I look at him then, really look at him, and realize that the darkness—the remoteness—that has been in his eyes all day has vanished. In its place is the lightness I’m used to. And something else. Something more. I don’t know what it is, and I couldn’t describe it even if I wanted to. But whatever it is, it’s got me trembling all over again. Has my breath catching in my throat and my brain slowly moving into meltdown territory.
And then he’s kissing me, really kissing me, and nothing in my life has ever felt better.
I tilt my head, open for him. Relish the feel of his lips. Tantalizing. Taking all the broken shards of me I have to offer and giving me pieces of him in return.
I wrap my arms around him, tugging at his simple white T-shirt until I manage to pull it free from his jeans. I want to feel him, want to put my hands on all that warm, golden skin. To slide my fingers over it and feel him tremble in response.
Ethan gasps as I finally manage to press my hands against the hard, muscled planes of his back. There’s nothing in between us now, no fabric barricade to get in the way of my touching him.
I skim my fingers up his spine, then back down again. I circle around to the front, to the six-pack that he’s rocking and the delicate little happy trail that stretches from his belly button down into the front of his low-rise jeans.
I want to follow it, to delve deeper until I’m touching him. Until his long, hard cock is in my hand and I’m bringing him the same pleasure that he’s already given me.
I close my eyes, lean into him. Press my mouth more firmly against his to deepen the kiss, even as my thumb brushes back and forth against the sensitive skin of his lower abs. Ethan groans deep in his throat, and I want to go farther. To drop to my knees in front of him, take him in my mouth and feel the ecstasy as it pulses through him.
But even as I think it, even as I imagine what it would be like to have Ethan in my mouth, in my throat, other images crowd in. Images of Brandon forcing me to my knees, his hands tangled in my hair as his mouth spewed vile words and demands.
I stiffen right away, and the desire I’m feeling vanishes in the space between one breath and the next. Ethan drops his arms, steps back, then smiles ruefully as he tucks his shirt back into his jeans. “You make me forget that we’re in a parking lot in broad daylight.”
I feel my shoulders sag in relief. Yes, I tell myself. Let him think I stopped because of where we are, not because of who I am. Not because of a past I just can’t conquer, no matter how much I want to.
“You okay?” he asks when I don’t say anything. His palm skims down my arm until he gets to my hand. Then he entwines his fingers with my own.
“Yeah.” My voice is still husky—with desire or fear, I’m not sure which. I decide not to dwell on it. Why bother when doing so won’t give me any more answers than I already have?
“You want to get out of here?”
I think about his question, turn it over in my head. Then reach a very unexpected conclusion. “You know what I really want to do?”
“What?”
I point across the landscaping, deep into the heart of Balboa Park. “Go to the zoo.”
* * *
Hours later, I turn to Ethan and ask, “So, what do you think?”
He eyes the penguin hat on top of my head, then says, “I think I like the flamingo one better.”
“The flamingo? Really?” I reach for it, then change out the penguin. “You don’t think it’s too pink?”
“It’s a flamingo. It’s supposed to be pink.”
“But does it clash with my hair? I don’t think red and pink are supposed to go together. At least not this close.”
For a second, Ethan doesn’t react at all. Then he throws back his head and laughs and laughs, in a way I’ve never heard from him before. At first I’m a little insulted, but it doesn’t take very long before I’m laughing along with him. Ethan’s amusement is like that—totally infectious.
It’s been a good day at the zoo. We’ve seen the giraffes and the zebras, the hippos and the polar bears. We even got a glimpse of the new baby panda. It was absolutely adorable, so precious and tiny.
Now we’re in the gift shop, where Ethan has insisted on buying me a souvenir of our day together. At first I resisted, but the fact of the matter is I want something to remember today with at least as much as he wants to buy it for me. So I decided what the hell and have spent the last half hour looking for the most absurd memento I can find.
“What about the frog?” I ask, reaching for a giant green top hat that has an equally giant tree frog attached to it.
Ethan contemplates. “I still vote for the flamingo.”
I sigh gustily. “The flamingo it is, then.” I hand it to him with a flourish, then watch as he makes a beeline toward the nearest cashier to pay for it.
I wander through the store while I wait for him, and find myself standing in front of one of those old-fashioned coin machines. The kind where you stick in fifty cents and a penny and it stretches out the penny and imprints a design of your choice. I’m not sure what possesses me, but I rummage at the bottom of my purse for some change and put it in the machine. I pick the panda design, because Ethan was as enthralled by the little guy as I was, and then crank the handle until my shiny, stretched penny comes out.
It’s no flamingo hat, but it’ll have to do. At least for now.
I slip it into my pocket just as Ethan comes up behind me, shopping bag in hand. “You ready to go?”
“You bet.” I reach for the bag. “But I absolutely insist on wearing the hat home.”
“I’d be upset if you didn’t. And remember, just ignore anyone who says it clashes with your hair.”
I stick my tongue out at him, try to glare. But he just leans forward and kisses me, sucking my tongue deep into his mouth as he does. It feels so good that I start to melt, to open myself to him, but Ethan pulls away before I can do anything more than press my body against his. Which is a good thing—we are in the middle of a crowded store, more than half of whose occupants are under the age of twelve.
I settle for holding his hand on the way to the car, and I’m so happy—so at peace—after our day together that it’s a miracle I don’t take off under my own power. I know it was just a simple trip to the zoo, but there’s something about seeing Ethan relaxed and having a good time that gets to me. Makes me relax as well. All the crap I have to deal with at work, with my parents, with my own psyche, takes a backseat to this sunny, perfect afternoon.
Not even the paparazzi standing near the zoo exit as we leave can put a dent in my mood. Ethan growls a little at the intrusion, pulls me close, but I can tell he doesn’t really mind, either. Hell, with his life he’s probably used to it. Besides, it’s not like I’m interesting or famous enough to make the pictures worth much. If they even get picked up, I’ll probably be described as Ethan’s new lady friend or some such ridiculous moniker. Which is more than fine with me—I don’t need or want to add fame to my already fucked-up life. My ebullient mood lasts most of the way home, but the closer we get to La Jolla, the more my thoughts turn to all the things I can’t change. I think of the VA hospital and all the men I met there today. Some of them—like Alejandro and Viktor—are in really good spirits, but others are completely destroyed by what has happened to them. It was devastating to see, even more devastating to understand that there is nothing I can do to help them.
“How do you handle it?” I ask Ethan as we turn onto La Jolla Shores Drive.
“Handle what?”
“The pressure. The weight of all those expectations. Everyone knows that Frost Industries works miracles, but there’s always more suffering to cure, more pain to try to stop. How do you handle knowing that no matter how hard you work, no matter how many people you help, there will always be others you can’t do anything for?”
“By not believing that I’ll never be able to help them. By always looking for the next miracle, the next breakthrough that will somehow manage to save someone who couldn’t be saved a year ago. Or ten years ago. Fifteen, twenty.”
My mind goes to his father, and I figure Ethan’s must be doing the same thing. Is there a product in Frost Industries’s arsenal that would have kept his father alive? I want to ask, but it’s too soon. Too personal. So not my business.
“Does it work?” I ask.
“What?”
“Visualizing the future you want to have? Believing it so much that it becomes a kind of truth to you?”
“I’ve never thought of it that way,” he says after a moment. “But that’s a perfect description of what I’m talking about.”
“I can’t take credit for it.” The campus counselor I saw once a week for my entire freshman year said those words to me every time she ended a session with me. She told me I just had to visualize the future I wanted, free from the pain of the past, and that I would have it one day. It wouldn’t be easy, it wouldn’t be quick. But I would get there.
I don’t know if I ever believed her, but I took her advice. Started planning for the life I wanted instead of the one I had. And here I am now, studying what I want to study. Interning where I want to intern. Wearing a flamingo hat and sitting next to the most intriguing man I’ve ever known. Yeah, things could be a lot worse.
“Do you really want to know how I handle the pressure?” Ethan asks me as he makes a couple of turns in quick succession.
“Of course I do.” I find myself wanting to know everything about him. Everything special, everything mundane. Everything that makes him who he is.
One more turn and then we’re cruising up the street we walked down together two nights ago. I recognize the houses, especially the chrome-and-glass monstrosity that Tori so admired.
“We’re going to your house?” A shiver of unease works its way down my spine. I ignore it, refusing to live my whole life in the shadow of a few bad memories.
“I had planned on taking you to dinner and then home, but since you seem genuinely interested in how I keep things in perspective…”
“I am.”
“Then, yes, we’re going to my house.”
Seconds later, he makes the left turn into his driveway. He mutters to himself as he plugs the gate code in, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that it’s a sore spot with him. I can see how it would be. Ethan isn’t a big fan of hiding behind walls—he’s open about himself and his business, and always has been. So I can imagine that an eight-foot privacy fence and a huge iron gate would grate on him.
Which raises the question, why have them?
“The insurance makes me,” he answers tersely as he pulls the car up the driveway and into a six-car garage. One where every bay is taken.
He doesn’t give me time to stop and admire his babies, even though the garage is loaded with some real beauties. He’s got a bright red Porsche Panamera Hybrid, an electric-blue BMW ActiveHybrid 750, and a Lexus LS 600h L. Talk about taking environmentally friendly to a whole new level—Ethan has four of the greenest, most expensive cars in the whole world sitting in his garage. Five if I’m right in guessing that the black Porsche Cayenne in the last bay is also a hybrid. Which makes the only non-environmentally-friendly car in the whole place the yellow Ferrari 250 GTO that I’m actually standing close enough to touch. Not that I would dare.
“Is that what I think it is?” I whisper, leaning down to get a closer look. I nearly whimper as I see the distinctive interior, then clasp my hands behind my back so I’m not tempted to touch it. Or try to steal it.
“You really do know cars.” Ethan sounds surprised, but I’m too busy trying not to lick his Ferrari to get offended.
“You don’t have to ‘know’ cars to know of this one. There were only thirty-six of them ever made. I mean, as long as you don’t count all the imposters that came afterward.”
“It doesn’t bite, you know. You’re welcome to touch it.”
The urge to do just that is a throbbing need inside me. I want to lift the hood, to peer inside it and see if it’s really as beautifully built as all the magazines and websites say. But I’m afraid once I get started pawing at it, it’ll be hours before Ethan can drag me away.
“No, that’s okay.” I try not to sound too reluctant. “I’d rather have my question answered.”
“Don’t look so sad. There’ll be other chances.” This time when he puts a hand on the small of my back and guides me to the house, I barely startle. I’m getting used to being touched by him.
Too bad I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad one.
“Where did you find her?” I ask, craning my head around for one last look at the Ferrari. She gleams under the garage’s recessed lighting.
“I’m not sure if I should be pleased or insulted that you’re a lot more impressed by my car than you are by me.”