Page 70 of Summer Heat
At least until Ethan said in a rough voice, “Lia?”
And she knew what he was asking. Ethan wouldn’t let her be passive in this, and she both loved and hated him for it.
“Please,” she whispered.
Ethan moved slowly in response, dropping his finger on her collarbone and drawing a path down her body—over the inside curve of her breast and underneath, down the slope of her belly and through the small thatch of hair.
This was a dream, an erotic winter dream—visions of sugar plums dancing in her head—and only by telling herself that could she hold still as Ethan dipped lower.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, his voice thick.
Her inner muscles clenched, and she knew Chris had to feel it. In fact, he pulsed and flexed inside her.
“She is,” Chris said, and in those two words the mocking disappeared. Instead it felt like Chris had said it would be: the two of them worshipping her. As if maybe it had always been that way.
Ethan found her clit and circled. Her breath caught, and she pulled up higher. But there was nowhere to go, impaled on Chris’s cock, held captive by Ethan’s fingers. He teased her gently at first, bringing her to the state of arousal that had been missing earlier. Her hips rocked against his hand and back against Chris, caught in the middle.
The movements at her clit became steadier, stronger, and her whole body tightened, ready to break. Ethan’s gaze locked with hers, dark and almost angry. Why was he angry? And more than that, were his fingertips brushing against Chris’s cock? Everything was so slippery down there, everything harsh and insistent—it seemed almost inevitable that they would touch.
That thought sent her over, and she cried out, shuddering, riding Ethan’s fingers and Chris’s cock at the same time. Chris tensed and groaned behind her, his body like a wall, his hands like a vice, holding her captive and supporting her all at once. Her vision went black as the last pulses of her orgasms swept through her, lights dotting the vastness like a Christmas tree sloping through the sky.
Chris slumped over her back, spent, and when she rolled him off, Ethan was gone.
* * *
Ethan drove without seeing anything. He didn’t see the lit up dash in his truck or the open roads beyond. He didn’t see Lia’s body, curvy and soft, kneeling on rumpled sheets, being pounded from behind.
Dominated. That was the only word to describe what had been happening in that room, the kind of thing Ethan had never let himself imagine doing to her. She deserved better than that. She deserved Chris, but he wasn’t supposed to treat her the way Ethan would. Rough and mean.
“You really need to stop thinking,” he muttered to himself.
He drove without feeling anything. He didn’t feel the freezing shower he put himself in. He didn’t feel the hard, cool bed he slid into. And he definitely didn’t feel arousal, at seeing the most beautiful body imaginable.
It wasn’t even imaginable. He knew the shape of her outside her clothes, he knew the dusky color of her skin. His mind had filled in the rest. Even though he’d known it would make things worse. In dreams and while he jerked himself off, he’d imagined her naked body—but he’d been wrong.
She was so much more beautiful, more alluring than his mind had been able to conjure. He didn’t see it anymore. He’d never feel her near him, ever again. But she was already written into him, scalding him inside, leaving scars where she had been.
When he got home and climbed into bed, Oreo followed him and landed in a heap next to him. He smelled like smoke and was no doubt leaving dirt and bits of dried leaves on the bed, but Ethan didn’t care.
“That’s over,” he said aloud, as if to tell Oreo. As if to tell himself.
Mooning over a woman he couldn’t have. Over his best friend’s girlfriend. It was pathetic and unfair and a hundred kinds of wrong—but most of all, it was over.
Even if his fingers still smelled like her arousal.
“You need more room to run, anyway,” he told Oreo. The apartment had always been on the small side for a big dog.
A snore answered him.
“Yeah,” he sighed. Sleeping did sound pretty great. Too bad he couldn’t imagine doing it. Not until he was far away from here. And maybe not even then.
But at least he couldn’t feel anything. At least, in the pitch black, he couldn’t see.
Chapter Four
The day dawned cold and drizzly, the kind of grey skies and steamy air that Austin didn’t see often. It felt appropriate, though. It matched Lia’s mood. The rain continued to fall until late afternoon.
She sat on the back porch, sipping tea. There was only one class on her schedule today, and technically it was a one-on-one with her independent project advisor. She had emailed him to let him know she’d be missing it and asked to reschedule.
