I think about how to answer that. I can’t say what I’m thinking. That I don’t want to date someonelikehim, I want to datehim. Instead, I just smile over at Jax who is still watching the game happily.

I bite my lips. “I’m not sure. Sometimes he seems perfectly content that it’s just him and I. Other times I see him watching families and I wonder what he’s thinking.”

Ethan studies me for a moment before settling back into his seat, his eyes on the field. But his gaze is somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Contemplative. He chews on the inside of his cheek and for a moment, I wonder what he is thinking. I wonder if he’s connecting dots. If maybe he already knows what I’m not telling him. And if he does, how does he feel about it.

We get home and I expect Jax to be beat. But thanks to the ice cream and the soda and whatever else he snuck the kid when I wasn’t looking Jax is wired. We turn on Aladdin and Ethan helps him make a pillow fort in the living room, complete with Christmas lights we find in the closet. Then we all cozy down and watch the movie, us sitting in the back and Jax laying in front of us.

“Cozy?” I tease Ethan as he settles under a dinosaur printed blanket, reaching for his beer.

“Very,” he winks. Then I feel his hand on mine under the blanket.

It’s just a hand. And it’s hidden. But I can’t help but focus on the sparks shooting through my veins at the touch. I find myself hyper aware of it. Of him. Of everything.

The rest of the movie seems to take years but by the end of it, Jax is dozed off and we sneak out and down the hall, closing my bedroom door behind us.

“God, I feel so old,” I yawn, rubbing my neck.

“You’re not old. Not even close.” Ethan comes up behind me, rubbing my neck. “But you are pretty tense. Maybe I can help.”

His hands are large, warm and consuming as they cover my shoulders, working the sore muscles and making the nerves tingle. He slides my hair to one shoulder and I can feel his breath on the other.

“You need to unwind, mama,” he says in a low gruff voice.

“We can’t,” I whisper.

“We can…if you’re quiet.”

When I don’t say anything, Ethan spins me to face him. His dark eyes are deep with possibility and need.

“Do you want me?” He asks.

I nod. Then my eyes go to the door.

“Then you’re going to have to be quiet,” he whispers. He locks the door and comes back over to me. His palms cup my cheeks and he kisses me. His jaw works to part my lips, his tongue pressing into mine, hot and sweet and salty. I arch my back and my breasts press into his chest, my nipples hard against him. The aching in my thighs is building hotter and hotter, fuller and fuller, and I think I might explode.

On cue, he leads me to the bed. Then he sets me back and tugs my turquoise leggings off. “Damn these things are like a second skin.”

“I thought men liked leggings. Nothing to the imagination.”

“I like them when you’re wearing them. Not when I want them off. And I don’t want to just use my imagination. I want to use my mouth.”

Jesus. His words are enough to make me come right here and now. Ethan lowers to his haunches in front of me and pulls me towards him. Then he grins up at me. “Remember…shh…”

Before I can protest, he covers my pussy with his mouth. His tongue laps slowly up and down the length of me, from my entrance to the top and back down.

“Oh my god,” I let out.

“Quieter, baby girl…” he warns and I bite my lips hard.

He teases every inch of me, every millimeter, with the tip of his tongue. It’s so pointed, so learned, that he knows which spots make me arch my back, which spots make me shudder, and which spot specifically makes me need to cover my mouth.

“Good girl,” he grins into me, kissing my pussy with his smiling mouth. That’s when I realize he never shaved that five o’clock shadow from the festival. It’s gruff, gristly, tickling the sensitive skin of my thighs.

It’s so many sensations all at once that I feel like holding in my moans is going to make me pass out.

“You okay up there?”

“Fuck you, Savage.” I let out.