Fated: An Alpha Male Romance (5 page)

He glanced down at it, shook his head, and snaked his hand around my waist. I initially began to resist him even though I wanted his arm around me more than anything, but relaxed when he leaned down near my cheek and blew along the shell of my ear.

“Hi Alexandra.”

“I’ll leave you two,” Grandma Evelyn said, winking before she walked to the table. Roderick was watching us, but his focus was nowhere near the arm Ethan had around my waist.

“May I have this dance?” Ethan asked, pulling me closer.

I joined our hands. “Yes.”

Our gazes connected as we floated around the room and, as cliché as this might sound, I felt like Cinderella. Although my dress wasn’t as cumbersome, and a wrong step in my strappy heels wasn’t going to leave me tweezing glass splinters from the soles of my feet, I was definitely in the arms of someone as dashing as a fairy-tale prince.

“We haven’t really talked since yesterday,” he said, his gaze moving but somehow remaining still. “Are you afraid of me now?”

He was searching my eyes, but heaven only knew what he was looking for. My body’s reaction should have told him everything that he needed to know.

“No,” I immediately answered.

“Oh. Then, how do you feel about what happened?”

He turned me around so that my back was facing his midsection, our arms outstretched to the side. The soft music wafting from the orchestra had corralled us into a waltz, which I’d learned when I was only ten years old, and Ethan’s feet moved flawlessly in step with mine. I began to wonder again about his background, and if my parents could have accepted him as easily as they’d accepted Roderick.

After a few beats, I turned so that we were face to face again, and he pulled me tight into his chest. Its hardness reminded me of how my breasts had pressed against him as he’d held me against the wall of my office, every inch of his length moving skillfully inside me.

I replied as honestly as I could. “Confused.”

Suddenly, he stopped.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, doing a poor job of masking my disappointment.

He grabbed my hand. “Come with me.”

I let him whisk me away from the ballroom floor towards the kitchen doors in the back without even tossing a glance at my table. I felt a mixture of guilt and a rush of exhilaration as I pictured a hidden kitchen crevice, our lips joined, and my legs around his waist. Instead, the back room was mostly empty with the exception of a few staffers. He whispered something to one, a dark-haired girl with a pixie-cut and light dusting of freckles across her nose, then she smiled and disappeared. As we waited for her to return, he pulled me backwards into his arms and kissed the top of my head. My stomach quivered at the fact that, at any given moment, Roderick could walk through the doors and see us holding each other like long-time lovers.

I prepared to step away from him just as the girl returned, and he led me in the direction that she’d come from to a small square table. On top of the table in a slim vase was a single red rose and the lights had been dimmed. A plate sat in the middle of the table with a slice of chocolate cake on top.

“One of the first things you told me when we first met was that you were a sucker for chocolate cake,” he said, pulling out my chair. “Do you like it?”

I smiled. “I love it, Ethan. No one’s ever done anything like this for me before.”

He sat down next to me. “Damn shame.”

He picked up the fork, cut a chunk of cake, and then brought the fork up to my lips. I slipped the soft, airy chocolate into my mouth and he studied my mouth’s movements as though mesmerized.

“Sexy,” he said, smiling.

“So, I’m guessing that you don’t feel uncomfortable about what happened between us?” I asked, my nipples hardening as I watched the same fork go into his mouth.

He seemed surprised. “No.”

“Are you sorry that it happened?”

He used his finger to brush a piece of chocolate away from my lip and then sucked the finger into his mouth. “I’m not.”

I cleared my throat in an attempt to burn away the lie that was about to spill forth. “But you know that it can’t happen again, Ethan. Rick and I have been together for a while and, it’s not right. Plus, I don’t want to be just another sexual outlet for you or any man for that matter.”

His brow lifted. “Sexual outlet?”

“Yes.”

“You’re definitely not that, Alexandra.”

I decided to go with my other angle. “Well, you can’t tell me it’s not wrong,” I added. “If you were in Rick’s position, you wouldn’t want your girlfriend to be doing what I’m doing. This isn’t even like me. I don’t cheat. I don’t stray from the pack. For some people that might sound ludicrous, but that’s the way it’s always worked for me. My life was planned even before I was born: go to a good school, earn good grades, take on leadership positions in high school and then go on to Princeton. In the walking herd of sheep, I’m not the one that turns around and goes backwards.”

Even
I
couldn’t believe how extremely pathetic of an existence that appeared to be. Yet, it was true. I was safe. I was comfortable. I was predictable and reliable. The world could be a dangerous and unpredictable place, so living by a routine schedule and making sure that I hit the major mile markers of my life helped to detract from that uncertainty. It made the world seem a bit less daunting. But Lord did it leave a bad taste in my mouth now.

He studied my face in what I would almost call an incredulous fashion. It was as though I’d just given my entire spiel in an ancient language that not even the Rosetta Stone could have deciphered.

“Do you really believe that, Alexandra?” he asked, slipping another piece of cake into my mouth. “That you’re supposed to go through life in a calculated fashion dictated by other people?”

I didn’t, but I was still lying. “Yes.”

“And never once have you ever considered what you want?”

I was ripe with fibs tonight. “That’s what I want.”

“Well, what do you think I want?”

I paused before answering, taking the time to watch his tongue lick a piece of chocolate from his top lip. My mind betrayed me as it remembered the things that tongue could do and the areas of my body that it had traversed.

“You want me to have sex with you again?” The answer actually wasn’t supposed to come out in the form of a question, but the intonation at the end of the sentence snuck in at the last minute.

He grunted, but didn’t give me much more of a response than that. Instead, we continued to feast on the cake until only a few crumbs and swirls of melted chocolate remained on the plate. Admittedly, I missed it when it was gone. It was the most satisfying dessert that I’d ever had in my life but I couldn’t tell if it was the actual dessert, or the company I’d had the pleasure of keeping.

He pushed the empty plate away and turned my chair so that we were facing each other. Then, he inched me a bit closer. “Alexandra, how did you feel when you were with me?” he asked. “How did I make you feel? And, I want you to be honest. Don’t hold anything back.”

I turned away from his face, but he gently touched my cheek to reconnect our gazes.

“Honestly?” I licked my lips and his eyes fell to my mouth before returning to my eyes. “Well, honestly, you made me feel different, but not necessarily like a different person. Just a different version of myself. You tapped into, and brought out, something inside of me that I thought had died years ago on a farm in Lafayette.”

“And what was that?” he asked.

“The version of me that felt free. Fun. Centered.”

He drew closer. “So, which version of Alexandra Miller feels the best?”

Ethan’s voice vibrated off my ear drums in a deeper tone than normal, and I became painfully aware of the throbbing between my thighs. My arousal only increased my desire for him, but I loved the feeling of struggling to remain in control when I so desperately wanted to fall out of it. I had no idea what he was doing to me, but I felt that if you were to look close enough, you could see where he controlled me with strings. The difference was that I actually wanted those strings. I wanted to desire him. Fear was the only reason I fought it.

“I like the version of me with you inside,” I found myself replying, shocking me to my core although I hoped I didn’t show it. My legs parted and he slipped his hand underneath my dress until he’d made it to my thigh.

“Where inside of you?” He trailed his fingers over the dampness on the outside of my panties. “Here?”

I shook my head and touched a finger to my mouth. “No. Here.”

“Alexandra!”

The call came from outside the kitchen’s front door. It was definitely Roderick’s voice, which really should have startled me into some form of shame or desire to pull myself together, but my legs only parted wider. Ethan’s fingers weaved their way into my panties and stroked the throbbing nub that I’d guiltily wanted to explore myself a few times over the years.

“Alexandra, where are you?” Roderick called again.

Ethan’s fingers meandered until they found their way inside me, his thumb still stroking my clit on the outside.

“Think I can make you come before he gets in here?” he asked, the deep timbre of his voice laced with arousal.

Roderick’s head came poking around the corner and my breath caught, but still my legs went wider. All it would take was him entering the room fully and taking a few steps to the right to get a clear view of what was going on behind the table, but even that didn’t give me enough reason to stop.

“Hey honey,” I greeted, ensuring not to sound like I was on the verge of orgasm. “I was just talking to Dr. Stewart about what we spoke about earlier.”

He stopped in the doorway. “Is that right?”

“Yes, my love.”

“Back here by yourself?”

“It was too loud out front.”

“And what about this romantic set-up?”

I laughed. “This…this wasn’t for us.”

“Well, we have people to meet and pictures to take,” he slowly added as though trying to determine how much of what I was saying was truth. “I don’t want our time here tonight to be a complete waste. Did you accomplish what you set out to do?”

Ethan’s fingers flickered faster and I struggled not to wiggle in the chair. It was amazing that fingers could feel that good moving inside of me, and how much I meant what I’d said before. I wanted to feel his weight in my mouth. I wanted to put my mouth somewhere that, if my mother ever found out, would cause her to keel over from a massive heart-attack. I had no idea what my father would do if he found out, nor was I curious.

“Yes,” I answered. “Let me just finish up here and I’ll be right out.”

“No. You come
now
.”

Ethan’s fingers stopped. He and Roderick locked glares. I discreetly shook my head; I didn’t want him getting in the middle of anything going on between Roderick and I. At the end of the day, Roderick wasn’t what I’d consider a bad person. He was critical because he’d been raised so high-strung. He was disconnected from the general population for the same reason — the spoon in his mouth that he’d been born with had been made of platinum. He demanded respect, which included doing the things he asked at the very moment he asked for them. Like my father, he could be stressful, but he wasn’t malicious.

“Sweetheart, please?” I pleaded. “I’ve told you since day one how important your campaign is to me. We just need to finish hashing out the details.”

“Then I’ll stay back here with you.” He started forward, but I put up a hand to stop him.

“Honey, you work the room out there and Dr. Stewart and I will figure out the details of the Five-K fundraiser we’re organizing in conjunction with the medical center and the community board. The Five-K that will be headlined as your event.”

In that single instance, all of his suspicion was seared away by the illumination of his eyes. “My event? What for?”

“Juvenile diabetes in Louisiana’s youth.”

He snapped his fingers. “Children?”

I nodded. “Yes, children. It will be a perfect opportunity for the people to get to know you outside of your military role. So, I’ll see you in like two minutes?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Not a minute later.”

He then turned and swished out of the room. Ethan watched his path for a few seconds before turning to me. “Does he do that a lot?” he asked. “Demand you to do things?”

“Don’t worry about it, Ethan,” I assured.

“Alexandra—”

“Sometimes.”

He made a gruff noise in the back of his throat and then looked down at my dress. “My fingers aren’t going to make you come in two minutes.”

Before I had a chance to comment, he lifted my dress and slipped my panties down over my legs. I bit into my tongue to stop myself from moaning when I felt the warmth of his mouth against my center. He used his tongue to part my folds and flick my swollen nubbin, and I angled my hips to grant him deeper access, pulling a few strands of silky hair into my fingers. He circled his tongue around the organ and then sucked…and licked…and
sucked
. His finger inside of me probed, swirled and stroked. The danger of being caught only made the sensation building inside me more intense, but nothing inside of me wanted him to stop.