“Ben, look at me,” Matt said. He had his firm, cool voice, the one that brooked no bullshit.
He didn’t. Couldn’t. “She’s everything I’m not. She’s clean.”
“The one thing that can clean a man’s soul is surrendering to a woman’s love, Ben,” Jon said. “You just have to give her the chance.”
“Yeah, we saw how I dealt with that.”
“Because you’re fighting it. You’re fighting yourself.”
Matt took a step closer, and Ben felt that old terror, the one of being hemmed in. “Ben, look at me.”
What the hell was the matter with him? He always met a man’s eyes. But the part of him rising up, trying to choke him, reminded him of the uncomfortable moment with Peter last night. When he at last forced himself to meet those dark eyes, Matt was standing right in front of him. He put his hand on Ben’s shoulder, fingers tightening. “You can choose to be a chickenshit bastard who runs away from a gift because you’re scared it’s going to abandon you one day, just like your parents. Or betray you, like pretty much everyone did when you were growing up. That decision will eat you like a cancer, but you can drink yourself into liver disease and beat that to the punch.”
“Sounds swell. Option two?”
“It’s time to come out of the cold, Ben. You were a child, fighting to stay alive on the streets, and you did what you had to do. You deserve love. Do the hardest thing a Master can do. Get your shit straight and accept the gift. Take the risk, the first step. Is she the one you want more than anything, now and forever?”
Matt really did have his father’s eyes, so much it was sometimes like the son was channeling the sire. Not a bad thing, despite the fact the thought reeked of Jon’s New-Age bullshit. Long ago, when Ben was a kid, he’d woken up in the Kensington guest bedroom screaming. Matt’s dad had calmed him down, brought him cookies. Didn’t make him talk, but Ben had talked anyway. When he’d settled down, Jonas had given him a brief hug, a squeeze of his shoulders. Ben had tensed, but that was all Jonas had done. The man had left the lamp on low setting so Ben didn’t have to go back to sleep in the dark.
“Yeah, she is. I want her.” He wanted to say more, but if he was going to do that, he wanted to say it to Marcie. She deserved that, and way more.
“God help her.” Peter’s lips twitched. He stepped up to Matt’s side.
Ben rose, a self-defense measure. “Oh Jesus. Tell me this isn’t a hugging moment.”
“It’s not a hugging moment.” Then Peter gave him one of his bear hugs anyway, the kind where the monster squeezed his ribs and slapped his back to the point of pain, therefore making Ben still feel manly. When he released him, Peter put his hand on Ben’s face in a brotherly gesture of affection, shoved it away so his neck popped. “You’re such a dumbass.”
Matt returned to the head of the table, gesturing to all of them to take their seats. After a moment, Lucas took his usual place at Matt’s right, though he continued to regard Ben with an undecided expression. Ben had a futile wish for his coffee, but settled for taking a couple deep breaths and sitting down again. He wasn’t sure how the hell he was going to concentrate on business after all that, but he needn’t have worried. Matt had rewritten the agenda.
“You owe Marcie amends,” Matt said. “That’s the most critical consequence of your actions. But you also owe us. This circle is bound by a code, and you broke that code.”
Oh hell. But Matt was right. Jesus, he wanted penance, wanted to do something to purge this shit from his soul, the look he’d put on Marcie’s face. He had to fix it with her, but he also had to make it right with them. With Lucas.
“You’re right.” He nodded, straightened. “Whatever you think is fair.”
“Making you cry like a little girl,” Lucas said acidly, but there was a different set to his face now, one that said he might be forgiven. A few years from now. After a lot of groveling.
When they made their decision, Ben actually felt like bursting into tears. But he swallowed jagged glass, took it like a man. He deserved it, after all. Hard as accepting their ruling was, it was going to be worse, figuring out how to make it up to Marcie. But now that he’d accepted it…
He wanted her. He’d said it out loud, in front of all of them. It filled him with a strange sense of anticipation, reminding him of when each of them had come to this table, determined to make a chosen woman his. He’d spent so much time denying her, pushing her away, but he let it unfold now, looked at it from several different directions. Come in out of the cold. He felt like he was standing in the middle of a room where he’d cautiously opened a window, and then another…maybe one more. Letting the sunlight pour in.
I want her. I need her. If he hadn’t fucked it up totally, she might consider being okay with that.
“I’m nearly a decade older than she is,” he said suddenly. “When she’s turning forty, I’ll be hitting fifty.”
Jon nodded. “You know Rachel is thirteen years older than me. We’ve dealt with those issues.”
“How does she deal with it?”
“I think it’s harder for a woman than a man. Some days she gets a little moody about it. But I point out that when I’m eighty and she’s ninety-three, we’ll both be on walkers and mixing up our teeth
