One Secret Night. Yvonne Lindsay

it’s not soon enough,” he argued, closing his mouth over the tumescent bead and gently scraping his teeth over its surface.

      Isobel all but leaped off the bed, her hips surging upward in response to his action. Ethan swirled his tongue around her again, soothing her, before repeating the action with his teeth. She may have been in control of her last peak, but he most definitely would be driving her to her next. He increased the pressure of his tongue and began to suckle firmly. The next time he softly closed his teeth on her he felt her break, her body at first stretched as tight as a bow before the arrow of physical delight flew free, turning her muscles slack and supple beneath him.

      He brushed his tongue over her again, then again more soothingly, until he finally withdrew from her and dragged himself up and over her.

      “You okay?” he murmured, his hands now stroking her belly, tracing her rib cage and moving slowly to rest against one breast. Beneath his hand he could feel her heart hammering in her chest.

      “Okay? Yeah, I think I’m just a bit more than okay,” she said, smiling as she caught his face between her hands and kissed him. “But what about you?”

      She flexed her pelvis against him.

      “We’re going to take care of that right now,” he said. Supporting his weight on one arm, he reached with the other into the drawer of the nightstand.

      He shook out the box of condoms he withdrew and grabbed one packet.

      “Here, let me,” Isobel insisted, taking the condom from his hand and tearing the foil open.

      She slid the sheath from its confines and positioned it over the aching head of his erection before deftly sliding it over his length. It took almost every ounce of his control not to lose it as, once he was protected, she slipped her hand between them and positioned him at her entrance. She gasped as he probed her swollen, slick flesh, the sound vibrating through him as he fought to prolong this moment for as long as humanly possible.

      Then, so slowly that it made his body shudder with the effort, he sank within her inviting depths. Her body gloved him, fitting so perfectly that he knew he would not be able to maintain this level of control for more than mere seconds. Bliss flooded him in an instant—potent and undeniable.

      He moved within her, her hips rising to meet his every thrust, each one more powerful than the last, the rising pleasure becoming more exquisitely intense with each stroke. And then, he was there—sensation pulsating through his body and catapulting him into a place he’d never experienced so deeply before. He held her firmly to him, his forehead resting on hers, their rapid breaths mingling in the minute space between them. When he made to pull away, Isobel’s arms closed around him.

      “I’m too heavy for you,” he protested as she squeezed tight.

      “I like this,” she replied as if the simplicity of the words themselves were fully sufficient.

      He relaxed against her, and realized that maybe they were. He’d never felt the full acceptance of himself with another in the aftermath of lovemaking before. It had always been a release, often a deeply satisfying one, but never quite this sense of physical communion. He didn’t know what to think of it, so he took what was—for him—a very novel approach. He decided not to think at all. Not just yet. As his heart rate slowed, he rolled slightly to one side, pulling her along with him.

      Isobel reached up a finger to trace the line of his lips, her touch leaving a tingle of longing in its wake. He gave in and leaned into her to kiss her—not a kiss with the flaming sensuality they’d shared before, but one of quiet intimacy. Of thanks. He finally forced himself to break away and moved to rid himself of the condom, returning to the bed as quickly as he could and scooping her against him. Isobel tangled her legs in his and rested her head on his chest. For all that he barely knew her it felt almost frighteningly right.

      One night, he reminded himself. That was all this was. Just one night.

      Three

      Isobel traced a circular pattern with her index finger on Ethan’s chest. She’d been stunned by the force of their lovemaking, by their connection to one another. It almost seemed a shame that she’d be moving on to her next assignment tomorrow without ever seeing Ethan again, but she would live with that. She had to. It was the way she lived her life. Always fluid, always moving. Never staying still long enough to set down roots. It suited her.

      And to her surprise, so had he.

      She knew deep down that tonight had not been the type of thing a man like Ethan indulged in often, if at all. It piqued her curiosity. Why had he broken with what were probably very rigid personal boundaries to bring her home and share such profound intimacy? It was tempting to believe that it was just her influence that had him throwing caution to the wind, but she sensed that there was more to it than that. Her photographer’s instinct always knew when there was more at play than what could be immediately seen. Before she knew it, the question slid from her lips.

      “Why me, Ethan?”

      “Huh?”

      He sounded sleepy, as if she’d dragged him from that in-between place in the middle of consciousness and slumber.

      “What happened to you today?” she asked.

      He sucked in a deep breath and his arm tightened around her. “You don’t want to hear about that.”

      “Try me,” she coaxed. “You strike me as the kind of guy who doesn’t usually share what troubles you. Maybe you should try it sometime, like now, with me.”

      She kept drawing the circles on his chest and waited in silence for him to make up his mind. She could almost hear the cogs turning in his brain as he weighed up the pros and cons of sharing with her. It never failed to surprise Isobel that people could share the most personal experiences together physically, yet reveal so little on an emotional level. Somehow it mattered to her to know why Ethan had overstepped his boundaries with her.

      “I got some news today that I hadn’t anticipated,” he finally disclosed.

      “Bad news?”

      “Yes and no.”

      “It upset you,” she stated firmly.

      “Yeah, I don’t know how to deal with it.”

      “It must have been really bad, then.”

      She felt him nod. “You could say that. My dad died recently and I’ve been going over his records. I found some payments that didn’t marry up with the data I had before me, so I checked with the family accountant who referred me to our lawyer. That’s where I went today. Basically I discovered that my father hid the truth about our mother from my sister and me. We were told she died twenty-five years ago, but she didn’t. She left us and accepted his money to stay away.”

      “Oh, that’s awful. You must have been devastated,” Isobel whispered in shock.

      She knew what it was like to find out a parent had been lying to you. It was the deepest kind of betrayal.

      “I don’t understand why he did it and now I can’t ask him, either.”

      Tension radiated from his body as the frustration he’d been feeling wound tight inside of him.

      “Maybe he just wanted to protect you and your sister. If it happened twenty-five years ago then you can’t have been all that old,” she said, trying to soothe him.

      “I was six, my sister only three. I would have had some understanding of his decision not to tell us then, if my father had bothered to tell me the truth later, when I was an adult. It’s not as if he didn’t have ample opportunity. Even after he died, there was no letter, nothing in his will to let me know the truth. If I hadn’t started asking questions about the payments, I never would have known.”

      The bitterness in his voice hung in the air.

      Isobel sighed. “It isn’t easy to understand the choices our parents