Page 47 of Brewbies
“How’s it feel today?”
If she could concentrate on any sensation other than the subtle pulse that had woken within the damp silk of her panties, Darby might have given him an honest answer.
It had throbbed like a bitch all morning.
That pain had mysteriously evaporated sometime between their confrontation on the sidewalk and the present moment.
“Fine,” she managed, shocked at smoky rasp that had crept into her voice.
Ethan must have heard it too. His eyes had darkened, deepened as they found hers.
Darby didn’t move, couldn’t breathe, wanting him more than she wanted air, but determined to avoid a repeat performance of last night’s stinging rejection.
Kiss me.
Kiss me like you did when you didn’t know my name.
The small cry of surprise died in her throat as Ethan’s mouth crashed against hers in a raw, hungry rush. His hands seemed to be everywhere at once. Behind her knees to drag her to the edge of the table. Beneath the backs of her thighs to anchor her legs around his waist. Buried in her hair as he plundered her mouth with deep, silky strokes of his tongue.
In that moment, she tasted the chaos below the placid surface of his self-enforced calm. Met the frenzied, starving animal inside the man who denied its very existence.
Darby moaned against his lips, dizzy with pleasure. Desperate for more, she curled her fingers into his shirt as the heat from their bodies mingled like merging storm clouds. Alive with electricity that was almost too much to bear.
Ethan groaned, a deep, guttural sound that vibrated through her as he pressed the hard ridge of his arousal into her core, making Darby gasp with pleasure and surprise.
Shifting his weight, he crowded her back to the worktable, freeing her breasts from the halter top of her dress with an efficiency that suggested experience. Darby sucked in a sharp breath as he closed his mouth over one tight peak, teasing it with his tongue, incinerating the last of her logic.
She clawed at his back, rocking her hips against his as Darby pressed her mouth to the hard curve of his jaw—on purpose this time. Kissing and licking. Scraping lightly with her teeth. Needing the taste of him. The feel of him. The heat of him.
Darby jerked at the hem of his shirt, her greedy hands delving below the waistband of his jeans to find the silky head of his erection and the pearly bead of moisture already gathering there.
With a growl feral enough to raise the fine hairs on Darby’s arms, Ethan pinned her hands above her head. Even through her haze of pleasure, she felt her knuckle brush something cool and smooth, felt the object shoot over the edge of the table and heard an ugly, splintery crash when whatever it was hit the floor.
Ethan stiffened and broke away from her, a look of confusion on his face, as if he’d just woken up. His eyes fixed on the floor, and the lingering heat in his gaze was snuffed as quickly as a candle.
Darby sat up, quickly rearranging her top and smoothing her dress back down her thighs.
“I can’t do this…” His voice sounded thick and hoarse, his words aimed at no one in particular.
As if she were already gone.
Darby blinked at him, following his gaze to the floor where his model ship lay broken, its wooden hull split in two.
“I’m so sorry,” she said dumbly. “I—” But the words froze in her throat, victims of the arctic chill spreading from Ethan’s eyes.
“You have to go,” he said. “Please.”
She wanted to grab him. Demand that he talk to her. That he tell her what he was thinking.
What he was feeling.
But the old, stubborn pride had risen inside her, welding her jaw shut.
Palms planted on the table, Darby pushed herself off the counter without a word and marched out of the shop on her newly repaired shoes.
* * *
Darby woke with a start, her sheets glued to her body and her heart racing in her chest. She’d been having the nightmare again.
