Semua Bab Winning Her Back: Bab 41 - Bab 50

Ethan's POVThe door closing behind her wasn't silent. It was a gunshot in the silence she'd left behind. A silence thick with the scent of her, vanilla and something very Lila, and the ghostly heat of her body on mine. My fists clenched into balls so tight my knuckles wailed, nails digging into my hands. The taste of her skin was still on my lips, the echo of her gasp, that fucking soft whimper she’d made when my teeth grazed her ear, vibrated in my skull like a struck bell.Fuck.I stared at the spot where she’d been pinned against the wall. Where I’d pinned her. Where I’d felt the frantic rabbit-beat of her pulse under my mouth, smelled the intoxicating blend of fear and something else. Something that had ignited a wildfire in my blood. Screaming my name. The image flashed, unbidden, brutal: Lila bent over the cold obsidian of my desk, that cashmere sweater pushed up, those tailored trousers pooled around her ankles, her back arched, skin flushed, taking my dick while she cried out

The wheels descended with a thud that mirrored the still-quaking thud in my chest. Paris. The cabin air of the plane felt thick, stale, clinging to me like the memory of Ethan's final words, delivered with that cold, flat contempt. "Have fun." It wasn’t a good-bye. It was an instruction laced with ice. I'd rehearsed it time and again on the flight, the coldness of his eyes, the compression of his jaw, the utter lack of anything that could be called warmth or even anger. Just nothing. As though I were a somewhat pesky parcel he was shipping out. The sigh that had slipped from me on the plane's taxiing was heavy, bearing the weight of that gaze and the crushing stillness that had filled the mansion since the office, since the kiss, since the door slammed shut, no, clicked shut. That awful, silent click.No. I sat up straight, grasping the armrests. I was supposed to take some space. Breathe. Remember me. I was not Lila the inconvenient wife, Lila the suspected slut, Lila the emotional w

Heat. That was the first sensation. Not the soft warmth of the Parisian suite, but a deep, internal furnace, stoked to a blaze. Ethan’s mouth was on mine, not demanding, but devouring. His hands, calloused and familiar, traced scorching paths down my spine, slipping beneath the thin silk of my nightgown. We weren't in the sterile luxury of the hotel. We were tangled in the sheets of our bed back in the mansion, sunlight dappling through familiar curtains. His skin was hot silk under my palms, the scent of him, spice, cedar, pure Ethan, filling my lungs, intoxicating. A low growl vibrated in his chest as his lips trailed fire down my throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive pulse point, sending electric shocks straight to my core.“Mine,” he rasped against my skin, the word a rough caress that ignited every nerve ending. His hand slid lower, cupping my hip, pulling me flush against the hard evidence of his desire. The friction was exquisite torture. “Always mine, Lila.” His other hand t

Golden light, warm and rich, outlined patterns on my eyelids. Awareness crept in slowly, wrapped in the soft, lavish embrace of the hotel bedclothes. A deep sense of warmth, security, and satisfaction remained in my limbs, a heavy richness that was unfamiliar after days of tension. The heat spectrum of the dream, that dream, the one before the club, the one so replete with sensual possibility, had somehow hemorrhaged into the actual. I canted my back, a slow sigh upon my lips, my spine so instinctively bending towards the heat pressed tightly against my back. Substantial. Real. Respiring.My eyes flew open.The lavish expanse of the Royal Suite bed lay before me. The city skyline glittered beyond the windows. And pressed against my back, hot as an oven, was an enormous, obviously male form. A heavy, proprietary arm lay across my waist, fingers spread possessively on my bare stomach beneath the lightweight sheet. Scent, spice, cedar, luxury soap, and raw, unmistakable Ethan pounded my

The familiar hum of the jet engines changed, a slight shift in pitch indicating our descent. Beyond the small, thick window, the glittering, sprawling grid of home assumed the place of the patchwork quilt of French countryside and the distant, hazy shape of Paris. The knot of fear which had loosened over seven glorious days tightened at once in my stomach, coiling cold and heavy. Paris, with its crowded streets, Dan's laugh which was contagious, and the heavenly, if fleeting, lack of him, had been a fading dream. Reality, in the form of the Blackwell house and its volatile owner, waited down below.Dan, bless his chaotic, wonderful soul, had been the anchor. Sitting on his slightly lumpy sofa that first night, clutching a mug of his notoriously strong, slightly-burnt tea, I’d poured out the toxic cocktail of the pool confrontation, Ethan’s baseless accusations, and my furious, dripping escape from the hotel suite. Dan listened, his brow furrowed in concentration, radiating a calm prag