Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths #4)(108)
“Really? Because I’ve been known to surprise people in rather unpleasant ways,” I tease, though inside I’m a basket of live wires. I let my hands rest on his broad chest as I fall into it to inhale his clean, soapy smell. I can’t believe how much I’ve missed it.
He chuckles as he rests his cheek on top of my head. “That’s one of the things I love about you.”
I’m not sure whose limbs stiffen first but as soon as that sentence—that word—comes out of his mouth, there is definite tension shooting through both of us.
Ben relaxes first, his groan making me curl into him again. “You know what I meant by that, right?”
“That you’re madly in love with me, of course.” We’ve joked about it so many times. Now I’d give anything for it to be real. My breathing feels shaky as I force my head back to meet his gaze, hoping he doesn’t see the truth I’m struggling to veil.
That I have accidentally developed real feelings for him.
But he does. Instantly. Or he sees something, anyway. His knuckles graze my cheek as wariness flickers over his features. “What’s wrong?”
I open my mouth to respond—to say what, I have no idea! How the hell am I going to broach this subject without scaring him away?—but I’m saved by an incoming call on his phone. Ben holds the phone up and I see Mason’s name. “Did you tell him you were coming?” Ben asks.
“Yeah.”
“I’d better get that, then.” He drops a quick kiss on my head as he breaks away to answer. “Hey, Mace. What’s up? . . . Yeah, she just made it . . . Huh . . . No . . .” He glances at me and then takes a few steps away. “Okay.”
I listen absently as I unzip my bag and dump the contents out onto the bed, including the simple black dress for tomorrow that’s going to need ironing after sitting rumpled on the back of my bike for almost three hours. I almost beat the rain. Thanks to the torrential downpour that hit as I was riding up the driveway, along with Ben’s leisurely caveman stroll to the house with me slung over his shoulder, every stitch of clothing on me is soaked through. I’m freezing, and the lower temperature up here certainly doesn’t help. I unzip my jacket and toss it onto the back of a chair. My boots and socks come next. I’m intent on getting my pajamas on, even if it’s only for the short term.
“Are you sure this is . . .” He heaves a sigh. “Okay . . . yeah, I guess . . . See you tomorrow, man.”
I frown. “What’d he want?”
Ben’s arm drops heavily to his side, an unreadable expression turning his face eerily calm. There’s a long pause as he very obviously drifts off in thought, his eyes rolling over me, my bag, and all the clothes that have spilled out, and then back to me.
“You’re kind of freaking me out, Ben. What’s wrong?”
I hear the tiny exhale he releases before he tosses his phone onto the table. “He was just worried about you getting here with the storm, is all.”
“Are you sure? Because he was acting really weird tonight. He hugged me.”
Ben smiles as he walks over to where I’m standing. Dipping his face into my neck, he lets his mouth linger there, sending shivers through my body. “What, like a big bear hug?”
“More like he was hugging a porcupine.”
Ben chuckles. “Mason’s a weird guy. Weird guys do weird things.”
“Stop talking about my stepbrother while you’re doing that,” I mumble, letting my head fall back as the rumble of his voice tickles my skin.
“Fine.” He disappears suddenly. I turn in time to see him make a sweeping move across the bed, scattering everything onto the floor.
“Hey!”
“Payback’s a bitch.”
I smile, a hazy memory of Cancún flashing through my mind. “Have you been drinking margaritas? Because I think that’s one of those times where two wrongs definitely don’t make a right.” I wonder, had I not thrown up on him, had we actually slept together that night, would I be standing here right now, wondering how on earth you tell a guy who avoids commitment that you’ve fallen for him, hard?
He reaches out to grab my hand and pull me toward him, until he’s able to push me onto the bed, his fingers deftly unfastening my belt. “Your clothes are wet. You need to get out of them and quick.” The guy has undressing women down to an art because somehow he manages to pull every last stitch of clothing off of me in record time and with no help on my part, until I find myself lying naked across the bed with his eyes grazing over my body.
“The attic needs reinsulating,” he confirms as a shiver courses through my body. I honestly don’t think it’s from the cold.
“I’m naked, again. And you’re not, again.”
Ben yanks the back of his sodden black T-shirt up and over his head before letting it slide down his arms, uncovering the smooth ridges of his muscles. As lightning zigzags through the sky in frequent bursts, filling the attic room with flashes of white light, I watch him undo his jeans and let them fall, pushing his boxer briefs off with them. I find myself lying on a bed and staring at a very naked, very appealing, and very aroused Ben in front of me. My breath hitches with the sight.
“You seem to have a problem,” I muse, replaying the old Cancún tape as I prop myself up on my elbows and, though self-conscious, let my legs fall apart for him. Ben’s a guy who truly appreciates a woman’s body. Not just a woman’s body. My body, it would seem. My plump ass, my soft curves. My biggest insecurities seem to be his biggest turn-ons.