The Power to Break Read online

  His icy blue eyes are hidden away behind closed lids. I study the lines around his eyes—lines that weren’t there back in high school. Hard earned lines from the life he’s lived. Cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, stress, all written there in the story of his face, though they could be much worse if he didn’t have the means to pay for top of the line skincare.

  His hair is a beautiful mess, sun streaks of lighter blond softening the nearly brunette color underneath. It’s long—too long, and sticking up in crazy directions from whatever pomade he uses in it...but it’s somehow perfect on him.

  His firm lips are slightly parted as he breathes in and out steadily. I study the straight line of his nose and the scruff that peppers his chin. I allow a soft fingertip to run over the scruff, and the roughness there is awakening and thrilling while at the same time it serves to scare me at how fucking real all this is.

  That’s what pushes me out of bed and onto my feet. The realness, the terrifying road that lies ahead of me. The feelings in my heart that conflict with the thoughts in my head. I know what I’m here to do, but I fear one sympathetic look from his icy blue eyes has the potential to throw me completely off my course.

  Can I really do this? Can I get him to fall for me only to leave him this time in some attempt to hurt him the way he hurt me so long ago?

  Or am I going to fall for him only to be shattered all over again?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  MACI

  “Shame we wasted all those hours talking,” Ethan says once I emerge from the bathroom. He’s still lying on my bed. “And sleeping.”

  I pick up my phone and glance at the time. We still have at least another hour before we’ll have to stop for a driver break, but it’s early—too early to be awake just yet. “What did you have in mind?”

  “I didn’t come over to spend the night in your bed with all my clothes on.”

  “What did you come for, then?”

  He laughs and lifts a shoulder. “To seduce you. Did it work?”

  I can’t admit to him that being with him is everything I’ve wanted since I was a kid. That talking to him and getting to know something beneath the surface, a side to him I’m positive he doesn’t let many people see, touched me in an unexpected way. That the bond we experienced together last night was almost enough to make me reconsider what I’m doing.

  “Am I naked?” I glance down at my plain white t-shirt. “Are you inside me?” I look up at him. “Nope on both accounts. Looks like you failed your mission.”

  He stands and brushes past me on his way to the restroom. “Did I? Or is it all part of the plan?”

  He shuts the door and I roll my eyes at him even though he can’t see me. I head out to the forward cabin and start my Keurig. I open the curtains while I wait and watch the landscape pass me by. It’s morning, a little after seven, and the sun is just starting to light the morning sky. I usually sleep much later than this, but this morning I’m awake. It’s probably because I don’t want to waste the time I have with Ethan by sleeping through it.

  When the coffee’s ready and I’ve taken the first sip I need to handle Ethan on my bus after not enough hours of sleep, I feel a little better. I put a lid on my coffee so it doesn’t spill and set it on the table, and then I light up a cigarette and slide into a chair at the table. Griffin isn’t here to yell at me, and the nicotine calms my frazzled nerves.

  My eyes are itchy from sleeping in my contacts, but what choice did I have? Would he recognize something there in the innocence behind my brown eyes that isn’t there with the blue?

  I’m scrolling my phone with one hand and holding my cigarette between my fingers without really thinking about it when I feel a light pressure tug on my cigarette. I whip around and find Ethan helping himself to a drag.

  He coughs. “Jesus. Menthol?”

  I nod. “Soothes my throat and freshens my breath.”

  “And puts you right up there next to all the grandmothers who got hooked in their teens.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “I also used your toothbrush.” Ethan’s voice is close to my ear. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  I turn toward him and twist my lips in disgust. “You what?”

  “Used your toothbrush.”

  “We haven’t even kissed yet.”

  His brows draw in. “Uh, yeah we did.”

  “Not, like, with tongue.”

  He moves quickly toward me and presses his lips to mine. My insides melt to butter with him so close. I feel his tongue at the seam of my lips, but I pull away before he can kiss me that way. The hot taste of cigarettes mixed with coffee is gross even though it’s my own breath mingling with his.

  He shoots me an innocent look. “Just trying to fix the problem.” He picks up my coffee, takes a sip, and makes a face of disgust before he swallows it down. “No cream?”

  I shake my head and smirk at him before flicking my ash into the ashtray on the table.

  He laughs. “Tell me about your ex-husband.”

  I make a face like it’s too early for this conversation, but clearly he’s ready to get right back to it. “His name is Kai.”

  “Kai? Interesting name.”

  “Means forgiveness in Japanese.” The irony. I know.

  “Was he forgiving?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Me, not so much.”

  “Did he do something unforgivable?” He pulls my cigarette out of my hand, takes a long drag off of it, and hands it back to me as he coughs again.

  I glare at him. “Yeah. He stole my smoke. Grounds for divorce.”

  He takes another sip of my coffee and winces at the bitter taste. “And you never forgave him. Real shame.”

  “I almost killed him once when he stole a sip of my coffee.”

  “Your coffee might just kill me. You got any milk?”

  “Would you like your own cup?”

  “I don’t want to be a bother.”

  I roll my eyes and stand to get him his own cup. “Funny coming from the guy who kicked out my manager so he could ride alone with me.” I pull a flavored creamer Griff uses from the fridge and toss it to Ethan. He catches it even though I took him off guard. “You can have the rest of that cup. I’ll brew a fresh one.”

  He laughs and shakes his head as he dumps some of the liquid into the cup. “I like you, Maci. A lot.”

  I purse my lips, afraid if I open my mouth, I might just admit that I like him, too.

  “So this song,” I say, changing the subject.

  He nods as if to tell me to finish my train of thought.

  “You think it should be about loss. I agree. I like the idea. But do you mean personal loss or a lost love?”

  He lifts a shoulder. “Sex sells. You of all people know that.”

  I slide into the chair across from him with my fresh, black coffee. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It wasn’t a dig. You’re hot, Mace. You’ve got a voice that drips of sex and a body made for fucking. It’s your image.” His eyes land on my tits again, and he shakes his head just slightly. “Most people intertwine love and sex.”

  “Most people?” I stub out the butt of my cigarette in the ashtray.

  “Sure.” He nods to the cigarette. “You got any more of those?”

  “Sold on the menthols?”

  “I didn’t think it through when I hopped on your bus last night and all my shit’s on mine.”

  “Rookie mistake.” I grab the pack from the cabinet where I keep them and toss him one along with a lighter. He lights it and takes a long drag as he sets the lighter on the table, and then he holds it up to offer it to me. I shake my head.

  “You don’t intertwine love and sex?” I ask.

  He shakes his head and averts his eyes to the table. “Sex is an act. Love is a feeling.”

  “Love is an act, too,” I muse, staring into the black swirls of my coffee as the bus hits a small bump in the road.

  “Love is an Act. There’s our title.”

  “I do
n’t title until I’ve written.”

  “I title first,” he says, his eyes meeting mine in a challenge.

  “Why are we even doing this? I can barely even stand you.” It’s a lie. I love that he’s here on my bus, and it hurts me to my very core that I feel that way.

  “It’s my convoluted attempt to force you to spend time with me to get you to like me.”

  I chuckle. “Why?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know. You remind me of someone, that’s all. I like being around you. It’s oddly calming.”

  “Not very many people would say being around me is calming. Just ask Griff.”

  He laughs. “It seems counterintuitive, but it’s like I’ve known you my whole life. You ever hear that theory about being connected to another person by a thread?” The words tumble out of his mouth, and he looks surprised that he spoke them aloud.

  “The legend of the red thread?” I ask. I’ve heard it. Some old legend that people who are destined to be together are connected by a thread, sort of like soul mates.

  “I don’t know if it’s red.”

  I laugh. “You’re saying we’re soul mates?”

  His brows draw quickly down. “Soul mates? No. I don’t believe in that shit.”

  “But you believe in the thread.”

  “It’s nothing,” he mutters. “It’s dumb.”

  “Tell me what you know about this thread.”

  He sighs. “It’s some story my sister told me once about how people who are meant to be in each other’s lives are connected by this thread. It’s unbreakable and it doesn’t mean the road will be smooth, doesn’t mean the timing will work out easily, but the gods tied them together at the ankles and they’ll find their way to each other at some point.”

  “And you think you’re meant to be in my life?”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “Other way around.”

  “You think I’m meant to be in your life?”

  He shrugs, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. He takes another drag on the cigarette. “I don’t know.” He stubs out his cigarette and takes a sip of coffee, his concentration focused on these little details rather than on me. He stares at the mess of ashes in the ashtray. He clears his throat, and when he speaks, his voice is low and husky. “But you’re here now, and I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  My eyes soften despite everything.

  But this is all part of the plan. I’m hooking his interest, which is step one.

  I don’t care about coffee and cigarette breath anymore. If I didn’t have this history with him, if he didn’t hurt me so much way back then, I’d abandon everything to kiss him after those words.

  I stand from my seat, walk around the table, and swivel my way onto his lap. I take his face between my hands, the stubble on his cheeks rough beneath my palms. My insides twist with nerves and excitement. Our eyes lock for one heated beat, and I read so much behind them. The pain and the loss, but even within their depths there’s a hopefulness I’m surprised to see there. I see patience and need, desire and disappointment. I want to take away the disappointment and the pain if only for a minute—if only to lull him into a false sense of reality so I can pull it out from under him later. I push that last thought away because the guilt threatens to overwhelm me. Instead, my eyes flick to his firm lips and then I lower my mouth to his.

  His arms come around my waist to steady me there, his palms flat on my ass as I open his mouth with my tongue. A soft grunt escapes him when I grind down on his lap, and he deepens the kiss, one of his hands skating up my back to land on the curve of my neck—the same place where his hand landed during a stolen kiss in a hallway over eighteen years ago, the same place where his hand curled during a midnight New Year’s kiss on a stage. I interlock my fingers around his neck and kiss him like I need him to survive, and part of me wonders if I do, if he’s unlocking the space in my heart I closed a long time ago because of him. His moves begin slow and sensual but shift quickly into an explosion I’ve waited for my entire life.

  This is passion. This is need and hunger and desire. This is what I’ve always dreamed kissing Ethan Fuller would be like—fireworks exploding and nerves tingling my blood and a thrill rushing down my spine. Stronger than all that, though, is of course the ache throbbing between my legs—an indescribable, fierce pain that’ll only be satisfied by Ethan sinking himself into me.

  He shifts me so my legs straddle his waist as we share a chair on my tour bus while it moves quietly over some nondescript road between Denver and Dallas. He rests his hands on my hips for a beat and then both hands move under my shirt. He trails them up my back until they come to a rest on my shoulder blades. I wrap my arms around his broad shoulders, hugging him close as his mouth brutalizes mine in such a way I know I’ll never be the same again.

  He thrusts his hips up, and I groan as I feel how hard he is for me—how ready he is, how much he wants to fuck me. I act on instinct, grinding down over him again and again like some sort of crazed animal, and he finally pulls his mouth from mine. I’m hoping it’s because he wants to move this to the bedroom, though I’m not opposed to fucking him right here in this chair.

  I open my eyes to gaze into his. We’re close, too close, both of us panting as our eyes lock once again. His are heavy with lust. He sort of always has this angry look about him—just the shape of his eyes or the way he’s always squinting—but somehow they’re softer than I’ve ever seen them.

  “Motherfucker,” he mutters.

  I shift back a bit and furrow my brows as if to ask what his problem is without actually asking.

  He shakes his head and glances toward the window. “Feel that?”

  I grind my hips down onto his lap again and give him a smirk. “Yeah.”

  He chuckles, but his eyes aren’t laughing. He nods toward the window, and a silver bus is uncomfortably close beside us. Ethan’s silver bus. “The bus stopped moving. The engine’s off. We’ve arrived wherever we’re gonna be for the next eight hours while our drivers break.”

  I use his shoulders for balance as I push up to my feet. “So?” I take his hand in mine, and he stands to follow me. I lead him through the bunks and into my bedroom. I close the door behind him and lock it, and then I turn to face him. I raise an eyebrow like a challenge.

  His eyes are heated and hooded, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

  “Take off your pants and bend over the dresser.” His voice is a hot command, and I find myself wanting to submit to him. It’s not who I am on the outside, not anymore, but it might just be who I am on the inside.

  I don’t speak; I merely follow directions. I leave my panties and my shirt on because he didn’t mention anything about those. I lean over the top of my dresser, pushing my ass out toward him. He runs a fingertip along the silky edge of my black panties before he slips his finger beneath the fabric and sinks it right into me. I hear the squish of my wetness against his finger and a sharp intake of breath from his mouth followed by a manly grunt.

  I close my eyes and grip the edge of the dresser with white knuckles.

  His finger moves in and out of me. “You want me to fuck that cunt?” he mutters.

  “Yes,” I moan, and then he pulls his hand away from me. I keep my eyes closed and my ass up as I wait patiently for him. I hear the slide of a zipper followed by the tear of a packet, and then his warmth returns. I’m still wearing my shirt, and he runs his fingertips up my back and then around my waist. “So gorgeous,” he whispers. “Such a fuckable body.”

  He shoves my panties aside and I feel the head of his dick as it pushes toward me and then into me. I want to reach back, want to feel him, want to see him. I want to suck on him until he can’t take the pleasure and erupts into my mouth. I want to skate my fingernails down his abdomen, lick his chest, finger his tattoos. I want him to kiss me. I want his intimacy and his heat. Instead, he fucks me against my dresser, impersonally from behind. Like he can pretend I’m someone else.

  But
I can’t. I can’t pretend, don’t want to pretend. I abandon the feelings of revenge as he sinks himself to the hilt, reveling in his sex, his scent, just him.

  He bends over me, thrusting faster, one arm firm against the dresser to brace himself and the other moving under my shirt and grappling for my tits. He grunts out a series of sex noises—growls and moans and groans.

  I feel the hem of his shirt brush against my ass, feel the scrape of his jeans against the backs of my legs. He didn’t even bother to undress for this, and I wonder if this will be our only time together—this quick fuck after we’ve parked when we had all night to luxuriate in each other and didn’t bother. After the way we bonded over the past ten hours, I can’t honestly believe this will be the only time this happens. I can’t honestly believe I’ll just be another in the line of women who wait for Ethan Fuller.

  “Finger yourself,” he says. “Feel my dick inside you.”

  I reach my hand down to rub my clit, spreading my first and second fingers apart to feel him as he slides into me. I cup his balls and he grunts.

  “Oh fuck,” he growls, and then he picks up speed, hammering away at me so I have to abandon my touching to grab the dresser before I fall onto it. He steadies me with his mouth on my neck, pressing wet kisses to my skin as he moans.

  As I listen to him and the soundtrack of our sex, the sound of his hips slapping against my ass, my entire lower half starts to contract. “Oh fuck fuck fuck, Ethan,” I scream.

  He slows his thrusts as he starts to come, and I spiral over the top. I grip for anything I can, the dresser in one hand, my own tit in another, as I come completely undone beneath his hands. He grunts out his own release as he grips onto my other tit, and when my body finally stops contracting, I lean almost my full body weight on the dresser and throw my arms under my face. My knees feel like they might buckle if he lets go of me. He doesn’t move out of me for a minute, but he does let go of my breast. He moves both hands to my hips and pumps into me a few more times, like even though we both just came, he’s not ready to let go of this moment just yet.