Eyes Wide Open

Part 3

Book Cover: Eyes Wide Open
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The third part in The Blackstone Affair series: A love on the brink of being destroyed. The fight of a lifetime to keep it alive.

Big surprises are on the horizon for Ethan and Brynne as they struggle to adjust to what life has thrown at them. Demons from the past are threatening to destroy the passionate bond they’ve forged despite their vow that nothing will ever keep them apart. A truly devastating loss coupled with the promise of a new hope opens their eyes to what is most important, but is it possible for the lovers to move on from the painful histories that continue to haunt them? A stalker is still lurking in the shadows, plotting evil amidst the distraction of the 2012 Olympic games in London. Brynne and Ethan are on the cusp of losing everything as the stakes rise. Will they yield to circumstances beyond their control or will they give every ounce of fight they have left to save each other and win the ultimate prize of a life together?

Eyes Wide Open is a passion-wrought story that shows us what pure love can achieve when tested and what the heart can accomplish despite danger and adversity.

Excerpt:

Ethan’s eyes held on to me as he mastered my body, his firm grip on my hips, his thick flesh filling me up and moving inside me, his mouth all over me, his teeth on my skin. All of them gestures from the man who had broken though the walls I’d built and captured me.  They were demonstrations of touch and pleasure, a means of cementing the connection between us, to keep me close to him.  It was his way.  He didn’t need to worry though. Ethan had me. Despite the whole mess tonight, he had me in his arms and underneath him, his commanding strength taking charge in the way he’d done with me from the beginning.  Holding me safe.  That night on the street where he’d coaxed me into his car and then later with the phone calls demanding I acknowledge him, were just the start of my understanding of Ethan Blackstone.

There was so much more to the man than I ever imagined back then. I wasn’t going anywhere.  I was in love with him.

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“I want my cock in you all night long,” he rasped, his blue eyes flashing against the moonlight as he moved.  Looming over me, he plied my body in every which way as the light shined onto our naked bodies through the balcony window.  Hands, mouth, cock, tongue, teeth, fingers—he used them all.

Ethan said things to me like that during sex.  Shocking stuff that made me hotter than hell, nourishing my confidence, and showing me how much he wanted me.  It was precisely what I needed.  Ethan was my answer and he knew exactly what I craved.  I don’t know how he understood me so well, but he did without a doubt.  Tonight had illuminated that message loud and clear.

I guess I could finally admit that I was in need of another person in order to be happy. That other person was Ethan. I’d let someone in.  The hard shell around my heart had been compromised and very thoroughly too.  Ethan had done it.  He’d worked on me, and pushed me and demanded my attention.  He never gave up on me and loved me in spite of my cavern of emotional issues.  Ethan did all that for me.  And now I could revel in the fact that I was loved by a man whom I loved in return.

“Eyes on me, baby,” he commanded on a harsh breath.  “You know I have to have your eyes when I take you!”  His hand had moved up to grip my hair and he tugged.  He never hurt me when he pulled it though.  Ethan knew just how much pressure to exert and was fully aware it sent me over the edge.  I did know about his need for my eyes on him and I held onto his fiery blues with everything I had.

Ethan knew more about me than I knew about him though.

“But you’re going to come first!” he gritted out, thrusting deep and hard, finding the sensitive spot within me needed to accomplish his directive.

As I felt the pressure build I let myself go to that perfect place of ecstasy, pinned beneath Ethan’s body burrowed in mine, and his blue eyes just inches above me.  He took my mouth as the orgasm ripped into me, filling another part of me with himself, making me accept more of him, binding us together more deeply. His release followed mine within seconds.  I could always tell he was close from how he tightened to inhuman hardness right as he was about to come.  The feeling was out of this world and intensely empowering.  That I could pull such a reaction from him and elicit such feeling in another person did something to me.  Something that healed me a little bit each time it happened—I got better inside my head all the time because of Ethan and the ways he showed his love for me.  I had some hope about myself that I could be happy and live a normal life. Ethan had given me that.

“Tell me, baby,” he exhaled in a harsh whisper, but I could hear the vulnerability that accompanied the boldness.  Ethan wasn’t without his own insecurities, he was just a mortal like the rest of us.

“Always yours!”  I truly meant my words as I felt him let go inside me.

When I opened my eyes sometime later I realized I must have dozed a bit.  Ethan had rearranged us halfway to our sides but we were still joined together.  He liked to stay buried inside me for a while after.  I didn’t mind because it was something he desired and I loved making him happy.

I just wish he’d tell me more about his dark place.  He was afraid to share, and while it bothered me, I mostly understood his fear.  I often wondered if his reasons for needing to touch me all the time and posses me so thoroughly during sex, and afterward too, had something to do with his time as a prisoner.  They tortured him and scarred him and hurt him.  It pained me just remembering how he’d been that night when his dreams woke him up in a panic. I trailed my fingers over his shoulder and back.  I imagined the angel wings of his tattoo and the words below them.  And I felt the scars too.

Ethan flicked his eyes open and pegged me hard.

“Why wings?  They’re beautiful, you know.”

“The wings reminded me of my mum,” he said after a moment or two of silence, “and they covered over many of the scars.”

I leaned forward, kissing over his lips with a soft touch.  I cupped his jaw and decided to take the plunge.  I didn’t want to scare Ethan away from talking to me if he was in a mood, but figured I had to try again at some point.  “And the quote?  Why that one?”

He shrugged and whispered, “I think I died a little tonight.”

So much for him opening up and sharing.  He wasn’t up for any more delving into his past.  I could tell.  “What do you mean you died a little?”

“When I couldn’t find you after that message came in on your mobile.”  He traced my cheek and then my lips with his finger—just the lightest touch, and I felt a shiver roll through me.

“Well, you did find me eventually, and no dying allowed, mister.  That would be a real major buzz kill.”  I tried to tease him into a lighter mood but I don’t think it was working.  When Ethan was in a serious frame of mind, he didn’t just switch out of it easily.

“I’m glad you feel better,” he paused and moved on a thrust of his hips with a renewed erection sinking in deep, “because I needed this with you, badly.”

“I’m here and you have me,” I murmured against his lips as he draped my legs over his shoulders and took charge of more pleasure between us.  Once was rarely enough for him. Ethan made me feel desirable.  He made me feel beautiful and sexy from the words out of his mouth to the touch of his body in mine when he made love to me.  And afterward, when he held me against him like I was precious. Somebody wanted me despite all that had gone down in my past.  Someone was willing to fight for me.  I was important to another person.  To Ethan I was.  The power in that knowledge was life-changing.

Ethan’s particular brand of attention was intense and a lot to accept at first, but it worked for me.  Ethan worked for me.  He could show me how much he wanted me, and for the first time, I had some hope that we could really make this relationship work between us.  The “let’s go slow” part hadn’t happened at all like we’d agreed to when we first met, but if we had, I very much doubt I’d be naked in bed with him at the Somerset coast, in an English manor fit for a king, which happened to be owned by his sister and being fucked to the brink of another magnificent orgasm right now either.

A girl has to take things as they come.

COLLAPSE

Cover design by Jena Brignola.