Swept Away 2 Read Online Free

than brothers and sisters. We hug and we lean on each other, and sometimes, when we’re watching a movie at home, we lie pressed against each other under a comfortable blanket. But it’s never, ever been sexual.
    Not for me, at least.
    Was I unwittingly giving him hints that it was? Did all that comfortable closeness translate to me leading him on?
    “Yes, Tara. The two of you are very physical.”
    “I…” I push out a breath through my closed lips. “Yes. But it wasn’t that kind of physical.”
    “But you could fall in love with him.” Ethan’s words come out tight and biting. The force of his stare prickles under my skin. “It could happen.”
    All this sudden emotional intensity must have something to do with him being jealous of Kyle, like Kyle seems to be jealous of him. I’m considering this when he throws my assumption out the window by saying, “You should.”
    “Should what?”
    “Love him.” Ethan is dead serious, but his words don’t compute. They don’t make any sense .
    “What do you mean?”
    “He would be good for you. He’ll protect you. He loves you.”
    He doesn’t say it flat out, but his words imply it. I won’t protect you. I don’t love you.
    “What about you?” I whisper.
    He shrugs, but it’s not the casual movement I think he intended it to be—it’s a tense, tight raising and lowering of his shoulders.
    “I can’t,” he says through flat, white lips. “I told you before—I can’t—won’t—do long-term relationships. And you deserve one. You deserve someone who can love you in the way you should be loved. Someone who—”
    He breaks off suddenly. Something flickers in his eyes as if he’s lying, or as if he’s cut himself off from telling me something he doesn’t want me to know. If we were in a poker game, I’d call his bluff and go all in.
    But maybe he isn’t lying. He’s probably being completely honest with me, again, and I’m reading something that I want to be there but just isn’t.
    “I can’t give any of that to you,” he says quietly. “It’s impossible.”
    The hurt that slams into me feels like it’s crushing my windpipe. I wrap my arms around my knees and stare at the opposite wall of my cabin, trying to find my breath. He touches my shoulder, and as much as I don’t want him to see the emotions that must be written all over my face, I turn back to him anyway. I’m evidently incapable of telling my body not to react to Ethan’s touch.
    When he sees my expression, his softens. His voice gentles. “Tara…”
    The tears I hold at bay blur my vision.
    “I want to be all these things to you,” he murmurs. “But as much as I want to, I’ve told you I can’t. He can, though. Kyle can be everything to you.”
    “No,” I rasp out.
    “Yes. He loves you.”
    “It doesn’t matter. It’s…he’s…he’s not you . You’re the one I can’t stop thinking about. You’re the one I want…the one I need —”
    Ethan rears back, a stunned expression on his face. It’s like I’ve slapped him. Slowly, he shakes his head at me. “Don’t,” he whispers.
    “Don’t what? Don’t fall for you? It’s too late—you know, you know I already have.”
    “It can’t last.”
    My teeth gnash together, hard. I am so tired of hearing him say that. “I know .”
    “I don’t want you to miss your chance with him if you choose me over him now. You shouldn’t do it. You should make the right choice and—”
    “Why are you trying to get rid of me?”
    “I’m not!” His palm slams down on the built-in chest of drawers beside my bed. His face is alight with some kind of emotion I can’t quite pinpoint. Is it anger? Frustration? Anguish?
    I clutch my pillow to me like a shield.
    “I just know Kyle is better for you.” He grinds out the words as if it’s physically painful for him to say this to me.
    Good. Because it’s physically painful for me to hear him saying it.
    “Kyle isn’t you ,” I repeat firmly, because it’s true.