Forever by Janie Crouch

Chapter Seventeen

Jess

Beingthis close to Ethan after so long made me lose my breath. Compared to other couples who’d been together for seventeen years, we didn’t have a huge amount of experience together, but that didn’t matter. He’d always managed to drive me crazy when we were.

Ethan was a quiet man, but that didn’t translate to being quiet in bed. He was devious and inventive and clever. God, I loved him.

The entirety of our long relationship, I had been the loud one. I did most of the talking while he listened and processed. Every word he said was valuable and thought out. But more than that, he let me take the lead. He was happy to be my support in whatever way he could. That was simply who he was. Quiet, steady, and unassuming.

That all changed in the bedroom.

Ethan was the boss there, taking the lead naturally, and I was happy to let him have it. Maybe it was his SEAL training. Maybe it came from being raised around a dozen alpha hero soldiers.

Maybe it was just who Ethan was on the DNA level.

When we were in bed together, he was determined, focused, and utterly in control. He demanded things of my body that I hadn’t known I could give him, and I loved every damned second of it.

Here and now, in the cold on this train, I needed him. More than anything in this world.

Ethan’s mouth was on mine, hard and demanding. The way I was sprawled across his lap I could feel how hard he was—that he wanted me too. After everything, just kissing him and knowing that he still wanted me when I could have broken everything . . . it healed something deep down.

“As much as I want you naked,” he said, lips moving along my jaw, “we can’t risk that.”

“I don’t care. That’s fine. I just need you. Inside me. Right now.”

“Are you still on the pill?”

“Yes.” And even if I weren’t, I didn’t care.

Someday I wanted a family with him. And in my mind someday had always been something in the future. What being in this situation had shown me was that I didn’t want to wait for anything. I didn’t want to hold back or delay on the things that I really cared about, and that was Ethan.

If that meant that we started our family right here in this train car, I didn’t give a damn.

He nodded and pushed me back gently, helping me to stand. I didn’t realize what he was doing until his hands found my belt and undid it with quick fingers. He didn’t need my help, nor did he want it. I was his in this moment, and I would do exactly what he told me to.

I gasped when he stripped my pants and underwear down to my ankles. The air in the car was cold, but Ethan didn’t give me a chance to dwell on the temperature. He pulled me to him so I could straddle his lap once more. When I reached between us to find his belt, his hands caught mine. “No. Not yet.”

Ethan kissed me hard, tongue darting between my lips to taste me deeper. Every part of me was warm now, falling into the arousal that swam in my veins.

“Put your hands on my shoulders,” he whispered. “Don’t move them until I tell you to.”

“Okay,” I breathed, obeying. I savored the feeling of his muscles under my hands and the way they flexed as he moved.

He slipped a hand between us, and suddenly I was gasping for an entirely different reason. I’d grown wet the moment he’d told me he needed to be inside me, but as his fingers brushed across me, I melted.

It had been so long, even the barest touch left me shaking. “Ethan.”

“I dreamed about you, you know,” he said. “When I was away and we couldn’t talk. All I thought about—or dreamed about—was you. Being able to do this.” He pushed a finger up inside me, and I moaned. I wasn’t a quiet lover. Even with the sound of the moving train I would have to keep myself in check.

“And when I would wake up after dreaming of you, I would be so hard that I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Yes.” I didn’t need to tell him that I’d done the same, imagining the times we’d been together while slipping my hand between my legs and desperately wishing that he were close. There with me. Taking me the way that I wanted him to.

Slowly, Ethan added a second finger to the first, pushing in and out. I shuddered on his hand, surrendering to the feeling of him, loving it.

I wanted this. All of it.

Ethan’s free hand settled behind my neck, guiding my face closer in a silent command to look at him, and not look away. As if I wanted to look anywhere else.

He worked me with his fingers, faster, harder, curling them up and back to find the spot that made white light flash behind my eyes. “Ethan.” His name left me on a groan, and my eyes fluttered closed.

Immediately, his fingers tightened on my neck. “Look at me.” But he didn’t stop moving. Stroking. Pushing heat and pleasure up into me with his fingers while I struggled to meet his gaze.

The minute I did, I was undone. I couldn’t look at Ethan and hide. He knew me inside and out, just like I knew him. I didn’t look away. His green eyes were my anchor in the dimness as I let go.

All the fear and the uncertainty of the past few days. The things that I hadn’t let myself think about. The nerves I’d had over our relationship. All of that slipped away as I looked at him. Pleasure raced up my spine as I did, exploding outward and rendering me blind.

I squeezed against him, rocking my hips to beg for more. But I didn’t move my hands from his shoulders. I held on for dear life, riding out that orgasm until it left me sagging, my head falling against his.

He let me catch my breath for a moment before he slipped out of me, and I moaned at the loss.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Jess. I’ve missed you so much.”

I leaned forward and kissed him, daring to slip my hands behind his neck and yank him closer. His tongue stroked into my mouth the same way his fingers had stroked into me, and I wanted more.

“Now,” he said.

I didn’t need to ask him what he meant. We’d always been in sync enough to communicate without words, and I felt that coming back. I reached between us, fumbling with the cold metal of his belt for a moment before I could release him.

Ethan was so hot and so, so hard in my hands. I stroked along his length, and he hissed through his teeth. He was just as sensitive as I was—that made me smile.

His hands fell hard on my hips, lifting me so I was perched where he wanted. It seemed like it was nothing for him to hold me in the air and lower me slowly onto him. He might be quiet, but he was damned strong.

“Hands on my shoulders.” He lowered me down. I just managed to do as he told me as he entered me, the feeling of him finally inside me overwhelming. Our bodies melded together inch by agonizing inch. It had been so long. He felt so good. By the time we settled together—Ethan buried to the hilt inside me—I was stretched full of him and could barely breathe.

I never wanted it to end.

Ethan was the only man I’d been with. Ever. And feeling him inside me now, I was so glad. Being with anyone else like this was . . . unthinkable. I couldn’t imagine being this close—this intimate—with another person. I didn’t care that I hadn’t tried other men. Wouldn’t ever want to.

I knew what I wanted, and that was Ethan. Always.

Breathless, I waited until I had adjusted to his size once again. Then I moved, rocking my hips. God he felt good. Deep, shuddering pleasure echoed through me as I rocked into him.

Until he stopped me. “No.”

That was when he took full control. With his hands on my hips, he set the pace, thrusting up at the same time as he yanked me down onto him. Over, and over, and over. My body was already primed for pleasure, and every time he drove upward set off a new wave of perfect, glorious ecstasy.

His fingers dug into my hips, holding me still while he fucked me, somehow holding me on the edge of bliss without pushing me over. Faster and slower, he controlled the rhythm, taking exactly what he wanted.

“Please,” I begged him.

“Please what?”

“More. You. More.” Only Ethan could turn me into a mindless mess.

He gave it to me, driving into me with a force that stole all the air in my lungs. Every move he made plunged deep, finding that elusive spot deep inside me that made me see fireworks. A second orgasm rose like a wave and crashed over me. I was drowning in sensation. Drowning in him.

He captured my mouth with his, covering the cry that flew out of me. Like he knew exactly what I was going to do before I even did it.

Because he did. Ethan had always known me better than I knew myself.

With one last thrust, he called out my name, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face in my neck.

We held each other close in silence for long minutes.

“I know you said we need to talk about our future, but I don’t want to talk about it,” I finally said to him, still shuddering in the aftermath. “Not ever.”

Ethan’s voice was low. Rough. “Why?”

“Because there’s not a question. It’s you. It’s always been you. It’s only ever been you.”

He searched my eyes in that earnest way that he had, and I could feel him inside me, still hard despite our lovemaking. “I don’t want you to have regrets, Jess. If you want the freedom to explore, take it. I don’t own you.”

Using my body, I squeezed him. He did own me in every way that mattered. I was his.

“Jess,” he said, almost in warning.

“I love that you would give me that freedom if it was what I needed,” I said. “It’s not. There’s nobody I could ever want more than you. Nobody I could have this with.” I squeezed him again. “I don’t need intimacy with someone else to let me know I only want intimacy with you.”

He rolled his hips into mine, making me gasp. No words. His only response was to make me feel again. With sudden movement, Ethan shifted us so we were once again on the floor. He stretched over me, never once pulling away. And he unleashed himself.

Before he’d said he’d wanted long and slow. This was anything but. This was powerful and all-consuming. Frenzied and desperate and damned hot. Most of all, he was illustrating exactly how thoroughly he owned me. Even if he didn’t think he did.

Ethan grabbed my hands and laced our fingers together, bracing them against the floor as he moved. I loved him like this. It was like he was suddenly completely himself. With no walls. Showing me the absolutely badass man that he was.

This time we were together. Our breath synced and bodies moved as one. I sank into him, letting go of everything but this moment and the shivering, shimmering pleasure sparkling through me. Now I couldn’t keep quiet, but my cries were lost in the sound of the moving train.

His lips were on my neck, dragging across my skin as we both crashed over the edge together. He jerked inside me and filled me with that delicious heat I couldn’t ignore.

He groaned my name, dragging it out. It was the sexiest sound in the world.

There was no more darkness behind my eyes. Everything I saw was light and perfect as I arched into one last brutal climax. Sparks flew down my nerves. It lasted forever, and was over far too soon, leaving us gasping for breath in each other’s arms.

Ethan looked down at me. “I love you.” There was no doubting the sincerity in his words. “More than you can ever know, Jess. You’re it for me.”

Tears blurred my vision once more, and I pulled him into a kiss. “You’re it for me too. My Ethan.”

Eventually, we moved, rearranging ourselves so we were clothed before Ethan pulled me back to him. He curled around me, my back against his chest. And we didn’t need more words to understand what we meant to each other. No matter the space we’d let grow between us.

There was no place that I felt safer or happier than when Ethan was holding me.

We drifted for a while, and I think I fell asleep. It was the shrieking of the train’s brakes and the jolting of the car that made me surge into awareness. I crawled away from Ethan, peering through the cracks in the slats of the car.

There was nothing outside but trees and countryside. Nothing to make me think we were close to an actual station. I looked back at Ethan and shook my head. We couldn’t speak now.

This wasn’t a scheduled stop, and that meant it could be a search of the train. We were no longer safe here. It was time to go.