Page 53 of Crushed By Love

A swell of relief rises within me. “You should’ve led with that.”

“I figured you knew.”

“Why would I have known that?”

He glances around the kitchen as if to say “look at this place, what did you expect” but he keeps his smart mouth shut.

We end up making spaghetti because it’s easy. It’s strange sitting down for a meal with him. All summer I ate the same meals they did, but I never sat at the dining table. I would eat at the kitchen counter or take my food outside to the patio table or even further to the gazebo. The dining table wasn’t my place. It still isn’t my place. I can tell, deep down in my gut, that this isn’t where I belong and I shouldn’t be here.

The food tastes better than I expected, but I have a hard time enjoying it.

We finish up and Ethan gets started on the dishes unprompted. “What is this?” I question skeptically and he turns to me from where he’s rinsing plates and loading them into the dishwasher.

“What’s what?”

“This whole act?” I demand. “The Ethan King I know would never stoop so low as to do the dishes.”

“So you think doing the dishes makes someone low?” He raises a brow. “Do you think so low of yourself then?”

I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean. Your family has staff for this kind of thing.”

He nods and his dark hair glistens under the warm kitchen lights. “We do, but we don’t have any staff here right now.”

I take a step back. “I’m not your staff? I thought I was here to clean up after you while you enjoy a Category 4 hurricane like some kind of sadist.”

He wipes his hand on a dishtowel and saunters toward me. “You’re no longer in our employ, Arden.”

“But the deal . . .”

“Is that you ride out this hurricane with me and that’s all.” He runs a wet finger over my cheek and it sets me on fire. Opposites in every way. His water to my fire. Or is it the other way around? Doesn’t matter, my body wants him, has wanted him from the very first second I laid eyes on him.

No.

No. No. No.

Not happening.

I swallow hard and then he steps back, breaking the spell.

He turns back to the dishes. “Go get your stuff. You’re not sleeping downstairs.”

I balk. “What?”

“Just in case there is flooding up here, which I don’t think is going to happen as we’re well above the flood zone, but just in case. We should be careful.”

We should be careful? Are those the words of a man who intentionally flies to an island about to be ravaged by a Category 4 hurricane? Apparently so . . . Ethan King is a walking contradiction. And a walking asshole. And a sex god. And about a zillion other things I can’t name right now because all I can think is how he demanded I don’t sleep downstairs.

“And where will I sleep?”

The curious part of me wants him to say his bed and the rest of me wants him to say anything else. I’ve become so mixed up since coming to this island and he’s the biggest reason why. He makes me crazy. He makes me want things I shouldn’t want. He makes me?—

“Wherever you want to sleep,” his response interrupts my wayward thoughts and my cheeks burn, “as long as it’s in one of the upstairs bedrooms.”

One of the bedrooms. Doesn’t have to be his.

Why did my mind even go there?

Oh, I know why. I shouldn’t even have to ask.

---