Shiver (9 page)

Chapter 13

W
e pulled to the front of the valet line and climbed out, tugging our coats around us against the frigid temperature as we hurried into the building. Our conversations in the car had eased anything awkward and we all felt like friends, strange details aside.

After we checked our coats, we filtered into the ballroom. I took in the glowing candlelight and chandeliers, white tablecloths with gold accents, mahogany bars in each corner. We were definitely surrounded by the upper crust of our little society. You never knew who you’d meet at one of these things. One time I met the man who’d invented the bar code. No joke.

A waiter passed by with a tray of champagne. We each helped ourselves and began wandering around. There were silent auction items surrounding the entire ballroom. Everything from baskets of homemade horse treats to a week at a villa in Tuscany to a rescue puppy. Anything to help people feel good about donating large quantities of money. Judging from the numbers written under each item, it was working. There was no actual dinner, just cocktails and canapés passed around as guests mingled, the alcohol hopefully loosening their wallets. We all just window-shopped the auction. None of these items were meant for us. And I figured I helped animals by simply rescuing them myself, like Charlie, or by caring for the horses to the best of my ability so that they never ended up needing a rescue.

“Dance with me?” Lawrence’s voice behind me pulled me from my musings.

I turned with a smile. “Why thank you, sir.”

I followed him onto the dance floor, the orchestra playing a Frank Sinatra ballad. He swept me into his arms like, well, like the perfect gay best friend.

“Don’t you say it.”

“Say what?” I asked innocently.

“I am not your gay best friend. I have sisters. They took dance lessons. My mom made me partner them.”

I couldn’t help laughing loudly, drawing some disapproving glances. He quickly spun me and dipped me in playful retaliation. As he drew me back up, I stood staring straight into Ethan’s heated gaze.

“Can I cut in?” he asked without breaking our eye contact.

From the corner of my eye, I caught Lawrence nodding and stepping away before I was pulled flush to Ethan and we glided across the floor.

“You look absolutely stunning.” He breathed softly into my ear, his right hand settling low, really low, on my bare back, and I shivered.

“Cold?” I felt him smile.

“No, I’m not cold,” I stated quietly, enjoying the feel of being in his arms, the texture of him beneath his tuxedo, and the touch of our hands.

“Are you having fun tonight?”

“I am.” I nodded slowly. “I didn’t know you would be here.”

“I came as a trophy.”

I pulled back to look in his eyes. “Whose trophy? And why?” I was a little irrationally angry and felt stupid that I thought we were having a kind of moment, only to find out he was here with someone else.

“Why are you angry? You do realize you’re here with a date too, right?”

I waved him off. “Lawrence and I are just friends. He’s my arm candy for the night. And maybe a kiss at midnight if I get tipsy enough.”

He glared at me, jaw flexing back and forth. “You’re just friends who sleep together?”

“No. Just friends. As in… actual friends. Nothing more.”

“Why have you both been blatantly flaunting your relationship in front of me then?”

I shrugged. “It tickled me.”

“It tickled you,” he repeated slowly, dangerously.

“Yes. It did. It tickled me to see your mood swings every day, and I was making bets on when you were going to start your period.”

Despite his irritation, he laughed out loud. “God, you’re weird.” He pulled me closer, wrapping my arms up around his neck and sliding his hands down my bare arms and then down my back, settling them there. “I don’t know what I’m doing with you,” he muttered softly.

“You’re not doing anything with me, Ethan,” I said, fully exasperated.

His lips brushed the side of my neck as he bent down to whisper in my ear. “Can you give me a little time? To figure myself out. To… to figure this out?”

Before I could answer, or even ask more questions, a shrill voice interrupted us, causing Ethan to stiffen in my arms.

“Ethan! I’ve been looking for you.” A tall, blond, impossibly beautiful woman in a red strapless dress was standing over me, dripping bling. Expensive bling, but bling nonetheless. She threaded her arm through Ethan’s, tugging him away from me. And hey, I could understand the arm-candy thing, but this seemed a bit much if that was all they were.

Ethan cleared his throat. “Heather, this is Lissa. Lissa is my assistant trainer. Heather is an attorney, and she’s new to the area.” The sexy, laughing man of five seconds ago was gone, replaced by an expressionless robot.

I reached out my hand, which she limply shook with her fingertips. Ew, I hated that. “Ethan, dear, your father is waiting for us.”

I stood dumbfounded in the middle of the dance floor. His father whom he hated? What the…

“Thanks for the dance, Lissa. We’ll talk tomorrow?”

I snapped out of it momentarily, giving my head a little shake to clear it. “Um, no. Remember, we were planning to close tomorrow.”

“Oh, right. Okay. Day after, then.” He nodded and followed Heather into the crowd. I just stared stupidly after them.

Fortunately Lawrence was by my side immediately and escorted me off the floor. “Did I miss something?”

“Yeah. I mean, I think we all did. One minute he’s asking me to give him some time, the next his… lady friend is grabbing him to go speak to his father. I didn’t even think they communicated, let alone that his dad was in town.”

“What does he want time for?”

“For him to figure himself out, he said.”

“Well that’s good, right?”

“It might have been, but now it’s not looking so hot.”

He tucked his hands into his pockets and nodded. “Well, fuck it then. Let’s have some fun.”

I looked over and smiled. “Shots?” I raised a brow.

“Pick your poison.”

“Tequila.”

“Let’s do it.”

We sidled up to the bar and placed our order, the young bartender grinning at our unsophisticated behavior. I did my best to take ladylike shots like a true Texas girl. Which meant licking the salt while maintaining eye contact, downing the shot smoothly without a drip, and making sure the lime was sucked without smudging my lipstick. Lawrence watched me with wide eyes.

“Wow. You do not make it easy to be the gay best friend.”

I laughed as I repeated the process, enjoying for a moment the power of being a woman. And I noticed a few other couples, not all young, had come up to follow our lead in ordering their own shots. It was a party, wasn’t it? Alas, two shots was my limit before I became an idiot, so I cut myself off and grabbed another glass of bubbles instead. We were closing in on midnight, which meant it was almost time to celebrate, find Steph, and head home.

“I’m just going to slip outside for a minute and get some fresh air. Will you hold my purse?”

“No. I will not. I’m going to reassert my masculinity and not hold your purse. But I will keep myself entertained here at the bar while you’re gone.” He turned away, fully amused by the antics of some cougars lingering nearby.

“Make good choices.” I patted his chest as I walk off.

While the ballroom had been transformed into a spectacular gala for the evening, I’d been to several events here over the years and had seen it decorated for Halloween, funerals, weddings, and even veterinary-discussion panels. There were all the common areas for people to gather, but up a side staircase was a door that led to a small balcony. A nice place to know to escape to for some peace.

I climbed the stairs, holding my glass and clutch purse in one hand and in the other my dress so I wouldn’t trip over it. I pushed open the door and stepped out into the freezing cold. I didn’t even think about my jacket. But figured I could handle a few minutes in the chill to clear my head. I took a deep breath and walked around to lean against the wrought-iron railing.

“Cold?”

I jumped a mile high, hand on my chest despite having recognized Ethan’s voice.

“Fuck me!” I exclaimed. “You scared me. No, I’m not cold. I’m burning up now that my heart is pounding out of my chest. You asshole!”

I looked over to see him sitting on a stool in the dim light, leaning back against the stucco wall. He had a tumbler of what smelled like scotch and was holding a lit cigarette, which he passed to me without another word. I swallowed my earlier irritation and accepted it, raising my hand to my lips. The butt was slightly damp from his mouth, and maybe that would be gross with anyone else. But not with him. I took in his appearance, from his disheveled hair to his bow tie, undone and draped casually around his collar, to his unbuttoned tuxedo jacket. His ankle was resting on his opposite knee as he regarded me silently, jaw tight.

“Rough night?” I asked as I set my purse and champagne on a small table in the corner.

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t… I don’t really want to talk about tonight.”

“We’re going to have to at some point. You said things. Things that I need to know about. Things I need clarified. You know this isn’t fair to me.”

He took a deep breath and blew it out hard, reaching out for the cigarette. I held it away, taking another drag, but he stood, clasping my wrist and drawing the cigarette to his lips, all while looking into my eyes. I was mesmerized.

Silence wrapped around us heavily, weighing us down and preventing any more speech. He plucked the Marlboro Light from my fingers and stubbed it out on the railing, flicking it into a potted plant. And I just… watched. His fingers brushed an errant curl behind my ear and softly trailed down my cheek, my neck, before tracing the outside line of my dress in front of my shoulder. He followed the line under my arm, dipping his finger just below the fabric all the way to its lowest point at the curve of my lower back, making my breath hitch.

“How do you do that?” I whispered.

“Do what?”

“Affect me. With a touch. When I’m so mad.”

He chuckled softly. “I don’t mean to make you mad.”

I started to push away. “That’s exactly what makes me mad. You evade giving me a real answer with something cryptic, but you do it in a sexy voice, and it makes me stop thinking!”

He pulled me back up to him forcefully. “I’ll stop talking then.” His mouth crashed to mine in our first kiss in well over a month, and it felt so right, like coming home. He stole my breath as my arms came up to grip his hair, tugging him closer. My teeth nipped at his lip in retribution for all the angst he’d been putting me through, and he groaned deeply at the sensation. I tasted smoke and scotch and I wanted more. I wanted to be closer. When I felt his hand at my hip, gathering the material of my dress higher and higher, I was all in. When he finally reached bare skin on my leg, my breath relaxed in satisfaction, then tightened as his hand skimmed higher. I felt when the knowledge hit him that I wasn’t wearing anything beneath my dress. His fingers glided over my hip, around my ass, as I curled my leg around him.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he murmured against my lips.

I smiled back. “Didn’t want lines.”

“Thank God for that.”

He removed his hand from under my dress, much to my dismay, before raising his hand to tug my neckline to the side, exposing my breasts to the night air. His mouth was on me in an instant, and I was completely lost to the sensations and also to the fact that we were on a public balcony. My head fell back but my hands fumbled for his pants, unfastening them and reaching in to stroke him. He jolted at the contact and quickly picked me up, propping me up against the cold rail, pushing my dress up around my waist. Strongly supporting me from behind, which was appreciated as I was precariously balanced a few stories up, he pushed into me and we both groaned. The ache I hadn’t realized was resonating so deeply within me was gone. Our connection was real and intense and everything I’d been missing. Our breathing synced, filling the night air with puffs of fog as we moved together, never breaking our kiss. Clothes were nothing but a nuisance, and we were only stopped from stripping entirely by January temperatures and the lingering reality that we were semi in public. His hands came up to thread through my hair, but I quickly grabbed them with my own, laughing into him.

“I’ll never be able to fix my hair if you ruin it.” Our fingers wound together behind my back instead, serving to pull our hips together even more.

“God, I can’t believe I’ve survived these weeks without being inside you,” he growled at me, hips moving.

“You have no idea,” I panted back.

His mouth returned to mine before leaving and fluttering down my neck, his teeth landing sharply on my collarbone. That was all I needed to cry out and explode and melt around him at the same time, and I felt him shuddering and gripping me with his own release.

We stayed wrapped around each other for long minutes, soaking it in. He sat up and brushed the hair from my face.

“Now you have to be cold,” he murmured softly, a smile in his voice.

“I bet your ass is cold too.” I laughed as I tightened my legs around him.

“What time is it?”

“Umm.” I glanced at my watch. “Past midnight.”

“We missed the ball dropping.”

I snorted. “No we didn’t.”

He kissed my forehead and sighed deeply. “Lissa, I will figure this out. Don’t freak out on me. Don’t leave. There are just things in my life right now that are… confusing. Things with my family, with Heather.”

I tensed at the mention of her name.

“Will you give me time to fix it? Will you wait for me?”

“Will you tell me what’s going on? Please Ethan.” I gripped the lapels of his jacket with both hands. And yes, it did strike me as funny that it was still on in our current position, though I was glad for the warmth.

“I need a little time. Can you trust me and give me that?”

I opened my mouth to respond, not entirely sure what I planned to say, when I felt buzzing in the inside pocket of his jacket. I reached in to pull out his phone and hand it to him, seeing it was a text from José.

“Oh shit. It’s Ginger. We need to go.”

He quickly helped me off the rail, fixing my dress before hurriedly righting his pants, then he grasped my hand and pulled me to the door.

“Wait! Stop! I need to let Lawrence and Steph know where I am. They’re probably freaking out.” I started to panic.

“Text them. We need to get to the barn as quickly as possible.”

Grabbing our coats on the way out, I texted my friends so they would know what was going on and I could ask them to take care of Charlie. Ethan cut to the front of the valet line, explaining the situation to the attendant. They handed over the keys and pointed in the direction his truck was parked, and he grabbed my hand to support me as we ran through the lot.

We pulled up at the barn just minutes later and rushed in, the veterinarian there eyeing our formal attire with interest. Jogging up to the stall, I saw Ginger standing listlessly, the spark that was normally in her eyes doused. I walked right in as Ethan spoke to the vet on call, despite my high heels, and stroked her muzzle. She nestled her head into my chest, and I rubbed her forehead gently. I scratched her ears, which I knew she loved, and she breathed out softly.