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“I don’t want to hurt you, Noelle.”
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It can be. We’ll stick to the deal. We can have this, whatever it is, and then … and then we’ll both walk away with what we want. That’s simple right?” Even as she spoke the words, she knew they weren’t true.
“Sounds good.” And she could tell by his answer he knew it too.
Ethan just held Noelle, not even tempted to slip out of the room and head back to his condo. In fact, that idea was the opposite of appealing. Strange, since he was usually ready to do a runner by this point.
But Noelle was different. And not in the way men said women were different when they just wanted to get into their knickers. Different in a real, profound way. And not just because she’d been a virgin.
He was her first lover. That … well, that meant something. At thirty he was well past the age where he expected to run across a virgin. He’d even avoided them in high school, mostly by choosing to have sex with older women. He’d never really fancied the idea of being a corruptor of innocents. His life was just too … raw. He’d never had true innocence himself.
It was impossible when the cupboards in his kitchen had more prescription pills than they did food. Impossible when he overheard loud fights and sex between his parents every other day. Impossible when he simply felt invisible in his own home.
His upbringing had been privileged financially, but bankrupt in every other way.
But what had just happened between him and Noelle hadn’t seemed corrupt at all. Far from it. It had been the best sex of his life. And it had meant something. Had altered something in him.
He wasn’t sure if he liked that, but it was the truth.
It wouldn’t last. A fact that made his chest feel like it was filled with tiny shards of glass, evil and sharp, impossible to remove.
It couldn’t last. That was the one thing he was certain of. Because she would never be happy with him. His stomach suddenly felt too tight. It was very hard to breathe. It was a hard admission to make, but it was true.
He’d never managed to bring happiness to anyone in his life. There was no reason Noelle would be any different.
He would never be able to make her happy, not in the long term. He would ruin her.
No. That wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t do that to her. They would have their affair, and they would both move on.
Even if there was a small, insidious part of himself that wished things could be different. They couldn’t be. And he would have to accept it.
CHAPTER TEN (#u8e1d154a-0a08-5a69-8957-0ec84d46c3a9)
NOELLE stretched, smiling when she felt a couple little aches in some very intimate places. Oh yes, Ethan had been amazing. Over and over again.
She had been well and truly introduced to sex.
Her smiled faded a little as she recognized a new ache, right around her heart. She was also being introduced to something else, something big and new. Emotions, a connection she’d never felt with anyone before.
She didn’t know what to call it. Or maybe she was too scared to call it anything.
Ethan saw her. More than that, he wanted to see her. Who she really was, not the veneer. No one, not her mother, not her piano teacher, not the flighty acquaintances who had sometimes called themselves her friends had ever bothered to do that.
“Good morning.” Ethan came into the bedroom holding a tray with coffee and muffins. He wasn’t wearing much more than a smile, his broad chest bare, powerful thighs on display. Only a very brief pair of briefs covered him. She wished he hadn’t put them on.
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