CHAPTER NINE

      I FEEL AS THOUGH the lift isn’t moving.

      Ethan is beside me, and we are being pulled upwards by cables and knots, but I need him. I need him to fuck me. Not to tell me I’m beautiful. Not to wander through the MoMA with me, looking at pictures and listening to me explain them.

      That’s breaking the rules!

      What the hell were we thinking?

      We have to fuck, and now, to remind us both of all the things we want from this—and all the things we don’t.

      When the doors finally open I can’t help but groan my relief. He grins at me and wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me into his side, leading me down the corridor towards his room. The second we are inside I launch myself at him, holding him tighter, seeking his mouth.

      He seeks mine back. Our need is mutual. Urgent. Inflammatory.

      ‘Fuuuuck.’ He rips himself away and stares at me like he’s trying to make sense of this, of me, of our need. ‘Fuck.’ He shakes his head. ‘What the hell are you doing to me?’

      I don’t want to talk. Even about sex and our insatiable need for it. I push myself against him, kissing him, pushing at his shirt, and he answers in kind, lifting my dress over my ass, higher, breaking the kiss just enough to undress me completely.

      His fingers are demanding as they slide into the waistband of my underpants, pushing down, curving around my ass, and then he lifts me easily, as though I weigh nothing. He lifts me, and I wrap my legs around his waist, and his kiss is warming me up from inside. He lies me on the sofa but stays on top of me, and his kiss, the weight of his body, the roll of his hips—it is everything.

      I arch my back, seeking him, needing him, but there are too many clothes in the way.

      ‘Need...’ I whimper, snapping his belt open and pulling it out of his jeans.

      He reaches down and undoes his button and zip and kicks his legs out of the pants, barely breaking our kiss. His lips move over mine. His tongue is daring me, daring mine, taunting me, making me forget all my reasons for keeping this light. Making me want more, want to beg him to stay in my life in some capacity even when I know that temporary is all we are—all that makes sense.

      Also all I should want.

      I run my fingers up his back and he grunts; I think he swears but the ringing bell of desire is all I can hear. And our own urgent breaths, tangling together, the sound of the impatient passion that defines us.

      He hums in my ear, and I make a sound a bit like a moan. He is so sexy—his voice so beautiful, so raw, so famous. It hits me then, for the first time, that I’m sleeping with a celebrity. Someone so famous that everyone in the world must know who he is.

      And I pull back a little—just enough to see his face, to look into his eyes.

       Fuck. What am I doing?

      My heart trips over a little, thumping hard against my ribs, and my stomach swirls with emotions I don’t even want to think about analysing. Recognition pulses through me. Why has it taken me so long to realise that he’s not just Ethan? To remember that he’s Ethan Ash, superstar?

      ‘What is it?’

      His gravelly voice travels through me, finding every space inside me and warming it up. Superheating me from the inside out.

      I shake my head, but a frown lingers on my lips. I kiss him to chase it away, losing myself once more in the sensual charge that besieges us both.

      ‘Are you okay?’

      I nod, jerkily. ‘Fuck me.’

      His laugh is without humour. ‘Alicia...?’

      Oh, great. Now he goes and brings my real name into it.

      ‘I’m fine,’ I say, digging my fingers into his hips, dragging him down against me, lifting myself up in a wordless invitation.

      But he breaks away from me and for a second I think he’s not going to give me what I need. I am empty and bereft. But he returns a short moment later, a condom in his hand and a smile on his lips.

      ‘You, Alicia Douglas, are a mystery.’

      My heart twists. ‘A good mystery?’

      ‘A fantastic one.’

      He winks and my throat is dry suddenly.

       Keep it light. Keep it fun.

      I reach up and lace my fingers behind his head, pulling him down, greedily seeking his mouth, taking everything he offers and still demanding more. There is nothing light about this, even while it is the most fun I’ve ever had.

      My need for him—and I’m not blind or stupid enough to pretend I don’t need him—is all-consuming. If I’m not careful it is going to take over, and I will no longer have autonomy.

      I have to fuck him and go.

      I push him angrily, needily, desperately, and together we roll off the couch onto the carpeted floor. He laughs, but I’m ripping the condom out of his hands and tearing it open, sliding it from its packet and pushing it onto him. His eyes are watching me, and it makes my fingers shake. I remove my own underwear quickly, then straddle him, leaning forward to kiss him at the same time I take him deep inside me.

      Passion tears through us and we are fast, we are hungry, we are desperate. I move my hips, but he makes a growl of frustration and rolls us so that he is on top of me, the weight of his body a heavenly pleasure. I wrap my legs around his waist but he catches my calves and lifts them higher. I can’t contain the furious pleasure that is taking over me. I lie back, my eyes squeezed shut as flames lick my nerves, making me tremble and sweat.

      He stills and I groan, twisting my hips.

      ‘Look at me.’

      The command is husky, and he accompanies it with fingers that press under my chin, pulling my face towards him, angling me so that I am facing him.

      ‘Look at me,’ he says again, and I realise my eyes are still squeezed shut.

      I