Naked: The Blackstone Affair, Book 1

The glorious smell of coffee woke me up. I looked at my alarm clock and knew there would be no Waterloo Bridge run this morning. I came out to the kitchen with my arm over my eyes.

“Just how you like it, Bree, sweet and creamy.” My sometime roommate and dear friend Gabrielle slid the mug in my direction, the expression on her face clearly readable. Start spilling the dish, sister, and I won’t hurt you.

I love Gaby, but this thing with Ethan had so derailed me I just wanted to bury the knowledge of its existence and pretend he’d never happened.

I reached for the steaming mug and inhaled the delicious scent. It reminded me of him for some reason and I felt the bubble of emotion rise up strong. I sat down at the kitchen bar and crowded around my coffee mug like a mother hen protecting her chick. As I lowered onto the stool, the tenderness between my legs just served as another reminder. A reminder of Ethan and his hot body and model looks and the fabulous sex . . . and how I’d woken up in his bed hysterical. I gave up the joke of trying to be brave and let the tears come.

It took some time, two cups of coffee, and a move to the couch to get the story out of me. But Gaby is pretty good that way. She’s relentless.

“I silenced your phone two hours ago. That duffel bag was making so much damn noise I wanted to kick it.” Gabrielle stroked my head resting on her shoulder. “You’ve got voice mails and text messages up the wazoo. I think the poor thing was about to blow, so I saved it a cataclysmic death and shut the fucker off.”

“Thank you, Gab. I’m so glad you’re here this morning.” And I meant that. She was like me in a lot of ways. A California native in London, studying conservancy and running from shit back home that haunted her. The only difference was that her father actually lived in London, so she was not totally on her own here in the UK. We’d found each other during that first week of classes nearly four years ago and never really let go. She knew my dark secrets and I knew hers.

“Me too.” She patted me on the knee. “And you’re going to make an appointment with Dr. Roswell, and make plans to go clubbing with Benny and me, and a stop into Charbonnel et Walker so we can gorge ourselves on sinfully rich chocolate.” She tilted her head. “Sound good to you?”

“It sounds divine.” I forced a smile and tried to pull myself together.

“And maybe you should give this guy a chance, Bree. He’s good in the sack and he wants you bad.”

I turned my fake smile into an authentic frown. “You’ve been gossiping with Ben.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Or at least call him back.” Gaby lowered her voice to a whisper. “He doesn’t know anything about your past.”

“I know.” And Gaby was right. Ethan didn’t know about me.

Gaby rubbed my arm.

“I wasn’t really mad or offended by him last night. I just had to get out of there. I woke up screaming in his bed and I—”

The urge to cry right now was just as strong as before. I tried to force the impulse down.

“But it sounds like he wanted to comfort you. He wasn’t trying to push you away, Bree.”

“But you should have seen his face when he burst into his bedroom with me howling like a lunatic. The way he looked at me . . .” I rubbed my temples. “He’s just so intense. I can’t explain him properly to you, Gab. Ethan is like nothing I have ever encountered, and I don’t know if I could survive him. If last night is any indication, then I sincerely doubt it.”

Gaby looked at me, her beautiful green eyes smiling with confidence. “You are much stronger than you think you are. I know this.” She nodded firmly. “You are going to go get ready for work, and then, after a productive day in service to the great masterworks of the University of London, you’re coming home to get ready for our night of decadent pleasures. Benny’s already on board.” She poked me in the shoulder with her finger. “Now move it, sister.”

“I knew it. Ben outted me the instant he could.” I smiled at her, the first genuine one I’d felt in twelve hours, and heaved my ass off the sofa. “I’m on it, Gab,” I said, rubbing where she’d poked me. “I surrender.”

• • •

I’d been at work for a few hours when Rory came through the back with a vase of the most gorgeous deep purple dahlias I had ever seen. He marched up to me with a beaming smile on his face. “A delivery for you, Miss Brynne. You have an admirer, it seems.”

Oh shit! I did a double take. The bow on the vase was not really a bow. It was his silk purple tie from last night. Ethan had given his tie to me after all.

“Thank you for delivering them back here to me, Rory. They are gorgeous.” My hand shook as I reached for the card on the plastic holder. I dropped it twice before I was able to read what he’d written.

Brynne,

Last night was a gift.

Please forgive me for not

hearing what you were trying

to tell me. I am so sorry.

Yours,

E

I read his note a few dozen times and wondered what to do.

How did he manage to confuse me so readily? One moment I felt sure I needed to flee Ethan, and the next I wanted to be with him again. I looked at my purple flowers once more and knew I most definitely needed to acknowledge his gift and that handwritten apology. To ignore them would be cruel.

Text or call? That was a hard decision. Part of me wanted to hear Ethan’s voice, and another part was scared to hear mine when I tried to answer his questions. In the end, I went with a text and felt like a total wimp. I had to power up my phone first, and the barrage of missed calls and message alerts that flashed when it turned on made me ill without even listening or reading. It was too much for me at the moment, so I ignored everything and fired up a blank text screen: Ethan, the flowers r beautiful. Ty. I love purple. –Brynne

As soon as I pressed send I contemplated turning my phone off, but of course I didn’t. Curiosity killed the cat, or in my case, made me do stupid things.

I went over to the vase of my flowers instead and removed his tie from the arrangement. I put it up to my nose and inhaled. It had the smell. The sexy Ethan smell I adored. I was never giving this tie back to him. No matter what happened or what did not happen, the tie belonged to me now.

My phone lit up and started buzzing. My first instinct was to turn it off, but I’d known he’d call. And the selfish part of me wanted to hear him again. I put the phone up to my ear.

“Hi.”

“Do you really love purple?”

The question made me smile. “Very much so. The flowers are beautiful, and I’m not returning your tie.”

“I fucked up badly, didn’t I?” His voice was soft and I could hear a rustling and then a breath exhaled.

“Are you smoking, Ethan?”

“Today more than usual.”

“A vice . . . you have one.” I traced over the tie spread out on my desktop.

“I have several, I am afraid.” There was a moment of quiet, and I wondered if he considered me one of his vices, but then he spoke. “I wanted to come to your flat last night. I nearly did.”

“It’s good you didn’t, Ethan. I needed to think, and that’s very hard for me to do when you’re close. And it’s not anything you did last night. Not your fault. I—I needed some space after we were . . . together like that. It’s just—it’s just the reality of me. I am the one that’s fucked up.”

“Don’t say that, Brynne. I know I didn’t listen to you last night. You told me what you needed and I ignored you. I pushed too hard, too fast. I broke your trust, and that’s what I regret the most. I’m deeply sorry—you have no idea how much. And if it ruins my chances of being with you, then I deserve it.”

“No, you don’t.” My voice was just a whisper, and there was so much I wanted to say but did not have the expressible words to phrase it. “You don’t want to be with me, Ethan.”

“I know I do, beautiful Brynne.” I could hear him exhaling from his cigarette. “And now the only question is, will you? Will you be with me again, Brynne Bennett?”

I couldn’t help it. His words made me tear up. My only saving grace was that Ethan couldn’t actually see me crying, but I was pretty sure he could hear me through the phone.

“And now I’ve made you cry. Is that good or bad, baby? Tell me please, because I don’t know.” The yearning in his voice broke my resistance down.

“It’s good . . .” I laughed awkwardly. “And I don’t know when. I have plans tonight with Benny and Gaby.”

“I understand,” he said.

Was I agreeing to see him again? We both knew the answer to his question. The thing is Ethan drew me in. From the first night since we’d met he’d held me captivated. Yes we had moved fast into sex. Yes he had pushed me a little, but it had brought me to a place that felt wonderful, where I could forget about my past. Ethan made me feel very, very safe in a way that surprised me and forced me to consider the reasons for it. I didn’t have a ton of faith that we might work out, but it sure as hell would be an affair to remember.

“Can we take it slow, Ethan Blackstone?”

“I’m taking that as a yes. And of course we can.” I heard the soft brush of an exhale again. A pause as if he was gathering his courage. “Brynne?”

“Yes?”

“I am smiling so wide right now.”

“I am too, Ethan.”