“Nice. I remember when you brought me to your office. But don’t worry about me being at your house, my expectations are very much realistic right now.” The lie comes easily. My skin prickles all over imagining Ethan putting those hands on other women. Which is ridiculous, because his list of bed mates is most likely record breaking, he’s had nearly 300 years to rack it up.
Ethan runs a finger over the velvety material of his armchair. “What if I said I wanted you to have unrealistic expectations of me?” he asks.
I ignore his comment. “What’s with the flirting Ethan? I thought you hated my guts for disobeying you last night?” I put as much snark into my words as possible. It’s the only defence I can grasp for, because I’m two seconds away from mounting him where he sits, he looks oh so appealing lounging lazily in that armchair.
“I caught a whiff of you leaving the shower, and for some reason it’s caused me to forget about your bad behaviour. Also, I can see that you aren’t wearing a bra underneath that cardigan.”
I instinctively cross my arms over my chest. “Obviously I’m not wearing one, I gave you all my clothes, remember?” Red creeps treacherously across my cheeks.
Ethan’s gaze drifts slowly down to my pale bare feet before rising up again, as though taking in every curve of my body. “Come here,” he whispers.
Oh wonderful. I feel myself stepping forward against my own better judgement. Several beats later I’m standing between his open legs. He reaches up and places a hand on my lower back, then lets it drift down over my bottom which he squeezes before resting on the back of my thigh.
He takes advantage of his hold and pulls my leg into him. I lean my knee on top of his, one leg still standing firmly on the ground. A final vestige of my self-control. He takes his other hand and trails it down my arm, moves to the elastic of the leggings I’m wearing and slips beneath the fabric, tracing his fingers over the skin of my abdomen.
“Will we help each other to forget, just for a little while?” he asks softly, his dark blue eyes making contact with mine. Electricity fizzles between us. No amount of will power could help me to succeed in dragging myself away from him. Some kind of force encourages me to lean my body towards him.
He gently takes hold of my wrist, pulling me down so that my ear is just above his lips. “I want to watch you die in my bed,” his smooth voice tells me, promising me heaven. I instantly realise he’s not talking about killing me. Although the kind of death he’s talking about could very well end me. I have never been more turned on in my entire life. Or more afraid.
“As tempting as that sounds,” I answer hoarsely, “your sister kindly reminded me that she has excellent hearing, and pardon me, but I’m not the kind of girl who enjoys an audience.”
A slow, seductive smile shapes itself on Ethan’s lips, he pulls me even closer to him now, our mouths almost touch, our breaths mingle. “She just left,” he replies, eyes wandering over my lips.
“You’re lying,” I say nervously, because if Delilah really has gone out then I’m at the mercy of Ethan with his darkly beautiful eyes and tousled hair.
He motions to the window. “Go and see for yourself.” He lets go of me then, and after a moment of hesitation I run to the window. I peer out just in time to see Delilah pulling away from the driveway in a sleek black saloon car.
A shiver of fear slithers down my spine, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a pleasurable sort of fear. “Isn’t she supposed to stay indoors?” I call over to Ethan, and my heart thumps when I turn a fraction to find that he’s directly behind me.
I can feel his breath on the sensitive skin below my ear. “She’s gone back to the club to give Lucas a piece of her mind if I had to guess, she’ll be safe there.”
“You mentioned something earlier about taking me home,” I reply in a shaky voice. “Or I can even call a taxi, save you the hassle,” I add, thinking that I need to go to Finn’s.
His body presses flush against mine, enclosing me against the window ledge. One hand latches onto the top button of the cardigan I’m wearing and flicks it open.
“Relax, I can smell your anxiety. I have no intention of biting you Tegan. That is, of course, unless you want me to,” he laughs, low and intimate.
I breathe out heavily, and Ethan continues to slowly unbutton his way down my cardigan. “This is a bad idea,” I tell him, “I’m leaving in a week or so Ethan, and I don’t want to know what I’ll be missing after I leave.”
“Why not?” he asks, before pressing his lips to a particularly sensitive spot below my ear, it draws a sigh out of me that I hadn’t expected.
“Because…” I make an attempt to answer, he has the whole cardigan open now and is currently running his fingers from my neck all the way down to my stomach. I gather all of my strength. “Because if I sleep with you I’ll probably end up falling in love with you, and I don’t want my heart broken again.” I feel like a fickle bitch thinking of the fact that I really could fall for Ethan, even though I know that he kills. His beauty is just so overwhelming.
At this Ethan’s arm encircles my waist and tightens around my hips. “Wouldn’t that only be fair, since you broke mine,” he answers, his lips are on my hair and he seems to inhale sharply, taking in my scent.
“I don’t think you’re capable of having a broken heart Ethan,” I say, and instantly regret being so harsh.
He pulls me into him, not at all gently. “You need to understand that humans aren’t the only beings capable of love,” he tells me, and there’s no mistaking the hurt in his words.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“You might choose not to believe it Tegan, but when you left, something in me changed. No longer did I want to sleep with women simply for the gratification of the act. Somehow every time I tried I would only think of what it felt like to touch you, and nothing else seemed to compare.”
I close my eyes, and a solitary tear leaks out. I hate myself for hurting him like that, but I didn’t exactly have much of a choice in the matter. At least I thought I didn’t, there was no way for me to foresee the war that would take place after Theodore had been banished.
Before I even realise what’s happening, Ethan flips me around so that I’m facing him, he notices my tear and kisses it away. Then he draws back and locks gazes with me. I almost forget every worry I ever had in this moment, too consumed by how it feels to have his full attention centred on me.
Then he speaks, “I do not think you will need to sleep with me to fall in love with me, fata frumoasa, I think you already do, you just can’t admit it to yourself.” It never fails to make me melt when he calls me a beautiful girl in Romanian.