17
Karin and Ethan finally sat down to dinner, and their easy banter skirted heavy topics until they got to the meat course. "So, this has been quite a night."
Ethan stopped cutting his steak and laid down his utensils. "I thought Cassie Blake coming to town was eventful, but your presence is like Hiroshima."
"Thanks," she said as she took a large swallow of pinot. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way."
His thoughtful gaze seemed to pull her brain inside out. "Wasn't it? Don't you foretell the future, Karin? See how things are supposed to unfold?"
"Sometimes." Karin couldn't have anticipated that Ethan would hide his guilt behind a bottle, instead of being the stand up guy she'd known all those years ago. "But then, who expected someone like Faye Chamberlain?"
"We all have our Fayes, K." His gaze softened and Karin felt something uncurl at her core. It coursed through her veins and quickened her pulse, until she was certain he could taste her arousal.
She leaned her head into one hand. "I see what Amelia saw in you, and wonder why she threw it all away."
Ethan looked sad, and she guessed he was craving his usual Glenlivet. "Because, good guys finish last, K."
"Are you...one of the good ones, Ethan?" They both knew the answer to that one.
"I like to think so," he said softly, leaning forward and looking out at the foggy night.
"Some might argue that point." Karin knew what had really happened on that boat, and Ethan was far from an innocent bystander. He'd done nothing to stop the witch hunters, or even tried to get his wife out from harm's way.
"Does that include you?"
She cringed at the pain in his eyes. "Of course not. And I'm hardly one to stand in judgment." When John Blackwell had gone after her parents, she'd been so terrified that she'd hidden under her bed until the monster was gone. Rather than stand up to the bully that Blackwell had been, she'd denied who and what she really was. And she was still doing it all these years later, as she hid behind the comfort of her Christian god.
Ethan reached across and fingered her cross. "But your friends certainly would." She could barely breathe as he tugged harder on the cross and drew her across the table. When their lips were only inches apart, he breathed, "So what does your God tell you now?"
"That I'm a lost soul." And with that, she closed the distance and covered his mouth with hers. In a flash, he was molding her lips to his and parting them with his thirsty tongue. As he drank and dined on her mouth, she completely submitted herself to him. Ethan's strong arms pulled her up and into him, entwining her with his essence as his tongue traveled down the side of her neck to her ear. When he dipped his head to the vee of her sweater, she groaned and said, "Let's get a room."
His muzzled laugh was enough to send her over the edge, and when he bent her over the bar, her entire being parted and let him in.