She turned again and walked away, her heart pounding hard in her head, her entire body shaking. It was true, and she hadn’t even realized it until she’d said it.
She had to live her life. No one else. Why had she always taken the path other people put her on? Why was she still doing her drills for hours every day?
It was her life. No matter how much her mother had wanted to treat it as her own, no matter how much her instructor had fed his ego on her success. They had had no right.
She was angry now. Not just about her situation, but for herself. For everything she’d accepted, her whole life, because she’d believed that her only option was to do as she was told.
Ethan’s firm grasp on her arm stopped her in her tracks. He didn’t seem at all concerned by the people walking by, craning their necks to see if there was going to be a huge fight between them.
“You’re right, Noelle, it’s not my job to judge you. And I don’t. My comment was out of line.” His dark eyes blazed with an intensity that stood in direct opposition to his apologetic words.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I … you apologized,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever apologized to me.”
“I’m a confident guy, Noelle, and that means my ego can take it when I have to admit I’m wrong. That was wrong. It isn’t my business how many men you’ve slept with, or intend to sleep with. It was my sexual frustration talking there. A bit of jealousy, which, I’ll be honest, is unfamiliar to me.”
“The … jealousy or the sexual frustration?”
“Both.”
“Oh.” She looked around at the people, moving around them now as though they didn’t exist, no more interesting than the pylons that divided the boardwalk from the sand.
“You sound shocked.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever aroused either emotion in a man before. So, yes, I am a bit shocked. Maybe as shocked as you are.”
“Not possible. I’m sure you make men feel like this all the time.”
He looked at her, his dark eyes intense, his jaw shifting as he tightened it, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“I … I doubt it.”
He stepped closer, the hand on her arm gliding up to her shoulder, around to the back of her neck, his thumb moving over her skin, fingers sifting through her hair.
“I don’t. Not for a moment. You really are beautiful.”
“Ethan, I thought we decided that … it’s a bad idea.” She hated that. Why was it a bad idea? Ethan felt good. And warm, so warm. Everything had been frozen over for so long, dead and dry. Ethan was like the sun.
She wanted to bathe in his warmth, in the promise of new things that seemed to come every time he touched her.
But it was a bad idea. They’d decided that. She’d agreed.
She moved closer to him, her heart pounding. His hand was still on her neck, massaging her, spreading heat and fire through her.
She didn’t want to move away. Didn’t want to break her connection with him. It was her life. And she had to live it.
She wanted a little bit of Ethan in it. For as long as she could have it. Because he made her angry and happy and he turned her on. He made her feel, when for so long she’d simply been existing. He made her aware of things—needs, desires she’d never been mindful of before.
It was like finding a new dimension to life. And that was more than just the beach and sand and ice cream. It was deeper, it made everything seem as if it had broader scope, more depth.
She didn’t want to run from that. She wanted to dive into it head-first.
She stood up on her toes and leaned in, brushing his mouth with hers, her entire body trembling as she increased the pressure of the kiss, as the shock of his flesh on hers fired through her, charging her like a bolt of electricity.
It didn’t satisfy her. Not even close. She felt like he was water and she had been lost in the desert. She felt insatiable. She touched her tongue to the seam of his lips, explored the shape of his mouth, tasted his skin.
They hadn’t kissed enough last night. He’d done the touching, he’d done the pleasuring. But she wanted more than that. She wanted it all.
A short groan vibrated in his chest, and he locked his arm around her waist, pulling her to him, holding her against his hard, well-muscled body. She arched into him, could feel the heavy weight of his erection against her stomach.
And that was when she realized they were standing on the boardwalk, in broad daylight.
She pulled away from him, blinking hard. Pushing shaking fingers through her hair, she looked around, trying to see if they’d caught everyone’s attention. No, there were one or two people in line for ice cream who hadn’t noticed them. Great.
“I … for someone who was trained not to draw the wrong kind of attention, I seem to be doing a pretty bad job at … not drawing the wrong kind of attention.”
“You kissed me,” he said.
“Not … not your attention. People are staring,” she hissed, lowering her face and walking back toward the hotel.
“Isn’t that the idea? We are supposed to be an engaged couple.”
“That wasn’t the idea … just now. For me I mean.”
“I see, then what was it?”
She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “If you were a gentleman, you wouldn’t ask.”
“I didn’t say I was a gentleman.”
“No. I guess you didn’t.”
“You’re right.” He sighed. “This is a bad idea.”
A bolt of panic hit her in the chest. “Not the whole deal, just the kissing, right? Because I need this, Ethan. I need my house. I can’t lose it.”
He frowned and reached his hand out, brushing his thumb over her cheek. “Your cheeks are pink. You need sunblock.”
“Please tell me you don’t mean the whole deal,” she repeated.
“I think it’s all a bad idea, Noelle. But I’m not backing out of it. We have a deal, and we’ll stick to that. But it’s a business deal, don’t forget that.”
“I … I won’t.” Of course, if she really felt like it was a business deal her heart probably wouldn’t be beating so erratically, and her lips wouldn’t still be stinging from the kiss. “We should probably go.”
They were still standing in the middle of the crowded boardwalk, but even with so many people everywhere, she felt as if they were the only two people on the planet. At least, the only two who mattered. She wasn’t sure what that meant, or why he could make her so mad, and then make her want him, then make her nearly melt inside with the things that he said, all in the space of a few moments.
“Yeah, I’ve got some work to do this evening,” Ethan replied.
“Oh. Good.” That meant they wouldn’t have time to spend together and maybe she could figure out what was happening inside her. Newfound feelings, along with life-changing revelations, needed to be examined after all. “I mean …