by Julie Bale
Naked Ben. How delicious.
Outside the morning was fresh and as I popped in my ear buds, I knew it was going to be one hell of a hot one. But this time, this twilight before dawn, was the best time to run. It was quiet. Peaceful.
And for the moment my mind was silent.
I ran for nearly forty-five minutes and by the time I made it back to the loft, the first rays of sunlight crept across the horizon.
I waved to our doorman Joe, bypassed the elevator and didn’t stop running until I stood in front of the fridge and rooted around for the orange juice, which I confiscated and finished in several long, gulps. I closed the door and backed away.
And promptly came into contact with something warm and hard and very male.
My first thought was, holy shit Ben Lancaster felt great.
My second thought was that he smelled amazing, like mint and pine rolled together.
My third thought was that I hoped he was wearing something more than the boxers I’d seen him in earlier. Because I was pretty sure that Ben and me and his boxers wasn’t exactly what my brother had in mind when he’d left an hour ago.
“Sorry.” His breath was warm at my neck and, wait, was that his hand on my hip? “I didn’t mean to crowd you.”
I was willing to bet he wasn’t sorry at all and I was fine with that.
He had morning voice—that husky tone somewhere between sleep and awake. It had been a long time since I’d been anywhere near morning voice. It had been a long time since I’d been anywhere near a warm body, and I closed my eyes, willing time to stop for just a few moments. The sensation was that freaking amazing.
But then reality hit. I thought of Matt and gave myself a mental smack down. He’d only been gone for just over an hour and already I was fantasizing about how awesome his hockey player felt pressed up against my butt.
I needed to shut that shit down right away.
I sidestepped and took a peek. Track pants. Okay, this was good.
“You just back in from a run?”
“Yep.” I tossed the empty carton into the garbage under the sink and turned around so that I could see him properly.
Holy fuck. Ben Lancaster was something to behold in the morning. The shadows on his jaw and chin were much more pronounced than the evening before. I liked that. I liked stubble on a guy. His hair waved crazily and his hooded eyes were sexy as a slow grin spread across his mouth.
He was bare-chested, but then again, if I was a guy and I looked like that I wouldn’t be covering up either. And he was cut, but not overly beefed up like some of the guys I’d seen and the tattoo on his left bicep was yummy. I had a weakness for long hair and tattoos and it wasn’t fair to find all of that right here in my kitchen.
Not when it belonged to someone I’d been warned away from.
I was grateful he still wore boxers, because his track pants hung way too low on his hips and if not for the boxers I was sure I’d be staring at more than I should be staring at.
I exhaled and looked down.
His feet were bare. Shit. There was something about a guy in bare feet that I adored. I don’t have a fetish or anything but still, I found it hot. Could I not find something crappy about him? A wart? An extra appendage like a finger or a toe? A third nipple?
His eyes were as dark as melted chocolate and at the moment they were focused on me with an intensity that told me a few things.
It told me he was interested. It told me that Ben wasn’t afraid of my brother and his warnings and the over protective posturing he’d pulled the night before.
Perversely, I liked that. It meant he wasn’t a wimp. It meant that he was the kind of guy who took what he wanted and if I was reading the signals correctly, at this exact moment in time he wanted me.
Except he didn’t know the real me. The one who existed behind the medication. Behind the diagnosis.
The one who was bipolar. The slut. The train wreck. The one who was damaged goods.
I took a step back. I was pretty sure if he knew all my dirty little secrets he’d run the other way. Not that I would blame him, hell, it’s what I would do. Life was complicated enough without adding someone like me into the mix.
His eyes slowly moved from mine, downward. I knew my T-shirt was damp and I knew that it clung to my breasts. I also knew that my nipples were now pebbled and hard and that they were the reason his grin widened ever so slightly.
“Lancaster,” I said clearly. “Above the chest, okay?”
He took his time, but eventually honored my request.
“I’m going to take a shower and then we’ll have a look at the properties on your list. If we can, we’ll get to all of them today.”
“Sounds good,” he answered.
I moved away and was halfway down the hall when he said, so softly that I nearly missed it, “Let me know if you need help in there.”
“I’m a big girl, Ben. I can handle it.”
He just laughed, but his laughter followed me all the way into the shower and not even the hot spray could wipe away his morning voice. Or his sexy eyes.
Or those damn boxers.
Chapter Five
Ben
Georgia King was different from any girl I had ever met. We’d spent most of the day together and I still couldn’t figure out what it was that made her special, and after I while I stopped thinking about it. What was the point?
She just was.
She was smart and she made me laugh. She liked the San Francisco Giants, hated American Idol (though she admitted to a weird crush on Simon and was glad he’d left for X-factor), and was a big fan of Georges St. Pierre the UFC fighter. Most girls I knew had no idea who that guy was and I was impressed.
And she was gorgeous. The eyes, the long hair, the petite and graceful body. Hell, she stood beside me in line waiting for an ice-cream and I felt like a fucking giant.
I kinda liked that.
Somewhere between the property we just looked at, and the last one on our list, we stopped for ice cream at a little hole-in-the-wall kind of place just off the road. A hole-in-the-wall yes, but it was obviously well known. The lineup was impressive, but Georgia wanted a chocolate-chunk-peanut butter cone and I wasn’t about to deny her the pleasure.
Besides, what was sexier than a girl with an ice-cream cone between her lips?
“So, do you go to college?” I was curious and thought of her paintings. “Do you study art?” I wanted to know more than just her likes and dislikes. I wanted to know what made her tick. I wanted to know why the faces hidden in her abstract paintings were sad. Actually, they were kind of creepy with their abnormally large eyes and mouths that hung open as if they were frozen in a perpetual scream.
I knew it was art, but still…
I wanted to know why she was living with her brother when clearly, it was a new thing. Was it a bad break up? Had some guy broken her heart? Or had she done the honors?
She deflected with a question of her own and it wasn’t until we were back in my rental that I realized she’d never answered me. She cranked the tunes as we headed to our last drive-by, a place in Haddonfield, New Jersey and I wasn’t able to ask her anything more.
The house wasn’t as rural as I was hoping for but it was on nearly four acres of land and the listing said at 1.5 million it was a bargain. Built in the 1930’s it had been empty for a year or so and the property needed some work.
As soon as I saw it, I knew it was for me.
Set back among a stand of trees, it was Colonial brick with a detached four car garage and even though it had a general look of abandonment, I saw the potential.
Slowly I drove up the long, meandering driveway and parked the truck, my eyes on the house, already taking stock of what needed to be done. The roof and windows needed to be replaced immediately, that was a no brainer and as Georgia and I walked up the pathway that led to the front door, I realized the landscaping was going to be a major undertaking as well.
“Shit,” I murmured, already
half in love. My palms itched and I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face as I stood back and surveyed the large house. I glanced at the listing in my hands. Six bedrooms, four fireplaces, five bathrooms, and two kitchens. It was a family home. A place to set down roots and I wanted it.
I was twenty-four, single and loaded. I’m sure a lot of my buddies expected me to look for a place similar to Matt’s, but that wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t me. In Los Angeles I’d shared an apartment with one of the other rookies for year and had spent my last two in a condo near the beach. The view was cool, but I hated being cooped up with no room to roam.
I guess it was because at heart I was my father’s boy. I’d grown up on a farm outside of Toronto. I was used to space and I was used to physical labor. I wasn’t bred for a life of clubs and getting my workout in a gym. When I wasn’t playing hockey on the pond out behind our barn, or playing the game indoors at the local arena, I was helping out with chores around our farm.
One of the best summers of my life had been spent helping my dad restore an old cottage on our property. We’d finished it for his mom—my grandmother—so she could come and live with us after my grandfather’s death.
We worked every day to get it finished in time and I learned a hell of a lot about carpentry. About drywall and tiling and using a hammer.
I liked to fix things.
“Wow,” Georgia said softly and I glanced down at her.
I liked her.
“Yeah,” I answered, grabbing her hand. “Let’s take a look out back.”
The feel of her small hand in mine kinda twisted my gut strangely. She was soft and pliant and totally feminine. She looked like winter but smelled like rain.
Okay, I knew I needed to stop with that poet fucking shit, but I couldn’t help it.
Where had this girl come from?
The property out back was just as bad as the front, but again, the potential was amazing. There was an interlocking patio that ran the length of the home but with weeds sprouting everywhere I was thinking the entire thing would have to be replaced. A long abandoned pool sat empty and it was old—concrete—and would have to be replaced. The pool house was hardly visible by the bushes that surrounded it. A black iron fence enclosed the space and beyond, overgrown grass that would have to be re-sodded, stretched for several hundred feet. The perimeter was lined with birch from the looks of it and oak, maybe?
“Look.” Georgia nodded toward an overgrown path that cut through the mess out back and disappeared between the trees.
We picked our way through the tall grass and though she’d taken her hand from mine, I swear I still felt the heat of her on my skin.
She was wearing a soft blue tank top and the thin pink straps underneath kept drawing my eyes. Cut off jean shorts showed off trim, runner’s legs, and even though they were respectable—at least an inch or two below her butt—on Georgia, they looked sexy as hell.
On her feet were plain blue flip flops but she could be wearing a big ass pair of high tops for all it mattered. Her ankles were incredibly feminine, delicate even, and I found myself wondering what it would feel like to run my fingers along the indents working my way up her calves and then….
I exhaled a shaky breath because once again, just thinking about the girl’s fucking ankles had me horny as hell, and that in and of itself was weird because I was an ass man through and through. What the hell was up with that?
“Oh, Ben, look.”
I was looking. I was looking at her.
She’d undone her hair from the loose knot thing at the back of her neck, and it spilled over her shoulders like wet ink. Her skin was creamy white, and unlike most of the girls I knew, it hadn’t been sprayed with that fake shit that half the time looked orange. She turned back to me and the smile on her face was nearly too much.
It was pure. It was sweet.
And at the moment it was all for me.
She was unlike anything I’d experienced before. And that wasn’t because I’d never been around pure and sweet before. Heck, my first serious girlfriend, Joanna, a figure skater, was sweet and it took nearly six months before I made it to second base.
I never did make it to third and that wasn’t for lack of trying. At the time I thought I was in love with her and that she’d wait for me and as soon as I made it to the big leagues I’d marry her.
Of course that never happened. I moved away to play Junior A hockey and then went to University in Ohio on a hockey scholarship, while she finally let the local Pastor’s son make it all the way to home plate. Last I heard they got married right out of high school and she was happily pumping out a pack of kids.
Joanna had been pure and she had been sweet, but she hadn’t been for me.
But this one here, this girl with the exotic eyes, she was something special and the fact that she had no idea made her even hotter.
“Isn’t it awesome?”
“Yeah,” I answered, my feet suddenly blocks of concrete as I came to a full stop and just took a moment to take all of her in. The sun was starting to set in the distance and standing there in a beam of light, she was on fire. My blood was boiling and the need to touch her again was something fierce.
“What?” she said slowly, a slight frown between her eyebrows.
I found my feet again and took the last few steps that brought me to within a couple inches of her. That summer scent, the one that lived in her hair and on her skin, was in the air
“You smell real nice.” I spoke without thinking and tried not to wince. What the hell was wrong with me? You smell real nice? She was going to think I was some backward hick from the north.
Her eyes widened just a smidge and then she blushed. The girl full-on blushed. When was the last time I’d made a girl blush? Not in the last three years that’s for sure and I wasn’t going to count Sendin’s sister, Eve. First off she was only fifteen so that didn’t count and secondly, she’d sneaked a couple glasses of the rum punch from the King’s annual family Christmas party.
“Well, that’s better than the alternative I guess,” she said softly.
I didn’t answer. I just shook my head like an idiot.
“So what do you think of it?” she prodded.
“Your shampoo?”
“What?”
Okay, her eyebrows were really close together now and she was looking at me like I was crazy. Which, I probably was, but hell, what could I say? This girl had reduced me to a level of idiot that I’d not seen since I was fourteen when my mother caught me masturbating in the shower.
“Have you been smoking weed when I wasn’t looking? You’re not making sense.” She jerked her head. “I’m talking about the barn.”
Right. The barn.
What fucking barn?
I turned and saw it. The barn. A barn that was out in the middle of nowhere and just like the rest of the property it was rundown. But you wouldn’t know it by the look on Georgia’s face. She looked like she had just found buried treasure.
“Come on,” she said breathlessly.
She took off at a jog and I followed slowly, enjoying the view because I couldn’t take my eyes off her butt. Or her ankles.
By the time I reached the barn she had already yanked open the main doors and was inside. It smelled musty and even the power of her summer scent couldn’t hide the old, unused air.
I stood beside her and glanced around at nothing. There wasn’t anything inside the barn other than a couple of old pitchforks and a wheelbarrow that was missing its wheel. There was however a good amount of light filtering in on account of the gaping holes in some of the walls and the windows that had no glass. But the roof was good. There was that.
We poked around a bit and then I followed her back outside until we made it past the trees and stood in the middle of the knee high weeds in what would one day be an amazing yard.
“What do you think?” I asked, turning to look at her and surprised to find her gaze on me.
For a moment she said nothing, thoug
h she didn’t need to, her shiny eyes said it all. “It’s perfect. It’s more than perfect.” She closed her eyes and whispered. “It’s so quiet and…still.”
I turned in a full circle, my decision made as I nodded.
“Yeah, it is.”
Chapter Six
Georgia
I was up at my usual four in the morning staring at the bottle of klonopin in my hands. I’d shoved it beneath the underwear in my top drawer because I hated looking at it, but this morning I sat on the edge of my bed, fingers running along the top of the container as I stared at concrete evidence that yes, I was damaged.
I wasn’t whole or normal, no matter how much I tried to forget about what the pills I took meant, or how when my mind started to race, it was enough to freak me the hell out and I would eat klonopin like it was fucking candy.
I was afraid to take the drug on a regular basis because of Zoe. She was a girl I met when I was in the hospital and she’d been totally addicted to klonopin. She lived and breathed the shit and it made her into a real life zombie. The Walking Dead had nothing on her. She was a boring, washed out walker, who did nothing but read the same book over and over again and haunt the halls of Oak Run in pajamas with little pink panthers all over them. God, she didn’t even wash her hair unless one of the nurses helped her.
I had a feeling she traded sexual favors from some of the other patients, in exchange for their klonopin. Drugs were easy enough to hide if you knew what to do.
I knew I was supposed to take klonopin regularly in addition to my regular dose of lithium, but I was so afraid of the addiction and how the pills made me feel, that I’d been weaning myself off them for several weeks now. I wasn’t having too much trouble sleeping and I hadn’t had a manic episode since the infamous walk through the quad next to my dorm dressed in only my underwear, brandishing a confiscated steak knife.