His lids went heavy, eyes growing soft. There was the Ben I knew. “Then tell me one thing.”
I didn’t even have to think. “I loved the way you never tried to change me. I loved how you never compared me with my sister. I loved your honesty.”
“That’s three things,” he said, and linked a hand with mine. His palms were wide and smooth and warm, and the heat from them flowed up my limb, flooding my body. I could have orgasmed right there, just from his touch, and I wondered if he was feeling as light-headed as I.
“Three of my favorites,” I agreed, squeezing lightly, licking my lips, tasting wine—and hope—as warmth flooded me again.
“I suppose I’ll have to ask you out again to hear the rest,” he murmured, tossing me a knowing look.
I toyed with my pasta, letting out a slow steadied breath. “Your books,” I finally said, “how do they end? The murderer is caught? The villain punished? Justice is served?”
“That’s the standard M.O. for mysteries.”
“And they all live happily ever after?”
He thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “Those who are still living at the end of the book, I guess. Yeah.”
Sadly, that sounded more like fantasy than mystery to me, but I didn’t want to tell Ben that. I swallowed hard before glancing back up. “So. How’s this story going to end?”
“The guy gets the girl, of course.” And he shot me that dizzying grin. I returned it without hesitation, and just like that all thought of control dropped away. The room and all the people—single guy at the bar included—folded in upon themselves and disappeared. I bit my lip, he licked his, and we leapt together.
Three hours and two bottles of wine later we emerged from Taverna Deliziosa as though from a cocoon, sated with food and wine, but further intoxicated by long looks, meaning-filled laughter, and the touch of fingertips across flickering stretches of candlelight.
Outside, we fell on each other like ravenous wolves.
The crisp air bit into our skins but dissipated like steam upon contact with the heat streaking from Ben’s body into mine. He kissed me, first pressing me against the building, the stark contrast between the cold brick behind me and his heated grip making me gasp and grind further against him. Next we were leaning against a low cinder-block wall, me straddling his straightened legs as his left hand snaked up my bare back to knot in my hair, pulling lightly. His right hand found access into my scooped blouse, and he fondled me there, echoing his caress with his tongue, mouth firm and rich on mine, tasting of unchecked lust and Italian grapes. Finally, we found ourselves reclining in the cab of his truck, his lips working my nipples through the silk of my blouse, teeth teasing, while his hands cupped me both above and below. I moaned and felt the echo slide down my body into his until it hummed through the erection pressed against my thigh.
Each time we moved I had no memory of doing so, and each time I allowed it, submitting to the desire I saw firing his dark eyes, and answering the breathless demands he whispered against my flushed skin. Only the sharp look and disgruntled muttering of the man who’d been drinking alone at the bar reminded us we were still a part of the world at large…and necking like teens in a parking lot.
Ben pulled away and leaned his forehead against mine, his breath coming in short, jagged gasps. Far off, to the east of the valley, a bolt of lightning scissored across the sky, followed by a low growl of thunder. I closed my eyes as if warding away the storm and smiled into his mouth. “Move your hand one inch higher, Traina, and you’re going to have to arrest yourself.”
His laughter was choked, hot on my cheek, and spoke more of his passion than words ever could. It was a shock to find our passion could just start up again, like a match set to kindling, sparking thick in the throat, flaring in our loins, and burning the years that had gathered in between to ashes.
Not only that, but in the time we’d been outside I’d utterly forgotten my surroundings. I’d neglected to peer into the shadows, or look behind me, or hold onto even a tenuous awareness of my surroundings. I’d forgotten to sniff at the air for something foul or putrid, or about demonic faces leering at me in candlelight, or even that I’d been warned to survive the night.
What can I say? There was only Ben, his skin scenting the air, his touch turning the storm-ridden November evening into a humid, tropical night. Years of training melted away under the heat of his flesh. If I had an Achilles’ heel, I thought, Ben was it.
“Come home with me, Jo-Jo,” he whispered.
I moaned against his throat. Oh, how I wanted to. In his home, in his arms, in his bed, finishing what we’d started here. It was where I wanted to be. And where I belonged.
“I can’t,” I said, then repeated it to myself. I couldn’t just let myself pretend the last ten years had never happened. I wouldn’t lose sight of the woman I’d become. That was the woman I needed to be.
“Too soon?” he asked, then sighed—regretful, frustrated, understanding—at my answering nod. “Better than too late, I suppose.”
“I’m meeting Olivia in…” God, was it already eleven? “Half an hour. We have some things we need to discuss.”
He didn’t ask what, and I didn’t offer. Instead he leaned back and peered into my face, arms still linked around my waist. “And I suppose making plans with her was a way to keep you from spending the night with me?”
“Don’t be arrogant,” I said. “Yes.”
He smiled, looking satisfied as a milk-fed cat, and lifted a hand to graze my cheek. “Are you always so practical, Ms. Archer?”
“Hmm.” I kissed his throat, my tongue a tickling trail just below his earlobe. Barely suppressing a shudder, he ran his fingertips up my spine, letting them linger and play along the lines of my bare shoulders and neck. Or I thought it was his fingertips. Pulling away, I reached up and touched cool, slim metal, brought it back in my hand and peered at it in the dim light. “What is this?”
But I knew before I’d even finished the question. The slender silver chain, a double-stranded braid, was simple and inexpensive, and had been given to me by Ben on my fifteenth birthday. But I hadn’t seen it since shortly after that. I thought it’d been lost in the desert.
“You left it at my house,” he said, his voice softer, more hoarse. “On that last night.”
I fingered the chain, already warming around my neck. “Thank you.”
He bowed closer, bending to me so we were forehead-to-forehead in the thickening rain. Each other’s umbrella. “Sure you won’t come with me?”
I shook my head, rolling it softly along his, because I knew if I opened my mouth the answer would be yes.
“So practical,” Ben whispered, dropping a kiss on my cheek. “What if, for once, you didn’t worry about consequences? What if you just did what you wanted?”
I pulled away to look at him, my eyes traveling down to his lips, then back up again. “I just did.”
“Do it again.”
So I did. I leaned forward, took his face in my hands, and the sky above us exploded with light. We pressed against each other, body and bone, and he lifted me so my legs were wrapped at his waist, fused at his hips, anchoring me against him. I nearly didn’t make it to Olivia’s at all.
6
“Come.”
The word, the last Ben said to me before we parted ways, hummed through my mind as I drove to Olivia’s, like a bee addicted to the pollen of the same sweet flower, refusing to settle and be silent.
