Page 70 of Awakening

“Of course, Alpha,” Lance says.

“Keep monitoring the situation,” I say to Lance. “I need Olivia home. Now.”

Seventeen

Olivia

“Okay, I’ll tell her,” Chloe says to Nick on her phone, looking at me with a frown. “Okay, bye.”

“What’s going on?” I ask as I take a drink of wine.

“Nick says we need to get you home, like, now. Ethan needs you. It sounded pretty urgent.”

“Did he say why? Is something wrong?”

“He didn’t say, but Nick doesn’t usually make a big deal out of nothing. I think we should probably go.”

“You guys go,” Vanessa says. “I’ll close out our tab here. It’s on me.”

“Thanks, Vanessa,” Chloe and I say as we stand to leave.

I rode with Chloe so she drives me the short five minutes home, and drops me off. “I hope everything is okay. Call me later,” Chloe says as I’m getting out of her car.

“I will, Chloe. Talk to you soon.” I close the car door, and look up to see Ben greeting me with a smile. He opens the front door for me, and I walk inside to find the house eerily quiet.

“He said to tell you he’ll be in his office,” Ben says before closing the door.

I set my handbag on the credenza near the front door and walk down the hall to Ethan’s office. The door is open and his back is to me as he looks out the tall windows into the back yard. Everything that was once on his desk, now rests in disarray on the floor. A lamp lays broken in the corner with a hole in the wall above it.

“Ethan? What the hell happened in here?” He doesn’t move or answer me. I go to him and touch his back. He’s trembling. “Ethan, hey,” I say, softly. When I move in front of him, my heart physically hurts when he looks down at me with red, glassy eyes. “Oh, my God. Are you okay?”

He doesn’t answer me, but instead pulls me to him and wraps me in his arms. He squeezes me tight, burying his face in my hair as he caresses my back.

“Ethan, you’re starting to scare me. What’s going on?”

“I love you,” he whispers into my hair, then kisses the top of my head. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” I say, then gasp on an inhale and freeze. He stops caressing my back and his body goes rigid. I just told Ethan I love him. It came out like the absolute most natural thing to roll off my tongue. I don’t know how else I would describe this pull I feel toward him. It’s so much more than desire and attraction. Maybe there’s a part of me that subconsciously remembers what we had together. Whatever it is, it’s true. I’m falling in love with my fiancé.

“We can pretend you didn’t say that,” he whispers into my hair, “if you want.”

I pull back and shake my head as I gaze into his steel blue eyes. “No.” His eyes search mine, and I know he’s still waiting for the disappointment of me taking it back.

He threads his hands in my hair, and his thumbs brush against my cheeks. “Please don’t toy with me on this, Olivia. Not today.” His voice isn’t angry. It’s an emotion I don’t believe I’ve seen from him. Fear, perhaps, but mixed with a glimmer of hope.

I reach up, taking his face in my hands. “I would never do that. I don’t think I realized it myself until this moment, but I don’t want to take it back, Ethan. I might not be able to remember our lives together, but somehow, I just know I love you.”

He crashes his mouth to mine and his tongue pushes beyond my lips, taking control of our kiss. He shifts me around, then lifts me up onto his empty desk where he kisses his way down my neck.

“Ethan, wait,” I say, finding it hard to speak as he nears the sensitive tattooed skin. “Tell me what happened in here. Why did you want me to come home?”

He rises from my neck, looks into my eyes and shakes his head. “Later. It can wait. I love you, Olivia, and you love me. I need to be with you. I need my mate.”

His mate? That’s a bit strange, but I forget all about it when his lips touch mine, and he pulls me to the edge of his desk, pushing himself between my legs so that I can feel his hard erection rubbing against me.

He pushes me down by my shoulders so I’m lying flat on his desk, then raises my shirt over my head and removes my bra. He palms both of my breasts as he consumes me with his kiss, and then trails soft, delicate kisses down my neck to my chest where he takes one nipple into his mouth, followed by the other. My breathing is heavy and my hips writhe under him as he takes his time kissing his way down to the waist of my jeans. He then traces my belly button with his tongue as he removes my jeans at an agonizingly slow pace. I moan as he nips me over my panties and then pulls them down.

Kneeling in front of me, he raises my legs to a more comfortable position, draped over his shoulders. I’m practically panting as he kisses my inner thighs, and so delicately traces the outer surface of my entrance with his finger. My hips buck against him as the tension becomes almost more than I can tolerate, and I feel him smile against my thigh.

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