Chapter 7
1075 Words
He ordered two whiskeys.
When the glasses arrived, he handed one to me and raised his own.
“To bad decisions.”
“To forgetting.”
I emptied my glass in one swallow.
The whiskey burned down my throat, and I welcomed the sensation. I wanted something—anything—that could drown out the thoughts I couldn’t escape.
I knew what he might assume when he looked at me.
In the dim light, he could probably see only the outline of my dress, the crimson of my lips, and the confidence I was pretending to possess. He might imagine I was someone who belonged in a place like this—older, confident, experienced.
I didn’t correct him.
Let him believe whatever he wanted.
Tonight, the truth was too heavy to carry.
We drank and flirted, the tension between us growing with every passing moment. His fingers brushed my collarbone, traced the curve of my waist, and lingered against the bare skin of my back.
Every touch sent a spark through me.
I leaned closer, desperate to forget the man who had broken my heart.
“You’re trouble,” Ethan murmured near my ear.
“Is that a problem?”
His quiet laugh sent a shiver through me.
“Not for me.”
The alcohol had loosened whatever restraint I had left. I kissed him first, needing the distraction more than I needed sense.
He kissed me back.
For a while, there was nothing beyond the warmth of his body, the taste of whiskey, and the steady rhythm of the music surrounding us.
No Ryan.
No betrayal.
No questions.
Just this moment.
Then Ethan took my hand and pulled back enough to look at me. Even in the low light, I could feel the intensity of his attention, though I still couldn’t make out every detail of his face.
“Come with me,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
Suddenly he took me on the private elevator straight to his suite. The doors slid shut and the moment we were alone, he grabbed my breasts and kissed me, his hands rough and possessive, and I moaned into his mouth, arching into his touch.
The elevator climbed, and we tore at each other’s clothes, buttons and zippers giving way under desperate fingers.
By the time the doors opened onto a penthouse hallway, my dress was pooled around my waist and his shirt hung open, revealing the ridged expanse of his chest. His body was a work of art, eight packs and thick muscle, his skin hot and smooth beneath my palms.
We stumbled through the door of his suite, a blur of expensive furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows that revealed the glittering city below, and we undressed each other in a frenzy of need.
I have never been this aroused. The cool air of the suite hit my bare skin, and I shivered, but Ethan was there, his body a furnace, his hands sliding down my back to grip my thighs.
He lifted me as if I weighed nothing and carried me to the bed, laying me down on sheets that felt like clouds. His mouth found my n****e, hot and insistent, and he sucked until I screamed, my back bowing off the mattress.
He laid us on the bed and f****d me rough and hard. His thrusts were fast, relentless, each one driving me deeper into the mattress, and I clung to him, my nails raking down his back. He gripped my ass with both hands, tilting my hips to take him deeper, and I cried out, the sound raw and broken.
The world outside the windows faded to nothing, and the heat of his skin and the way he made me forget everything but the pleasure that built and built until it shattered.
When it was over, we lay tangled together, our breathing ragged, our bodies slick with sweat. For a little while, I had forgotten. For a little while, I had been someone else.
But the forgetting could not last. It never did.
He f****d me twice that night.
By the second time, I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open. Ethan Black’s stamina was relentless, and somewhere between the alcohol, the heat of his body, and the desperate need to forget Ryan, I surrendered to sleep.
We had both drunk too much. We had both lost ourselves.
And then—
the world tilted.
The darkness swallowed me whole.
And I was reborn.
Reborn on the exact night I had made the biggest mistake of my life.
A mistake with a stranger.
I ran before I could think, before I could understand what I had done, before I could allow myself to remember the man whose bed I had shared.
But now, with the memories of my previous life crashing over me, I knew exactly what tomorrow would bring.
I knew what awaited me.
Except Ethan Black wasn’t a stranger anymore.
Not to me.
————
Because in my past life, I didn’t wake until dawn. When I opened my eyes.
I was out of sorts.
I had slept with a stranger.
No.
Worse.
I had slept with Ethan Black—a man whose name I had learned only hours before he had taken me apart in that bed.
I moved before I could think, my body acting on instinct while my mind remained frozen.
Ethan was completely out, sleeping so deeply he looked as though he hadn’t slept in days. The bedroom was a wreck of tangled sheets and discarded clothes, a silent reminder of everything I desperately wanted to forget.
I tore through the room, gathering my dress from the floor, my shoes from beneath the chaise, and my clutch from the nightstand.
I never looked at the bed.
I couldn’t.
I dressed in the bathroom, my fingers trembling as I zipped up the burgundy dress and tried to tame my hair.
The mirror offered no mercy.
My eyes were too bright. My lips were swollen. A faint mark colored my collarbone.
I touched it.
A shiver raced through me as memories of Ethan’s mouth flashed through my mind.
Shame tangled with something far more dangerous.
Want.
Stop.
I dropped my hand.
He’s not safe.
You’re not safe.
Nothing about this is safe.
I left the suite without looking back.
The door clicked shut behind me, and the sound seemed far too final.
The elevator ride felt endless.
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