Page 54 of On Thin Ice

We lay there for a long minute, catching our breath. Outside, a car drove past, headlights briefly sweeping across the ceiling in a golden arc before disappearing, leaving us in darkness again.

“That was incredible,” he finally whispered.

I hummed in agreement, feeling lazy and sated and strangely at peace. For once, the voices in my head—the ones that always pushed me to run, to hide, to protect myself—were silent.

Maybe Bell’s dick had magic powers. Maybe his cum had secret healing properties.

Or maybe I was just so far gone for him that even getting fucked stupid felt like the best kind of therapy.

Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to question it. Not when, for the first time I could ever remember, I wasn’t panicking about who I was.

After a few more seconds, Bell shifted. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll return the favor,” he mumbled, his voice slurred.

And then he started snoring.

I lay there, watching shadows play across his peaceful face, and thought about how deftly he’d handled me earlier. How he’d seen my panic and had given me exactly what I needed instead of the conversation he’d wanted.

He’d known, somehow, that I couldn’t handle talking about what had happened, about what Chet’s words had done to me.

Bell had known that I needed to lose myself in sensation first, to ground myself in the physical before I could face it.

The realization that he understood me so well was almost as terrifying as it was comforting.

Tomorrow, I knew, we’d have to talk. But for now, I let him sleep.

CHAPTER13

Ethan was already up and out of bed when I cracked my eyes open. I stretched my arms over my head with a yawn, a slight twinge in my ass bringing memories of the night before rushing to the surface.

The spooked look on Ethan’s face on the plane when Chet had called me a fairy. The way he’d looked about two seconds away from hyperventilating. The silence on the drive home from the airport. The way he’d shut completely down. And then how I connected with him the best way I knew how.

But now, I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. Iwouldn’tpretend. We were already doing enough of that.

Here, where there were no prying eyes, I wanted the truth.

I scratched my chest and forced myself out of bed, hitting the shower for a quick, thorough rinse before tugging on some clothes.

I found Ethan in the kitchen, standing in front of the sink. He was shirtless in a pair of low-slung black joggers, his focus fixed on the phone in his hand. Crisp autumn light cut through the window to illuminate the scar on his side—the thin, pale one that curved just under his ribs. I’d always wanted to ask about it, but never had.

“Hey.” I strolled into the room, stopping next to him to reach into the cabinet where he kept the coffee mugs, pulled one down, and filled it from the pot. My arm brushed against his shoulder, his warmth seeping through the cotton of my Aces t-shirt.

He glanced at me, then back down at his phone, his thumb brushing over the screen. “Hey.”

“You sleep okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah. You?”

“Like a baby, but you probably know that,” I said, giving him the perfect opening to talk about why he’d needed to lose himself in my body so forcefully last night.

When he didn’t take the bait, I leaned against the counter opposite him and sipped my coffee, counting the seconds to see how long he would continue ignoring me.

He finally abandoned his phone, setting it screen-side down on the counter, but his expression remained closed off, guarded. This was clearly not a man who was about to open up and talk about his feelings.

I’d tried easing us into it, giving him the space he needed, but it was time to take a different, more direct approach. “You gonna tell me what last night was all about?”

“I was hoping not to.”

“Are you serious?” I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes, earning me a flicker of a smirk that twitched his lips to the side.

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