Misadventures of a Curvy Girl (Misadventures #18)(36)

And was it such a crime to want those things? I burned to have them, ached to be the heroine standing in the rain or at the airport or whatever while the hero pleaded and begged and humbled himself for the privilege and honor to be with me. While he ached and burned for my attention and my body.

And now here I am, listening to Ben plead and beg. Listening to him lay his claim.

Mine. Ours.

The corollary to Ben’s words darts around my mind, and it swallows up every other wound and worry: Theirs.

I’ve never belonged to another person before, not in the way that Ben is implying. Even Brian always made sure to tell people we were friends with benefits—or worse. At one memorably shameful work event, he told his boss I was his cousin in town for the week.

So, no, I’ve never had someone stand in front of me, eyes blazing with possessive lust, and practically vibrate with the need to claim me. Declare I’m theirs.

I’ve never been the heroine. Until now…and God help me, I like it. I like having this man on his proverbial knees while he also looks like he wants nothing more than to pin me against my own car and fuck me until the only word I remember is his name.

“Please, Ireland,” Ben says, his voice hoarse and his eyes swirling with a mixture of desperation and lust that my body can’t help but answer. “Please.”

I suck in a breath, my anger blowing away into nothing. “You have to promise to treat me with dignity,” I say, sliding my hands up his chest. “You can’t hurt me again.”

“Never again,” he vows, and then his lips are tracing back over mine with hungry, greedy kisses. “God, Ireland, never fucking again.”

He wraps my hand in one of his big ones and tugs me inside the house with the kind of uncompromising urgency that brooks no argument. Not that I’d argue anyway. There’s something about having a six-foot-plus, square-jawed, dark-eyed soldier yank you up to his bed that makes a girl eager.

But he surprises me—he takes me to Caleb’s bed instead, sitting back against the headboard with his long, muscular legs sprawled.

“Shorts off, panties off,” he says. It’s not a question.

“What about you?” I ask in a breathy voice.

Ben holds up a hand at my question, as if to say in a minute, even though I can see his thick erection stretching all the way to his hip and would hazard a guess it doesn’t want to wait for any period of time. “Sit after you get bare for me. We’re going to give Caleb a treat when he gets home.”

God, yes.

I swallow with a combination of nervousness and arousal, but I’ve already gone to work on my buttons and zipper. As soon as I’m as Ben wants, naked from the waist down and settling between his legs, he finally answers my question. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll get what I need very soon.”

He arranges me with all the bossy precision of a field commander used to having his orders followed. I’m leaned back against his broad chest and my legs are arranged to drape over his in a way that exposes my pussy to the open air. I almost have a moment of self-consciousness when I feel how wide Ben’s legs have to part to accommodate my ass, but it’s erased the moment I hear his moan as his erection makes contact with my body. His control fractures the tiniest bit, and he pushes his swollen cock against the place where the small of my back curves into my naked bottom.

“Fuck yes,” he grates in my ear. “I love your body. Caleb does too—should we get that pussy of yours ready for him?”

“Yes,” I whisper, already wet from Caleb’s earlier attention and now from the kiss of cool air along my intimate places. But then Ben strokes a hand down over my breast, over the slopes of my stomach, and down to my feminine place, and I instantly grow even wetter.

“Oh baby,” he rumbles. “You need us right now, don’t you? Need your boys to take care of that pretty little cunt?”

My head drops back onto his shoulder as his finger delves inside. “Yes,” I moan. “I need it.” And even just the thought of Ben and Caleb sliding their throbbing columns of unyielding flesh inside me is enough to make me clamp down on Ben’s finger. He gives an answering growl.

“Careful, baby,” he murmurs. “I’m not letting you come until Caleb gets here. It’s going to be a long dance at the edge if you keep up like this.”

But what choice do I have? With a handsome, tortured soldier holding me close with one arm while his other reaches between my legs to play with me as if I’m his new toy? What girl wouldn’t already be on the edge?

“God, I love how you open up like a flower,” he groans, his finger tracing my swelling, slick folds. He buries his nose in my neck and breathes me in. “You’re perfect. Fucking perfect.”

I’m nearly beyond speech with wanting his fingers to do more. “Ben…” is all I can manage, and then I’m just whimpering and squirming as he teases the pad of one finger around my budding clitoris.

Behind me, I can feel the heat of his erection even through his jeans, like a rod of scorching need. I want it inside me—anywhere, everywhere. And just the thought of having him everywhere launches me that much closer to orgasm.

“Ben,” I beg. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”

“You’ll wait as long as I say you will,” he replies in that dark, authoritative voice that never fails to make me quiver in delight. “Even if it’s hours.”