by Cassie Cross
I just…I can’t hear that right now.
“I’m sorry, I just remembered that I have a…I have a thing I have to attend to over there.” I hope I sound as friendly as I’m trying to sound, and not completely like I’m bailing, even though Caleb knows me well enough to know that I’m bailing. “I’ll see you two before you leave?”
Mia gives me a friendly smile. “Maybe we can meet up for coffee sometime?”
I nod. Yes, coffee. “Sure, that sounds wonderful.”
I practically trip over my own feet as I make my way to the door, desperate for some fresh air.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Murphy Building is an exquisite structure in a city full of exquisite structures. Sure, its cracked marble stairway needs some repairs, and the grand, ornate columns along the front that stretch up toward the sky aren’t as polished and unblemished as they used to be. In a place like New York—where every inch of real estate is precious—the fact that such a beautiful building fell into this state of disrepair is appalling.
It’s always been one of my favorite places in the city, ever since I was old enough to climb to the top of the stairs on my own. I’d look out at the crowded streets full of taxis and buses, the sidewalks packed with people hurrying from here to there. For the first time in my young life, in a city that is so easy to get lost in, I felt big.
My nanny would take me on picnics here on my first and last days of school. She’d lift me up onto the short marble ledge that ran along the East side of the building, then pull herself up to sit beside me. We’d eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and dangle our legs while we ate, our heels clicking against the concrete wall.
Ben kissed me for the first time on the steps of this building. I was a freshman in college, and he was a sophomore. We met in the library at Columbia, when Ben bumped into me in the stacks. I had my arms full of books, and he helped me carry them to my table. He took a seat next to me, and walked me through Professor Calderon’s syllabus. He had taken a class with her the year before, and was familiar with the assignments.
He sat a little too close, his shoulder brushing mine. We leaned over the paper together, smiling at each other as I made notes in the margins. He smelled like soap and spice, and I wanted to know what his full, pink lips tasted like.
Later that afternoon, we went on a New York native’s tour of our favorite places. He walked me across Bow Bridge, and I brought him here, to this building. There was a street performer playing the violin, and Ben danced me across the promenade. We both laughed when he dipped me, and after, he brushed the backs of his fingers across my blushing cheek. I was breathless from wanting him so badly, and when his lips touched mine, I knew my life wouldn’t ever be the same again.
If I knew then about the heartbreak and the pain that would follow that perfect kiss, I wonder…would I have done anything differently?
“Hey.” Ben’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.
I wish I could say that I’m surprised to see him standing here, but that sixth sense of his must be in full effect tonight. I’m definitely feeling emotionally vulnerable, so of course he found me.
“Hey,” I reply, trying really hard not to notice how good he looks in his suit. It’s completely unfair, really. He looks like he’s just stepped out of a magazine, or he’s fresh off of a runway, or like he’s getting ready to go deep undercover in some ridiculous spy movie. The most unfair part of it is that I know he looks this good with absolutely no prep time whatsoever. He probably just stepped out of the shower, towel dried his hair, and got dressed.
I know that routine from experience, because I’ve seen it before with my own eyes. The reminder of that intimacy we used to share tugs at my heart, and I do my best to tamp it down. Feeling all fuzzy and reminiscent about Ben is what gets me into trouble, every damn time.
“You look beautiful.” His voice is soft, and there’s the hint of a smile on his lips.
“Thank you,” I reply. I think about telling him that he looks good, too, but I’m not sure if I should. That might take the conversation in a direction I’m incredibly unprepared for.
“May I?” Ben motions to the empty space beside me on the bench.
I move to the right, making a little more room for him. “Sure.”
As Ben sits down, my gaze wanders over to the empty arrival lane in front of the building. There aren’t any cars there. Everyone who’s going to show up to this benefit is already inside, and that was a pretty low number. I feel a depressing little wave roll inside of my stomach.
“You’re late,” I tell him.
He looks down at his hands. “I know. I’m sorry, I got held up in a meeting that I couldn’t get out of. I wanted to be here when-” He stops himself from saying whatever it was that was going to come out of his mouth next.
“When what?” My curiosity is always going to get the better of me when it comes to this man.
He shrugs. “I didn’t want you to be here on your own. Not that you would’ve been, I mean, I just know that…”
“Caleb told me that you were pretty well-versed on my situation with the architectural board.” I’m aiming for light and breezy, because I don’t want to reprimand him, but seriously…why does he know so much about what’s been going on with me lately?
“My mother brought it up over brunch not too long ago.”
Okay, so his mother fed him the information; he wasn’t driven by his own curiosity to go out looking for it. The realization makes me feel…well, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t like that the first emotion I felt was disappointment, that’s for sure.
“Mia will be glad you’re here,” I say, twisting my fingers together on my lap.
Ben grins. “You met her?”
“She and Caleb are inside, forgetting that there are other people in the room,” I tease.
“Yeah, they tend to do that.” Ben huffs out a laugh.
“They seem really happy.”
“Disgustingly so, which is probably the best kind of happy to be.”
It’s odd, hearing Ben talk like this. Being wistful about relationships really isn’t his thing. It didn’t used to be, at least. His elbows are resting on his knees. He keeps rubbing his palms together, and looking down at them as if they hold the answer to some kind of question that he hasn’t asked aloud.
“Probably. It was nice of him to come,” I say, trying to fill up the silence that feels like it’s stretching into forever.
“But you’re surprised to see me.” Ben looks at me, understanding written all over his face.
No point in lying now.
“I am.” This isn’t the first time we’ve both been invited to the same function, but it is the first time I’ve seen him at one since we broke up. I know that’s not a coincidence. “Showing up at my house the other day, talking to Oliver and Caleb about me, being here…why now?”
He shrugs, and looks down at his hands again. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that he was nervous. But Ben Williams has never been nervous around me, unless he was worried that he was about to get caught in some kind of a lie.
“I’ve missed you, Marisa. I asked Caleb to come here tonight, because I was worried that it might be difficult, seeing you.”
“You just saw me,” I say with a short laugh. “A lot of me.”
I’m desperate to lighten up this conversation. I need something to loosen up this knot of longing that’s coiling up in my stomach, making me want him again. It won’t end well, I tell myself for the thousandth time. It never ends well for me when Ben is concerned.
“I asked him to come here before I went to see you the other night. Do…” He rubs the back of his neck. “Do we need to talk about that? About what happened?”
“No,” I reply, my eyebrows scrunching together. “Why would we need to talk about it? It was just sex, Ben. That seems to be what most of our relationship was built on.” I’m not even bitter about it at this point, it’s just a simple stat
ement of fact, one that took me years to come to grips with.
“Marisa.” Ben has a way of saying my name that sends a shiver down my spine, electrifying every nerve ending down to my toes. This time is no different. His voice is deep and serious, and my eyes are immediately drawn to his. “You were never just sex to me.”
I roll my eyes, because that is such a typical, smooth, old-school Ben thing to say, and it helps me remember to keep my wits about me when things between us start to get hot and heavy. Because they will again, I know. I’d be foolish to pretend otherwise.
Ben must get the hint that I don’t want to delve any further into that particular conversation, because he asks, “Why are you out here?”
“Mitzi Vandergraff,” I say. “She was reminding me of my failures earlier, and…well, there’s a lot going on in there tonight, and not much of it is good. I thought that getting some air would help me…” I motion to my head, “get control of what’s going on in here.”
“What did Mitzi do this time?”
“She reminded me that she wanted me off of the architectural board, and that she was right to want it, judging by the turn out tonight. And is she wrong?” I ask, feeling like I’m just teetering on the edge of being hysterical, even though I’m trying so hard to put a lid on that. “This thing with my parents is tainting the fundraising. Who wants to rub elbows with the daughter of people who stole from them?”
“Anyone with half a brain knows that you didn’t have anything to do with that, no matter what the tabloids say. And Mitzi doesn’t fall into the category of people with half a brain.”
I want to smile, but I just can’t. I shake my head, then fold my arms across my chest. “I really want to fix this building, and I let my pride get in the way.”
“A lot of good things happened here,” he says, and I wonder if Ben actually remembers what some of those things were, if he remembers our first date. I wonder if he remembers all the times we came here together after. “I can’t imagine anyone more capable of fixing this place.”
They’re the words I needed to hear at the moment I needed to hear them. I’m going to blame that rush of emotion on what I do next.
I lean in, and press my lips against his. I grip his lapels and pull him close. This isn’t smart. It isn’t smart, but I don’t care.
I whisper, “Make me forget about everything that’s happened. Just…tonight, please. Make me forget.”
* * *
“When did you get this scar?” Ben asks, sliding his rough hand along my shoulder. In the post-orgasmic bliss that followed round one, I didn’t kick him out of my bed, a decision that I’m sure I’m going to regret sooner rather than later.
“When I was seven,” I reply, nuzzling my head into my pillow. I don’t really feel like having some personal, deep, explore-our-scars together conversation, but this is literally a superficial question, and I don’t want Ben to go just yet. It’s still kind of early, and I’m counting on at least another couple of orgasms before I set him free. “My mom had this Shih-Tzu that I’m positive came straight from Hell. It hated me. I was lying on the floor one day reading a book, and it attacked me for absolutely no reason. I had to get stitches and everything. The rabies shot really scandalized my mother.”
Ben lets out this low, breathy chuckle. The pad of his thumb skims the raised flesh of my scar, and the bed shifts as he leans forward and presses a kiss to it. I can’t help the physical reaction that his tenderness teases out of me, and goosebumps break out across my skin. If he feels me shiver after, thankfully he doesn’t say anything about it.
“I never noticed it before,” he replies quietly.
I open my mouth, a cutting remark finding its way right to the edge of my tongue. I clamp my lips together before I let it out, though. After we just had pretty amazing sex, when I’m comfortable, and Ben is running a soothing hand up and down my skin, it doesn’t feel right to take a dig at him.
This, he notices. And he speaks up. “You can say it.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I lie.
“Yes you were.” The words are soft, and not accusatory at all. “You can say it.”
“I was just…” Even with permission, giving voice to my thoughts doesn’t feel right at all, but I know that Ben isn’t going to drop it until I confess. “I’ve had that scar for years. You’ve seen me naked how many times, and you never noticed it before?”
His hand stills. “I didn’t notice a lot of things about you when I had the chance.”
I hate the way the tenderness in his voice tricks me into thinking that he means what he’s saying. How many times have I heard a line like this from him? How many times has he held me in his arms, told me how much he regretted the way he treated me, and promised to do better in the future? He knows these are words that get to me, that saying them like this will make me weak. The making up, the convincing, those are the parts of this that he’s so good at, and they’re the reasons I need to watch myself whenever I’m with him. It’s so easy to believe what he says, to believe that he wants this and that we can make it work this time.
God, I want to believe him. It would be so easy to let his words wrap around me, and to lose myself in this thing between us. I’ve been burned by him too many times, though, and I’m not sure I could come back from it another time.
“Ben,” I whisper. “Please don’t.”
He gives my shoulder a gentle tug. I don’t fight it, and roll over until I’m facing him.
“Hey,” he says, crooking his finger under my chin.
It takes a moment for me to bring my eyes up to meet his. If I could just do all of this without having to look at him, to see what I always want to believe is honesty in his eyes, then maybe keeping this strictly sex would be easier.
Ben leans forward, gently brushing his lips against mine. “I know I hurt you,” be begins, tangling his fingers in my hair. “I know there’s nothing I can do that will ever erase that. But I want to try and make up for it.”
“You don’t have to make up for it,” I reply. There’s a knot in my throat growing tighter by the second, and the more he talks, the more difficult it’s going to be for me to keep the tears from falling. It was stupid of me to let him back into my life, back into my bed, but what’s done is done.
“I do need to make up for it. I want to make up for it.”
“Ben.” I have no idea what I’m going to say next. What can I say? He’s never said these exact words to me, but the sentiment is usually the same. He’s sorry he hurt me, he won’t do it again.
This time isn’t any different. It’s not any different.
“I’m so sorry. For everything. I loved you then, but I needed time to catch up with what I was feeling. I never stopped loving you, I still-”
I press my lips against his to get him to stop talking. I cannot hear the words he was getting ready to say; they would be the beginning of the end for me, and I’m barely hanging on as it is.
Instead, I kiss away his declaration with frantic, unbridled passion, our lips and tongues tangling together.
“Okay,” he says, when he both pull away breathless. “Okay.”
I get the sense that he’s giving up today, but he’s not giving up forever. I need to occupy his mind before anything else happens that we can’t take back, so I slide down his body, watching goosebumps pucker all over his skin as I trail my fingernails along the hard lines of his abs. God, his body is perfect. Always has been - it’s almost not fair.
I settle myself between his legs, then plant my hand on the mattress beside his hip, using the other one to stroke his already rock-hard length.
He thrusts up into my hand, lets out this strangled, sexy noise when I close my lips around the tip of his cock.
“Fuck,” he says, easily distracted. He wraps his big hand around the back of my head, and I open my mouth to him, sliding my tongue along his length. “That’s it,” he says. “I love your mouth.”
These are the only words I can han
dle from him right now.
CHAPTER SIX
“So,” Corinne says, running her fingers through her hair. “How did the fundraiser go?”
We’ve been chatting for about fifteen minutes, mostly about Corrine’s course load. She must have known that I didn’t want to talk about it, given that she held out for so long to ask.
I take a deep breath, and purse my lips together, figuring out what exactly I want to tell her. That Mitzi Vandergraff is a bitch? That she was right? Do I tell her about Caleb and Ben, or do I just keep it simple? She’s pretty good at reading me, so she’ll know if I try to sell her a lie.
“It didn’t go so well,” I admit. “We didn’t meet our goal. It was basically a public exercise in humiliation for me. And the board, I guess, since I was on it.”
“Let me guess,” Corrine says with a sigh. “Mitzi Vandergraff strikes again?”
I shrug, then run my fingertips along the edge of the quilt on my bed. “She wasn’t wrong this time, though. I should’ve removed myself from the board like she wanted. Fighting my removal was selfish, Cor. If I really wanted to get the money for the restoration, I wouldn’t have fought them just out of spite.”
“You didn’t stay on out of spite,” Corrine says with a gentle smile. “You love that building; you’re more qualified to fight for money to restore it than anyone else on that board is.”
“That’s exactly why I should’ve stepped down.” Since I left the benefit early, hoping that the absence of my presence would compel people to donate if they wouldn’t have otherwise, Mitzi had to call me to give me an update on how much money we raised. Her slightly gleeful tone as she let me know that we missed the mark has been haunting me ever since I heard it that day.