“Ben,” she moaned and tugged off my shirt and slicked a tongue over one nipple and then the other. Her hands roamed my body while her mouth did wild things to my chest, my abs. “Too many clothes,” she growled and worked on the buttons and zipper of my pants until my cock sprang free. “Better,” she panted and flashed a playful smile up at me. “Much, much better.”
Seeing Joss so hungry for me, so intense with raw need that she clawed at my back to get closer, that she growled as she attacked my mouth, was more than enough to know we would be fine. “Joss.” My head fell back with a moan as she wrapped her mouth around my cock and made a sound that vibrated from my balls all the way up my spine. “Fuck, Joss.” She laughed which created even more vibrations and my knees nearly buckled.
She smiled up at me and add both hands to her blow job, a move that nearly dropped me to the floor. The sight of her on her knees with her eyes closed, paying attention to nothing but my pleasure, was a pure mind fuck and I was on board for it. “Mmm,” she growled and that was it.
“Joss.” It was too much and as much as I wanted to let her finish, I needed to be inside her. “Come here,” I growled and lifted her onto the closest flat surface, the kitchen table. “Here we are again.”
Her laugh came out as a purr and when Joss tipped her head back, my tongue and lips scraped up the length of her neck and her jaws. “This seems to be our favorite spot. Mmm, yes. More, please.”
“What the lady wants,” I growled and took her mouth, devouring it as I slid two fingers into her wet, waiting heat.
“Oh, god!” Her hips swirled and pushed against my fingers, making my cock oh so jealous and I gave her what she wanted, plunging in and out, giving her shallow thrusts that made her want me more. “Ben. Please.” She gasped the words after she tore her mouth from mine, smiling as she licked her lips and pulled me in for another kiss.
This. Right here. This was what I wanted, what I needed and I took everything Joss offered me and gave it back to her times ten. She was slick with desire and her hips gyrated hungrily and when she pulsed around my fingers, I was a goner. “Joss.”
“Ben.” The way she panted my name and slid closer to the edge of the table, telling me exactly what she wanted, what she needed with her body, it was intoxicating. “Ben.”
“Joss,” I growled and put my fingers in my mouth. “Just. One. Taste.” I gave her chest a gentle push until she was on her back and swiped my tongue through her folds and deep inside her.
“Oh my god!” Her hips bucked off the table and I did it again. And again. And again. “Ben,” she said, her voice a warning.
She was close.
“I’m right here Joss.” And then I was right there, sliding into her wet heat until my eyes rolled in the back of my head at just how perfectly she fit around me as she pulsed and coated me with her desire. “Oh fuck.” That extra grind to her hips blew my mind and the way Joss met each of my thrusts with one of her own sent starbursts shooting out the back of my eyes. “Joss!”
“Yes, Ben! Yes!” She clawed at my back when I leaned over her to taste her again. Our mouths fused tightly and my hips pounded hard and fast, and so damn deep I didn’t know where she ended and I began. And even weirder, I didn’t care. All I cared about was the pleasure we both chased down as if it were a matter of life or death, which it felt like.
The need I had for her was so intense it swamped me, entranced me so that I could think about was pulling the next moan from her, making her cry my name with that little squeal that made my cock leak. When she growled, I gave her longer, deeper strokes and when she mewled I added my thumb to her clit.
It was a frenzy of need, so wild and full of passion that I couldn’t contain myself, couldn’t stop myself from plunging her mouth as well as her body and taking my pleasure as Joss fell apart around me, squeezing the life out of my cock until my own orgasm came, shocking and powerful, out with hers. “Holy shit, Joss.”
Her body continued to twitch and clench around me as she heaved breath after breath, in search of more oxygen. “Wow.”
“Even better than holy shit.”
She laughed. “It was a well deserved ‘wow’.”
“I’m prepared to earn it again,” I told her with a smile, earning a laugh.
The timer went off. “Maybe later?”
“Definitely later.” I hadn’t had my fill of her but I would before the night was over.
“Well, what do you think? Best home cooking you’ve ever had or what?” My body felt like I’d just been through a two hour massage after an incredible orgasm and a smorgasbord of my mom’s cooking, and I couldn’t stop smiling.
Joss smiled. “The food is delicious. It is beyond delicious, my compliments to the chef. Both of you.” Her words were sincere but suddenly, a sinking sensation came over me.
“Thanks.” How I managed to choke the word out around mac & cheese that had suddenly turned to sawdust in my mouth, I’ll never know. “Talk to me Joss, tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours.”
She sighed and shook her head. “That’s not really our thing is it, Ben? Talking about our feelings. Or having feelings.”
“What do you mean? We’re friends and that means we can talk about anything.” Just because I didn’t like to talk about my feelings didn’t mean we couldn’t.
Joss smiled but it was filled with regret. “We’re not friends, Ben. I like you and I like sleeping with you, but we are definitely not friends.”
“Ouch.” I put an unconscious hand to my chest and rubbed the stinging part, stunned by my own actions. “I don’t think that’s true.”
She nodded and pushed away from the table, tugging the too short t-shirt over her bare bottom. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
“What? Why?” I felt my face twist into a frown as I stood quickly, sending the delicate kitchen chair on it’s back. “Joss, why?”
“Why?” She sighed and folded her arms, keeping the distance of the table between us. “Because we don’t want the same things.”
“That’s not true,” I insisted because it wasn’t. I wanted a long term relationship. A wife and kids, eventually. Some day.
“Okay well, we don’t want the same things with each other Ben. Even you can’t deny that.”
I couldn’t, but I wanted to, even more as she sat there with a smug expression on her face, so sure she knew my answer. “Joss, I explained this to you.”
She let out a bitter laugh accompanied by a nod. “You did and I, stupidly, thought your actions meant you’d changed your mind. Now that I know it was my mistake, it’s time to end this. Whatever it is.”
I don’t know what made me more upset, the fact that she seemed more resigned than upset about everything or that she was ending it. Neither felt good, but I was grasping for a target for my own anger. “I took you out, I thought we understood each other.”
“I did too,” she flashed another of those not quite a smile, smile and leaned back against the wall, determined to keep her distance. “But then you took me as far away as you could without leaving Texas, to avoid anyone seeing us together. That’s when it clicked. That’s when I knew that you hadn’t changed your mind at all, you just found a way to get exactly what you wanted without giving up anything.”
“Hey, I never made you any promises.” My anger now had a target and I aimed a finger in her direction, warning her not to paint me as the bad guy.
“You never did, no.”
Damn, that was totally unsatisfying. “So what did I do wrong?”
“Nothing. I wanted you Ben, all of you, even if it would’ve made working together messy. I would have risked it. For you. But you don’t feel the same way and I can’t pretend not to see it. I can’t let your constant subtle rejection break me. I won’t.”
“I’m not rejecting you, Joss. I’m protecting us both.”
“I never asked for your protection. What I want you won’t give, so let’s just not do this part. We had a good ti
me together and I don’t think we should end this on a nasty note.”
“You knew you would do this when I showed up, didn’t you?” She nodded and I felt…gutted for some reason. “So why did you sleep with me? To drive the knife deeper when you told me to get lost?”
Joss’ head fell forward, her blond hair covering her expression but not the heavy sigh she let out before her blue gaze met mine. “Because I love you, Ben. I can’t resist you and we both know that. I had to have you one last time.”
One last time. It sounded so final and I hated that. “You can’t resist me but you’re kicking me out?”
“I have to protect myself. I can’t give you just the part of me that you want, it doesn’t work that way.” She looked away and swiped at a tear, a move that felt like a roundhouse kick to the gut. “But don’t worry, I won’t make things awkward at work. I promise.”
“I’m not-,” I was about to tell her I wasn’t worried about that, but it was a lie and the sad smile that crossed her face said she knew it. “I appreciate that, Joss, but I didn’t think you would.”
“Now you have a guarantee. Life can go back to normal.” She pushed off the wall and finally closed the distance between us, dropping a chaste goodbye kiss on my cheek and giving my shoulder a squeeze before she disappeared into her bedroom, closing the door with a gentle click that felt like a boom.
I wanted to go to her, to argue that she was wrong about everything but the tears in her eyes let me know it was pointless. I’d hurt her and she was done with me.
For good.
I got dressed and left, feeling like I’d just lost out on something really great but I didn’t know what.
Joss
I did the right thing. For both of us. I knew it to be true, well my head knew it to be true but my heart just wasn’t sure. So whenever those nasty little thoughts started to work their way to the foreground and distract me from work or chores, or anything really, I told myself that. I did the right thing.
The problem was that forty-eight hours after the fact, Ben Rutherford was all I could think about. It was inevitable because we worked together, and seeing him every day wasn’t easy, but I knew it wouldn’t be. I had fallen in love with a man who would never return my feelings, and worse, was perfectly happy to keep me in limbo until he was ready to venture out into the world and find his very own happily ever after.
That sounds bitter. It did, I could acknowledge that, but I felt no shame in that face because I was bitter but not angry. I was bitter because things had played out exactly as Mara had predicted but it was my fault for succumbing to the same thought patterns that led millions of women to think that they were special, that they would defy the odds. That they wouldn’t become part of the statistic. It wasn’t Ben’s fault and as much as that made this whole situation ironic, I refused to be the angry ex.
Even though I wasn’t, technically, his ex-anything.
But I had managed two full days of maximum avoidance, only catching glimpses of Ben throughout the school day, and I considered that a win. A big one, since I managed to make it to the end of soccer practice without another glimpse of him, which meant I hadn’t seen him since lunchtime. A big damn victory.
“Good job girls!” I blew the whistle and motioned for them to gather around as we did at the end of each practice.
“I totally screwed the pooch on that kick, Coach Callahan. I’m sorry.” Shelly’s shoulders fell in disappointment and I couldn’t help but smile. The girl placed too much on her delicate shoulders, but she would succeed in whatever she did. I was sure of it.
“You just kicked too hard, Shelly. Take a breath and then kick. It’s a soccer ball, not your ex’s face.” That sent the girls into a round of laughter. “We’ll work in it tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
“Absolutely. We only have a few more days until the next game, so I’m here for whatever you need. We win this one, and I think we will, we’re two games away from being the champs. Again.” A round of loud cheers and claps went up around the field. “One more thing girls.”
“Run a few laps,” Becky, a junior, joked.
“One more interruption and it might be on the table,” I shot back with a smile. “I just wanted to say how proud I am of you ladies this season. Not only have you done everything asked of you to get this far into the season, but all of you have at least a B average and that’s just incredible. You should all be proud of what you’ve accomplished this year, because I am damn proud of you.”
The girls all flashed proud smiles, some were shy about it and others stood a little taller and smiled a little brighter. It was an incredible thing, to see these girls coming into being young, accomplished, college-bound women.
“Okay, now practice is dismissed. Get outta here!”
You wouldn’t know it was the end of a two hour practice with he way they ran full speed towards the locker rooms, but that was the beauty of youth. They were full of endless wells of energy whereas I was exhausted from the simple act of avoiding Ben, of pretending as if my heart wasn’t shattering into a million pieces every time I saw him laughing with a group of teachers.
It was just another thing to laugh bitterly about when I was alone, the awkwardness of trying to avoid my ex who was also, technically, my boss. In a strange way, I now understood why Ben didn’t want to get romantically involved with someone at work. The avoidance just made me feel petty and immature, but the awkwardness was unbearable.
“Hey Coach C, you have a minute?” Tanisha’s voice pulled me from my silly thoughts and I turned with a small as I shoved the last soccer ball into the bag.
“What’s up, Tanisha?”
“I got a scholarship offer! A full ride too and it’s all thanks to you.”
“You got your grades up and kept them up Tanisha, and you’re the one out on the field, not me. Great job.”
“Thanks but without you riding my as, ah, butt, we both know I’d be trying to get a job waiting tables for the next hundred years. You think I’ll do well in Florida?”
“I think you’re the type of woman who will do well wherever she lands, Tanisha. Florida isn’t that far to go for a free education, because then you can go wherever you want, even right back to Pilgrim.”
She let out an obnoxious laugh. “If I can avoid that fate, I will.”
“Then go and when you graduate, go somewhere else. The choice is yours.”
“Thanks Coach.” In an uncharacteristic show of emotion, she wiped away a tear, hugged me and then ran off, which suited me just fine since I was a little emotional myself.
Moments like those are why all good teachers do this work and it happened so rarely that each act of gratitude was memorable. Tanisha’s words put a little pep in my step and made me feel a less childish for walking around the building rather than through it to get to my car in the staff parking lot.
It was ridiculous, I knew that, but for now it was the best plan I had.
“Hoping to avoid me?” Ben’s silhouette, rather than his deep voice, startled me out of my thoughts and pulled a loud scream from me.
My heart thundered and I did my best not to look him directly in the eyes, for my own peace. When my heart rate was under control, I nodded. “Yes,” I answered honestly. There was no point pretending I wasn’t avoiding him.
Ben’s shoulders fell and hurt flashed in his eyes. “Do you hate me that much?”
“No Ben, I don’t you.”
“Good,” he flashed a smile and stood taller, squaring his shoulders and puffing his chest out a little. “Then you’ll have dinner with me tonight?”
I wondered when he would try to act like nothing had changed between us, wondered if he would offer up another cursory outing meant to appease me. It had come much sooner than I would’ve thought and though I was tempted, beyond tempted, one of us had to be the adult. “No, I won’t. We don’t do that anymore and even if we did, I have plans.” The dumbfounded look of surprise on his face was exactly what I needed to bo
ost my courage for dinner tonight.
With my brothers.
Half-brothers.
Ben
“Plans. She has plans. Can you believe that?” I shook my head in disbelief for at least the fifth time since Xander and I walked into The Mayflower. “Plans. What does that even mean?”
Xander took a long sip of his beer and let out a long, deep sigh. “In my professional opinion as a law enforcement officer and a man of keep observational skills, I’d say it means that Joss has plans.”
I grunted in frustration and shook my head. “Duh. But what kinds of plans? And with who?” She hadn’t stuck around long enough for me to get any details. “She was vague on purpose, right?”
He shrugged. “Or maybe, hear me out now, she didn’t tell you because it is none of your business. Besides, why do you care so much when you didn’t even want to be seen with her in public?”
I glared at him. “Who told you that?” My gaze narrowed suspiciously. “Mara.”
Xander held his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Nobody told me anything, well no one but you. That French place is great for a date but it’s even better for a secret date.”
“Not you too?” Did no one understand. “I have my reasons.”
“And Joss has hers, so just move on. It’s not like you’re ready to commit to her. Publicly.” Xander sighed, shook his head and finished off his beer. “I’m hungry, let’s go grab some pizza.”
“Might as well since I don’t have any plans.” It ate at me that Joss had plans, so much that I couldn’t even bring myself to drop by her house just in case she’d gone back to Time for Love to find her match. I paid for the beers and we walked out into the picture perfect night that was Pilgrim, only tonight it didn’t seem so perfect. “Hey, Mara probably knows about Joss’ plans.”
“Probably,” Xander said, his tone noncommittal.
“Xander.” You’d have to be blind not to notice that something was going on between the two of them, no matter how tight-lipped they both were about it. “You could ask.”
Misbehaving Curves: A Boss Romance Page 12