Page 51 of Throne of Secrets

Oh fuck, that hit him in the gut. She cared, which he’d assumed on some basic level, but the acknowledgement was pretty fucking heady. He nodded. “I’ll do my best.” He lifted her shirt up and over her head. Yeah, it had buttons, but he didn’t have the desire or the patience to deal with the little pearls. He wanted only one pearl, but he’d need her to trust him to take care of her before he made those moves.

Tonight, he would make love to her. It was all about her. About her needs and wants. He rolled her over, unfastened her bra, and then took his time as he kissed every inch of her back. Her shoulder blades were ticklish, which was fun for a few minutes, but then he moved lower and paid attention to her waistband, kissing and licking under the damn thing until she was panting.

Then he turned her over, removed the lace that was still covering her breasts, and started over from the hollow of her throat down to her hips. Her breasts were fucking irresistible. He could spend the entire night just discovering her body, but that would drive him to insanity. Standing, he dropped his jeans, then his boxers. His cock slapped his abs as he released it from its fruit-of-the-loom jail. He stepped out of the denim and walked to the end of the bed. He could feel her eyes on him, and yeah, her hooded gaze and the heat in it made him feel about ten feet tall and bulletproof. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Thank God.

Ethan tugged her slacks off and then removed the lacy strip that someone called underwear. Her V was damned near naked. And fuck him if his mouth didn’t water. “Brazilian?”

She lifted to her elbows. “Is that a problem?”

“God, no. Other than someone else seeing what’s mine.” He crawled over her and started at her belly button. He wished he had the willpower to start at her neck and work his way down, but fuck, it had been a long, long time for him.

She shifted so he was between her legs, and a full body shudder ran through him. He closed his eyes tightly and thought of anything he could to stave off the massive orgasm that was building. Fuck, he was so close. He kissed his way to her hip bone, across her lower abdomen to her other hip. From there, he dropped kisses to her knee, completely avoiding her core. He switched to the other knee and worked his way up until she grabbed his hair and pulled him up.

“I need you.” The words were pained and panted.

Ethan fingered her core. She was wet and ready for him. He took her lips in a kiss that didn’t end. Centering himself, he pushed inside her. She was slick, hot, and so fucking tight. He couldn’t prove it, but his balls turned every shade of blue and then purple as he stroked inside her. He needed her to shatter, needed her to come first. He dropped her lips and arched so he could take her nipple in his mouth. The woman shouted, arched, pulling her nipple from his lips, and her body rolled around his cock. He could feel the muscles contracting rhythmically. Fuck, the sensation was better than anything he’d ever experienced. He crashed over the edge, his hips moving on their own. She tightened again and drove him fucking insane as his sensitive cock was milked one more time by her body.

Holy hell. That was the best sex he’d ever had. That was his first rational thought as he found his breath. He lifted onto his elbows, and Star’s panting breaths eased.

“Jesus, Star. You almost killed me.”

“No. This was sex … Not … not the curse.”

Ethan huffed out a laugh. “Sex with you almost killed me. You’re magnificent.”

She groaned. “You don’t have to lie.”

He lifted his head and stared at her. “I would never lie about something like this. What we had tonight was special.”

She stared up at him. “I thought so, too. But you don’t have to say that if?—”

Ethan dropped a hard kiss on her lips. One of the only things that stopped her from talking. When he lifted, he framed her face with his hands. “You are special to me, Star. Never doubt that.” He dropped to his side and tucked her against him.

“You’re pretty special, too,” she whispered against his chest. He would be ready for the next round in five minutes, but her almost immediate steady breathing told him it would be a bit longer for her. He smiled and held her against him.

“Sleep, babe. You’ve had one hell of a day.”

CHAPTER13

Ethan carefully pulled himself away from Star’s sleeping form.

She was curled up, tangled in the sheets, her soft breaths even and peaceful. He didn’t want to wake her. She needed the rest, and frankly, he wasn’t sure he could get any sleep himself. His mind was too wired. His instincts hummed with a sense of unfinished business.

Moving silently, he slid on his jeans and padded barefoot downstairs. The house was quiet, the faint glow from the kitchen nightlight casting soft shadows along the hallway. He made his way into his office and powered up his computer system.

As the screens flickered to life, his gaze automatically swept over Guardian’s security feeds. His smartwatch and phone would alert him if anything required immediate attention, but for nearly a decade, his first instinct was to check Guardian’s systems before moving on to other high-risk networks. It was ingrained—his version of stretching before a fight.

The routine took twenty minutes, his fingers flying over the keys as he cycled through potential threats, ran system diagnostics, and scanned for external intrusions. Only then did he settle deeper into his chair, eyes narrowing as he pulled up the surveillance footage from the street where Mrs. Harvey’s deli had been vandalized.

Something about the whole situation gnawed at him.

Mrs. Harvey’s hesitation to call the police. The damage done to the shop. The bruises on her face.

She hadn’t fallen. Someone had hit her.

His grip on the keyboard tightened, a dark edge creeping into his expression. No one—absolutely no one—treated a woman like that and got away with it.

His fingers moved swiftly, filtering through footage, isolating key timestamps. He separated background noise—the routine of life—from the details that mattered. And there, buried in the footage, were two men loitering outside the deli. Ethan zoomed in, enhancing the image as much as he could, but the quality was too pixelated for a clear identification.

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