Control: Part Three :)

Hi Everyone!  Thanks so much to all my fans and all the amazing bloggers out there who helped make
Ruined's release day so freaking unbelievable!  You guys are the best!!!!!  Seriously, the best :)  One of my favorite review quotes so far comes from Under the Covers, who says, "Ethan is everything I wanted Fifty and Gideon to be."  Woo-hoo!!!!

Today, here's the third part of Control, the outtake from Ruined that is in Ethan's POV.  Hope you like it!!!!

Excerpt from Control:

The question hangs in the air between us.  It has so many layers, so many levels, that she’s having a hard time sorting them all out.  I want to help her, to tell her that I mean every single one of them.  But she won’t believe me.  It’s in her eyes, in the way she’s holding her body like she’s poised for a blow.

I rub my thumb over her inner elbow in an instinctive need to soothe, angling my body so that I’m curved around her though we aren’t actually touching.  For a second, it looks like she wants to curl into me, wants to give up on the resistance and just let me hold her the way I’m dying to. 

But then she stiffens, her spine going ramrod straight.  “I need to go.”

She doesn’t move away, though.  Doesn’t try to disguise the huskiness of her voice or the trembling of her hands. 

I tighten my hand on her elbow to steady her, to let her know that I’m right here and that it will be okay.  That she can trust me.  And then I pull her closer until her soft breasts are against me, her lush hips cradled against my throbbing dick.  It’s a gamble, letting her see how much I want her, but I don’t want to hide anything from her.  Not when I have a feeling this thing between us is going to be more than I’ve ever imagined. 

I hold her eyes with mine as long as she’ll allow, but then she shakes her head, looks away.  I feel a wrenching deep inside me.  She’s standing right in front of me, but she’s disappeared inside herself until it feels like all I’m holding is air.

“Where’d you go?” I ask, leaning forward until my mouth is only centimeters from her ear.  I want Chloe back, want her hear with me.

Her breath catches in her throat, and she sucks in a gulp of air, shakes her head as if to clear it.  “I’m still here.”

“I want you, Chloe.” No need to beat around the bush.  Not here.   Not now.  Not in this.  I skim my mouth across the satiny skin of her cheek, down her jaw. “And I think you want me, too.”

Again, she shakes her head, but this time it’s more acknowledgment than denial, and we both know it. “Ethan—”

The thrill of those two syllables on her lips has me pulling back, grinning at her.  “You said my name again. That’s progress.”

She arches her brows. “Most guys wouldn’t consider that progress.”

“I’m not most guys.”

 “Yeah, right. I’ve heard that before.”

She’s teasing me, actually teasing me. It’s even better than I expected it to be and I laugh, something I seem to do a lot around her.  “That didn’t sound nearly as clichéd in my head.”

“Really?”

“Or maybe I just didn’t think it through well enough.”

“Yeah, maybe not.”

“Since we’re on the subject of clichés, we could try another one.”  This time I’m the one to lift a brow questioningly.

“I have to admit, I’m a little jealous. I’ve always wanted to know how to do that.”

“What?” I’m baffled, thrown off my game by the abrupt twists and turns of her mind—and our conversation.

But then she’s reaching out, stroking a hand over the eyebrow I just raised.  It calms me down even as it sends heat rampaging through me. 

“That whole one-eyebrow thing. It’s a lot harder than it looks.”

“Oh, yeah? Maybe I’ll teach you someday.”

“I’d like that.”

We’re close now, even closer than we were just a minute ago, and she’s not moving back.   No, she’s pressing into me, her sweet body flush against mine. It’s all I can do not to press her down onto the couch and do everything imaginable—everything I’ve been fantasizing about for two days—to her.  But she’s nervous.  I can see it, feel it, all but smell it coming off of her in waves.  So I figure I should probably start with a kiss.  Just a kiss.

I lower my head slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull back.  To call a halt to the kiss though I’m dying to get my lips on her.  Dying to taste her.  She’s so close that I can see the freckles on the bridge of her nose, can feel her body trembling against mine.  I can hear the hitch in her breathing, smell the sweet strawberry scent of her breath.

It’s not enough.  I want to taste her.  Need to taste her.

I close the last little gap between us, brush my lips gently against hers. Once, twice, then again and again. Little glancing kisses that do nothing but stoke the flames deep inside of me, nothing but make me want more. Make me want everything.

She kisses me back, parting her lips in an open invitation that I’m dying to take.  But I don’t want to rush this, rush her, so I continue with the soft, gentle kisses—on her cheek, her jaw, the corner of her mouth, her upper lip, her lower lip, the other corner of her mouth.  She’s delicious, amazing, and I want to savor every part of her.  To explore everything that Chloe is.

She moans deep in her throat, slides her hands up my arms to rub at my shoulders before walking them slowly up my neck. It’s my turn to groan a little as heat whips through me, and this time when I take her mouth, it’s no light, glancing thing. It’s a full-fledged kiss, one that sends need slamming through me.  I harness it ruthlessly, determined to make this good for her.  Determined to show her how it can be between us.

I nip at her lower lip, and she opens to me.  This time I take instant advantage, my tongue stealing inside to explore.  I’m careful not to rush her, not to demand everything she has to give.  Chloe needs to be coaxed, seduced.  The last thing I want is to startle her into running.

I slide the tip of my tongue gently against hers, circling slowly, slowly, slowly. Licking along the top of her tongue, then the bottom before moving on to the inside of her cheek, the roof of her mouth. I play with the tender frenulum between her upper lip and my gum, careful to only bring pleasure.  Triumph wells up inside me when she shudders, her hands coming up to tangle in my shirt.

I cup her face, tilt her head this way and that so I can delve deeper. So I can find out all of her secrets, everything that she is.  I expect her to pull back, to protest the intimacy and the obvious possession in my touch.  But she doesn’t.  Instead, she welcomes me in and for a few, sweet moments, gives me everything that I ask. 

She tastes like she smells, like strawberries and honey and sweet, sun-warmed flowers.  Rich, decadent, delicious.  I want more, am desperate for it.  I want all of her.

Need, powerful and overwhelming, shoots through me as she slides her fingers into my hair and pulls me more tightly against her.  It’s an unexpected move, and a welcome one.  She’s the aggressor now, the one deepening the kiss and the contact between us.  And while I normally like to be in control, in this moment I’m more than willing to yield to her.  To give her whatever she needs as long as it means she’ll stay right here in my arms, where she so obviously belongs. 

There’s a wariness about her normally that’s gone now and I revel in that fact.  I want her to feel safe with me, to feel secure enough to let me in—and to take me the way I’m so desperate to take her.

She moans again, and I wrap my arms around her, pull her closer as her tongue strokes along the edge of my bottom lip, then my top one.  She teases the corners of my mouth and it takes every ounce of control I have not to seize control from her.  There’s so much I want from her—so much I want to give her and take from her—that it’s a raging ache inside of me.  I want to push her against the nearest wall and thrust into her, want to slide down her body and put my mouth on her sex, want to turn her around and take her from behind as I pet and shape and spank that gorgeous ass of hers.

But she’s not ready for that yet—I can feel the nervousness just underneath the desire.  The vulnerability underneath the passion.  Knowing that, feeling it, helps me stay in control even as she nips at and licks and explores every inch of my mouth.   And then, when I’m least expecting it, she slides a hand between our bodies, runs a thumb over my left nipple as she thrusts her tongue deep inside my mouth.

The last string on my control stretches out, frees me a little from the stranglehold I’ve got on myself, and I’m moving fast, shoving her against the wall as I plunder her mouth.  She arches against me and I grab her leg, lift it and wrap it around my hip so I can be closer to her. So I can feel her wet, intoxicating heat against my dick.

I stroke her thigh, pause at the sensitive flesh on the inside of her knee when I feel her shudder against me.  She clutches at me, arches into me and all I want is to bring her pleasure.  To make her as crazy as she’s made me.  I groan, my hand clenching on her thigh.  I’m careful not to press too hard, not to hurt her though there’s a part of me that wants to bruise her just a little.  To leave marks so that everyone knows that Chloe is mine.  That she belongs to me.

Her hands are back in my hair, tugging, pulling, claiming as the kiss goes on and on and on.  She’s panting now, making soft, desperate sounds in the back of her throat as her body shakes and shudders against mine.  I’m half insane with the need to take her now.  To claim her.  She’s mine and the sooner she—and the rest of the world—know it, the better.