Cowboy Casanova (Rough Riders #12)(117)

office?”


“No.”


“Don’t lie to me.”


“No. I haven’t done it. I swear.”


“Good.” Bennett parked himself on the parson’s chair less than five feet from where

she sat. “Think about it. You’re dressed so prim and proper, but your thoughts are so

naughty. You’re so desperate to come you’ve locked your office door. No one can see

you. No one knows what you’re doin’. Show me what you’d do.”


Her pulse skyrocketed. Bennett liked to play games. Her hands trembled as she inched

her fingers down the silky fabric covering her legs. When she reached the hem, she

tugged the skirt upward, not in a strip tease but trying to keep her thunder thighs

from joggling. Once the material circled her hips, she glanced over at Bennett.


“Touch yourself.”


She palmed her mound, separating her * lips with her middle finger. She swirled the

tip around the opening, slid it back up and performed the same swirling motion around

her clit. Then side to side. Following the slit back down, she pushed her finger inside

her *.
 


“I just wondered how much of that standoffishness happened after you accepted your

dominant nature. Like if you let the people closest to you see that part of you, you

were afraid they wouldn’t accept it.”


He muttered, “They won’t accept it.” He stroked her skin. “You came up with all of

these observations just today?”


“I’m a pretty good judge of people, Ben. My ex-husband notwithstanding. I worried

about that same kind of stuff with him. He didn’t accept that sexual part of me. And I

never asked him to do half the things to me that you’ve done to me. So I understand

your need to keep that part of your life secret. Dean…actually threatened to tell our

friends, my boss, our coworkers, and our parents about my kinky sex requests. For

months, every time I saw our coworkers snickering, I worried he’d over-shared at the

water cooler.”


Ben rolled and brought her on top of him, clamping one hand on her ass to keep her from

squirming away. The other hand held her jaw. “One—I don’t do things to you, I do

things for you. Big difference. Two—I’m proud of you for realizing his hang-ups are

not yours and for takin’ a chance to live the life you want. Three—if I ever meet

that self-serving motherf*cker, I will beat his ass bloody. There’s no bigger sin than

breaking a confidence. He was your husband for Christsake. He was supposed to be a safe

haven for you, not lead the charge in ridiculing you.”


This man, who’d known her three weeks, had a better grasp on her, on who she was at

the most basic level, and yet embraced her complexities and understood her

insecurities, better than any man ever had. No one in her past—man or woman—had ever

stood up for her like Ben. No one had ever built her up by knocking down the walls she

’d been hiding behind. That knowledge both buoyed her and brought despair, because

this thing between her and Ben had an end date.


Didn’t it?


She closed her eyes, feeling those stupid, unwelcome tears trying to break free. She

jerked from his hold. And he let her go.