Romance Me (Boxed Set) (38 page)

Sadie felt delightful tingles shoot into her limbs when Ethan pulled her head to his and kissed her deeply. Slowly, and with just a slight amount of pressure, he moved his hands down her neck to her sides, then along her ribs, lightly brushing the outside of her breasts with his thumbs.

“Oh, Sadie,” he breathed. “What am I doing to you?”

“Making me tingle?”

He reached for her face again, cupping the back of her head and pulling her lips toward his. He hesitated for a brief second. She held her breath, praying he wouldn’t change his mind about kissing her, and then he melted his mouth to hers. The kiss started out soft and fragile, yet increased its intensity and heat as Ethan swept the tip of his tongue against hers.

Sadie shuddered and Ethan responded by deepening the kiss. His tongue was strong and feathery soft as he made love to her mouth with his, nibbling her lips, clashing his teeth against hers, sharing her breath.

“Ethan.” She whispered his name, noting how quickly he could move her from sexual silliness to heated passion.

He covered her face with light kisses—feather touches over her eyelids, cheeks, and nose.

“You’re really okay with this being a one-time thing?” he asked, genuine concern heavy in his voice.

This time it was Sadie taking Ethan’s head in her hands as she stroked the silken black hair from his forehead. “Yes, really I am, Ethan. I won’t risk our friendship for anything. Not even for great sex.”

His eyes closed, Ethan let his head loll back on his neck, as if overwhelmed by Sadie’s statement.

“You know how I feel. And I respect your boundaries,” she whispered. “Everything has been said that needs to be said. You’ll go back to New York, and while we won’t ever forget that this happened, we can hold it in a special place in our hearts and look back on it and smile.” Sadie’s voice held conviction; the message aimed more at her wildly beating heart than at Ethan’s conscience.

Ethan looked off into the distance as he wound his hands in Sadie’s hair.

She held her breath, waiting for him to come to a decision, stroking the side of his face with the back of her fingers, searching his eyes as he looked out her kitchen window.

After what seemed an eternity, he spoke. “Stand up.”

Her heart crumbled. He didn’t want her. Tears pricked at her eyelids.

He pulled his gaze away from the window and met hers. Reading her expression, he smiled and shook his head. “No, not ‘stand up’ like I want to get rid of you. ‘Stand up’ like I want you to get off my lap so I can make wild monkey love to you.”

Her laugh was low and throaty as she stood, allowing Ethan to sweep her up in his arms. She squealed when he pretended to drop her on the stairs. “You’re such a pill!”

“Little Twerp,” he teased back, then kicked open the door to her bedroom and unceremoniously dumped her on the bed, still rumpled and unmade.

***

Dropping Ethan off at his car had proved to be more difficult than Sadie had anticipated. An awkward kiss on the cheek and one of those “patting” hugs were all she received. No long embrace, no soft tongue against hers, no mention of their fantastic sex-filled night and morning. No comment about how beautiful she was, or how fantastic she made him feel in bed. Instead, it was like dropping off her brother, only emptier.

After arriving back at The Cottage, she put her car in the garage and headed to the pool area. She shucked off her summer dress, then sank deep into the hot tub, completely submerging herself. Holding her breath as long as she could, she tried to erase the images of Ethan bombarding the inside of her brain. She needed him gone, needed their passionate moments to be erased from her mind—from her heart. The pounding of her heart and pressure in her head forced her to come up for air before any Ethan images were wiped clean.

Tilting her head back against the tile of the hot tub, she let her body drift to the surface and sway back and forth, buffeted by the roiling bubbles of the jets. An image of Ethan holding her in his arms washed over her mind, and tingles washed over her body.

“What have I done?” she whispered in the afternoon air.

For a moment, her mind was thankfully blank, then more images of Ethan came pouring through, sending an electric jolt through her body.

“At least now I know what I’m missing,” she muttered to herself. And at least their time together hadn’t left her crying.

Not yet, at any rate.

***

The airplane shuddered, jolting Ethan out of a sound sleep. The flight attendant’s voice piped over the intercom, reassuring the passengers that the bumps and jerks they felt were just turbulence caused by a low-lying system over the Rockies.

Ethan balled his jacket up against the window and tried to return to sleep. After his night spent thoroughly enthralled with Sadie’s body, he could use a nap. But between the jet bucking through the air and the little boy seated behind him gleefully yipping “Ride ’em cowboy!,” sleep eluded him.

His overly large neighbor let out a loud snore and shifted positions, invading what precious space Ethan had secured. Scrunched close to the edge of his seat, Ethan tried rearranging his long limbs. Height had its disadvantages when shoved in a flying tin box with over one hundred other people. With each rattle and roll of the airplane, his knees hit the back of the seat in front of him. Flying coach during turbulent weather certainly had its drawbacks.

However, flying first class never seemed right to Ethan. With his lucrative career providing him enough money to live it up in style, he still lived his life with simplicity. Growing up the way he and Lia had, in a beat-up trailer down by the creek, money was hard to come by and readily spent on alcohol by their father. Besides rot-gut whisky, all that their father brought home from the grocery store was peanut butter, jelly, bread, and soup.

Being best friends with Theo Courant, who came from one of the richest families in California, could have made Ethan envious of what wealth could buy. But the Courant family never once made Ethan feel bad for coming from such a destitute background, and they lived responsibly. While Theo’s parents certainly had the money to fritter away on any little whim, they opted for less showy purchases, such as a new 4-wheel drive SUV versus a sleek, new model sports car. The Courant family vacations were usually spent visiting relatives on the East Coast rather than renting luxury residences in Tahiti. And when Ethan turned sixteen, Theo’s father, Jon, had taken Ethan under his wing and showed him how to invest his money wisely.

Following Jon Courant’s model, Ethan invested his earnings, which rapidly multiplied. After growing up without, now he had more than he needed. He’d avoided extravagances for years, but when the man next to him shifted again, then jammed an elbow in Ethan’s side, he recognized full well the appeal of flying first class. God, he wished he were elsewhere.

Like with Sadie.

Who’d mentioned something about going for a run, then sitting in her hot tub. Closing his eyes again, Ethan imagined Sadie naked, surrounded by bubbling, frothy water, her face dewy from the heat. He could still catch a whiff of her perfume; it clung to his shirt when he hugged her goodbye.

Damn.
Sadie’s wet, naked body was definitely the wrong thing to be thinking about on a plane. He considered a trip to the bathroom until things cooled off, but his seatmates effectively trapped him in. Ethan lowered his serving tray and draped his jacket over it, hoping to shield his lap from wandering eyes. With more than several hours to go before landing, and with naked images of Sadie flickering through his mind, it was going to be a long and hard trip.

“Hard” being the key word.

Chapter Eight

Once again, Sadie was pissed. In her cramped office on the top floor of the Meadowview Theater, she flicked her Mont Blanc pen against the teakwood desk, watching a small ray of sunlight bounce off the pen’s silver. Another interview, another disaster, she thought, tossing an overzealous resume in the “Rejection” pile. She dragged her fingers through her hair. The sound of laughter came from Meadowview’s Market Street, through her open office window.

She gritted her teeth and thought about shutting the heavy iron-rimmed window behind her to block the sound of other people’s happiness, but quickly rejected the idea. Once a storage room, her miserable excuse for an office needed all the air it could get, now that the heat of summer had started to build.

Why did she ever think having her office over the old, majestic theater would be a swanky idea? Sure, the location couldn’t be beat—she was deep in the heart of California’s cutest small town—but the lack of air conditioning and having to share the entire upstairs with props and old costumes took its toll.

She sighed. Her frustration had little to do with her cramped and stale office. No, this was about the disaster she currently faced. Since taking over the role of manager for the Modern Playwrights Festival after her mother retired, Sadie had grown to love the responsibility but hated the pitfalls thrown in her path. This particular pitfall was beginning to look more like a canyon. When the artistic director had turned in her retirement notice, Sadie knew she’d need to find a replacement soon or watch the festival collapse and Meadowview’s economy suffer.

The Modern Playwrights Festival not only provided an excellent opportunity for local and unknown actors, directors, and playwrights, but also brought in a sizable portion of city revenues due to a high percentage of tourists making the festival their travel destination. Without an experienced and well-known director at the helm, the festival could easily sink into disrepute.

Although the festival had a national reputation, for some reason only idiots or the inexperienced had been responding to the open position. So far, no one with the caliber required had applied for the position, and time was running out. The current director had made it clear that she’d be gone by the end of summer.

Sadie rummaged in her desk drawer and found two boxes of #2 wood pencils, all honed to a sharp point. After using the lever to lower her captain’s chair, she tipped it back as far as it would allow and glared at the soundboard ceiling. She grabbed a pencil, closed one eye, took aim, and let the pencil fly.

Thunk
.

With a smile of satisfaction, she grabbed more pencils and began rhythmically flinging them into the ceiling.

The sound of her door opening sent her scrambling to an upright position. She swept the remaining pencils from her desk into a drawer.

“Am I interrupting?” Lia stood in the doorway, picnic hamper in hand.

Sadie let out a sigh and rubbed the back of her neck. “No, but I’ll warn you, I’m in a funk. Here, have a seat, and help jolt me out of my misery.” She gestured to the guest club chair in front of her desk.

Lia placed the hamper on the desk, then sat down. One of the pencils came loose, fell on her head, and ended its journey with a clatter as it hit the scarred vinyl floor. She picked it up and shot Sadie a quizzical look.

Sadie looked back, all innocence.

Eyes narrowing, Lia placed the pencil on her desk. “You didn’t just toss that at me, did you?”

Sadie shook her head and raised her eyes to the ceiling, motioning with her head to look up.

At the sight of a dozen pencils dangling precariously from the ceiling tiles, Lia stood up and moved her chair several feet away from the overhead bulls-eye.

“No wonder you’re in a bad mood—you’ve been working way too hard.”

Sadie tried to look contrite, but broke out in a grin anyway. When another pencil dropped out of the ceiling and landed loudly on her desk, Sadie and Lia burst out laughing at the sight of it rolling its way across the teak desk.

“Looks like another one’s making a break for it,” Lia said, giggling.

Sadie watched the pencil fall to the floor and roll into a corner. The laughter leached from her. “Wish I could escape like that pencil,” she muttered.

“How’s your director search going? Any luck so far?”

Sadie shook her head. “None. I can’t find anyone I like to fill the position. Lots of people have responded, but none with the right experience.” She rummaged around the wicker basket Lia had brought and started pulling out goodies. The scent of home-baked chocolate chip cookies caught her attention, but Lia slapped her hand when she tried to pull out the treats.

“We need a big name to draw in the season ticket holders,” Sadie admitted. “Those people have high standards, and I can’t afford to give them less than what they’re used to in terms of talent.”

Thwarted in her cookie quest, Sadie watched as Lia brought out the healthier part of lunch. Lia took a slice of ciabatta bread and spread brie across the rough surface. After handing it to a hungry Sadie, she made one for herself and took a large bite.

“What about calling Ethan?” Lia asked around a mouthful of bread and cheese.

Sadie whipped her head up. She paused in mid-bite, her stomach clenching tight. Since the night of the bachelor auction four weeks before, she and Ethan had emailed almost as often as they had before their night—and morning—of amazing sex. At first, the emails had been tenuous, not even hinting at that night. Now, a month later, the emails were filled with the same banter as before, but still, that night was never mentioned.

She swallowed. “Call Ethan? To see if he knows someone who would like the position, you mean?”