The Five Stages of Falling in Love

by Rachel Higginson

  I could picture him as the distant father Ben had known most of his life, but he wasn’t that man anymore. I found myself extremely satisfied with this realization. I was proud of Ben for loving his father through the rough years and working to cultivate this new relationship they had begun to forge.

  “Liz, we’d love to meet the kids,” Sharon announced over store-bought lemon bars- I appreciated that about her. She was a very good cook, but she claimed desserts exceeded her limitations. Apparently this was Ben’s favorite. And I liked that even more. I liked knowing this about him. I liked that he had a favorite and I’d found out this way.

  I tried not to analyze that too much.

  “Sure,” I told her. “We don’t start school for a couple more weeks, so we’re pretty available.”

  Sharon looked at her husband and then turned back to me. “We were thinking about taking everyone to the lake. We thought we could go for a weekend? We’ll bring the boat this time.”

  “The kids had so much fun over the Fourth. They would love that.” I answered as Ben’s hand landed on my bare knee under the table. His thumb trailed a path up along the outside of my thigh. I shivered from the touch, but felt the encouragement he meant to give me.

  “He told us,” Sharon grinned. “We cannot wait to see for ourselves.”

  “I have to admit that I’m surprised you’re both so… accepting of me and all my children.” The words slipped out before I could think better of them. I internally winced when I saw Sharon glance at Ben uncertainly.

  I knew they were just doing their best to make me feel welcome and maybe ease the awkwardness of an unexpected situation. I doubted they hoped their only child and heir to the family firm would ever become serious with a woman like me. With a woman who had as many children as me.

  “Oh, Liz…” Sharon sounded heartbroken at my words and I wished I could shovel them back in my mouth and swallow them whole.

  My chest stung with a pain that I had caused. I opened my mouth to explain, but Mark beat me to it.

  “I have to admit, Liz, that we were surprised when Ben told us that you two were dating, but only because you finally said yes.” His teasing smile helped shift the atmosphere back to friendly again. “From the first day he met you, we have heard stories about his next door neighbor and all her kids. Slowly those stories took on an affectionate note and then grew into something more. We’ve always known how Ben felt about you and your family. We just didn’t know if you would ever feel the same way after everything you’ve been through. We couldn’t be more thrilled that you’re here tonight, Liz. We couldn’t be happier to see our son so happy. You have to understand that Ben has never given us much of a say in his life. He does pretty much whatever he wants and we respect him for that. He makes wise decisions. And I can’t help but see that he made a brilliant one with you. Of course, we accept you and all of your children. Anything that could make our son this happy is more than worthy of our approval.”

  Ben’s hand left my knee to slide over my shoulders and rest around me. He pulled me closer to him and pressed a kiss to the top of my head while I tried to control my emotions.

  “See?” he teased. “They’re not so bad.”

  I blinked up at him and gave a watery smile, before turning back to Mark and Sharon. “Thank you. That means a lot to me. Thank you.”

  Mark winked at me, “Whatever he’s told you about me, I only live up to about half of it.”

  I laughed lightly, enjoying his sweet humor. “I can see that.”

  Sharon waved a hand in front of her face and dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her napkin. “No, you’re worse!” she cried at her husband. “You weren’t supposed to make me cry over dessert! Nobody should cry over dessert!”

  “She’s never going to come back if you keep it up, Mom.” Ben’s hand played with the sleeve of my white and yellow printed blouse, feeling so familiar that my body and soul couldn’t help but notice. “You’ve ruined lemon bars for her forever.”

  “That’s not true!” I gasped. “This night has made lemon bars for me. Forever.”

  We settled into easy conversation after that and I could truly say I enjoyed my evening. By the time Ben parked in his driveway and walked me to my front door, I couldn’t stop smiling. His parents were great. He was great.

  And sometimes, I was great too.

  At my door, I turned to face him and his hands settled on my arms. He pulled me into a hug and sighed contentedly.

  “I really like your parents,” I confessed into his chest.

  “Good,” he breathed. “Thank you for going with me tonight. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

  “Well, I’m not easy for you, so I figured I owed you.”

  His chuckle vibrated through his chest and made me fall for him just a little bit more. I tried to hold out, I tried to stop this fall… but I was helpless against this man that had wiggled his way into my life and made me need him, made me want him.

  “You do owe me,” he murmured, dipping his head to capture my mouth with his.

  I fell into the now familiar rhythm of our kissing. His lips molded against mine, tasting and savoring each brush and nip. His tongue swept over the seam of mine until I opened my mouth for him and gave him a deeper touch.

  His hands fell to my hips and held me tightly to him. His fingers tugged at my blouse until he could slide them beneath the silky fabric and caress my bare skin.

  My breathing hitched as one of his hands slid higher, nudging the underwire of my bra. His kiss intensified, heightening each of my senses and causing me to drown in lust for him. His lips moved over my jaw, down the column of my neck and across my collarbone.

  “Liz,” he whispered as he pushed me against the door, trapping me against his hardened body.

  I gasped as his kisses turned slowly sensual. His mouth returned to mine and I felt overwhelmed with the sensation of him, with his virile touch and his consuming worship of my body.

  He grew increasingly desperate as we continued to kiss in the shadows of my entryway and the light of the moon. His thumb brushed over my nipple, hidden behind my lacy bra, and I thought I would collapse. My knees weakened and my thighs trembled. I hadn’t expected to feel this much with him. I hadn’t expected to become so intensely turned on from his seductive touches and mind-blowing kisses.

  He caught me by sliding his thigh between my legs. My desire hitched even higher and I dropped my head against the glass screen door, completely lost to Ben and whatever he wanted to do to me.

  His lips moved back down my throat, licking a sensual path. His tongue delved into the hollow of my throat and I whimpered. My usually cluttered mind completely emptied and all I could do was feel.

  The porch light flicked on and we jumped apart, both of us breathing heavy. I planted my hands on the glass behind me and tried not to melt into a pool of lust.

  Ben watched me with heavily-lidded eyes. His chest breathed raggedly and I could feel his desire from a foot apart.

  I wanted him too.

  And I didn’t know what to do with that.

  “I’m going to ask Emma to watch the kids overnight next weekend.”

  His words hit me with a punch of reality. I stood up straight and tried to keep from panicking.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  He reached out and tangled his fingers with mine. His touch was so light, barely there, but I felt it to my toes. My mind swam with lust and fear, with heady desire and breath-catching anticipation.

  But I couldn’t go that far with him. I couldn’t take those finalizing steps.

  I had so many feelings for him and I’d given up so much of my heart. This… sex… felt like it was the only thing Grady still owned completely.

  Maybe that was a harsh exaggeration, but it was the only tangible thing I had left to save.

  “We don’t have to have sex,” he rushed to explain. “But I want one night where I don’t feel rushed to leave you. I want one night where I ca
n kiss you for as long as I want and not worry about having the police called on us or one of the kids walking downstairs.”

  “Ben…”

  “We won’t have sex.” He ran a hand over his jaw and some of the drowsy hunger cleared from his gaze. “Okay? We won’t. I’ll turn down your advances. I won’t let you seduce me.” I couldn’t help but laugh at him. “Just spend the night with me,” he pleaded gently. “Stay with me one night.”

  “Okay,” I heard myself whisper without any hesitation.

  His lips broke into a staggering smile. “Good.”

  The door opened behind me and Emma found us staring at each other like moonstruck teenagers. I blinked back into reality and untangled my hands from his. “Thank you for introducing me to your parents, Ben. I had a great night.”

  “I thought you might.” He leaned forward and placed one more kiss on my forehead. “Goodnight, Liz.”

  I stepped inside and Emma and I watched him walk back to his house.

  “Sorry,” she groaned. “I didn’t realize it was you at the door.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Did I interrupt anything naughty?” Her singsong voice did nothing to disguise her hopeful tone.

  “Not tonight.”

  She pushed my shoulder until I faced her completely. Her eyebrows rose comically and her eyes bugged, waiting for more information.

  “He wants me to spend the night next weekend.”

  Her screaming excitement, excitement I had yet to feel, woke Jace and Lucy.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Friday came too fast like a train barreling down the tracks that I could not stop.

  We only had a couple more weeks until school started, so I had been filling up our days with as much activity as I could fit in.

  And maybe I had been trying to avoid thinking about tonight.

  Ben had been as much a part of our lives as usual, only now, when the kids were asleep in their beds, his touches would linger, his kisses would push boundaries and his intentions were made clear.

  I had given him permission when I agreed to spend tonight and he had spent the last week building my anticipation and preparing me for what was to come.

  But he had promised no sex and since I knew without a doubt that I wasn’t ready for sex, I bound his words against my nerves and tried to be brave.

  “Good luck tonight,” Emma whispered when she showed up a few minutes before Ben.

  “Nothing is going to happen,” I whispered back. She gave me a “yeah, right” look. “Seriously, Emma. Even if… even if I thought we were ready for that, I just can’t be intimate with someone else. It’s too weird.”

  “Give me a break,” she sighed. “You deserve a night like tonight. Relax and have fun. Forget about the other stuff.”

  “You’re a terrible sister. You’re supposed to support me, not Ben.”

  “I do support you!” she hissed. “And I support the very clear reality that you need to get laid!”

  Ben walked in the house without knocking, which was now his way, and we shut up.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, glancing between Emma and me.

  “Yep!” Emma practically shouted at him. “We’re just peachy.”

  My body flushed from my toes to the top of my head. I tried to smile at Ben, but I had to look half-deranged.

  Ben’s eyes darkened with concern. “Is this your bag, Liz?”

  “It is,” I croaked.

  “I’m going to take it outside. Come out when you’re ready?”

  I nodded, anxious to have another moment to myself. The kids were happily eating dinner, but when they realized Ben was here, they chased him out the door to say hello. With a few moments to ourselves, Emma put her hands on my shoulders and got right in my face.

  “You will survive this night,” she promised.

  “I’m not sure that I will.”

  “You will. Ben will be there to walk you through it.”

  “Will you be disappointed in me if we don’t do anything more than sleep?”

  She shook her head and let her blonde waves bounce around her chin. “Never,” she promised. “I just want you to be happy again… however that happens.”

  I nodded, acknowledging that I had the best sister in the entire world. “You’ll call if there are problems?”

  “Obviously.”

  “If I text you code red, you’ll call and make up a problem?”

  “Lizzy, I will set your house on fire if you need me to. Now go!”

  “Okay, I’m going.” I paused in the doorway and turned back to her, “Em, no matter what I text, do not set the house on fire.”

  She rolled her eyes and waved me off.

  The three of us wrestled the kids back inside so I could give them each a kiss and a hug and then Ben set us off on our date… our date that was supposed to last us all night long.

  “Where do you want to get dinner?”

  I looked up at him, startled by his question. “Oh.”

  His mischievous grin brought all kinds of fluttering feelings to life inside of me. “You did want to get dinner, didn’t you?”

  “I-I, um, yes.”

  He took my hand and swung me around to face him, pausing on the sidewalk between our two houses. “Or did you want to go straight to my place?” He dipped his head to place a slow kiss along my jaw, sending shivers racing down my back.

  “Dinner is good,” I squeaked.

  His dark chuckle did nothing to help prepare me for the night ahead. “We’re taking tonight at your pace, Liz. We can do whatever you want tonight. I promise not to ravish you before you’re ready.”

  As if those words were going to calm me down. “I know.”

  “You’re shaking,” he pointed out.

  “I’m nervous.”

  He pulled back so that I could stare into those fathomless dark eyes. He held my gaze, long enough for me to know that he was serious. “Do you trust me?”

  I took a breath. “I do.”

  “Then trust that I want you anyway you’ll let me have you. There’s nothing else to worry about tonight.”

  Those words were all I needed. We climbed into his little car that was free of fast food wrappers on the floor and stickers stuck to the windows. He took me to one of my new favorite restaurants, one that he had introduced me to.

  We had a fantastic meal and then took a long walk through downtown, admiring the summer night and holding hands.

  Everything with Ben was new and thrilling. Sometimes my mind compared him to Grady without my permission, but for the most part, this man next to me was so very different than my first husband that I could keep thoughts of them separate.

  When Grady held my hand, it was the feeling that had been with me for a decade. It was a love that had grown from a seedling into a mature, unbreakable bond.

  With Ben, we had started at the beginning with something fragile and small, but what we had was never like what Grady and I had. Our feelings for each other didn’t start as a seed, they started as an ocean. I felt as though we were separated by miles of rocky, turbulent water that could drown both of us or either of us with the wrong step. And as we’d spent time together, as we’d opened up and shared in each other’s lives, that ocean had shrunk. The waters between us had grown smaller and less frightening. The distance between us had all but disappeared.

  We had grown into something different… something profound, but I couldn’t put a name on it just yet. I couldn’t think of the right words to claim it.

  At the edge of downtown, Ben leaned against a building and pulled me into the curve of his body. “Can I take you home now?”

  I stared at his chest and breathed, “Yes.”

  “Do you still trust me?” he asked, tilting my chin with one long finger to meet his depthless gaze.

  I nodded, unable to speak through my fears.

  We drove home in silence. Ben asked me if I trusted him and I did, without a doubt. But it wasn’t him that I had to worry abou
t. It was me. Did I trust myself?

  I didn’t trust myself to keep my hands off of him. And I didn’t trust myself to finish something if I were to start it. I was a mess of anxiety and lust, unable to separate the two from each other.

  Ben pulled his car into the garage and opened my door for me. His garage was so empty compared to mine. He had one bike parked along the wall and a set of tools. There was a kayak hanging from the ceiling and some storage boxes piled on shelves. But he lacked the overflow that kids managed to accumulate with multiple bicycles and tricycles and balls and outdoor whatever. Normally I would have expected this from someone single like Ben, but it felt wrong on him. He had become such a huge part of our lives that I expected his garage to be filled with kid things too.

  My footsteps seemed to echo through the empty expanse as I followed him into the house. His house, that had seemed so perfect for him a few months ago, now felt wrong and ill-fitting.

  I set my purse down next to my bag that he had brought in and joined him in the kitchen for a glass of wine. The delicious red helped calm some of my frantic nerves and I tried to focus on him… on just being here with him in the quiet of his home.

  “This is good,” I said to fill our silence.

  “Is it weird that I brought you back to my house?” Ben asked, appearing pulled from deep thoughts. “I thought a hotel room might seem… presumptuous.”

  “It’s not weird.”

  “I want to know how you sleep,” he kept going, not seeming to hear my answer at all. “That is definitely weird. I know that.” I opened my mouth and then closed it without anything to say. It was a little weird. He pushed on with an explanation, “I just… I know so much about you. I know how you like your wine and how you like your food. I know what you look like when you’re angry at the world and angry at your children. I’ve watched you laugh and smile, cook a meal and fold a basket of clothes. I’ve seen you cry and I’ve seen you sit in silence, so lost in your thoughts that the rest of the world doesn’t exist. But I’ve never seen you sleep, Liz. It’s important to me to share this with you.”