There was a hurt look in his deep brown eyes. “I understand. Now that you know what I am you don't want anything to do with me. I don't blame you.”
“No, Ben—that's not it at all. I just…it's just that…” I gestured to myself. “I mean, look at me, I'm bloody all over. I just, well, I…I need to get a shower. Is there a bathroom in here?”
He sighed and let me go. “Right through that doorway, I think.” He gestured to a royal blue door that was across from the bed.
I slid off his lap hastily and stood up quickly—too quickly. Suddenly the room was spinning around me, and I started to fall. Ben caught me and pulled me back down on his lap. I was too weak to protest, even when he brushed a chaste kiss across my bruised cheek.
“Dani, I think you'd better just relax for a while,” he said. “You've lost a lot more blood than you think, and you're weak right now.”
“I'm fine,” I said, struggling to raise my head from his shoulder. The world tilted sideways again, and I had to let it fall back. I hit my bruised cheek against the rock-hard muscle of his arm and flinched. “Ouch!”
“You're not fine. You're hurt.” Ben tilted my chin so that he could see the hurt cheek and my cut bottom lip as well. He bent and placed another gentle kiss on my cheek. This time when his lips met my skin, there was a rush of tingling pleasure, the same sensation I'd gotten when he'd licked and kissed the wound on my arm earlier.
I pulled back from him. “What are you doing?”
“Healing you,” he murmured. “Hold still.” His lips continued their gentle, caressing path across my bruised cheek, and the tingling pleasure began to grow again. By the time he finished my cheek and started to kiss my cut lip, there didn't seem to be any way to stop him. In fact, I wasn't even sure that I wanted to stop him, even though I knew I should.
“Ben,” I whispered breathlessly against his lips as he kissed me. “Ben, I don't think…”
“Then don't think,” he whispered. “Just feel.” He took my mouth again in a kiss so gentle and intense I couldn't breathe. I felt like a fire was blooming just under my skin as his mouth fed on mine, licking, kissing, sucking, owning me again just as he had the night before at the bar. His kiss was infinitely tender this time, but no less possessive for all of that. He wanted me, and not in a best friends kind of way—I could tell. I could feel it in his touch, in the way he held me, in the hard bulge in his jeans that was pressing uncomfortably against me as I sat on his lap.
He wasn't the only one being affected by the warm, tingling healing pleasure either. I could feel the need coursing through my own veins like blood, pulsing all the way through me, making me warm, making me want him. My nipples were like hard little pebbles at the tips of my breasts and my sex felt hot and wet and swollen with need between my thighs. God—how could he do so much to me with just a kiss? It felt so good and yet, it felt dangerous too. Wrong.
“Ben,” I gasped, tearing my mouth away from his with a convulsive effort. “We can't…we shouldn't be doing this.”
“Why not?” His eyes were drowning deep as he cupped my newly healed cheek in his palm. I still didn't understand how he could heal me with just a kiss, but there was a lot I didn't understand—like the dangerous, frightening new feelings that were blooming in my chest for a man who was supposed to be my best friend and nothing more.
“I…I…” I shook my head, unable to say anything. My brain felt numb even while the rest of my body was humming with the warm sensations that had been pulsing through me as we kissed.
“Dani,” Ben cupped my cheek again. “There's so much I want to say to you. So much I want you to know. But right now you're hurt, and I want to help you. Please, just let me heal you. All right?”
I don't know what made me do it, but I nodded. “All…all right,” I whispered.
Ben laid me gently on the bed so that my calves were hanging over the side and knelt on the floor in front of me.
“Wait!” I propped myself up on one elbow, ignoring the spinning sensation my sudden move caused. “What are you doing?”
“Dani, look where he cut you.” There was sorrow in his voice as well as anger as he traced the line from the inside of my knee leading to my inner thigh. I knew he was blaming himself again for letting it happen, for not getting to me sooner. “I have to be able to reach you in order to heal you,” he said. He placed a warm, tingling kiss on the inside of my knee, where the long cut started. “All right?”
“I…it's just that…” I bit my lip. “They didn't give me any underwear to wear with this stupid thing.” I gestured at the teddy. “And…and the cuts go up, um, pretty high on my thigh.”
“Are you afraid I'm going to hurt you?” Ben asked softly, and the pain was back in his eyes. The look that said he hated the part of himself that had frightened me, hated it but couldn't get rid of it.
“No, no,” I assured him hastily. “It's just, well, I'm, um, embarrassed, that's all.”
He looked relieved. “Is that all? Dani, you never have to be embarrassed with me. Don't you know that? You're beautiful.” He stroked a warm hand over the top of my thigh, making me shiver. “Every part of you is beautiful to me. Now will you just relax and let me heal you?”
I don't know if it was the pleasure I felt from his touch or the yearning I heard in his voice, but I just nodded, and lay back down. I needed this—needed Ben to heal me, and I sensed that he needed it just as much, maybe even more.
He started at the inside of my knee and worked inward, lapping gently at my wounded flesh just as he had when he healed my arm. But this time the shivers of sensation and tingles of pleasure seemed to shoot straight through me to the core of my being. His mouth was so warm—hot almost—and I could feel the scratch of his beard shadow against the tender skin of my inner thighs as he worked his way up. It felt so good I nearly moaned, but I stopped myself just in time. God—what was wrong with me? He was healing me, not…anything else. Right?
But telling myself there was nothing sexual about the situation didn't help. My body reacted helplessly to his hot mouth on my skin. Once more I felt the wet heat growing between my thighs, clouding my mind and making me clench my hands into fists at my sides. I shouldn't be reacting like this, I told myself. After the things Mitch had done to me, I had pretty much decided I could forget this part of myself forever. That sexual desire was something that happened to other women but not to me. Not anymore. But just as they had the night before, Ben's touch, his gentle kisses against my trembling skin, seemed to wake something in me that had been dormant for a long time, something I had supposed was dead but was maybe only sleeping.
Ben was moving closer and closer to my unprotected sex, spreading my thighs to get to the place where the cut Savage had made with his knife ended. I was terribly afraid that he was going to notice how wet I was getting just from having him touch me and taste me this way. He only had my left thigh mostly done, and I could feel my arousal building almost to a breaking point. What would I say if I started to come? How could I hide what his touch was doing to me?
He was lapping at the spot where my thigh joined my body now, his breath hot against my naked flesh. It felt so good I gasped aloud, unable to help myself. My hands, which had been clenched by my sides, were suddenly buried in his thick, black hair. I needed more—so much more, but I didn't know how to tell him what it was I needed, or even if he would be willing to give it to me.
Ben seemed to understand, though, even though I couldn't say the words.
“Dani?” he said looking up at me. “I want to do more than heal you. I want to taste you…” I felt him press a light kiss to the damp curls that decorated the top of my slit. “Here,” he said. His voice was deep, almost a growl, and I could feel the need pulsing through him the same way it was pulsing through me. The desire was like an electrical current between us, fed by the pleasure I felt at his touch and his pleasure in touching me.
“Ben,” I gasped. “I don't…we shouldn't…”
“I want to k
iss you,” he went on relentlessly. “Want to eat your sweet pussy until you come all over my face. I think I've wanted that from the first minute I met you.”
“Oh, God!” I moaned again. Could this really be Ben, talking dirty to me? Telling me exactly how he wanted to pleasure me until I came?
“I'm going to taste you now,” he told me. “If you don't want me to, you can tell me to stop or push me away. Otherwise, I want you to relax and let me in.”
The word “stop” trembled on my lips, but what came out instead was another gasp as he spread my legs even further and pressed his face between my thighs. I felt him kissing me there, kissing my sex, my pussy, the same way he'd kissed my mouth earlier. Then he spread my inner lips with his thumbs, and I felt him kiss me directly on my clit. The feel of his lips pressed gently to the most sensitive part of my body arched my back and brought a cry from my lips. Oh, God—I couldn't believe this was happening. Couldn't believe the fire that raced through me when he lapped at the sensitive bundle of nerves, then sucked my clit into his mouth and traced patterns around it with his talented tongue until I nearly screamed.
My hands, already buried in his hair, didn't push him away. Instead, I pulled him closer, pressing myself against him, giving in completely to his mouth. A part of me was screaming that this was wrong—dangerous—and yet I couldn't seem to stop. The tingling pleasure I'd felt when he healed me seemed like nothing to this, to having his hot mouth on my naked, unprotected sex.
“Ben…Ben,” I gasped his name. He responded by sliding his large hands under my hips and lifting me, bringing me closer. Then I felt his tongue move lower and press into me, thrusting deep and then deeper, fucking me the same way he would if it was his cock instead of his tongue inside me. I cried out and clenched my thighs tight against the sides of his head. It was too much…too, too much. I felt the pleasure that had been building and building from the moment he first kissed my knee begin to peak. I was so close…so close and yet, I just needed a little more.
As though sensing my thoughts, Ben looked up for a second. “Dani, come for me,” he growled softly. “Let me feel you coming while I taste you.” Then he pressed his face between my thighs again, and I felt his tongue lapping my clit. At the same time, two long, strong fingers entered me and pressed rhythmically into my pussy in time with his tongue. It was too much and just enough.
“Ben!” I moaned as the pleasure broke inside me. I came so hard I saw stars in front of my eyes, came pulling on his hair and pressing myself against his face, giving myself completely to the erotic sensation of his mouth on me, of his fingers fucking into me, and his tongue tracing magical patterns across my clit. I knew it was wrong—knew it was dangerous—but the intense sensations were too much.
I came all over his face, just as he had asked me to, and the healing power poured through me, closing the wound on my other thigh as well. I let him do that to me, even though I knew I shouldn't. My partner. My best friend. My…I didn't know what we were to each other now, and that was the really scary part.
I once read an article in Cosmo about how you're not supposed to cry after sex. Supposedly because it scares the guy you're with off, or freaks him out, or something of that nature. At the time I thought how stupid it was. After all, who cries after sex? I certainly never did—even after some of the things Mitch put me through in the dark days of my marriage, I never cried afterwards, at least, not in front of him. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.
And yet, after what had to be the most powerful orgasm of my life, I found myself in tears for the second time that night. I don't know if it was the intensity of the orgasm, or the fact that Ben was the one who gave it to me, or my uncertainty about the future, but I couldn't help myself. I put an arm over my eyes and just sobbed.
As Cosmo had predicted, the results were dire. Ben didn't run away, but he did climb back onto the bed with me and try to hold me. I pulled away from him and turned on my side, hiding the shame of my tears. I'd never liked to cry in front of anyone and now I had done it twice in one night. It made me feel weak and helpless, and I hated those feelings. Finally, I became aware that Ben was saying something.
“Dani, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” he was whispering over and over again. “I never should have done that. We should have talked about it more. I shouldn't just have assumed…”
“No.” I got control of myself enough to sit up. “We shouldn't have talked about it, and we certainly shouldn't have done it,” I told him, wiping my wet eyes on the palm of my hand.
Ben looked hurt. “Why, Dani? Why can't there be more between us, more to us than just this?” He gestured, as though to encompass our whole relationship—our friendship, I supposed.
“I…we're…” I shook my head, having a hard time articulating my fears. “We're best friends,” I said at last. “Writing partners. If we keep on like this we're going to screw all that up.”
“I thought it was already screwed up,” he said, but the light left his eyes, leaving them cold and dark and sad.
“No, Ben—it doesn't have to be.” I cupped his cheek in my hand, which was bristly with five o'clock shadow. “I was so angry at you the other day because I thought you were living a double life—acting one way around me and becoming a totally different person when we were apart. I realize now that I was wrong—that you're still the same sweet, dependable guy you've always been. You just happen to be a werewolf too, but I can deal with that—it'll just take a little getting used to. And once we get out of here, everything can go back to normal. Don't you see?”
“I see.” Ben ran a hand through his hair, looking more unhappy than I could ever remember seeing him. Even the night before when we'd been talking by my car, he'd had some anger mixed in with his misery. Now he just looked tired. I felt terrible about that but there was nothing I could do—I was scared, too scared to even consider what he was asking.
I'd tried making myself vulnerable to a man before, letting down my guard and look where it had gotten me—divorce court. Not that I thought Ben would treat me like Mitch—of course he wouldn't. But it was better not to take any chances. It was better just to stay friends. Safer. And above all, what I needed right now was a little safety, a little normalcy to cling to, and all I had in this strange place was my relationship with Ben. If that changed, there would be nothing left to hold on to. Just the thought of it made me feel like I was drowning.
I pushed the panic out of my mind and stood up. Everything was going to be fine because Ben was here, and we were best friends, and friends took care of each other. Not necessarily the way Ben had just taken care of me, true. But I was willing to put that to the back of my mind and chalk it up as a moment of stressful insanity between us. Just one moment, never to be repeated.
“Look,” I said. “I'm going to take a shower because I'm a mess and I need some time alone. When I get out, we're going to talk about how to get out of here and get back to normal. Okay?”
Ben just nodded. I left him sitting on the bed looking like he'd just lost his best friend.
Chapter Fourteen
Ben
She didn't want to have anything to do with it—with taking our friendship to the next level. I had been so sure I'd felt a connection and that she had too—the way she had responded to me, the way she had healed when I kissed her seemed to prove it. Surely there was something there, some reason for the way her body reacted to mine. It was more than friendship that made her pussy wet when I touched her, that made her claw at my back and shoulders and pull my hair as I ate her sweet cunt until she came all over my face.
I shuddered as I thought of it, a wave of helpless desire washing over me. Tasting her that way had been the single most erotic experience of my life and I wanted nothing more than to make her mine completely—to put my mark on her by shoving my cock into her tight, wet heat and fucking her until she came again and again. But even if I hadn't taken an oath and promised the priestess not to do it, I knew Dani wouldn't have been interested. Oh, ma
ybe her body would have, but she had set up a mental barrier between us there was no getting over or around. To her I was a friend, a best friend maybe, but still, just a friend. And there were certain things that friends didn't do together, such as making love and forming lifetime commitments.
I wondered what the hell her ex, Mitch, had done to her to make her so afraid of commitment, so afraid of ever letting herself fall in love again. Maybe she needed therapy. Hell, maybe I did. I could just see myself now: “Doctor, I'm in love with my best friend, but we both have a lot of emotional baggage since she's a survivor of an abusive marriage and I'm a werewolf. Can you help us?” It was so pathetic it was almost funny.
From inside the bathroom I could hear the shower running, but Dani wasn't humming or singing. Probably she was just standing under the hot spray of water, hoping it would erase all the uncomfortable memories from her mind. By the time she got out, it would be as though nothing had ever happened between us because that was exactly the way she wanted it.
A knock sounded at the dark blue door, interrupting my morose thoughts. I got up and paced to the other side of the room, then put my nose carefully to the crack between the door and the frame and inhaled. It was the priestess, Molly, and as far as I could tell she was by herself.
I opened the door carefully, keeping an eye out for anyone else, but she was alone, standing in her white robes in the darkened hallway. Except for her salt and pepper curls, she might have been a biblical messenger waiting to deliver some universal truth.
“May I come in?” Her voice was quiet and grave, but it still held that hint of authority I had noticed earlier.
“What if I don't want you to?” I said, but the words came out sounding childish, even to me.
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