“I don’t usually do this.” Nadine wiped pizza crumbs from her mouth. They sat in bed with a huge pizza box on top of the comforter.

Ethan moved a stray lock of auburn hair away from her eyes. “Don’t do what?” he asked huskily.

“Eat pizza in bed, have so much sex in one day I can hardly move.” She was ravenous, and ate another slice of pizza.

“I didn’t hear you complaining earlier.” He put down his slice and turned towards her. His head rested against the headboard. He stroked her cheek with the back of his index finger.

Nadine shook her head. “Do I look like I’m complaining?” She paused before she took another bite.

“No, in fact you’ve worked up an appetite.” His eyes glinted as he watched her. His fingers dropped down lower and traced a slow route from just under her chin all the way down to her collarbone. “I don’t remember you eating so much at the Stormont,” he remarked.

Nadine half snorted. There had been a reason she had kept her appetite in check. They had hardly known each other back then and she couldn’t bring herself to share the bathroom so openly with him. Back then. Now she felt as though Ethan had been in her life forever. She liked the feeling it gave her, of being warm and secure.

Ethan looked at her; his finger slipped down to her arms. A safe zone.

“I feel like we have a lot of time to make up for.” She leaned over to kiss him on the lips again.

They entwined their hands and rested them in the small tight space between them as they both turned to face each other. Nadine moved the pizza box off the bed. “There’s so much I don’t know about you,” she said. “So much I need to know about you.”

“Ask away.” His eyes examined her face carefully. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”

“Really? You gave up so soon? I knew I would see you again.”

Ethan shrugged , moved his fingers out of her hand and ran them over her bare arms again. “It wasn’t that I gave up—it was just that I wasn’t sure you were the person I thought you were. I didn’t know if you were that hardcore career woman, and I was just a business arrangement.”

A business arrangement. Hiring him for the weekend had been the best idea she had ever had. After all, it had led them to each other. “Thank goodness for Zoe.” Nadine moved closer towards him. She slipped her leg over his and watched his face light up. He moved his hands lower, skating over her waist and following the lush curve of her hips.

“Good old Zoe, Billy’s girlfriend. She’s nice. You’ll have to meet them both sometime,” muttered Ethan as his fingers skated between her legs.

“You’ll have to meet my friend Renee.” Nadine stroked his chest with her hands, felt his taut muscle and the ridges along his stomach. “How often do you work out?” She pulled the sheet lower to examine his tight stomach.

“Whenever I get time,” he replied. “Why?”

“Suits you.”

He lifted up the sheet that she had wrapped against her chest and peeked at her naked body beneath it, breaking out into a smile at what he saw. Almost immediately, Nadine clamped her hand down on the sheet to try to cover her body. Lying on her side would make her stomach, especially now that she had eaten so much pizza, look extra bloated. And she knew that the sight of her large breasts sliding to the side wouldn’t look so flattering at all. She held her hand tight against the sheet.

“Hey,” Ethan moved closer and tugged at her hand as she held it tightly against the comforter, “I’ve seen everything, remember? And I love everything I saw.” She felt his lips over her neck and groaned in delight as his hands moved hungrily all over her body.

“You have a beautiful body, Nadine,” he whispered as he left gentle kisses along the soft skin below her ears.

Did he really mean that? Or was he just saying it because they were both in bed, naked?

“But I don’t work out, not like you do. And I’m always missing my Pilates classes, and I hardly ever find the time to do them at home, even though I have so many DVDs lying around.” She knew her justifications sounded irrelevant, and they were.

Ethan stopped kissing her neck and moved his face so that he directly looked at her. “You’re beautiful and you have a beautiful body.” He seemed so honest, as though he meant it and Nadine, for now at least, believed him.

He propped himself up on one elbow. “Your fingers get a good working out, though. How come you were working earlier? I thought your boss said you didn’t have to come in until tomorrow.”

Nadine turned her back to the headboard and sat up, hugging her knees. “A lot has happened since we last spoke,” she murmured. The thought of work suddenly twisted her insides.

“Tell me.” He caressed her bare back.

So she told him about the goings-on at the Zimmerman Group and about Sandra taking a leave of absence; he listened to everything she had to say. His fingers made her skin tingle. If he continued to do this, they would never get out of bed. Which wasn’t a bad thing at all, she mused.

“That’s just so weird, Sandra knowing Antonia,” he said finally.

“Isn’t it?” she agreed. “I never saw that coming.” She shivered as his hands gently kneaded her lower back. “What about you? You know all about me, all about my workplace and what I do. Are you ever going to tell me about you? The real you?”

His fingers slowed down. “What do you want to know?” He moved away slightly. Nadine turned her head; her eyes fell to his lips, to the way they turned up at the corners when she didn’t know whether he was getting ready to break out into a full-on smile, or give her one of his sexy, smoldering looks. He was too damn sexy, just too damn good-looking. For her.

“For starters, don’t you have a girlfriend?” she blurted out. He sighed heavily as she realized she had just said something that had annoyed him. She searched his face for possible clues of what it might have been, not realizing that her own doubt was the main culprit.

“I thought we covered all of that. Zoe is Billy’s girlfriend, not mine.”

She turned to her side, facing him, and reached out to run her fingers along his lips. “Yes, but you must have been seeing someone.” Why did she sound so needy, so nosey? Part of her couldn’t still accept the fact that he had chosen her.

“I do have a girlfriend, as of now, and I like to think that maybe it’s you. Nobody else, Nadine. You.” His eyes blazed, as if lit from within, and a small muscle along his jaw twitched involuntarily. He looked angry but he still looked as sexy as hell. And here he was in her bed. Naked. How much better could it get?

“I’m sorry,” she said softly before she reached over and kissed him. “I let you go once and I don’t want to make the same mistake again. I just wish I knew as much about you as you do about me.”

“Well.” He kissed her back, and then slipped his hands underneath the comforter again to explore her body slowly with his fingers. “That’s because I got to meet you in your work environment. You put me in the deep end, remember?”

“Yes but—” Nadine moaned in return. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him. She was still curious, now doubly so, about his work as a male escort and with the dance troupe. Of course, she wanted to know all about his metal sculptures and what exactly it was that he did for a living. But, damn it! They never managed to keep their hands off each other long enough to have a conversation.

“There’s no rush, is there, Nadine?” His fingers had found a sweet spot and she moved in closer towards him, aching to feel his skin against hers. The delicious feeling deep down in her body spread to each and every point along her skin. Talking was out of the question, for now.

Ethan murmured low, his lips almost against hers, “You can ask away, and I’ll answer everything but right now…right now…” And before he could finish his sentence, she had moved in for another probing, long, wet kiss.

The questions would have to wait until later.

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