Need Me (Broke and Beautiful #2)(46)

“I mean, she’s only been gone two months, and she’s already back.” Teddy blew a stream of smoke toward the sky. “No need for it. My father could’ve hired some hands in town for cheap. She’s here because she’s got Kentucky in her blood.”

Ben’s stomach sunk to the bottom step of the porch. What if he wasn’t just down there to convince her to come home with him but to come home at all? “You don’t think she likes New York?”

“You haven’t asked her that yourself?” The question must have been rhetorical, because Teddy coughed and kept going. “She’s got all the expectations I could never live up to on her head. Carrying them for both of us, my sister. I’m not sure if she’s there because she wants to be or thinks she has to be.”

Ben stood without thinking. He needed to be proactive. Needed to do something. Say something. Maybe it was premature to worry about Honey not liking New York enough to stay, but he wanted to head it off at the pass. If she needed a reason to come back, a reason to love the city, he’d give it to her. Now. He’d already started toward the barn when Teddy’s voice stopped him.

“Hey, I didn’t even get to give the obligatory don’t-hurt-my-sister-or-I’ll-hurt-you speech.” Teddy glanced down at his injured legs. “Although I guess it’s a moot point, so I’ll just say please.”

Ben nodded. He wanted to laugh, but he was too distracted with the urgency to find Honey in the barn. This dancing around each other wasn’t working for him. Especially not now, when he felt like a noose had been tied around his neck. God, if she wasn’t happy in New York, had he made it that much worse? Pushed her a little closer into leaving?

She looked up as he entered the barn, the expression on her face reminding him of the evening in the deserted classroom when she’d been half excited, half deer in headlights. All perfect. When he got within ten feet of Honey, giving her no indication that he planned to slow down, she dropped the bucket she was holding, some type of feed spilling out onto the floor. Ben hooked an arm under her ass, dragging her up against him as he backed her into an empty horse stall. Her thighs wrapped around his waist like they’d been conditioned to do so. He planted his hard cock between those gorgeous limbs and ground against her in a rough twist of his hips, just managing to get a hand over her mouth, capturing a moan that would have easily reached the house.

He pressed their foreheads together and looked her in the eye. “Listen to me.” He waited for her nod. “You’re going to take me somewhere now where I can see you without your panties on. I’m going to get you off good and hard, maybe a few times. And then, Honey, we’re going to talk.” He bucked his hips into her twice. “But first, I’m going to f*ck you so dirty, you won’t be able to look anyone but me in the eye afterward. Have you heard everything I’ve said?”

He removed his hand so she could answer. “Yes. Okay, Ben.”

“Good. I’ll be at the truck.” He stepped back, letting her slide down the wall. “Tell them whatever gets us out of here.”





Chapter 16



HONEY HAD DRIVEN this particular back road thousands of times in her life, but nothing looked familiar now. She drove straight into the potholes she’d been taught to avoid since age sixteen, when she’d gotten her license. In the early evening haze, the rooster mailbox signaling her nearest neighbor’s driveway looked like a foreign object. The steering wheel didn’t operate as she’d come to expect. It probably had something to do with Ben sitting in the passenger seat beside her, his warm hand resting high on her thigh, just beneath the hem of her shorts. His steady perusal of her body had turned her nipples into stiff, pointed peaks. She couldn’t force enough air into her lungs to slow her breathing to a normal pace.

The place she was taking him was sacred. Was she taking a risk? Half of her best memories had taken place there. If she and Ben went their separate ways, would each and every one of t/hem be shadowed by that failure? At that particular moment, she couldn’t question her decision, though, because lust gnawed in her belly. Her sole purpose in life just then was to relieve this relentless, sweaty longing that wouldn’t leave her alone. Would never leave her alone as long as Ben was in the vicinity. There was no denying that. Her body knew what his felt like, the heights it could bring her to, and she didn’t have the kind of willpower it took to deny herself.

Ben moved closer on the bench seat and placed his mouth on her neck. “Calm down before you kill us both.” His unexpected comment surprised a laugh out of her and he echoed it, although both of the sounds were strained. He pushed her hair away from her ear and breathed against it. “How much further?”

“I should know the answer to that, shouldn’t I?”

His hand slid to her inner thigh. Higher. “Distracted?”

She exhaled hard. “Payback is a bitch, you know.”

He began to knead her thigh. “Oh no. You’ve more than paid me back in the distraction department. Just by existing.” His teeth teased her earlobe with a firm tug. “But I’m anxious to see what you think could be more distracting than this body.”

Their destination was up ahead. She just had to get them there without combusting. “You’ll find out soon enou—” She cut off her own words with a moan as Ben pressed his fingers to the seam of her jean shorts, right over her clit. “Oh God. I’m going to wreck the truck.”