Buyer’s Market(24)

“Coming here was bold. Wanting me inside you once so you can forget me forever, it isn’t smart in some sense, but in other ways…well, I would have a difficult time saying no to that. But I want to give you one last chance…you can walk away. We don’t have to do this,” Ethan says. He’s trying to be kind, let me know that even though we both feel how this has gone too far to turn back, that we could anyway.

I see him swallow, and I’m mesmerized by the column of his throat. I look up his jawline at that stubble and ache to feel it against my skin. I want him to touch me again.

I don’t want to stop now. I want to move forward.

Ethan doesn’t believe that I can have sex with him just once, and that it won’t serve to get him out of my system.

And I’m not certain that I’m worried if he’s right. Not right now. I tell myself that I’m not going to think on it anymore. I need to be able to experience this because it has consumed my whole being. I can’t be without him. My skin will disintegrate unless he touches me.

This is more than him bragging, he’s telling the truth. I can tell Ethan is genuine. And he’s probably right.

“I want this, please,” I say, squeezing the chair as if I might rocket away otherwise.

“Emmaline,” Ethan groans. He stands and walks toward me and my heart rate thunders, and all I can hear is the blood rushing, my breathing.

I realize I'm ruining the moment in some ways, but I have to ask. “Ethan?” I breathe and look at his face, hoping against hope that I’m not asking the thing that will crush me.

“Yes?” Ethan says. His voice is low, seductive, pulling me deeper and deeper into this attraction. His hands go to my shoulders, squeezing them.

It makes me feel safe and comforted, which is what I need right now, desperately, because I know I have to ask this question. “Did you love my mother?” I ask, exhaling the words and holding my heart out for him to crush.

“I loved your mother,” Ethan says, his husky voice making me shiver. His eyes cast downward for a moment, and then return to mine. His hands don’t leave my shoulder, and their squeezing hold should make me more uncomfortable. This is all inappropriate, and I should be uncomfortable. But I can’t be. Instead, I’m something more. Aroused? Unsure? I don’t know how to describe the confusing mix of feelings swirling inside of me and confusing me. I don’t want him to stop touching me, when that’s all I should want. I should will my body away from him. This is wrong; this is strange.

“Did she love you?” I finally ask. Not at all the appropriate line of questioning for my professor. If I wanted to make myself feel like more of a child, maybe I’d be thinking, oh, he started it. But that’s not the line of thinking in my brain at all. And I don’t even know what answer I want. Is it worse if my mother loved him, or if she didn’t?

Am I his second chance? Am I his second round?

For a moment, I think I might be misreading this whole situation. Why would my professor be interested in me? The situation in which he found me, that he saved me from, that’s what put us in this strange conversation.

But I feel how his hand is on me…protector, or interest? The blaze in his eyes says so much more. More than some duty or honor, more than some past that’s lighting up old memories that he may have forgotten. Ethan's eyes are saying something to me.

And I want to hear them.

It's impossible to do anything but hear them; it's like the heated air around us is shouting.

“Emmaline, your mother always thought of me as a brother, and I was fine with that. We were friends, and that made more sense. But for a moment, when I saw you, you weren’t my student or just some woman in danger. I would certainly help either. But I saw you, and it was young Joelle and I lost all good sense I had in me. I could've killed them.” Ethan is breathing too fast, ragged attempts at capturing air. I never thought I’d see him so undone. He always has such composure, is always so calm and together. It's one of the things I’ve always found so interesting about him…yet now this state of unrest has me even more intrigued.

“So imagine my surprise when I see you again and I…I think nothing about your mother. I think about you, Emmaline, and I can’t do that either. I want you to believe me when I say that I’m not thinking about your mother anymore, and that shouldn’t even matter. I’m fucking tangled up in knots because all I can think about is your sweet body yielding beneath me.”

Dear God, how am I supposed to respond to that? I can’t think for a moment. Can’t find my way through this thicket in my mind when I should be determining the right move. I know I should be avoiding the whole situation. Right now I could shut this down. It's terrifying, seeing how unnerved he is, and I could just escape this whole dangerous situation.