by Nina Lane
He shrugged. “A few. Some flings and one-night stands in college. The usual fooling around.”
“No one serious?”
“I dated a girl for a year in grad school, but when I was offered a vice-principal job in Portland, she didn’t want to move. So that was the end of that.”
“Do you ever want to get married?” I asked.
“Only if it’s right. So far, it hasn’t been.”
My heart tightened. If I were single, younger… I might have been the woman who was right for Ben Hunter. Then a wave of guilt hit me because if anything in my past had been different, I wouldn’t have Noah and Emma. And every single day of my life revolved around my children. This was the first time I’d ever made room for anyone else.
“So what grade did you teach?” I asked, no longer wanting to talk about Ben’s past relationships.
“I taught fourth grade for a couple of years and substituted for a while, but I always had my eye on a principal job.”
“I’ve seen you with the kids at school,” I told Ben. “You’re really good with them.”
He was, too—one of those people who is naturally comfortable with children. They liked him in return because he was funny and engaging, and he didn’t talk down to them the way most adults did.
“What are your summer plans?” I asked, as Ben put a glass of wine in front of me.
“Workshops, administrative stuff, scheduling the new six-day class cycle.” He brought two plates to the table and sat down. “We need a new art teacher for next year, so I have to recruit and hire. I could use your help.”
“Parents don’t have a say in faculty recruitment. Even PTO parents.”
“You’re not just any parent, Maddie.”
“Well, I do already have a list of potential candidates,” I admitted. “On a spreadsheet, of course.”
He smiled. “I figured you would. Aside from work at Sweetwater, I’m going to an education conference in Vermont at the end of July. Three days. Registration is still open for you.”
My heart kicked against my ribs. I would have dearly loved to spend several days in Vermont with him, but July was three months away, and I had no idea what would happen between now and then. I couldn’t imagine us continuing this affair any more than I could imagine ending it.
“We’ll see,” I said evasively, picking at the baked potato with my fork.
“Maddie.”
I forced myself to look at him, though I knew just the sight of him would weaken any resolve I possessed. He was watching me, his beautiful eyes darkening to navy.
“Ben, I’m… you know how things are. I can’t make plans like that. Not now.”
His mouth tightened. “I’m not letting you go.”
Though his possessive tone warmed me from the inside out, I shook my head.
“You can’t say that.”
“The hell I can’t.” He pushed his plate away with a sharp movement, his expression hardening. “You’ve been mine since I saw you at that board meeting. You just didn’t know it then. Now you do. And no fucking way are you pulling away from me.”
“There are other people involved…”
“No.” He slammed a hand down on the table, so hard it shook. “There’s no one else. It’s you and me, Maddie, that’s it. You will not use other people as a goddamned excuse because you’re too scared to face the truth.”
“Ben, I’m married!”
He shoved to his feet and put his hand under my chin, turning my face to his. Anger blazed in his eyes, a storm-tossed sea.
“Married?” he repeated, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You call what you have with that fucker a marriage? You’re not married. You’re trapped in a situation that’s sucking the life out of you, and I’ll be fucking damned if I’m going to stand there and watch you go back to it. That perfect Madeline Collins with her rigid schedules isn’t the real you. The only time you’ve ever been real is when you’re with me.”
His words pounded through me in time with the beating of my heart. My blood burned, a thousand wishes and longings pouring through me. He was right. With him, because of him, I felt real for the first time ever.
“Ben.” I pulled in a breath, my lungs tight and aching. “I can’t destroy my life for you. I won’t.”
“Your life is already destroyed,” he snapped.
He was right. My so-called perfect life was already destroyed. He just didn’t yet know the extent of it.
“I have… I have children,” I said.
“I know.” His expression darkened. “You think your marriage is doing your kids any good?”
“What do you want me to do?” I cried, getting to my feet. “Leave my husband, take my children, and go with you… where? Do what?”
“Whatever the fuck we want!” Ben spread his arms out, like he was encompassing the world. “We can go anywhere, do anything.”
The sheer expansiveness of his plan bolted through me like a flame, kindling ridiculous dreams of us exploring the world together. With effort, I pushed the images aside.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ben,” I said tartly. “What happens to your job and my family? The school principal and the PTO president running off together? We’d be the laughing stock of the whole community. They’d ruin us.”
“That’s your problem, Maddie.” Ben paced to the windows, clenching and unclenching his fists, frustration radiating from him in waves. “You’re too fucking worried about what other people would think instead of what you want to do.”
“I have to be worried about other people,” I retorted. “Do you want to know what’s not real, Ben? Us! We’re not real. This is an illusion, a fantasy. It’s all fine and good to talk about running away together when we’re hiding in your beach house, but in the responsible adult world where we both live, it’s not real!”
“Then why the fuck am I falling in love with you?” Ben shouted.
I gasped, stumbling backward. I grabbed the back of a chair as every single emotion in the universe seemed to war for supremacy in my soul. His words ricocheted inside me, filling me with a riotous storm of colors and light that made my heart spin.
Love.
Oh, God. We couldn’t fall in love. It was an impossible feeling in an impossible relationship. This wild, untamed connection between us had nothing to do with love and everything to do with surrendering to our forbidden attraction and giving free rein to the lust arcing between us like lightning bolts.
“Ben.” His name trembled on my lips. “I…”
Any response died in my throat. I couldn’t tell him I loved him any more than I could tell him I didn’t.
We stared at each other, the air charged with hot, crackling energy. Then he bit out a curse, grabbing his jacket as he stalked outside. The door slammed behind him.
Pain squeezed my heart in a fist. I watched Ben walk toward the beach, his stride long and rapid. The sky was darkening with gray clouds, the wind whipping through his blond hair. His broad shoulders were hunched, his head down, his hands shoved into his pockets.
Every part of me ached for him. My beautiful ocean boy.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‡
I waited half an hour for Ben to return. When he didn’t, I scraped our uneaten dinner into plastic containers and put them in the fridge. I washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, then went to take a bath.
Lowering myself into the hot, soapy water, I suppressed the tears tightening my throat. I wished I’d never allowed any of this to happen while simultaneously knowing it had changed me forever. Ben had changed me forever.
I slid deeper into the water. There was no way this affair could continue. I knew that as well as he did, but I was the one who was married and had a family. I was the one who had the most to lose. I was the one who had to end it.
I drained the tub and washed off the bubbles in the shower before wrapping myself in a fluffy towel. Surely Ben was back by now.
Pulling on a white cotton robe, I stepped into the darkened hall
way. Why were the lights out?
I fumbled for the switch on the wall. A shadow moved beside me. I started, my heart leaping into my chest.
“Ben?”
A big male hand suddenly wrapped around my throat. I tried to scream, but his fingers tightened. Panic rushed through me before my senses became aware that this man was all too familiar—the touch of his hand, his scent, the muscular bulk of his body behind me…
“Ben?” I whispered, swallowing hard.
“Madeline.”
His voice was deep and husky, edged with a hard tone I’d never heard before. He smelled like salt and wind. His cold lips touched my ear.
“The safeword,” he murmured, “is starfish. Say it, and I stop. Don’t say it, and I keep going.”
Keep going with what? I curled my hand around his wrist. He wasn’t gripping my throat tightly, but the mild pressure made my heart race with fresh alarm.
“Do you want to say it?” he asked.
I shook my head. Tension rippled through him. He turned us both, shoving me face-first against the wall with the strength of his body. I closed my eyes, my cheek pressed to the cold plaster, my blood quickening at the sensation of him pushing against my back. He thrust his other hand into the opening of my robe, roughly fondling my naked breast. He pinched my nipple, sending a shock of electricity right to my sex.
“Now?” he asked, tightening his fingers around my throat.
I shook my head again.
Ben shoved his pelvis against my ass. Even through his jeans, I could feel the hard ridge of his erection. A flame flickered in my core. His breath was coming faster, tangible lust uncoiling in his body. He lowered his head, pressing his face into my hair. His breath scorched my skin as he dragged his lips over the shell of my ear.
“Say it.” A ragged plea discolored his voice. “Goddammit, Maddie, say it.”
“No.”
He swore, unlatching his hand from my throat. “Get in the fucking bedroom.”
I pulled hot air into my lungs, still feeling the imprint of his grip as I stumbled to the bedroom. The bedside lamp spilled a circle of pale light around the room.
I reached the bed and turned, my gaze clashing with his. Fear and excitement warred inside me. Ben’s eyes were darkened to black, hot with a feral gleam, a flush cresting his sharp cheekbones. His hair was rumpled, his chest heaving with the force of his breath. Stripped of any gentleness, he was untamed, verging on wild.
I stepped backward. My legs hit the bed, and I sank onto it, trembling. Ben closed the distance between us and grabbed my robe, yanking it open with one hard pull and pushing it off my shoulders. A rush of cooler air hit my skin, still damp from my bath, and I had a sudden, intense urge to cover myself. I crossed my arms, unable to look up into the darkness of what Ben had become.
He grabbed my wrists, yanking my arms away from my breasts.
“Don’t you fucking dare hide from me,” he hissed.
He fisted a hand in my hair, hard enough to hurt, and guided me down off the bed.
“Now get on your knees and suck my dick,” he ordered.
Oh God.
Lust streamed through me, centering on the increasing throb of my sex. I was naked from the waist up, the robe still clinging to my lower body, and I pressed my thighs together to relieve some of the aching pressure.
“Do it.” Ben’s hand tightened in my hair.
My heart racing, I brought my hands to his fly and unfastened the buttons. His cock pressed against my fingers. I struggled to breathe as I pulled his jeans off and reached for his boxer briefs. His erection sprang upward like a living creature, the tip glossy with moisture. He tugged my head back, arching my throat, and pushed his cock into my mouth.
Panic fluttered inside me. He was impossibly big. And when he started to thrust, I had to remind myself to breathe. I wrapped one hand around the base of his shaft, bracing the other on his thigh.
“Ah, fuck, that’s good.” He groaned, pulling my head forward so his cock hit the back of my throat. “Suck it nice and hard now…”
He thrust forward again. I gagged. He loosened his grip on my hair just enough to let me pull back before he plunged in again. I slackened my jaw, inhaling when I could, letting him fuck my mouth as deeply as he wanted.
He reached down to put his hands on my breasts, massaging them forcefully and twisting my nipples. After fucking my mouth a few more times, he pulled out, his stiff cock slapping the side of my face.
“Get on the bed.” Ben yanked me to my feet, his muscles tensing. “Show me your pussy.”
A shudder rocked through me. I let my robe fall to the floor and moved back on the bed, spreading my legs. I was wet both from the bath and a shocking degree of arousal, my clit pulsing in time with the rapid beating of my heart.
Ben stared at me, his eyes burning. Then he turned and strode out of the bedroom.
I pushed to my elbows, alarmed. Surely he didn’t mean to just leave me here like this…
A drawer banged shut from one of the other rooms. Ben returned to the bedroom, his erection swaying in front of him, so thick and hard my sex clenched with the urge to feel him plunge deep inside me.
Then I realized he was holding several lengths of rope in one hand.
Rope. Fear charged though my blood. I scrambled backward on the bed, fisting my hands in the comforter.
Ben’s gaze raked my body, moving up my breasts to my face. We stared at each other, the air drenched with heat. He waited. Even as my fear intensified, I knew nothing in the world could make me say the word starfish.
I shook my head.
Ben climbed onto the bed and grabbed my arms. I winced, trying to stop the fear from turning into outright panic as he lashed my wrists with the rope, then tied them to the headboard.
My body stretched like a bow, my breasts lifting. Ben’s expression was a tight mask of lust as he moved to the foot of the bed and grabbed my ankle.
I flinched. His grip tightened. He fastened another rope around my left ankle and tied it to the footboard, then did the same with my right. I pulled at the restraints instinctively, shocked and ashamed by such utterly indecent exposure. I was on full view, every part of me opened and visible to Ben’s hot blue gaze.
He got between my spread legs, sliding the head of his cock over my folds before plunging into me so hard and fast my entire body jerked. I struggled to move, but the bindings were inexorable. A sudden panic filled me.
“Ben,” I gasped, clinging to the ropes. “Ben, I’m…”
He thrust again and again, driving into me as if he were punishing me. So hard it hurt. My breasts bounced and shook. His balls slapped against me with a wet, smacking noise, and his feral eyes raked my bound, helpless body. He made no attempt to rub my clit or stimulate me in any way, as if in this moment, I existed solely for his pleasure alone.
“So fucking hot,” he hissed, driving into me. “I’m not finished with you. I’ll never be finished with you. You’ll spread your legs for me whenever I want, you’ll writhe around begging for my cock. You’re mine, goddammit, mine…”
I winced, struggling to take the sheer power of his thrusts, feeling as if he were driving into the very core of my being.
He wrapped his hand around my throat again and squeezed. I dragged in a breath through the constraint, the pressure firing me with a fierce combination of fear and an emotion that I didn’t want to name, couldn’t define. Tears filled my eyes. A burn scorched me from the inside out.
Ben pulled out of me, his chest heaving as he unfastened the restraints and ordered me to get on my hands and knees. Shaking and panting, I did. I silently prayed he wouldn’t tie me again, but he lashed my wrists to the headboard and moved behind me to spread my legs.
I closed my eyes, embarrassed by how I must look—sweaty, exposed, and so aroused my juices dripped down my inner thighs.
“You don’t get to come,” Ben said, pushing his fingers roughly into my slit. “No fucking way.”
I groa
ned, unable to fathom how I could stop the wild ache unraveling every last thread of my self-control. Ben took his hand away, positioned his cock at my opening, and thrust. I shrieked, the forceful entry pushing me forward again. He felt enormous in this position, his thick, veined shaft stimulating my inner walls to unfathomable degrees. My clit throbbed.
“Ben,” I gasped, trying to writhe back against him. “Oh, Ben, please let me come.”
He slapped my ass, the smack echoing through the crazed sound of my heartbeat. Endless moans spilled from my throat, noises that didn’t even sound like they were coming from me. I pressed my wet face into the pillow, consumed by the urge to do whatever he wanted of me. My back arched, my bottom cheeks cleaving open indecently.
“Beautiful,” Ben muttered, his voice ragged as he pumped into me. He gripped my bottom, his fingers digging painfully into my damp skin. “Tighten your pussy around me… ah, that’s right… I’ll never get enough of you, Maddie, never. So tight… so hot…”
I flexed my fingers and pulled uselessly on the ropes. My muscles shook with the effort of maintaining this position, staying fully open for him. He braced one foot on the bed and fucked me, a relentless pounding that stripped me of all thought and submerged my existence into his.
Then he pulled his cock out of me and pressed it against the tight ring of my anus. Outright fear lanced into me.
“No,” I gasped, twisting to look at him over my shoulder. “Ben, no.”
He paused, his hands gripping my ass, holding my cheeks apart. “Say it, Maddie.”
I stared at him through the veil of damp hair that had fallen over my eyes. He was breathing fast, his muscular body rigid with restraint and urgency.
Our gazes clashed. Something shattered inside me, glass breaking, melting, dissolving. Even in the midst of this overwhelming eroticism, a sudden truth blazed through me, both painful and achingly sweet.
His. I was his. And I knew he wanted to hear the safeword because if I told him to stop, if I gave him that out, he hoped it would then be easier to walk away from each other. But leaving Ben would never be easy, and never would I give him the slightest hint that he didn’t possess my full trust and my entire heart.