Chapter 8
540 Words
The sudden loss of light didn't stop Ethan. If anything, it emboldened him.
Without the visual reminder of the Kingston mansion around us, the illusion of our new reality shattered completely. We weren't step-siblings in a forced family home anymore. We were just two people who had been burning for each other in the dark for months.
Ethan’s mouth left mine, tracing a path of fiery, wet kisses down the column of my throat. I arched my neck, a breathless gasp escaping me as his teeth gently grazed the sensitive skin right beneath my ear. A shiver tore through my entire body, my hands moving from his hair to grip his broad, bare shoulders.
"Ethan," I gasped, the darkness making every sensation a hundred times more intense. "The lights... we can't see anything."
"I don't need to see you to know exactly how you feel in my arms, Aurora," he murmured against my collarbone, his voice rough and thick with a possessive heat that threatened to melt my resolve entirely.
His hands slid under my oversized gray cardigan, his large, warm palms finding the bare skin of my waist beneath my silk camisole. The contrast of his hot hands against my skin made me jump, but he only tightened his grip, pulling me off the edge of the kitchen island and lifting me effortlessly.
I wrapped my legs instinctively around his waist, clinging to him as he carried me through the pitch-black kitchen. He moved with total familiarity through the dark halls of his childhood home, his bare feet silent against the floors. The only sound was the violent thrumming of the rain against the glass outside and the heavy, ragged sound of our breathing.
He didn't take me to the west wing. He didn't take me to the east wing.
Instead, he pushed open the heavy doors of the formal library, the neutral ground where he had been watching me earlier. He walked over to the massive, plush leather sofa in front of the empty fireplace.
He lowered us down together, his heavy, muscular body settling over mine, pressing me deep into the soft leather cushions. The weight of him was a comfort and a sweet torment all at once. Even in the complete dark, I could feel the intense, unyielding gaze of his grey eyes locked onto mine.
"Tell me to stop, Aurora," he whispered, his chest heaving against mine, his thumbs tracing my cheekbones. "Tell me right now, because if you don't, I'm never letting you go back to your side of this house."
I looked up into the darkness, my heart pounding so loudly I thought it would wake the empty house. The sensible voice in my head told me to think about my mother, to think about Richard, to think about the scandal.
…But as Ethan leaned down, his lips brushing against mine in an agonizingly slow tease, the sensible voice died.
"Don't stop," I whispered.
Ethan caught his breath, a sound of pure triumph, and bent his head to kiss me again, but just as his lips touched mine, the grand, automated emergency landline phone on the library desk began to ring loudly, its screen flashing a bright, blinding white light into the room.
- Writer
