If I had to identify the point of no return, this would be it. The moment when Ethan—my boss, my friend—inhales a sharp breath, eyes roaming over my bare skin. Appreciating. Memorizing. Then they’re back on mine.
“You’re fucking beautiful,” he says.
It’s not a line. I can hear the honesty in his voice and see the reverence in his eyes.
That’s the exact moment when I know there’s no going back. Even if we stopped right now, there would always be this new, intimate depth to our relationship. Not because he’s seen meundressed, but because something intangible and inescapable passes between us at that moment. An acknowledgment that we both see each other on a deeper level than anyone else does. That’s what really makes this possible, the fact that we understand each other completely. The fact that Ethan sees me, and I see him. Even if it’s just as friends, our connection runs deep. It always has, but these past few weeks have solidified it.
Ethan’s hand cups my jaw. This kiss is hungrier than the last, and I’m as much to blame for that as he is. We move together in the dark, bumping into furniture and stumbling over discarded clothing until the back of my knees find the soft velvet armchair in the corner.
All that’s left are his jeans and my panties. My stomach flutters as Ethan hooks his fingers around the sides of my black underwear, pauses for my nod of approval, then slides them down my hips. They fall to the floor, and Ethan’s eyes travel down, down, down all the way to the tips of my toes, lingering in a couple spots along the way.
“I would have shaved,” I blurt out, “if I had known…”
I really like the little bush that’s grown out since the breakup, but suddenly I’m feeling self-conscious about it. It’s some patriarchal bullshit, I know. Luckily, Ethan will have none of that. He takes a step forward, kissing me and cutting me off at the same time.
“You’re perfect,” he says, breath dancing across my lips. Then he slides his hand between my legs. “And I love this.”
“You do?”
He arches a wicked brow. “You don’t believe me?”
Coyly, I shake my head, if only to see what reaction it elicits. And Ethan doesn’t disappoint.
“Sit,” he commands, voice deep and rough.
I lower myself into the chair, looking up at him. Ethan regards me for a few long beats. The humor has vanished from hisexpression, leaving only a smoldering gaze. His eyes hold mine as he drops to his knees in front of me.
“Spread your legs for me.”
My pulse goes wild while my mouth goes dry. Frozen by the mind-blowing sexiness of this moment and the man kneeling in front of me, it takes me longer than it should to part my knees.
Ethan groans, quiet but primal, as his eyes find my center. Then his hands hook around my calves, sliding my hips forward as my shoulders land on the back of the chair. Big palms pry my thighs wide apart, hooking each leg over an arm of the chair and holding them there.
If his cocked eyebrow was wicked, then this smile of his is evil incarnate. “Good girl. Stay just like that while I prove how much I fucking love this.”
And just like that, I consider this chair ruined. There’s no way it’s surviving the absolute flood that Ethan North just sent straight to my pussy. I can feel myself dripping. Hear myself when Ethan slides one finger inside.
His head drops to my inner thigh, planting a kiss inches from where I need it the most as he adds a second finger, curling them both expertly inside of me. The involuntary noise my throat produces is half moan, half objection.
I want Ethan’s mouth on me more than I currently want air in my lungs, but it’s always taken me a while to come like this—if I come at all from it, that is. It’s only fair to warn him.
He pauses. “Want me to stop?”
“No… no, don’t stop.” The words are breathy, pleading. “It just takes me a while to…” My voice stalls then soars an octave as Ethan’s tongue glides across my clit. “… come.”
“Does it now?”
“Mmhmm.”
When he chuckles against my clit, I feel the vibration in every single nerve of my body. “Well, good thing we have all night.”
Ethan makes a quick liar out of me. In four minutes flat, I’m writhing and moaning his name as I come on his tongue. Afterwards, Ethan carefully slides his fingers out of me, planting another kiss on my thigh before sitting back on his heels. He looks smug as hell, but I don’t mind. I feel too good, too relaxed to care about much of anything at the moment.
“Liar,” he says with a smirk.
A breathless laugh is my only argument.
Ethan stands up, his jeans hanging low on his hips. Moonlight dances along the peaks and valleys of his muscular chest and stomach. He holds both hands out for me to grab.