It Started with a Snap by Piper James

Chapter Fourteen

Ethan

Igave up on painting the house after forty-five minutes. It was too fucking hot outside, especially after sweating balls all morning at the boutique. With Ember.

“What the hell was up with her?” I mumbled as I stepped into the shower.

I stood under the cool spray—no way could I handle hot water right now—and dropped my head, letting the spray beat against my shoulders and the back of my neck. Ember had been practically skittish, which was so far removed from her normal personality, it had shocked and confused me. My mind scrolled through everything I’d done, because I knew it was nothing I said. We’d barely spoken two words to each other all morning.

When I got there and first laid eyes on her, visions of the night before had flashed through my mind, filling me with rage all over again. I wanted to find that asshole and break his nose for a second time for calling Ember a cunt and threatening her. And for touching her hair. And for even looking at her.

I took my anger out on the step I’d broken when I left Ember’s apartment the day before, breaking it into pieces with my hammer instead of removing the nails like a normal person. Thankfully, Ember didn’t come to investigate all the noise.

I’d calmed down by the time I finished, and when I reentered the main boutique area, Ember had been uncharacteristically quiet and standoffish. So I ignored her, hoping that would make her feel more comfortable. Hell, for all I knew, she was still upset over what happened at the bar. Maybe being alone with me was…disconcerting.

Then I looked up and caught her staring at me. After putting some thought into it, I was sure I imagined it, but I thought I’d seen a flash of hunger in her eyes before her expression turned blank and she spun away. And my dick got hard just thinking about it.

“Fuck,” I muttered, trying to ignore the throbbing need.

But it didn’t dissipate. It only grew harder as that look I’d caught on Ember’s face flashed through my mind again and again. I imagined that she wanted me. That she dropped what she was doing, stalked toward me, and pressed her gorgeous mouth to mine. Tasted me. Let me taste her. Pressed her palms to my chest, running her fingertips over my pecs and ab muscles before letting them dip under the waistband of my shorts to take my cock in her greedy little hand.

Muttering another curse, I grabbed my body wash, squirted some into my palm, and wrapped my hand around my erection. Dropping the bottle of soap, I pressed that hand into the wall in front of me to hold myself upright as I stroked my cock slowly.

I tried to keep Ember out of my thoughts. Really, I did. But she kept sneaking back in. Her gorgeous eyes, filled with heat. Her plump bottom lip, gripped tightly between her white teeth. Her hands gripping me, priming my cock before she fell to her knees and took me into her warm, wet mouth.

I shouted a strangled curse, my cock spurting ribbons of come against the shower wall. My entire body convulsed with the release, and my heart pounded a staccato rhythm in my chest.

Fuck. What was that? Ten fucking seconds? Jesus.

I shook my head as I grabbed the detachable shower head and washed off the wall. After washing my body and hair, I rinsed off and climbed from the shower dripping wet. I stared at myself in the mirror as I dried off, not sure if I should be disgusted or impressed.

I had no business jacking off to thoughts of Ember Moore. I had no business thinking of her, at all. But for some reason, she was all I thought about these days.

Pulling on a pair of thin athletic shorts, I wandered out into the living room. I stood there for a moment, looking from the living room to the kitchen and back again. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t really want to watch television, and I’d eaten lunch when I got home before going out to paint.

I grabbed my laptop from where it was charging on the kitchen counter and sat down at the table. I couldn’t believe Ember didn’t have a website or social media pages for the boutique. How did she expect it to be a success with no online listing? And no advertising?

She was obviously getting by on sales to the people of Red River who knew her and her shop, but she deserved more than just getting by. I ran a search on her boutique name, and all it came up with was a few reviews on public reviewing sites. At least the reviews were good. But a basic search on western boutiques in the area didn’t even mention Glowing Embers. The closest one was out in Saddleback, which meant she should’ve been making a killing, serving the people in Red River, Oakley, and the other surrounding small towns.

But websites and advertising cost money. Is that what was stopping her? Or maybe she didn’t have the skills to create and maintain a website. It could be a little daunting, and paying someone to do it ran into even more unnecessary costs.

But I did have the skills. I’d been handling our business’s online presence for years. I could create a website for Ember in my sleep.

Decision made, I pulled up my favorite web-hosting site and got started. There was a small tic in the back of my head telling me I might be overstepping. That Ember might resent my interference. But I ignored it. If she threw a fit, I’d take it down.

It was a chance I was willing to take if it meant helping her. Because I wanted to help her. I felt compelled to do so, but I didn’t think too hard on why that was. I just told myself it was because I could. And contrary to her opinion of me, I was a nice person.

Who didn’t jack off in the shower to fantasies of her sucking my hard cock.

“Stop,” I muttered to myself as I opened a new window and pulled up a popular photo-sharing social media site.

If I was going to make the website beautiful and appealing, I needed pictures of the boutique. And of Ember, herself. Typing her name into the search bar, I quickly found her profile. And thankfully, it wasn’t private.

Scrolling through her feed, I quickly found several shots of the inside of the boutique that would work. One of the sign out front. A few shots of specific items—a leather purse, a pair of red western boots, a rack of cowboy hats. I screenshotted the ones I liked, then searched through the pictures of Ember to find a good one for the bio page on the site.

Clicking on one to enlarge it, I sucked in a sharp breath. She looked even more beautiful than usual, her head tipped back as she obviously laughed at something. A river was in the background, and she was wearing a yellow bikini top that tied behind her neck and a pair of tiny jean shorts. Her blonde hair sparkled in the sun between her fingers as she gripped it and her blue eyes crinkled with joy.

I moved my fingers to screenshot the pic. Not for the website, but for myself. I paused before pressing the button, feeling like a total creeper. No. I was not going to steal a picture for myself. I let my hand drop to the side, where it landed on my wireless mouse.

Time slowed down as I stared in horror at the cursor, which had been hovering over the small heart under the picture. The mouse button clicked, and the heart turned red. My eyes widened with panic as I fumbled with the mouse, quickly unclicking the heart.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered.

Then I leaned back in my chair and heaved a sigh. It was too late. I’d “liked” the photo, and Ember had no doubt already received a notification on her end about it. All I could do was pretend it never happened and hope she wouldn’t bring it up.

If she did, well, I’d just have to tell her about the website and play it off like it was all business. She might be mad, but mad was better than skeeved out, thinking I was internet stalking. Which I totally wasn’t. Not much, anyway.

“Fuck.”