Chapter 33

My eyes flew open at his request, and gazing into their depths, he plunged back in, sheathing himself deep within me.

I screamed out in ecstasy, as flexing his hips, he pumped harder, faster, fighting for his release.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” he gasped, as, knees almost buckling beneath him, I felt him empty into me.

Sweaty, panting, and exhausted, we began the slow glide back to earth. Then stepping back, his legs unsteady, Ethan pulled the rubber off and gazed down at it.

His eyebrows drew low over his eyes. “We are still just fucking—right?”

Pulling the tattered shirt as well as my torn emotions around me, I fell apart inside as I nodded, “No feelings—just fucking.”

~~

Sometime later, Ethan took me to my place to get my pickup, where I averted my eyes from my burnt trailer, not ready to look at it yet.

When we once again hit the city proper, we each gave a wave and a honk, before going our separate directions. He, to run his errands, and me to swing by the bank, afterward, moving on to a well-known chain store where I planned to pick up several sets of clothing. I needed something for work and for casual use.

Trailing down an aisle, I grabbed some clothing off the racks, before making my way down another. Pulling some toiletries off the shelf, I placed them in the basket also and began to make my way to the checkout.

After standing in line for what seemed like hours, I finally exited the store.

I’d started the pickup and was placing it in gear when my cell began to play Ethan’s ring-tone. Grabbing the phone out of my purse, I carried it to my ear. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself—are you hungry?” Ethan asked.

“Um, yeah, I am.” The truth was I was starving.

I heard him laugh, before questioning, “Where you at?”

“Still in the store parking lot,” I answered.

“Meet me at the Pizza Place in say, oh, ten minutes,” he ordered, then hung up.

I stared at the phone with a frown. “Dammit, I hate it when he hangs up like that,” I complained to myself.

Forty-five minutes later, I was staring at the last slice of pizza. I’d already eaten two pieces, but was contemplating indulging in a third.

“Go, ahead,” Ethan coaxed, daring me, “you know you want it.”

“Sure I do, but my hips don’t,” I laughed, still eyeballing the slice.

Ethan snorted. “Believe me, you’re safe; eat the damn thing, if you want it.”

ETHAN

Leaving the pizza place, I followed Nicole back to my house, whistling and singing with the song on the radio.

As we pulled in the drive and she climbed from the pickup, a strange emotion overtook me. After considering the feeling for several minutes, I realized what it was.

Something I never believed I’d ever want. Something, I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about.

Fuck me, if I didn’t want to plant my seed in this woman’s womb. For all I knew, I might already have, and I wanted that possible baby, and its mother, more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. However, I couldn’t because of being shackled to a woman I didn’t want and didn’t love out of a goddamn sense of obligation!

NICOLE

Standing in the living room, I swiveled my head between Thurston and Flanagan with a critical eye, threatening exile to the first one that caused problems.

Unaware of the growing tension in the room, Ethan walked in with ice clinking against the glasses and Thurston jumped, pinning his ears back and hissing, causing me to scold, “Dammit, Thurston, I warned you.”

Ethan laughed, handing me a glass as Flanagan woofed from across the room, eyeballing the feline with wary eyes.

Raising the glass to my lips, I sipped at its contents. A sense of restlessness washed through me, for the day stretched out before me, and I didn’t know what to do with it. If I were at home, I’d be… The thought came to a skidding halt, for I wasn’t at home, and I didn’t know when I would be again.

Slowly I shook my head, I would never return home, or at least not, to what I had called home, for there was no home to return to, the trailer was nothing more than a melted pile of metal. Yes, I had the cabin, but it was still less than livable. A piercing pain dropped onto me like a bomb, overwhelming me.

An hour later, I stood within the burnt husk of my trailer, gaping. I knew trailers burned hot, but this... This was... I shook my head, hell I couldn’t even find the word to describe what this was. Little was recoverable and I wrinkled my nose at the smell of wet, burnt debris that wafted up, assaulting my senses as I poked at a lump of—something—with the toe of my boot, feeling my hopes plunge. It was worse, much worse than I could have ever imagined. Unrecognizable blobs of dis-proportioned chunks of metal and plastic were everywhere. Nothing had escaped unfazed; nothing!

Making my way into what had been my kitchen, I stared at the warped and bent frame of the refrigerator. Finally, something I could name. Well, sort of. Its door, blown open from the intense heat, now hung at a cock-eyed angle; the glass jars it had held, melted into, dark, smoke-stained works of art. The jars were pretty in a macabre way I mused as eyes shifting again I made out the skeletal frame of a metal kitchen chair.

Heaving a sigh, I made my way further into the collapsed shell of the trailer. Entering what had been my living room, I stepped over what I surmised had been my television. With a small shake of my head, I continued toward where my bedroom had been. Though there was no discerning marker that remained to divide one area from another, I knew the second I walked into the room.

Brow wrinkling in consternation, I gazed around, finally spotting the object I’d come to the room for. Bending, I picked it up, beginning to rub at the blackened ash that covered the item I held in my hand. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, the painted face on the small ballerina statue would not reveal itself, remaining scorched and discolored. I felt my eyes mist for I held the last Christmas gift my grandmother had ever given me within my hands. Staring down at the tiny figure, I heard a strange keening sound I had only heard twice before in my life issuing from between my lips. It wasn’t quite a cry or even a wail. I didn’t know what to call it. Yet, it had no more ended, than Ethan was in front of me.

Pulling the Ballerina from my hands, he growled, “I knew this was a fucking bad idea.”

Gently, he pushed me from the ashes and debris toward his bike.

As we came to a stop beside it, calmness slid through me. The world came back into focus, and lifting my head, I glanced around. Mother Nature was putting on a splendid display. Drawing in a deep breath, I inhaled what felt like the first breath of fresh air I’d had in hours. I opened my mouth to speak, but Ethan laid a finger across my lips, quieting my words. Turning me until my back was resting against him; he drew me into his arms.

My back braced by his chest, I relaxed, closing my eyes. “Few things are this beautiful in the world.” Ethan’s breath brushed across my ear, and I gave a slight shudder.

A few seconds later, the symphony created by the birds ended with an outstanding solo from a songbird, and reaching down, I grasped his hand. Pulling it to my mouth, I ran my lips across his knuckles.

“Thank you.” The words were deep, emotional as they crossed my lips.

His breath brushed across my ear again as he leaned further into me. “For?”

“For being you, for having that damn stubborn streak, you kept standing your ground with. For being wise enough to know, I didn’t need to be here alone, actually, for everything.”

He laid a kiss on the top of my head. “Let’s go home, baby,” he murmured, voice deep and gravelly.

When we arrived back at Ethan’s home, Ember took one glance at me and began breathing fire and brimstone. However, she didn’t so much as let a single ember pass her lips. Instead, she glued on a fake smile, and gushed with syrupy sweetness, “Staying for supper, Nicole?”

Ethan muttered a curse, also seeing through her falseness. Going to the refrigerator, he pulled out the box of leftover pizza and slapped it down on the living room table. “Here, we’ve already eaten,” he growled.

Not wanting to be in the storm I could see brewing in Ember’s eyes, I muttered I was going outside. Making a hasty exit, I stepped out in the yard. In the distance, I could hear the whinny of the horses in the barn, the sound drawing me like a magnet in their direction.

A few minutes later, as I wandered around within the barn, I peered over a stall at a beautiful sorrel mare. “Hello, gorgeous,” I murmured, rubbing at the velveteen nose that poked over the stall door. My dad had taken me on several trail rides over the summer months in my youth before he’d died. Now gazing at the beautiful creature before me, the memories hit hard, bittersweet. Though it had been twelve years since I’d lost him, it still hurt as if it were yesterday.