He let go of my shoulders and leaned against the wall opposite me. “I wasn’t angry at you,” he assured me. “Look, I know you’re not … experienced. I know better than to go so fast.”

My cheeks flamed, and I found myself unable to meet his eyes. I kept letting myself forget how out of my league Ethan was. He was used to mature, experienced women, and right now I felt like a little girl, way more than two years younger than him.

Ethan wasn’t looking at me at that moment, so he didn’t see the shame that flooded me, and he kept on talking. “I shouldn’t even have kissed you, not in the state I’m in right now.”

The idea that he thought kissing me was a mistake sliced painfully through my chest, but I forced myself to focus on the more important part of what he’d said. “What state are you in right now?” This was, after all, the reason I’d come to see him despite the virtual DO NOT DISTURB sign he’d put out.

“I’m just … not myself,” he said evasively, his eyes not quite meeting mine.

“What do you mean?”

He stood up straight, pushing away from the wall. “Hey, would you like something to drink? There’s no reason for us to stand around in the hallway like this. Come in and sit down.”

“Subtle,” I said, but when I saw the look of near panic in his eyes, I backed off. “I’ll take a Coke if you have it.”

“Yeah. Sure. Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

He ducked into the kitchen before I could answer. I was tempted to follow him, but I sensed it would be wiser to give him a little space. He might have just slammed the conversational door in my face, but the fact that he wanted me to stick around gave me hope. Maybe he wasn’t yet ready to tell me what was wrong, but it wasn’t impossible he’d nerve himself up to it before the night was through.

Smoothing my sweater down to make sure my clothing was all back to rights, I slipped into the living room and plopped down on the very masculine leather sofa.

Chapter twenty-two

Ethan took far longer to get the drinks than I was expecting, and I considered going into the kitchen after him. I decided against it because I figured I needed the time to pull myself together as much as he did.

Apparently, it didn’t matter what my logical, practical side told me about Ethan and all my reasons for doubting him. When he was near me, when he touched me, logic was useless. I’d pulled back tonight, but it was embarrassing to think how hard it had been. And if I ever ended up going on a real date with him, who knew what I’d end up doing. The guy turned my brain to mush, and that was ridiculously dangerous, for both of us. Of course, Ethan didn’t know it was dangerous for him—I doubted the Erlking had let him in on our bargain.

Ethan looked a little better when he finally returned to the living room, bringing me a Coke in one of those old-fashioned glass bottles and a bottle of something called Old Peculier for himself. It was some kind of dark beer, and I suspected it wasn’t anything cheap. His bottle was almost half empty already, which I didn’t think was a good sign. He handed me the Coke, then sat beside me on the sofa and took a long pull on his beer. The silence between us felt awkward.

I tried to think of a subtle way to ask Ethan again what was wrong, but subtlety wasn’t my strong suit. Ethan was rolling his bottle between his hands, staring at it sightlessly. Kimber was obviously right, and something was wrong. Maybe he and I weren’t close enough for me to have the right to pry, but that didn’t stop me.

“What did the Erlking do to you?” I asked softly.

Ethan blinked and snapped out of his brooding. He raised the bottle to his lips again, chugging the remains. I’m not a connoisseur of beer by any stretch of the imagination, but I suspected Old Peculier was meant to be sipped rather than chugged.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ethan said, setting the empty bottle on the coffee table in front of him, and then staring at it some more.

“I kinda got that hint,” I replied. “But if you don’t talk about it, how are you ever going to get over it? Whatever ‘it’ is?” Even at the time, I knew I should apply those words to my own situation, but I still wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about my devil’s bargain.

He shook his head. “It’s just one of those things I’m going to have to deal with on my own.”

“This is one of those guy things, right? You figure if you don’t talk about your problems, they’ll go away?”

He finally looked at me, and the expression on his face was forbidding. “When I said I don’t want to talk about it, I meant it.”

Maybe I should have backed down. If our positions were reversed and he were grilling me about how I’d gotten the Erlking to let him go, I’d have been getting pretty pissed off about his questions. But some instinct inside me urged me to keep pushing, insisting that Ethan secretly did want to talk.

“You know, I practically sold my soul to the devil to get you back,” I told him, and saw from his flinch that I was hitting a nerve. “Arawn kept telling me you were ‘unharmed,’ and I think I have a right to know if he was lying to me or not, because if he’s lying about that, he could be lying about other things, too.”

My whole argument was a pretty big stretch, but from the way Ethan’s fists clenched in his lap, I guessed I was getting through to him in a tough love kind of way. He brooded another minute or two, then unclenched his fists and shook out his hands. Then he reached up and touched the tattoo that framed his eye.