Page 39 of A Certain Step (Midnights at Pemberley #1)

ETHAN

E than could swear something was different about Willa tonight. The way she let his hands linger, how she looked at him, the ease in her frame when they got back to his place. He couldn’t have been delusional enough to read into signs that weren’t there. There was no way.

She had asked to shower first when they got to his place, grossed out by the fact that her legs had touched the restaurant seats.

He had migrated to his living room when the sounds of running water and the knowledge of Willa’s nakedness sent his imagination sprinting toward all the ways he wanted to have her.

He sat on his couch, mind rattled. He attempted to mull over his feelings logically without the interference of the throbbing bulge in his pants.

Think with your head, not your dick, idiot. He scolded himself. You love this woman with everything in you. Don’t scare her off.

And God, how he loved her. His heart had been beating out of his chest for what felt like ages now. It was Willa—it was always Willa. He loved her so intensely that overwhelming emotions took his breath away every time he tried to grasp their magnitude.

Willa step ped out of his room and sauntered to where he was seated.

He was…embarrassingly hard. Fuck. She’d see it. She’d run away. It’d scare her off. Christ . He seized a pillow from the couch and placed it on top of his jeans, hoping he was suave enough that she wouldn’t notice. Except she was smarter than that.

Willa got closer, eyed the pillow, and then cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I—uh…” he tried to say.

She let out a low laugh. “I am well aware of how the human body works, babe. No need to torture yourself with an excuse.”

He groaned and leaned his head back against the cushion. “I’m so sorry, Willa.”

Ethan felt her stepping closer to him but didn’t think anything of it until she straddled him. Carefully. He leaned his head forward, his eyes widened. She smoothed the pads of her fingers along his cheek. “Why are you apologizing?”

“Because I’m trying not to scare you away.”

She laughed boisterously, the brilliant one he could perpetually stay drunk on. “It’s going to take a lot more than a boner to scare me away. Plus, I—” she started to say, then paused.

“What is it?” he asked. His hand moved to the nape of her neck, behind her hair. He worked his fingers along her scalp.

“I want to try. I want to do more than what we’ve been doing.”

He gaped at her for a long minute, confident that he was fantasizing about the entire conversation. He must’ve dozed off on the couch. He must’ve been dreaming about her.

“Ethan?”

No, this was real. Willa looked at him as though the expression on his face was so bizarre she couldn’t read it. He blinked a few times, trying to ensure this was real.

“Right now?” he questioned, trying to gain some clarification of what was happening. Maybe she meant day s or weeks from now.

She bobbed her head. “Unless you’re too tired.”

In all the ways he’d pictured this happening, it’d somehow never been like this. Frankly, he wasn’t sure what he had pictured. How or when, really, but it wasn’t on a random Sunday night after they’d gotten back from a night out with their friends.

Why does that even matter, Ethan? She wants you, he berated himself.

“How much did I drink?” he asked.

Her eyes narrowed, eyebrows arched. “You’re asking me?”

“You were next to me the whole night,” he added.

She must’ve sensed what was happening because she unleashed another laugh. Her expression grew wicked, wildly full of want. Willa rolled her hips against him. Ethan groaned, entirely incapable of hiding it.

“Do you think that you’re somehow so drunk you’re imagining this?”

He confirmed with a nod.

She did it again, slower this time, more calculated. Once, twice, three times.

His breath hitched. She giggled.

“You seem pretty sober to me,” she asserted.

He shut his eyes for a beat. “I’m sure I am. I’m just surprised.”

Ethan was also so enraptured that if she kept grinding her hips on him, he’d lose it. Come undone way too soon, right here on his couch, and he didn’t want that.

He wanted this to be all about her .

She lowered her head, taking his ear between her teeth. “If you want me to repeat it, I will,” she whispered.

He rose fr om the couch immediately, carrying her up with him.

No, he wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t even buzzed. His tolerance was too high.

Willa wanted him tonight.

He’d give her everything he had.