Page 63 of Room for Us

My fingers stiffen in his. I plaster on a smile. “Will you be coming down for dinner or should I bring up a plate?”

Ethan frowns. “Customer service voice. Try again.”

I laugh, discordant to my ears, and my face flushes. “Sorry. Just not sure what to say. Can I get you something now?”

His frown deepens and he sits up. “What did I do?”

“W-what?”

Then his expression clears. “I’m sorry, Zoey. I’ve been neglecting you.”

I’m horrified. “No, no, that’s not—”

His palm cups my chin, silencing me. Our faces close, I can see the drips of yellow shooting outward from his pupils across a lattice of green.

“I forgot,” he says, almost curtly. “You’ve never… you don’t know how I get.” He sighs. “I wish I could write like Stephen King—two thousand words a day and call it quits. But I’ve never been able to. It’s like possession for me. Or a river, and I’m in a canoe with no oars. There’s no getting off.”

Escaping eye contact, I glance down. “I get it. The river takes you where it wants until it spits you out.”

He nods, relieved.

But I don’t get it. Not really.

“Zoey.”

I look up at my name, spoken urgently. Ethan’s grip on my chin tightens minutely. “I want you here. I need you here. Don’t pull away from me, please. I know I’m a selfish asshole, asking you to do this, but”—he shakes his head, like he doesn’t understand himself what he’s asking—“knowing you’re here, in the house, with me, it keeps me anchored. You’re giving me something to come back to.”

He has no idea what he’s saying. What havoc those words could wreck on my heart, if I let them.

But here, now, with all that brilliance and intensity focused at me, I feel like the only woman in the world. I feel important to him. And it scares me as much as it thrills me.

We don’t make choices, sacrifices, without knowing how badly they might turn out. Even if we ignore the dangers, they bleat away in the recesses of our being. We always know. But the worst-case scenarios rarely stop us. I knew it was a mistake when I married Chris. Deep down, I knew we weren’t right for each other, that I was operating from fear rather than love.

I don’t know if this moment hinges on fear or love, if the latter even applies. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

But the truth remains—I can’t walk away from him.

“I’m here, Ethan.” I crack my first genuine smile of the day. “I live here.”

He bows toward me, our foreheads meeting with gentle pressure. “Thank God.”

This time, when his fingers find my chin and lift it, the touch ripples through me, undermining my attempt at emotional distance. His lips graze mine, a question that I answer with my own lips against his, hard and needy. He falls back, taking me with him to the bed, his hands diving beneath the waistband of my leggings to palm my ass and pull me against him.

“I missed this,” he mutters against my neck, then surrenders to his need and mine. He nips at my throat, yanking down the loose neck of my tee to access my collarbone.

I can’t get his shirt off fast enough. Nothing is enough with this man. I want to take everything he has to give and return it tenfold. There’s a savage edge to our movements. We aren’t gentle, not that we’ve ever been—there’s too much passion between us—but that in itself is a kind of magic.

The magic of letting go.

When he tugs at my clothes, I push his arms to the bed and rise up. “No,” I say. “I want to look at you. Taste you. It’s my turn.”

His blooming smirk dies in a wave of pure masculine anticipation. He wants my mouth on him as badly as I do.

“By all means,” he growls.

I start slow, at his throat, and work my way systematically down his chest, paying special attention to his nipples, each scattered freckle, the dips inside his hips, the valleys and peaks of his abdomen. Belly button and the silky trail of hair leading me down, down. His body is near-rigid, a storm held in check. By the time I reach the waist of his jeans, his erection presses hard against the zipper.

I free him carefully into my hands, and my mouth waters. He’s perfectly proportioned to his height, which is to say he’s almost too much for me. But I can’t get enough. Will I ever? Who could ever compare to him? I ignore the internal warning. No more thinking.

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