Beautiful Beginning(33)
“Ask me to make you come. Say please, Miss Mills.”
“Please go f*ck yourself.”
Bennett slid a calming hand along the back of my neck. I looked up at him,
blinked rapidly. “I love you,” I whispered, feeling like my heart was
being strung up on a kite, sent headlong into the wind. It was nearly
impossible to keep from climbing onto him, begging him to touch me.
“I love you, too.” He leaned closer, brushed his lips across mine. All
around us, people broke out in cheers and catcalls. But very carefully he
pressed his mouth to my ear and murmured, “Don’t you f*cking tempt me
right now, Mills. This isn’t the place to test my willpower.”
I tried to explain that I wasn’t playing a game, I wasn’t trying to
seduce him right now, but no words came out.
He smiled, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear, but the sweet
gesture was betrayed by his sharp hiss: “If you try to tease me with my
father sitting right here, I’ll take out any gentle tomorrow night and
give you nothing but hard and fast. I’ll leave you hungry and unsatisfied
on our wedding night.” He pulled back, winking, and then passed the basket
of rolls to Elliott on his right.
I remembered when, during a meeting once, Henry had found the buttons to my
ruined blouse on the floor of the conference room and Bennett had taunted
me, asking me if they were indeed mine. He’d been the one to ruin the
shirt, and there he’d been, acting blameless. I remembered the hurt, and
the anger, and the terror I felt as I realized he was out to ruin my career
in front of his family.
But he actually hadn’t been. He was simply as fumbling as I was, trying to
form a connection somehow, and completely at the mercy of this undeniable
fire between us.
I’d run, livid, from the meeting as soon as it finished. The memory was so
sharp in my thoughts, I could still hear the elevator doors close, feel the
heat of his breath on my neck from all those months ago.
“Why are you suddenly so much more pissy than usual?” he’d demanded.
“It would be just like you to make me look like a career-climbing whore in
front of your father.”
“We’re getting married tomorrow,” I said on an exhale. “Right?”
“That’s right.” Bennett patted my hand, smiling indulgently at me, but I
shook my head, reaching to grip his arm. My pulse spiked and I felt my
hands grow clammy.
“I have the power? You’re the one who pressed into my dick in the
elevator. You’re the one doing this to me.”
“We’re getting married. Tomorrow. Say it.”
His smile faltered slightly, eyes searching mine, and he nodded. “We’re
getting married tomorrow.”
I closed my eyes, remembering now how his expression had fallen wide open,
his heart exposed to me for maybe the first time as I got myself off in his
office. “What are you doing to me? he’d asked, almost bewildered.
“You okay there, Mills?” he whispered, glancing up and smiling tightly at
a waiter when he put the first course down on the table in front of us.
“I don’t want to walk out that door and lose what we found in this room.
”
I pushed my chair back, lurching away from the table and tripping down the
row of seats, past our wedding party, and to the restrooms.
I ran upstairs and burst into the small side room reserved for the wedding
party, set near the restrooms, and didn’t even bother turning on the
light. The room was small and stuffy; we’d kept the flowers in here
earlier and the cloying perfume filled the dark space. I took gulping
breaths, looking up at myself in the mirrors lining the entire span of the
wall in front of me.
It was as if I could feel every emotion I’d ever experienced with Bennett,
and all at once. Hate, lust, fear, regret, need, hunger, love,
love
love
blinding love.
I pulled at my necklace, feeling like I was being strangled with nostalgia,
anticipation, and, above it all, need for it to be done, for us to make it
official so fate couldn’t suddenly decide to take a different path and
somehow leave us enemies instead of lovers.
“Breathe, Chloe,” I whispered.
The door opened and a slice of light cut into the space before it returned
to darkness. Bennett’s big, warm hands slid down my back and came to rest
on my hips.
“Hey,” he said, kissing the back of my neck, his deep voice spreading
like a current across my skin.
I closed my eyes, straightening and turning into his arms. Pressing my face
into his neck, I inhaled his aftershave, opened my mouth to suck hungrily
on his skin. He felt like home, he tasted like home.
He groaned quietly, fingers digging into my sides, dragging up my back,
shaking.
But with this reminder of the restraint he was making us both endure, a
wave of anger and heat and frustration overtook me and I shoved at his