Eyes Wide Open

  “We’ll get married.”

  I stared at him, sure the words that just came out of his mouth were out of a scene from a romance novel. Maybe I was having a dream. I hoped.

  Ethan shifted on top of me and shot that idea to hell. Holy fucking shit!

  “It makes perfect sense,” he said with a slow grin, “we make an announcement that goes out big, have you move in with me officially, and let everyone know your fiancé is in the security business—”

  “Are you insane?” I cut him off and saw his eyes moving over my face, studying my reaction to his words. “Ethan, I can’t get married. I don’t want to. I’m just getting used to being in a relationship. It’s way, way too soon to even consider something like that for us . . .”

  He grinned down at me, utterly calm and confident. “I know, baby. It is far too soon, but the world doesn’t have to know that. To them it looks like you’re about to be the wife of the former-SF, high-profile CEO of Blackstone Inc. To whoever is out there with an agenda, they get a message loud and clear. That they need to keep the hell away from you; that they won’t be able to touch you in any way, shape or form, and that they won’t get close enough to even blink at you, let alone deliver threats like that fucked-up shit from last night.” He kissed me softly, looking very proud of himself. “It’s a brilliant plan.”

  I just kept staring at him, sure he was a figment of some fantastical dream I was having. “It’s also dishonest, Ethan. Have you even considered what you are asking me to do? To lie? To mislead our families and friends into believing some fiction that we met two months ago and now we’re getting married?”

  He stiffened above me, and his jaw got that stubborn set to it. “When it comes to protecting you, I’ll do whatever I need to do. I’m not taking the risk with you—it’s too late for that. I told you I was all in, and that’s not changed in the last hours.”

  His glaring expression was more than a little intimidating, even in the dim light. I tried to explain myself. “Well, no, my feelings haven’t changed either, but that doesn’t mean we can . . .”

  My words trailed off as I tried to process what he’d just so confidently declared—that getting married would be a good idea—just like eating more vegetables or wearing sunscreen was a good idea. I had to wonder if the stomach bug that had got to me tonight was making me hallucinate.

  “There’s no reason we can’t.” Ethan looked a little wounded as he studied me carefully, and it gave me a pang of regret, but only for about two seconds. What he was proposing was absolutely insane. I could barely wrap my head around being in love with a man who’d stormed his way into my life, audaciously and without apology, a mere two months ago. How in the hell could I agree to a marriage based on my protection from some mysterious threat of unknown motivations by unnamed people?

  “I—I’m—you’re absolutely out-of-your-mind crazy right now! Ethan, do you realize what you are proposing here?”

  He nodded at me, his face just inches from mine. I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking right now either. He wanted his way, I could guess, but his motives were what surprised me more. I knew he loved me. He made sure to tell me often. And I know my feelings for him were the same . . . but . . . marriage?! I was sure he couldn’t have suggested anything more of a shock to my fragile emotional grid than this. Surely Ethan didn’t want a wife. This was way too soon.

  “Yes, Brynne, I very much know what I just said to you.” He kept his face neutral but firm, giving away nothing.

  “You want to marry me, a woman you just met eight weeks ago, who has relationship phobias and—and a fucked-up past—”

  He shut me up with a dominating kiss, the kind that left no doubts about the seriousness of his proposal. God! Am I in Bizarro World here? I let his mouth plunder mine for a moment, then brought my hand up to the back of his head. I tugged him back and cupped his cheek, seeking his eyes again.

  “Baby . . . that thing tonight spooked me,” he whispered. “I didn’t plan this out; I just know what feels right. I want you with me. You won’t need a work visa any more. You can live here and work in London somewhere in your field. You’ll have time to find the perfect job without pressure to wrangle the immigration laws, and most important, we can be together. It’s what I want. I can shield you as your husband. I can make sure you’re always protected. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe. I love you. You love me, yeah? What’s the problem? It’s the perfect solution.” He tilted his head at me and squinted his eyes like I was being illogically stupid.

  “I’m not anywhere close to being ready for that, Ethan, despite how I feel about you.”

  “I’m not either and the timing is horrible, but I think it’s our only good option.” He softly brushed my hair back from my face with a gentle touch. “I’m willing . . . and I think you should at least consider it.” He gave me the eyebrow look. “I’m not enduring another episode like we had tonight at the National.”

  I started to protest but he shushed me with another demanding kiss that was so very typical of him. He held me beneath him, pressing me into the soft mattress and stroking into my mouth with a skilled tongue. I let him kiss me and just floated along for a bit, trying my best to process what he’d shared.

  “Before you get all feisty and worried, I want you to just think about it for now. We could have a long engagement, but the announcement is what will make people sit up and take notice. We had a tough night and there’s a ton of shit to be sorted, but in the end, we’re together and that won’t be changing.” He kissed me on the forehead. “And you’re moving in with me.”

  I just stared at him and took in his words.

  “That last part is not a request, Brynne. What went down tonight was utter madness and we cannot be living in two places.”

  “God, what am I going to do with you?” I stifled a yawn and realized the pill was making me sleepy. I knew I wouldn’t be able to continue this conversation much longer. The idea flashed through my mind that he might have used that fact to his advantage. Ethan wasn’t good at poker for nothing.

  “You’re exhausted, and quite frankly I am too.”

  I yawned again and agreed with him. “I am . . . but I still don’t know what to even say about what you’re suggesting,” I told him, speaking into his eyes, which were just inches from mine.

  He snuggled me against his body in preparation for sleep and buried his face in my neck. “You’re going to go to sleep right now, and think about it . . . and trust me . . . and move in with me officially.”

  “Just like that?” I asked.

  “Yeah, just like that.” His lips moved against the back of my neck. “It’s simply the way things have to be.” I felt his stubble graze my skin as he pressed close. “I love you, baby. Now go to sleep.”

  Ethan’s strong arms folded around me did feel magnificent, despite the fact that I thought he was out of his ever-loving mind. But knowing that he would do something so drastic for me just to keep me protected, that he loved me that much, made the small smile on my face feel quite fucking fabulous, to quote my soldier-mouthed lover.

  I did sleep then, safe in his arms.

  2

  ♠ Out on patrols we saw all kinds of horrifying shit. Democracy is something most people never really have the opportunity to appreciate. I suppose that’s a lucky thing for much of the world, but still food for thought for those who don’t even know how good they have it. The thing that bothered me the most was the incredible waste of potential. People suppressed and terrorized have very little potential—just the way third-world dictators like them to be.

  We’d seen her around begging on the streets of Kabul before, but never with the boy. Servicemen were restricted from interaction with the Afghan women. It was far too dangerous, and not just for the troops, but horny men are the most predictable, stupid creatures on the planet. They’ll go looking for pussy and
find trouble just about every time. It was fair to assume she was a prostitute. Although not common, brothels did exist in Kabul, not that I’d ever be caught dead in one. But some of the men took the risk, morons that they are, thinking with their cocks. I made do with porn and the occasional secret shag with a “fellow” enlisted when it could be managed on the sly. I had a fair bit of interest and enough offers from women in the army. Discretion was key for any sex on base. Female troops had reason to be wary when they were so vastly outnumbered by men.

  The woman’s name was Leyya and she died an inhumane death. The Taliban executed her in the town square for her crimes. The crime of working to feed her child. The bawling boy alerted us of the situation. He was about three years old and sitting in his mother’s blood in the middle of the street. I later wondered if anyone in the town would have ever picked him up, or if they would’ve left him to die right there with his mother’s desecrated body. In the end the point was moot.

  It made me insane leaving him there while the possibility of a suicide bomb was ruled out. Took fucking hours. I was the one who set out to go get him off her corpse. I went in quickly and scooped him up. He didn’t want to leave her and clutched at her burka, dragging it away from her face as I lifted him up. Her throat had been slit from ear to ear, her head mostly severed. I dearly hoped he was too young to remember seeing his mother like that.

  I got a terrible feeling almost immediately. A coldness swept through me as I ran him out of there. And then his crying stopped abruptly. A whoosh of air passed my ear and then . . . blood. So much blood for such a tiny little body. A moment later all hell broke loose . . .

  “Baby, you’re dreaming,” a voice said gently in my ear.

  I turned toward the voice, straining hard to find it. The sound soothed like nothing else before. I wanted that voice.

  And then again, “Ethan, baby, you’re dreaming.”

  I opened my eyes, sucking in a breath as I saw her, and took in her words. “I was?”

  “Yeah, just some mumbling and moving around.” She reached a hand up behind my head and held my eyes to hers. “I woke you because I didn’t want you to dream anything terrible.”

  “Fuck, I’m sorry. I woke you up?” I still felt disoriented, but I was coming out of it quickly.

  “It’s all right. I wanted to wake you up before it got . . . bad.” She sounded sad to me and I could only imagine that she’d try to get me to talk about this dream like she had the last time.

  “Sorry,” I repeated, feeling shamed for doing this shit again and disturbing her with it.

  “You don’t have to be sorry for having a dream, Ethan,” she said firmly. “But I’d really love it if you told me what it was about.”

  “Oh, baby.” I drew her close and smoothed over her head and hair with my hand. I pressed my lips to her forehead and inhaled. Just breathing in her scent helped me immensely, as did the feel of her breasts against my thudding heart as I held her close to me. She was real, right here, right now. Safe with me.

  I was hard. Hot and hard against her soft skin. “I’m still sorry for waking you up,” I said tightly as my lips found hers. I plundered her mouth with my tongue, pressing in deep and forceful, determined to have more. Nothing could help me right now but Brynne. She was the only cure.

  And I was sorry, but I’d been like this with her before. Waking in the night and needing sex to bring myself down from the hyperanxiety of wherever I’d been in my dreams tonight.

  “It’s okay,” she rasped against my mouth.

  Her response emboldened me. Most everything she did turned me on. I liked to be dominant, but it thrilled me when Brynne assured me that she was willing, and desired me in the same way I did her. I instinctively knew she wanted me. It was just another form of the communication we shared. I wished all aspects of our relationship were so easy. The sex part we had figured out quickly, from the very first. Yeah, the fucking had always been hot and wickedly good for us.

  I rolled her under me and split her legs wide with my knees, opening her up and dropping my head. I tossed off the covers and drew my eyes down over the gorgeous, willing body I would be buried deep inside of in another moment. Thank sweet Christ.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Good, because I need to fuck you until you come, saying my name,” he said in typical fashion. “Then I’m going to take my cock out of your divine cunt and fuck your beautiful mouth with it. And watch your lovely lips wrap around it and suck me dry.” His eyes flared and his sculpted chest moved from the heavy breathing as he moved into position. “Yes, baby, I’m going to do all of that.”

  Ethan and his filthy mouth. It was crazy as hell, but that dirty talk did something to me.

  Tensing in anticipation of what he would do, I moaned when he plunged into me hard and deep, filling me so full, bringing us so close together, my mind flashing back to what he’d said to me earlier in the night. We’ll get married. Not a question posed, but a directive as only Ethan could state and get away with, just as he’d done so many other times since we’d met.

  Ethan held my wrists in one hand and roamed with the other as he rode me hard. In and out at a furious pace, almost angry in his method. I knew he wasn’t angry with me, though. It was the dream he battled. He needed to get the thing out of his head. I totally understood what was going on. Didn’t matter to me. I was a complete willing participant in his form of self-discipline.

  He pushed me open wider and worked my sweet spot with his cock so perfectly it didn’t take very long before I was striving for an orgasm, feeling the tightening of my muscles readying for the blast that would take me to heaven on a supernova of heat and light.

  He pinched my nipple, much more sensitive than usual, and the pain blinded me for an instant.. I cried out as the climax started to roll through my body. He soothed the tender flesh with his tongue and spoke: “Say my name! I have to hear it.”

  “Ethan, Ethan, Ethan!” I chanted against his lips as he plunged his tongue into my mouth and swallowed my words. I shuddered and clenched my inner muscles around his cock, pinned down and fully taken. And never more satisfied than I was in this moment. He took charge of my pleasure and never let me down.

  But he wasn’t done. I remembered what he’d said to me before.

  Ethan growled a very primal sound and pulled out of me. I protested the loss, but welcomed the jerk down the bed and the hot head of his penis filling my mouth as he readjusted his point of penetration. I could taste myself mixed with the taste of him and the eroticism was blatantly explosive. Gripping his hips, I pulled him deeper and sucked him to the back of my throat. Just a few strokes of my lips along the shaft before I felt the spurt of semen splash down. The sounds he made were carnal and oddly vulnerable for such a dominant act. It always made me feel powerful when Ethan came. I made it happen.

  He was staring at me, watching the whole thing as he liked to do, our eyes connecting us deeply beyond just the physical act.

  “Oh, God,” he whispered as he slid out of my mouth and drew back down my body to press us close. He covered me again, gently this time, sliding inside me in a perfect fit of his body to mine before his erection faded. I could feel the thudding of his heart blending with mine.

  I held on to him and let him have his way. For a long time he kissed and touched me, needing to be inside me for a while longer, telling me he loved me and making me feel cherished. I understood so much about this man and what made him tick. So much . . . except for the one thing I wanted to know, and didn’t know at all.

  Ethan’s dark place was still as mysterious to me as it had ever been.

  “I love that you brought me here.” I felt myself start to slip away into drowsiness again, determined to talk to him tomorrow about the nightmares, knowing that he wouldn’t like it, but screw it, I was going to anyway. I wondered if he sensed what I would do. Ethan had the uncanny ability to predict my intenti
ons. “And I love you.”

  He settled me in his arms and stroked my hair. I breathed in his spicy scent mixed with all the sex and his cologne and let myself go, knowing I was in the arms of the only man who had ever gotten me to stay there.

  As morning dawned I disentangled myself very carefully from the body wrapped around me. Ethan just sighed into his pillow and rolled deeper into the blankets. He had to be worn out from last night’s stressful show at the National Gallery and then the three hour drive up the coast late afterward. I couldn’t discount the time spent on sex once we got here either. Or his bad dream. And the fucking after that. The look in his eyes and the silent domination was a replay of his nightmare that other time. I knew what I knew. The resulting encounter had not been as intense as before, but I sensed Ethan had been working very hard to control his response so he didn’t lose it quite as badly as last time. My poor baby. I’d never tell him that, but it pained me to see him hurting; even more so that I couldn’t do anything about it because he refused to share it with me. Men were frustrating as hell.

  With the soap in the shower, I scrubbed at my skin in annoyance and hurried to finish, determined to be dressed and out of the room without waking Ethan from his much-needed sleep in.

  I tucked my phone into my jeans pocket and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door softly behind me. I just stood and looked down the hall from the wing where our room was situated at one corner of the estate. This place was something else all right, shades of Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley with a dash of Mr. Rochester’s Thornfield Hall thrown in. I couldn’t wait to get an official tour, still enthralled with the fact that Ethan’s sister and her husband owned this place.

  I took the stairs halfway down, stopping on a dramatic landing. There on the wall was the most stunning painting. Larger than life and most definitely an artist I knew well. A portrait created by none other than the hand of Sir Tristan Mallerton hanging on the wall in a private home. Wow. I’m so out of my league with this family.