Page 47 of Claim to Fame

His cock kicked behind his zipper at the idea of her listening to some of the scenes he had recorded. Had she touched herself to his voice?

She doesn’t know it’s you.

He couldn’t decide if he liked that fact or hated it.

It didn’t matter. He had a job to do.

Ethan put the headphones on and hit play. His own voice in a low, aristocratic British accent filled his ears.

“You will submit to me, mea dulcis, on your knees, on your back. Any way I desire you. Every way. You will know what it is to be mated to the dragon duke, to surrender your body and heart to my keeping. And when you have done that, little one, oh how I shall reward you.”

Ethan paused the recording and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, because now all he could think about was Hannah on her knees, Hannah with her plush mouth and her soft curves and the tight clench of her body around his. Hannah, opening herself to him in every way possible, and all the ways he could reward her for that gift.

All day he’d been thinking about finishing what they started in the bookstore. He pulled off his headphones and closed out the recording software with one hand as he worked the fly of his jeans open with the other. He was already hard and leaking at the thought of her, at the memory of sliding between her thighs and feeling her come apart beneath him. As he took himself in hand, stroking roughly, he let himself imagine, just for a moment, what it would be like to have Hannah for real—not passing moments in hotel rooms, but all of her.

I want to know you, Ethan Hart. Even the messy, sordid parts.

Her words came back to him like a punch to the chest and his hand moved faster. What would it be like to be known like that, to peel himself open for her and have her do the same? What would it take for Hannah to surrender not just her body, but her heart as well?

The images came faster now: Hannah against a bookshelf grinding against his thigh. Hannah spread out before him in the hotel room, waiting for him to taste her. The scrape of her nails along his back as he pistoned into her. The quivering in her thighs when he found the right angle. The way she cried out his name when she came.

Hannah listening to his audiobook, her fingers working her clit, but this time, knowing it was his voice.

He wanted hazy Sunday mornings spent in bed and rainy afternoons wrapped in each other’s arms. He wanted to be the man who made her come, to help her see how goddamn gorgeous she was, to fill her with his release and fall asleep still inside her.

He came with her name on his lips and visions of Hannah reaching for him in the night, trusting him, choosing him. As the orgasm receded and he hastily cleaned himself up, he tried to hold on to that vision of a life he’d been afraid to want for so long, one he thought he’d already missed out on. His eyes fell on the open script on his screen.Body and heart… oh how I shall reward you.

Hannah may not trust him with her heart—not yet at least—but she’d never had any trouble trusting him with her body. Maybe it was time to remind her, to give her a taste of how sweet surrender could be.

∞∞∞

“There are no new pictures of you online,” Micah said for the third time at least. Even through the phone, Hannah could sense his growing impatience. “It was probably just a Storm Chaser.”

“Jackson hates when they call his fans that,” she said without thinking.

“I don’t really give a damn what Jackson hates right now,” Micah said. “The premiere is in a week. Keep laying low until then. No one knows you’re in Rhode Island, I promise.”

“You’re right. I’m sure you’re right.”

“I’ve made you a reservation at a hotel near the theater for the premiere,” he continued.

“Why? I’ll just stay—” She broke off, remembering the photograph snapped through her living room window. “Right. A hotel it is.”

“You’ll need a date to walk the carpet with you and play nice with Jackson, to show you’ve both moved on but are still friendly.”

Hannah glanced across the mall food court to where Tessa, Kyla, and Sabrina sat finishing their lunch. Kyla tried to wave her over. They’d taken her to the mall in Providence to help her find a dress and so far, all she’d done was talk on her phone, but Hannah held up a finger and turned her back on the group as she spoke to Micah. “I guess I could ask Leonard if he wants to go together,” she said, referring to another member of theBridget Jones’ Musicalcast.

“Leonard is bringing his husband,” Micah replied. “It’s their first appearance since the wedding.”

“Of course,” Hannah said, “I forgot.”

“And bringing a gay man as your date doesn’t exactly send the message you’ve moved on. You need someone the press can reasonably assume you might be dating.”

Someone like Ethan.

Micah continued, “I can make a few calls, see if any of my other clients—”

“No. I’ll find someone,” Hannah said. She didn’t need to add the humiliation of her manager calling in his other clients to take her to her own premiere. She’d had enough fake dates to last her a lifetime, thank you very much.

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