He flushed slightly and ducked his head. “I’m glad you had a good day. It was my pleasure to show it to you.”
“And thank you for letting me spread more of my mother’s ashes. You’re probably sick of that process by now. I get weepy and all that sad shit.”
His smile was soft as he spoke. “No, actually.” He dug his hands into his jeans, tugging them lower on his hips and showing just a hint of hip bone, making me swallow around the saw dust in my mouth. When I lifted my gaze, he was watching me closely. When he spoke, his voice was thick. “I feel like I know her. I feel like she and I might have been great friends.”
“You know, you’re probably right. She always said she liked a man who was a bit of a rogue.”
He grinned then. “Well then, resident rogue at your service.”
“You really didn’t have to do all this, and I don’t just mean a day in Paris. What you’ve given me in the last few weeks, a new job, a roof over my head… I don’t have any way to say thank you properly.”
“I didn’t do any of those things for you. I did it for me. I like being near you. I like your obsession with Batman. I like your teasing. I love your smile. Being with you reminds me that I have been living in a shell of myself for too long. I haven’t had a woman I trusted in a long time. Everything about this is completely crazy, and every single day you make me want to keep up. So spending the day exploring with you was my pleasure.”
“Goodnight, Ben.”
He frowned, his voice hoarse when he whispered my name. “Livy—”
He reached for me, and I automatically stepped back. “I should go to bed.”
“I just wanted you to have the perfect day.”
“And it was perfect.”
He opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again. I shouldn’t have been desperate to know what he wanted to say, but I was.
He wasn’t the kind of man for lazy Sunday lie-ins. He wasn’t the relationship type. Hadn’t I already learned my lesson?
I turned, and he reached out for me. His touch a light graze on my skin. A caress of two fingers sliding over me like satin, making me forget a simple thing like breathing. When I turned, the muscle in his jaw ticked.
“This is a bad idea for a lot of reasons.”
I blinked up at him. “What?”
“This.” He pointed his finger between us. “It feels like you’re mine.”
When he said it like that, with that low growl, I believed everything he said. And my body was being pulled to him like the reverberation of elastic that had been pulled away too tight. I was coming back to him at high velocity speed, and we were going to collide. But there was no stopping it. No chance that I was going to escape. It was happening. It was a matter of how long I could put it off. Heartbreak was coming for me.
You’re insane if you think you can put it off.
He stepped into my space and wrapped his arms around me, his hands settling on my hips like a brand. “Ben—”
His lips latched onto mine in a crash and a caress, and it was like something broke inside me. I was the elastic snapping back. I was careening out of control, and I didn’t give a shit.
I leaned into the kiss, digging my fingers into his T-shirt, pulling him closer and needing to feel the press of his body against mine. I was going to hell. I prayed I could stop time, to have this moment, this taste, before doing what I knew I had to do. I could just pause that moment and be the woman he wanted me to be. Be brave and wild and fun and adventurous. I could be her. I could let go of safe me, of the Livy that followed the rules, that did the right thing always.
For once I could follow passion, and I finally understood what my mother had been trying to tell me about making sure that every moment was lived with that kind of passion. That life was so short, and if you weren’t looking, you’d lose threads of it. I finally understood what it really meant to be alive. Just to have someone who would kiss me like I was everything to him, like I was the only thing that gave him breath, that gave him life.
Ben’s hands were in my hair. I could feel the press of his heavy ring against my temple as his fingers twined in my curls and pulled. He angled my head swiftly and devoured my lips, his tongue sliding in, not in a gentle, slick motion, but in torrent of need and desire and strong licks intent on igniting a new rapture. He was owning my mouth. With a groan, one hand released me and wrapped around my waist, slid over my ass, and pulled me in close. I could feel the hard press of his dick against me. Thick. Bulging. Insistent.
Holy hell. He was huge. And I wanted to feel him filling me up, claiming me, making me his. Who was I kidding? I was already his. Anything he asked, I would give. Anything he wanted, I would break every oath and vow to give it to him.
Against my lips he moaned. “So fucking beautiful. I need you so much.”
Unable to form any coherent thought, all I could do was whisper against his lips. “Ben.”
It must have been enough because his lips went back to devouring mine. And there was a muffled cry as he dragged me down to the couch. At first, I lay on top of him, but then with a grunt, he rolled us over and his body lay over mine, hips between my spread legs, and all I could do was hang on for the ride. His kisses were taking me high, dragging me along with them in a wild Icarus ride. With his tongue, he drove me closer and closer to the sun, and I didn’t give a fuck that my wings were on fire.
I just wanted more. I wanted to be closer to him. I wanted his skin pressed against mine, to feel the heat of his skin under the press of my fingers.
We tugged and pulled at each other’s clothes. Muffled moans, low groans, desperation chased need as we fought each other free of our clothes. He dragged the strap of my sundress off my shoulder and then groaned when his eyes took in the strapless bra I wore underneath it. “I need to see.” His lips kissed along my jaw, my collarbone, and down my chest as his fingers played with the other strap, dragging that down as well. “Can I? Can I see you?”
He was normally so forceful, so demanding. But he lifted his gaze, his hair falling over his brow, and he was so vulnerable. Pleading.
I nodded. “Yes.”
With his teeth, he dragged down the red satin covering my breast, and he groaned.
“Christ.” And then his mouth was on me. But there was no frenzied, pulling need. No. This was tender. Softer. Gentler. And the soft tugging of his lips made my hips arch into him.
“Ben, please...”
Instead of hurrying, he pulled the other strap of my sundress down farther and tugged the satin down with his fingers. When I was completely bare to him, he pulled back and watched my breasts as I dragged in breath after breath. I just needed his mouth on me. His hips pressed into mine, but it wasn’t nearly enough pressure. Not where I needed. I just wished he would touch me more. Use his mouth, his fingers, anything. The fire was burning in my soul, and I didn’t give a shit. The things I couldn’t take back, the apologies I couldn’t make, I would deal with those later, but I needed relief.
He finally touched my right peak, and his gaze met mine as he ran a thumb over it. “I love your nipples. I want to cover them with fucking chocolate.”
My eyes fluttered close, and I threw my head back. “I don’t know, just... just... I need something from you.”