And after yesterday, he had no intention of ever—ever—letting another man have her.
He’d fixed her. She was his.
Now he just had to prove it to her.
Ben’s vision returned and he realized he’d unwittingly made his way back around to the Cabildo. And whether good fortune or Providence, a nanosecond later he saw her. A slow, predatory smile spread across his lips. As luck would have it, she was wandering around the very place he’d intended to take her to start with.
How very fortuitous.
He glanced at his watch. They’d be inside the building within three minutes, and he’d be inside her in four.
Moving stealthily, Ben doubled back and blended in with a group of people headed in her direction. As they walked past, he cut from the group, stole up behind her and carefully put his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming.
She jumped, but quickly recovered and a muffled laugh sounded against his hand.
“Walk in front of me and do exactly as I say,” he told her, playing the hunter role to the hilt. “Follow the alley next to this café around back.”
April nodded and set off at a brisk walk, evidently as eager as he was to advance the game.
“There’s a back door coming up on the left. Knock once and someone will let us in.” She did as he asked, and thankfully, his well-placed call had paid off. The door opened and they were ushered inside a kitchen, heavy with the rich scents of coffee, chicory and beignets. A client of his owned this particular café. It was open twenty-four hours a day and was a local hot spot.
Which made what they were about to do even more fun.
April turned and shot him a questioning glance, awaiting more instructions, he supposed. “I’ll take it from here,” he told her.
He threaded his fingers through hers, then swiftly led her through the kitchen and into a small hall where a hidden door led to a staircase above the restaurant. Very few people knew about the secret room, which was used to entertain the odd celebrity or city official who longed for a little privacy. It was a parlor of sorts, complete with its own private bath.
When he popped the door open, the look of surprise on her face was priceless. “How did you—”
“Silence,” Ben told her. “Prey isn’t supposed to question the power of the hunter.”
She chuckled and followed him swiftly up the stairs, her feet beating an excited tattoo against the carpeted treads. As per his instructions, a carafe of coffee and order of beignets awaited them.
But they were for later.
The instant April’s feet hit the landing, Ben tugged her roughly to him, kissed her hard and started tearing at her clothes, an idea she evidently appreciated because she tore equally as frantically at his.
Shirts flew, pants dropped, a shoe hit the wall, her bra landed on a lamp shade.
Thankfully, underwear was not an issue.
Feeding wildly at her mouth, her breasts, her neck and ears—anywhere he could taste her—Ben lifted her up and backed her against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck and sighed as his dick nudged her center. He gritted his teeth. She was hot, wet and ready and he wanted her so desperately he thought he’d die if he didn’t take her right then.
With a guttural cry that tore from his soul, he buried himself to the hilt inside her. Pumping frantically, he was driven by a need so fierce he could scarcely understand it, much less contain it.
He pistoned in and out of her, her sweet body absorbing his thrusts with a welcoming heat that seeped into his bones. “You make me crazy, you know that?” he asked brokenly.
April laughed. A fine sheen of sweat coated her body and her smile was delighted and satisfied, desperate and starving. “Not as…much as you…make me,” she breathed raggedly. “I’ve been thinking…about you all day. This. You inside me.” She closed her eyes, clenched around him. “I can’t tell you how good it feels,” she said, her voice a keening cry of pleasure. “It’s like I’m coming apart inside…and I want to shatter.”
He knew exactly what she meant. He wanted to be with her—and in her—all the time. She was his better half, the yin to his yang…the girl he’d always wanted.
“Oh, God,” she said breathlessly, her thighs clamping around him. “It’s—I’m—” Her head suddenly became too heavy for her neck and she let it drop forward onto his shoulder. She bit him lightly and tensed as the beginning swirl of climax started sucking her under. He could feel her throbbing around him, getting ready to come. “Oh, sweet heaven,” she growled, her voice desperate and husky. “I need—I want—”
Me, Ben silently supplied and, locking his jaw, he pounded into her harder. Her back slid against the wall and she bounced beneath him, riding his dick until he thought his legs would break and his balls would shatter. Me, dammit. You want me and you’re always going to want me because I love you. I’ve always loved you.
Her feminine muscles suddenly clamped around him. She stiffened, tightening her legs and met him thrust for thrust.
“Oh, sweet heaven,” she growled. “Yes. It’s…there!” she screamed, her voice breaking into a loud cry he muffled with his own mouth. He ate that sound, savored it, then before she could finish, he let her down from the wall, and bent her over the nearest chair, driving hard into her from behind.
He wrapped an arm around her waist, slid his hand over her belly and into her curls, then found her hot button. “Hang on, baby. You’re in for a bumpy ride.”
Then he fingered her clit, pumped deep and fast and hard, could feel his aching balls slapping against her hot, weeping flesh.
She swore. She grunted. She begged. She whimpered. Her breath came in short broken puffs. “Oh, please. Son of a bitch. Oh, sweet Jesus, Ben. That’s…wicked.”
He knew…and that’s why she liked it. He’d given her tender. She was due for a little down and dirty.
His legs quaked, his thighs burned and holding himself back had probably caused himself irreparable harm, but he wasn’t going to stop until he tore another orgasm from her. She was close, he knew, he could feel her tensing around him with each frantic thrust into her tight heat. He bent down and sank his teeth into the skin where her neck met her shoulder. A light bite, but it did the trick nonetheless.
She broke.
Another stream of inventive obscenities streamed from her lush mouth and she collapsed over the arm of the chair, spent, finished and sated. Three thrusts later, Ben joined her there.
He came. Hard.
So hard in fact that nausea threatened and his vision blackened around the edges. It took every vestige of strength he had left in his body to maneuver them to the small couch against the wall. He pulled a throw from across the back and draped it over them. Light jazz seeped into the room from outside along with the hum of voices and clanging cutlery through the floor. The scent of coffee, powdered sugar and sex perfumed the air.
Still breathing raggedly, April curled trustingly against him. “You know what?” she asked, her voice rusty from sexual exhaustion.
“What?”
“You just reeled me in.” No pretense, no subterfuge, just the good old-fashioned truth.
Ben stilled, felt a tentative smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He was too damned tired to smile. “I did?”
“You did,” she murmured. “What about you? Are you reeled in yet?”
He let his head rest against hers and a small chuckle bubbled up from his throat. God, he was tired. “Babe, I’ve been netted, filleted, battered and fried.” His lids drifted shut.
A soft laugh whispered across his chest. “You sound good enough to eat.”
Ben’s eyes popped open. Surely to God she didn’t mean—He couldn’t—Well, he could, he supposed. He’d find the energy somewhere. But—
“Later,” she finished weakly, and he fell asleep to the tune of her breathing, safe at last in the arms of her love.
11
“DO YOU THINK ANYONE would notice if we spent th
e night here?” April asked a couple of hours later. She was still deliciously naked, curled up next to Ben while sampling a beignet and nursing a lukewarm cup of coffee. Surprisingly, it was still good.
“I doubt it,” he said, reaching over to wipe what she supposed was powdered sugar from the corner of her mouth. His gaze tangled with hers and he deliberately licked his finger.
Sweet mercy.
He’d wrung her out—taken her against a wall, then bent her over a chair—and yet a single look made another achy twinge tumble in her exhausted loins.
“Why?” he asked. “Do you want to spend the night here?”
“Not necessarily,” April told him, swallowing. “I, uh…I just want to spend the night with you.”
Falling asleep in his arms a little while ago had been a surprising pleasure. Ordinarily she didn’t sleep well with another person in the same bed with her, much less on a cramped little couch. And yet she’d dozed off easily with Ben, had listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her ear. It had been…special. Effortless. Right. Just like everything else between them.
“Well, you can certainly do that,” he told her. “My place or yours?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Yours is closer,” Ben said.
She nodded. “Then mine it is.”
“Is this your way of telling me that we’re finished playing hunter?”
April shot him a tired smile. “The prey is exhausted.”
“Interesting,” Ben said, setting his coffee cup aside. His lips slid into a sexy grin and he helped her stand. “The hunter did all the work.”
Feigning outrage, April gaped at him. “All the work? I seem to recall a bit of effort on my part.”
He shrugged sheepishly. “Okay, maybe not all the work.”
She gave an imperious little nod. “Thank you.”
Ben slid the pad of his thumb down the side of her face. “You are most welcome.”
They took turns using the small bath, then dressed and quietly made their way back downstairs. Ben walked her to her car, then she gave him a quick ride to his SUV and he followed her home.
The walk to her door was a quiet one. There was something almost…reverent about this step and it deserved the respect of silence. April inserted her key, flipped the lock and ushered him inside.
While her home wasn’t quite as grand as his, it was beautiful nonetheless with a lot of craftsmanship—crown molding, wainscoting and ornate fireplaces and plaster. She’d spent a small fortune having the floors refinished and every bit of the plumbing and electrical had been replaced. She let go a small, expectant breath. But it was home, it was hers, and she loved it.
A firm believer in light therapy, she always left some sort of illumination going, be it a stained glass lamp, or a night-light. A small antique lamp burned on her kitchen counter, giving off a homey glow that warmed her inside.
“This is beautiful, April,” Ben said, inspecting the kitchen. Given the work he’d had done on his own home and the general expertise he had in architecture, she was pleased with his assessment.
“Thanks.”
“Did you do the renovations or had they already been done when you bought the house?”
April set her purse down and hung her keys on the hook next to the door. “I did them. What I couldn’t manage myself, I had done.”
“You’ve done a helluva job. Would you mind showing me the rest?”
She hadn’t expected the request, but given his passion for old things, she wasn’t all that surprised, either. “Sure.”
She gave him the grand tour—both upstairs and down—then finished up in the living room, her favorite spot in the house. “This room has been a labor of love,” she said. She shot him a look. “Some fool put oil-based paint over the fireplace tiles and I had a horrible time getting it off.”
Ben quirked a brow. “I can imagine.”
She crossed the room and smoothed a hand over the rosewood mantle. “It’s taken me a while,” she admitted. “I could have mortgaged it and had everything done a lot faster, but I prefer to cover the cost as I go.”
His gaze sharpened. “No mortgage?” he asked, seemingly impressed.
April managed a smile. “A combination of savings and trust fund.”
He inclined his head knowingly, rubbed the back of his neck and slid her a hesitant glance. “You didn’t want to invest your trust fund?”
She chuckled. “You sound like my dad’s accountant. He said the same thing. In fact, he almost had a seizure when I refused.”
Ben was thoroughly intrigued now. He knew she was smart, obviously had a head for business or couldn’t run her own successfully. “Why did you refuse?”
She considered him thoughtfully. “If I tell you, I’ll have to break Rule Number Two.”
Evidently that was hint enough. He pushed his hands through his hair and stared at her. “Let me guess. Your mother.”
April nodded, felt her jaw harden. “My house, my rules. I’ll never sell it, I’ll never mortgage it,” she said matter-of-factly.
A flash of respect kindled in those pale whiskey orbs, making her blush and look away.
“That’s certainly easy enough to understand,” he said, making his way across the room toward her. Taking her hands and pulling them around his waist, he gazed down at her, with respect and something else, something just beyond her understanding twinkling in those compelling eyes. “You’re one shrewd woman, you know that?”
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I had sense enough to seek you out, didn’t I?”
Ben chuckled. “That you did.”
April lowered her voice. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad I’m here, too.”
“You ready for bed?”
Ben smiled softly, then hid a yawn behind his fist and followed along behind her. Her bedroom was her sanctuary. Papered in blue toile with crisp white linens and accented in pale yellow, it was soothing yet warm. She’d bought the bedroom suite at an estate sale, one of her favorite pastimes.
Walnut with rosewood inlay, the huge four-poster bed dominated the room and was positioned in a bay window that appeared to have been specifically designed for the frame. The measurements were perfect. The chest of drawers, dresser, highboy and nightstands were all marble topped, ornate and beautiful.
As though they’d been doing this forever rather than for the first time, they readied themselves for bed with surprising ease. April’s bathroom was equipped with his and hers vanities and she’d managed to dig out an extra toothbrush from a drawer—a complimentary gift from her last trip to the dentist—for Ben. She listened to his manly sounds as he prepared for bed and felt a keen rush of emotion expand in her chest, pushing a smile on her lips.
They strolled back into her bedroom—he automatically avoided “her” side—and slid beneath the covers. Ben bellied up to her back, slid an arm around her waist and sighed contentedly into her ear. Inexplicably, tears stung the backs of her lids.
“She was wrong,” April whispered softly, settling in as a wave of contentedness and joy wrapped her in the swaddling haze of rekindled love. “I won’t be sorry.”
CAREFUL TO KEEP his breathing even, Ben lay beside April and felt the rest of his body atrophy with dread.
She was wrong. I won’t be sorry.
His lips twisted bitterly. He didn’t have to guess who the she was in that statement. It was horrible that what was obviously one of her mother’s dire predictions could infect what should have been the perfect conclusion to the perfect day.
April had all but told him that she was in love with him. They’d had passionate, mind-boggling, soul-sharing sex this evening, then had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. Ben swallowed. Tonight he was sharing a bed with the woman he loved and yet, due to Rule Number Two, her vindictive mother and evasive father, he couldn’t relax and fully enjoy it.
The lie of omission was there between them, set to tear them apart again if he didn’t fes
s up and tell her the truth.
Or at the very least, make someone else tell her the truth, he thought ominously.
He hadn’t spoken to Marcus Wilson in years, so approaching the man now and telling him how to deal with his daughter was probably not going to be met with a warm reception. But he’d be damned before he’d let anything—or anyone—ruin what he and April had rediscovered.
And he knew from experience that her mother wasn’t above doing that very thing.
Honestly, the whole damned thing was a powder keg ready to blow. If April found out that he knew about Davy and Marcus’s living arrangements and hadn’t told her…
Ben mentally swore.
She’d cut him out of her life, Ben thought. Just like she had her mother. Not that he could blame her. Morgana had made her wretched, had controlled every aspect of April’s life from the instant she was born, to the instant she left her house. What she wore, what she ate, who she befriended, even who she loved.
Her mother had micromanaged herself right out of April’s life, and nothing showcased that fact more than the house he currently slept in.
Rather than investing her trust fund—which in the long run, properly invested, she could have easily tripled—she’d bought a house. And a fantastic house at that, Ben thought. He’d felt the loved and lived-in connection instantly, that same quality that drew him to other old houses, but stronger somehow. April, no doubt. She’d imprinted herself onto it. He could feel her here, as well.
Nevertheless, how many women her age owned their own home, free and clear with no mortgage? Very damned few. Hell, he made an exceedingly comfortable living, but even he had a mortgage.
No, she’d been so determined to leave that house—her mother’s house, specifically—and never come back that she’d bet it all on a home of her own. I’ll never sell it, I’ll never mortgage it. Powerful words, a powerful woman.
And with every second that ticked by, the lie of omission swelled between them, became more important, more destructive. With every instant that passed, with every emotion that deepened between them, that lie gained momentum.
Getting It Right! Page 12