his sadness and his shadows. And she wasn’t going to settle for scraps. For some quick roll in the hay while he made love to her with dead eyes. Because having sex with Ethan had never been a onetime thing for her and she needed to protect herself better than last time.
She was here for Ama. And then she was leaving.
She was not having sex with Ethan Hunter.
Olivia pushed herself shakily to her feet. She was standing between his knees now and an image of her straddling him played in glorious Technicolor inside her head.
She took a step back. ‘Are you—?’ She cleared her throat of its sudden wobble. ‘Are you heading home soon?’
Ethan shook his head. He probably hadn’t been very capable of standing prior to Olivia touching him; he for damn sure wasn’t now. ‘I’ll sleep here tonight.’
Olivia nodded. It seemed best, considering walking had been a monumental effort. ‘Are you … will you be okay?’
‘Dandy,’ he said sarcastically, annoyed at her distant propriety—a far cry from the heat of the look they’d just exchanged.
Olivia ignored his terseness. ‘What time do you want to meet in the morning?’ she asked.
‘Be here at nine.’ His tone was dismissive and he hoped she got the message—get the hell out.
Olivia got the message. It rankled, but she didn’t want to get into anything more with him tonight. It seemed their incendiary attraction still simmered and she didn’t trust that the line between angry and passionate wouldn’t blur and they wouldn’t do something they’d both regret in the morning.
She turned on her heel and headed towards the desk, where her bag had been dumped when Ethan had fallen. She reached for it, her gaze falling on the decanter of whisky. She snatched it up. It could leave with her as well.
Out of sight, out of mind.
‘You don’t have to take it,’ he said derisively from behind her. ‘Even if I was capable of hauling my butt off this couch, I’m done with drinking tonight.’
Olivia turned, slinging the straps of her handbag over her shoulder. ‘Consider this as my way of delivering you from temptation.’ And with that she headed for the door.
Ethan tracked her progress, her clinging jeans, the swish of her honey-brown hair down the back of her coat way too fascinating for his own peace of mind.
A surge of what felt like good old-fashioned lust swept through his system.
He didn’t feel very delivered at all.
Ethan was woken by a hard shake to his shoulder who knew how many hours later? Except where there had been darkness there was now light. Way too much light.
Daylight streamed like glory from heaven through the open slats of the dark wooden blinds dressing the window under which the chesterfield sat, piercing like needles into his eyeballs.
‘Ugh,’ he groaned, shutting his eyes tight. ‘Somebody turn down the sun.’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Leo demanded, ignoring his brother’s protests as he yanked up the blind, causing a tsunami of sunlight.
Ethan groaned louder. ‘It was late,’ he said, shielding his eyes. ‘I crashed here.’
‘I should start charging you rent,’ Leo muttered.
Ethan cracked an eyelid open to find his brother lounging against the far arm of the couch. He squinted at his watch. It was six-thirty in the morning. ‘Lizzie kick you out of bed?’
Leo grinned, which was way too much for Ethan at this hour of the morning. ‘She’s not sleeping very well,—has to keep getting up to go to the bathroom. I’m trying to give her as much room as possible.’
Ethan was pleased his brother had found love, but such happiness was a bit hard to take—especially hard on the heels of his less than stellar reunion with Olivia. He sat and swung his legs over the edge of the couch, pleased to feel the strength back in his quads.
‘You look like hell,’ Leo said cheerfully.
‘Gee … thanks.’ Compared to last night he felt like a million dollars.
‘You going to head home or shower here?’
Ethan ran his hands through his hair. ‘I’ll use your bathroom.’ He always kept spare clothes in his office, and a private bathroom was one of the perks of being the director—or related to him anyway.
Ethan owned the clinic jointly with his brother, but had gladly ceded control to him when he’d decided to leave everything tainted with the Hunter name behind and put his medical degree to good use in the army. Leo had been angry that he was skipping out on his family responsibilities, especially with the clinic in such trouble after his father’s scandal, and had spent the next ten years trying to involve his younger brother in the day-to-day running of the clinic.
But Ethan hadn’t cared. He’d not wanted any part of lipo and boob jobs on a bunch of movie stars. He’d been doing real work and Leo could do whatever the hell he liked to salvage the professional and financial reputation of the once renowned Hunter Clinic.
And then he’d been blown all to hell and Leo had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. An offer he’d desperately needed to stop him from sliding into an abyss of self-pity.
Leo pushed up off the arm. ‘When you’re done I’ll buy you breakfast.’
Three quarters of an hour later they were sitting inside a nearby café, tucking into a traditional English breakfast. They were both on their second cup of coffee.
‘So. You saw Olivia last night, I take it?’
Ethan looked up from his plate. ‘Yes. Nicely orchestrated,’ he said with derision.
Completely unabashed, Leo said, ‘How did that go?’
‘How do you think it went?’
‘Not as well as I’d hoped, by the sounds of it.’
‘Let’s just say I wasn’t in the best shape when she arrived. She pretty much accused me of being one step away from the old man and then chewed my ear off about not doing my physio.’
Leo laughed. ‘Still the same blunt old Olivia, huh?’
Ethan grunted, then took a sip of his coffee. ‘She is and she isn’t. There’s a … reserve about her … she’s not her usual vivacious self.’
‘Maybe that’s just being around you?’
Ethan contemplated his brother’s observation. Maybe it was. Anyway … it didn’t
