Forever by Janie Crouch

Chapter Ten

Three Years Ago

Ethan - 21

Jess - 18

Jess had beeneighteen for five minutes.

For her birthday, her mom and dad had offered to take her anywhere she wanted to go. On a trip, or home to Oak Creek. As much as she loved her parents and her sister, there was only one place she wanted to be as she turned eighteen.

Wherever Ethan Bollinger was.

Of course, that was true for any birthday, but it was especially true for this one. She was finally an adult. Mentally and emotionally, she’d been an adult for a lot longer than five minutes, but legally she was now eighteen.

Legally was the only thing she cared about because Ethan was now out of excuses for not giving her what she wanted: him.

She’d asked for him for her past two birthdays, but he was having none of it. Protecting her from herself, he called it. Told her they had all the time in the world to have sex with each other. He could wait until she was legally an adult.

With anyone else, she probably would have thought he was just covering his own ass, but not Ethan. So protective. Such a gentleman. It was part of the reason she loved him so much.

He was on leave from his SEAL team for a couple of days, and since his team was stationed in Germany, she and Ethan were meeting in Paris. Short flights for both of them.

When her parents had found out this was where she was going, they’d offered to take her dad’s jet and meet her here. She’d hemmed and hawed, and tried to make excuses for them not to come, but knew they were going to show up anyway. Finally, she’d told her mom she was meeting Ethan here and that they should very definitely not come.

She’d left poor Mom to explain things to Dad and hoped he didn’t show up with a shotgun. That would not be the romantic weekend she had planned. Her mom had been a little impressed that they had waited this long.

That was testimony of Ethan’s willpower, because God knew Jess had been trying to talk him into more for forever. Literally every time they’d seen each other for the past year and a half, she’d tried to seduce him.

And while he would kiss her all day long, he’d never do any more than that.

Well, occasionally more than that.

He’d never stopped her from rubbing up against him, and not even his infamous willpower could withstand her climbing on top of him when they kissed. Which is why he always made sure they remained dressed.

So she knew he wanted her, but he’d never let her do anything to him—touch him the way she wanted to with her hands and her mouth. She may only be eighteen, but she had a mind that allowed her to think of unlimited situations and scenarios with the two of them.

She and Ethan were supposed to meet tomorrow, or technically later today, for her birthday, but she’d arrived early. And thanks to a little bit of hacking that Uncle Kendrick and Aunt Neo had taught her, she knew that Ethan had arrived a day early too.

She was sure he had some big, romantic day planned for them tomorrow. Maybe dinner at the restaurant on the Eiffel Tower, or a tour of the Louvre, and she wanted to do all that with him. She wanted to do everything this world had to offer with her Ethan.

But right now, she just wanted him.

It was after midnight, and he might be asleep. She didn’t care. She got off the elevator and walked down the hall toward his room. She had a trench coat on with only a matching bra and panty set underneath. She was like some bad 1980s movie hooker, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to waste time having to pull off pants and shirts. She’d wasted enough time waiting for this.

She had half a dozen condoms in the coat pocket, but she’d also been on the pill for more than a year. She hoped she could talk him into not using the condoms.

But the only thing that gave her the slightest moment of hesitation was that he’d been legal for quite a bit longer than she had.

He’d been in the Navy now for four years, had been a Navy SEAL for three of those years, one of the youngest people to ever complete SEAL training. She couldn’t hide from the fact that it was possible, maybe even probable, that he’d had sex with someone else at some point.

Her heart cracked at the thought of it. The image of his lips kissing another woman, his body close to hers, made Jess want to go rip some bimbo’s hair out. But she refused to allow that to come between them now.

It was her own fault. She’d written him that letter after he’d joined the Navy telling him he could do what he wanted. She hadn’t wanted him to feel trapped, and although she’d never so much as looked at another boy, not that there were that many appealing choices at Vandercroft, she hadn’t wanted to keep Ethan from doing what he really wanted. Even if that was sexual relations with another woman.

But that clause was over now. She was eighteen, a woman, and he was her man. Hers alone.

She arrived in front of his door and tapped on it. She stood there, hands on her hips, knowing he would look through the security hole before opening the door.

And then there he was.

Her eyes drank in the sight of him. It had been six months since she’d last seen him face-to-face. His dark hair was a little longer than someone would expect a Navy SEAL’s to be, and he had a slight beard. She knew what that meant. He’d been doing undercover missions where a cropped haircut and a clean-shaven face would be out of place.

His hair was tussled now, and a little damp. He’d gotten out of the shower recently. Opted to go without a shirt. Thank the Lord.

It was all she could do not to reach up and run her nails down over his pecs and across those abs. She knew enough about biology to have known years ago that Ethan was going to resemble his father in terms of physique: tall, muscular. But Ethan was a specimen unto himself. And right for her. She forced her gaze away from that torso and back up to his green eyes. Her Ethan’s eyes.

“Hi,” she said.

He leaned against the doorframe. “I thought we were meeting tomorrow.”

“I got here early.”

He raised one dark eyebrow. “And don’t tell me, you hacked the hotel’s computer system and figured out I was here early too?”

He knew her way too well. “Moi?” she asked, appropriate since they were in Paris.

Just when she’d thought she would have to ask for an invite in, he reached out and hooked a hand behind her neck and dragged her against him.

His lips crashed into hers, fitting perfectly the way they had since their first kiss.

“I missed you.” They both said it at the same time against each other’s mouths.

She slid her arms around his waist and pulled him closer. “I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to see you, knowing that you were here tonight.”

“I’m glad.” He closed the door behind them as they backed farther into the hotel room. “I thought you were somewhere nearby. I can always feel it when you’re nearby, but I thought maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part. I’m glad to have every extra second with you I can get.”

They both always felt that way. Both looked forward to a time in the future when they wouldn’t have to be apart and spend stolen minutes together.

His lips left hers. “Do you want to take off your coat?”

She couldn’t stop the smile that took over her face. She’d been wanting to do this for a very long time. “Yes.”

He reached for the belt to help her, but she stepped back so she could do it herself. “Allow me.”

Academically, she’d always wondered if she would be shy when this moment came, even though shyness wasn’t a natural state for her. She’d wondered if she would be nervous when it was time to make love with Ethan for the first time.

She wasn’t. She unhooked the belt and slid the coat off her shoulder, although not letting it slide to the floor. Ethan’s breath hissed through his teeth, increasing her confidence.

But then he stepped back a little.

“Sweet God, Jess.”

“Do you like?”

“Do I like? Did you wander around the hotel in that outfit?”

“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. The undergarments weren’t that risqué. “You’ve seen me in less than this, in a bathing suit at Pike’s Peak every summer since we’ve known each other.”

Now she was starting to feel a little bit insecure.

“I . . .” Ethan swallowed loudly. “I . . .”

He was staring down at her. Green eyes moving down her body, then back up.

This wasn’t about him not wanting her. She’d caught him off guard, and he needed a moment to adjust. She knew him well enough to know that.

Ethan wasn’t smart like her. He was smart in an entirely different way. He was calm under pressure, able to focus where she sometimes tended to panic, when her brain tried to work through too many scenarios at once.

Ethan focused on one, sorting through it before moving on to the next.

“You know why I’m here, E,” she said, “I’m eighteen.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “You’ve been eighteen for thirty seconds.”

“Twelve and a half minutes,” she muttered before stepping closer. “I know what I want. I want you.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It doesn’t have to be tonight, Jess. It doesn’t have to be this weekend. We have forever.”

She pulled the coat back around her body. “Is this not what you want?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. But it’s most important to me that you know we don’t have any sort of timetable. Just because you’re legal doesn’t mean we have to fall into bed.”

She waved her arm around the lovely hotel room with a big king bed sitting in the middle of it. “We’re meeting in Paris. We’re in a hotel room. I thought all of that was leading to us finally making love together.”

He walked a little further into the room and opened the door at that wall. “I got us connecting rooms. I didn’t want you to feel pressured.”

She let out a sigh. Of course he had gotten two rooms.

As if Ethan could ever make her feel pressured. As if she didn’t want him more than she wanted her next breath. She walked over to him, reaching up to cup his cheeks.

“You are a good man, and you have always taken care of me. We will have a wonderful time this weekend, and it can be with or without sex. But I just have one question I want you to answer first.”

“Anything.” His hands fell to her waist as if he couldn’t help himself.

“Do you want me?”

He immediately opened his mouth, but she stopped him with a finger on his lips. “I know you love me, Ethan, but our relationship is different than most people’s. We’ve known each other for so long. We’ve grown up together. If what you feel for me is not sexual in nature, now is the time for you to tell me.”

She honestly didn’t know what she was going to do if he told her that the love he felt for her had turned platonic at some point. She loved him platonically, but she also loved him every other way that a person could love another, and that very definitely included sexually.

She loved him enough to let him go if that was what he needed. Even though it might rip her heart out.

He didn’t say anything, just stepped closer, and her heart caught in her throat. Maybe things really had changed for him. He trailed gentle fingers down her cheek, and she found herself blinking back tears.

But his hands kept moving, brushing down her neck, then under the collar of her coat before sliding it off her shoulders.

The coat fell to the ground behind her. His fingers didn’t stop. They traced down her back before unhooking her bra and pulling it away from her body. It joined the coat on the ground.

He dropped down to one knee and then the other, his lips kissing along her belly as he hooked his fingers into the strappy elastic at the waist of her underwear and slid that down also. As he kissed along her belly again, her fingers found their way into his hair.

He glanced up at her. “I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire adult life. If you had told me you needed more time this weekend, I would have somehow found the strength to give it to you, but do not doubt that I want you. Never doubt that.”

* * *

Ethan had seenmany looks in Jess’s eyes over the years. He’d seen them blaze with anger, with protectiveness, with compassion.

But seeing them fill with tears of insecurity because she’d thought he wasn’t interested in making love to her was not something he ever wanted to see again.

He’d been telling her nothing less than the truth when he’d said he would have found the strength to ease back if she’d needed the distance this weekend. He would have done it, of course, because there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the woman now standing naked in front of him.

And she was a woman. In every way that someone could be a woman.

And she was his.

“I love you, Jess,” he whispered as he peppered kisses along the smooth skin of her hips. “I want you. I consider myself the luckiest man on the planet because you came here tonight rather than waiting until tomorrow.”

He made his way back up her body, spending ample time on her gorgeous breasts, trying to keep himself under control.

When he was finally back at her lips, he cupped her cheeks so she was looking directly into his eyes. “I want you. We’re never going to get another first time, so I want to do this slow, and I want to make it right for both of us. But don’t doubt I want you.”

“Is it your first time too? It’s okay if it’s not. I know we agreed that it was okay for us to see other people. I didn’t, but if you did, I understand.”

“Jessica Elizabeth O’Conner.” He shook his head. “There has never been anyone else for me but you. I didn’t care how much permission you’d given me. If you had dropped off a naked woman in my room and told me to go at it, I still wouldn’t have cared. If it’s not you, I’m not interested. You’re the only person I’ll ever have sex with, you’re the only person I’ll ever kiss, and you’re the only woman I’ll ever love.”

Her face lit up, and then a devious smile turned her lips up. There she was. There was his little genius.

“If it’s the first time for both of us, then we’re going to have to do a lot of experimenting to get it right.”

She reached down, hooked her hands into his sweat pants, and pulled them down over his hips. He used his leg to hook them and pull them the rest of the way off. And then, for the first time ever, they were both naked together.

She kissed her way across his chest, and he pushed up against her in a way that made it very obvious that he definitely wanted her.

She nipped him on his chest, and he grabbed her hips with a groan, sliding his hands under her thighs and lifting her up so he could trap her between the wall and his body. Both of them let out a gasp.

“We’re definitely going to need a lot of experimenting,” he said before his lips found hers once more.

She hiked her legs around his waist, and he walked them over to the bed and lowered her.

“I have condoms,” she said. “But I’m also on the pill, so I’m okay with not using them if you are.”

He could barely stop staring down at her naked body long enough to process what she was saying. But he nodded. Having nothing between them when he was inside her? He couldn’t imagine anything better on this earth.

It was one of the rewards for both of them having waited. Having never been with anyone else but each other. That wait hadn’t always been easy, so he would gladly enjoy these spoils.

“You’re so beautiful, Jess. I mean, I’ve always known you were, but . . . you take my breath away.”

She opened her arms up to him with a smile. “Thank you for waiting for me. I know I didn’t always make it easy, but I promise, you and I together will be worth the wait.”

He had no doubt. It would start great today and only get better for the rest of their lives.