The Promise (The 'Burg #5)(82)

I settled in, took a deep breath, let his fingers moving in my hair relax me, and it didn’t take long before I found sleep.

* * * * *

The alarm on my phone sounded, and directly after, Ben sounded.

“Fuck,” he groaned, rolling and taking me with him. I felt him reach and he must have grabbed my phone and touched a thumb to it to turn off the alarm because it stopped.

I was blinking but saw the light of my phone and knew Benny must have been looking at it too when he muttered, “Christ, is it six already?”

With probably four hours of sleep, my first thoughts should have been about how I was going to get through an important day of meetings and communing with one of my reps, who’d made it clear the day before he wasn’t all that hot about working under me.

But those were not my thoughts.

My thoughts were how good it felt to wake up to Benny in nothing but boxers, me with no panties, after two orgasms, and making the whacked decision to come back to him.

I came back into the room mentally when I heard the phone clatter back on the nightstand, then I was on my back, Ben mostly on me because he rolled us into that position.

“You gotta get up?” he asked.

“It takes me an hour and a half to get ready and I have an eight o’clock breakfast meeting with my rep,” I answered.

“So that’s a yeah.”

“That’s a yeah,” I confirmed, sounding as disappointed as I felt.

I felt a whole lot less disappointed when Ben shifted to bury his face in my neck, where he said, “Right, you get ready. I’m gonna snooze.”

I rounded him with my arms and offered, “You can snooze all you want. I’ll do the checkout thing, arrange a wakeup call so you have plenty of time to get up and on your way, and I’ll put out the ‘do not disturb’ sign so they don’t bother you in the meantime.”

He pulled his face out of my neck to look into my eyes through the dark and say, “That’s a plan.”

I grinned at him, also through the dark.

Then I said, “I gotta hit it, honey.”

I reached up to touch my mouth to his but left it at that because I knew I wouldn’t be getting up at all if I went for more. But as I began to pull from his arms, they tightened around me.

I looked back toward his face.

“Gotta say this,” he muttered, and I felt my stomach tighten because he didn’t sound like he wanted to say whatever it was he had to say. “I laid it out last night,” he went on. “But need to make it clear, will only make it clear this once, ’cause by tonight, I’ll know and it’ll be done.”

My stomach didn’t loosen as I asked, “What’ll be done?”

He gathered me closer when he answered, “You burned me once, baby. I didn’t like it. Not at all. If it wasn’t you doin’ it, there would be no second chance. Since it’s you, I’m givin’ you a second chance. You don’t show tonight, it’ll be done. And we’re talking done, cara. I will not answer the phone. I will not come callin’ when you’re in town for business. You come to Man’s wedding, you won’t exist for me. That kind of done. You don’t show at my place tonight, you commit to that future ’cause there’s no goin’ back.”

I was deep breathing in order to hold back the panic and, focused on that, I didn’t respond.

So Benny prompted, “You understand that, baby?”

“I understand,” I forced out.

“All right,” he murmured, sliding a hand up into my hair, cupping the back of head, and pulling me to him.

His kiss was not a lip touch. It was harder, closed mouthed, and a whole lot nicer.

But he was Benny and all the awesomeness that entailed. He knew I had responsibilities.

So he broke the kiss but touched his lips to mine once more before he whispered, “Now haul your ass outta this bed. I got sleep to catch up on.”

“Okay, Ben.”

He gave me a squeeze. I gave him one back, then I hauled my ass out of the bed.

Since starting my job, I’d been traveling a lot, seeing as my territory was half the continental United States, so I had a system. When I got to my hotel room, I always unpacked. Made myself at home. Made sure everything was where I needed it to be when I might need it because I was working with reps and doctors, and schedules could get f**ked. I didn’t want to be digging through my suitcase to find my three-tiered jewelry bag in order to locate the right earrings when I should be out the door to make a meeting.

This had the added benefit of enabling me to get ready relatively quietly (nothing I could do about the hair dryer), behind closed doors in the bathroom, only coming out to sort through the closet in the light of dawn to pick one of my business outfits and shoes.

When I did, I saw Ben on his side in the bed, one hand shoved under the pillow, one arm thrown wide, covers down to his lat, hair a mess, locks having fallen over his forehead.

I did not think in the shower. I did not process what I’d done or what I was doing. I didn’t begin the Herculean task of trying to understand my panic or what I did to Ben five months ago.

I got ready.

But staring at him in the bed, my mind jumbled, turning, twisting, so much rushing through it at once it was like when you picked up a book and put your thumb tight to the edge of the pages and let loose, the entire book flying across your vision in seconds. But through that, you had to find one line. You had to.