Book 2: What Happens Here - Chicago (What Happens Here Series)

Chapter 28 - Ethan

After making love, Ethan had carried Jasmine's limp body to the shower and helped her bathe before bathing himself. Jasmine was clearly exhausted, and if he were being honest, he felt the same. After the day they'd had, Ethan felt dead on his feet as they finally made their way back to his king-sized bed and collapsed. Ethan had just enough strength to pull the thick duvet up to cover their naked bodies, before he pulled Jasmine's soft, warm body against his own. Feeling her sexy ass pressed firmly against him had his erection stirring to life, but Ethan didn't have the energy to act on the desire that having her pressed against him always seemed to evoke. With a final kiss to the top of Jasmine's slightly dampened hair, Ethan fell into a deep, and extremely sated sleep.

The next morning, Ethan woke early and decided to go for his usual morning swim. He had a lot on his mind and knew that his morning swim would help him to think and to work out any issues that he was dealing with. Glancing over at Jasmine's beautiful, and still very naked body in his bed made him smile. Ethan groaned as he thought of how he'd taken Jasmine deep and slow after their shower the night before, which had left them both exhausted and spent, only to have her awaken him a couple of hours later before she'd straddled his hips and rode him so hard and so thoroughly that she'd had him screaming her damn name before they'd both passed out once more. Jasmine Ellis had completely rocked his world last night, but then again, she always did, and as he sat on the side of the bed watching her sleep, he was still amazed at the depth of his feelings for her.

Trying not to wake her, Ethan leaned over and inhaled her fresh clean scent, which had his slowly growing erection springing back to life and twitching because it wanted a repeat of the night before. A sad smile crossed Ethan's face because he knew that he'd need to trap her scent on something that he could keep to help him to endure the lonely days ahead once she'd left Chicago to head back to Charlotte in a few weeks. Shaking off the thoughts of Jasmine leaving, and the painful feelings that it caused, Ethan pushed them to the back of his mind and kissed her bare shoulder before exiting the bed to dress, grab his gym bag, and head down to the 24-hour gym a few blocks over from his brownstone. Ethan grabbed his keys before he wrote a quick note telling Jasmine that he'd gone for a swim and would be back in an hour.

As Ethan swam, he replayed the moment that he'd met Jasmine in his mind. They'd met by the restrooms at the airport restaurant in Vegas. He smiled as he remembered the way that her soft skin felt beneath his hands as he touched her arms after they had bumped into one another. The chemistry between them had been instantaneous, and from that first meeting, Ethan had felt things for Jasmine that he had never felt for another woman. Jasmine's scent was intoxicating, and it had been branded into his brain since the first moment that he'd caught a hint of it in the restaurant. Ethan remembered when Jasmine had first smiled at him, and he noticed the single dimple in her left cheek. Her cognac-colored eyes, and long dark curly hair had framed her angelic face...the same beautiful face that Ethan had awaken to for the past three days, and the one that he wanted to wake up to for the rest of his life.

Ethan had known from the first moment that they'd met that Jasmine was the "one". He had sensed it in his bones, and as he'd recalled a conversation that he'd had with his father when he was a teenager, about how most men will spend their whole lives searching for the "one" woman that they were meant to spend their lives with, he'd never imagined finding Jasmine. Especially not where, and in the manner that he had. He had flown to Vegas to stand as best man at his best friend Daryl's wedding to the love of his life, and as fate would have it, Ethan had literally bumped into the love of his as well.

Although there had been some unforeseen, and uncontrollable obstacles that had arisen which involved Valentina Moretti, who was someone that constantly refused to stay out of Ethan's life, and that had almost caused Ethan to lose Jasmine, he was grateful that he and Jasmine were able to work through them and seemed to have grown closer as a result. Thinking of the stunts that Valentina had pulled over the past four years had Ethan fuming. Valentina's initial stunt, or should he say, her stalkerish and obsessive behavior towards him, had occurred four years ago in Italy when she had sexually assaulted him in the shower by joining him without his knowledge or consent. Valentina had practically raped him in the shower when she'd caught him off guard and had literally deep throated him before he'd been able to utter a single word. Over the years she had continued to make inappropriate sexual comments, as well as unwanted physical contact with him as well at various family events, with the latest being his best friend's wedding that weekend. With Valentina being Daryl's wife's cousin, she had been the Maid of Honor, while he'd served as the Best Man. And Valentina had taken that as her opportunity to continue pursuing him.