Page 17 of My Enemy, My Obsession

Of course, after astatement like “I’m going to fuck you every way you will let me fuck you, and then do it again,” you’d think we were about to go at it like rabbits, but that’s not what happens.

Ethan’s hands remain on my waist, and he leans in and nuzzles my neck. I swear he inhales my scent, which is remarkably erotic, in a way I never imagined possible. He could touch me anywhere, taste me at will, and he chooses to savor me and this night. My hands lift to touch him, and to my shock, he catches my hands again.

“Not yet,” he says, and his voice is as velvety as it is commanding.

I’d object again, but his mouth slants over mine in what becomes a punishing kiss that is as lush as it is hard, and when I want to question why, all I can do is moan.

As if my moan were a trigger, he walks me backward, and I end up pressed to the pillar dividing the windows, and when he tears his mouth from mine, the torment in the depths of his eyes steals my breath. I am not the only one who needed this escape, and I cannot help but wonder what a man with so much feels this deeply about, and why is it on his mind this weekend, in an exotic place he seems to embrace?

We are two lost souls who found a way to each other for one night. It means something, or maybe it means nothing at all. I don’t pretend to understand him or even me tonight.

And yet, I want to know more about Ethan. I want to know him and his whys and whats, but I’ll never be that close to this man. All I have is now, just now, and so does he. The closest I will ever get to knowing him is what I discover right this second and the next until I’m out of seconds and moments with him, and that means unleashing him, dragging out the darkness in the man that I can feel beneath his surface.

The very idea brings out the daring side of me, or maybe he brings out the daring side of me. “If I can’t touch you, what can I have?” I challenge.

His gaze narrows, intent in his stare that I do not understand, but Iwant to. Every part of me wants to. An answer to my challenge flickers in his eyes, a wicked promise that he is about to push me to my limits, but there is a question there, too. Can I handle it and him?

Rebellion rises in me with a lift of my chin. Doubt me. I dare you.

“What do you want?” he asks.

Of course, he’s turned it back on me.

“You know what I want. To touch you. If I can’t—”

He presses my hands behind me and catches them with one of his bigger hands before cupping my face and kissing me until my toes curl. I moan with the taste of him, with the demand and promise of wicked things on his tongue. I moan again with the idea that he has now made me his captive, and the unknown is, oh, so sweet with this man.

His hand slides down to my breast, cupping it, and teasing my nipple, the sensations his fingers create slide through me and settle low and heavy, and the ache he’s created between my legs clenches my sex.

He rips his mouth from mine, and my breath rasps from my lips, my chest rising and falling while his eyes rake over my naked breasts. My nipples are officially tight balls, and every part of me is tingling. If I don’t touch him, I’m going to lose my mind, which I suspect is his plan, but I don’t even care.

I try to free my hands, tugging against him, done with this hands-off rule, and all but burning with the intensity, but I do not win this battle. He releases my wrists, but the minute I’m free, he rotates me to the beam and flattens my hands on the hard surface.

He’s behind me then, his thick erection nestled to my naked backside, and then I yelp when he gives my cheek a little smack, the erotic sting that is far more arousing than it is painful.

“I’m going to release you, but do not move.”

The leap of my pulse is instant, dancing around wildly while adrenaline rushes through me. The truth is, my sex life has been boring. My life has been boring, or rather cautious, in ways I once was not. But there are reasons—reasons I’ve allowed to become excuses. I don’t know what to expect with Ethan, and I like it.

“And if I do?” I ask, trying to look back at him, but it’s impossible, not from my present submissive position.

His body encases mine from behind, and his breath is warm on my neck, intimately close to my ear, as he says, “I can stop anytime you want me to stop, Zoey. And the minute you say no, I will. Make sure it’s what you really want. Don’t move.”

My body has never been so alive, so sensitive to a mere suggestion or another human being's touch. No, I don’t want to stop. I don’t want him to stop. I’m not going to move. My decision is made.

He lingers there a moment, his fully clothed, hard body next to my naked body, and when he seems to read my agreement and understanding, his hands ease from my hands and then settle on my shoulders. “Good girl,” he murmurs, and then his teeth replace one of his hands, scraping against my delicate skin. I moan and arch my back. It’s in this moment that his palm comes down on my backside again, and I gasp only to realize his hands are not only gone.

He’s gone.

He’s no longer touching me, and I am desperate for whatever comes next.

Chapter Fifteen

The music shifts, andthe hotel room fills with a sultry song, and a female singer’s voice, that I do not know, the whiskey deepening the impact of the words that mean nothing to me and somehow everything. She sings about a man, a broken heart, and lust. So much lust. It consumes me. No,Ethanconsumes me.

All I really know right now is my need for a man I’ve only just met and believed I hated. And maybe I do hate him, maybe morning light will bring regret and pain and problems I can’t undo, but I can’t seem to care right now. I just want him to touch me again.

And as unsettling as I would expect standing here like this, with my back to him, naked, exposed, and vulnerable would be, there is something safe in this space, in hiding my face, and the lie that is my identity. It’s as empowering as being nameless.

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