by Lori Foster
Too busy doing things he couldn’t even remember anymore. That’s how unimportant they were. And now Ben would have traded almost anything to go back and make better use of the time that had run out too soon.
The waitress appeared with his Heineken, and Ben took a long swig.
“The girls miss you.”
Oz’s reference to his daughters brought a sad smile to Ben’s face. “I miss them, too.”
“Also, Jill made me promise to invite you to Amy’s birthday dinner tomorrow.”
“Oh, my God. She’s what, five now?”
“Yeah. And a real handful.”
“And? How’s the team doing this year?” The flash of hurt in his friend’s eyes made Ben realize he should know. A real friend would know.
“I like our odds for making the playoffs. I’ve got a good bunch of kids this round.” In addition to teaching chemistry, Oz was the junior varsity men’s basketball coach. “But you didn’t invite me here to talk high school basketball.”
“Yeah, it’s… I just didn’t know who else to talk to. I did something intensely stupid on that business trip in Buffalo…”
Ben hit the high points of the past week and a half, and by the time he got to Saturday night’s looming dinner party, Oz was laughing at him, as he always used to do. It felt good. Like the relief of finding something you didn’t even realize you were missing.
“Are you messing with me? Your bosses actually think you’re married?”
“What can I say? Go big or go home, that’s my motto.”
“Well, as far as fuck-ups go, this one’s pretty major.” Oz scratched his chest. “But it’s pretty cool that this girl had your back during such an epic caper, despite barely knowing you.”
Ben couldn’t help his smile. “Yeah. It kind of is.”
“So apologize, man! Who cares if she moved some stuff. I’ll bet that fancy high-rise condo of yours still looks exactly the same as it did the day I helped you unpack your couch and flat screen.”
Ben scratched his eyebrow. “Not anymore. Now the wall is ‘arctic mist.’”
“So you’re pissed that she painted your wall?”
Ben realized how feeble that sounded. “And she opened the trunk.”
“Can I be honest?”
“Sure.”
“Ever since that thing with Mel, you’ve been different. No—” Oz cut Ben’s protest off before he could make a sound. “Hear me out. Before Mel, you were easygoing, you laughed, and you never missed our weekly one-on-one game. Then she shut down your proposal and it fucked with your head. Of course it did! But you’ve been a different guy since then. And I’m not saying that’s all bad. You’re making good coin, you’ve got nice things, that’s cool. But it sounds like this Chloe is helping to put some color back in your life, and that’s great. You need that. I mean, your dad, your grandma, what good are their memories if you lock them up in a box?”
A profound question. But one that maybe Chloe could help him answer.
* * *
SHE COULDN’T SLEEP. Chloe was sitting on the couch in her pajamas, wrapped in a throw blanket, staring blankly at the TV.
She’d been in the shower when he’d come home. She’d known because his shoes were by the front door and his bedroom door was closed, even though she’d left it open earlier.
Fighting with Ben had caused a jumble of emotions to bounce around in her chest Pong-style, and she was currently veering between frustrated, anxious and sad.
She’d admitted that she’d gotten carried away. The trunk hadn’t been hidden, so she hadn’t thought twice about checking inside it, but she could see how Ben had found it intrusive.
She started to sigh and stopped herself, remembering the moment on the plane when Ben had noticed how often she—how had he put it?—sighed maniacally.
Grabbing the remote from the coffee table, Chloe flicked off the annoying infomercial for a blender. She’d made it this long without juicing anything, so why start now? Besides, she needed something stronger than juice. This situation called for the hard stuff.
She padded barefoot into the kitchen, pulled the ice cream from the freezer, and tugged off the lid, before rummaging through the drawer for a spoon. She wasn’t sure if it was movement or a noise that drew her attention, but when she turned, Ben was standing in the doorway. He wore nothing but white boxer briefs, and his hair was mussed in a way that suggested some one-on-one time with his pillow. Chloe couldn’t remember being more attracted to anyone in her whole life.
A warm heat throbbed to life low in her belly. Ben stepped closer, then closer still, and her hands fell limply to her sides. She didn’t hear the clatter of the spoon over the thudding of her heart.
It happened in a fraction of a second, the counter suddenly boring unyieldingly into her back and Ben’s mouth ravaging hers without a hint of the sweetness she’d come to expect from him. This kiss was raw, hungry, and she found herself panting in her attempts to keep up.
Chloe clawed at his shoulders, climbing his body so she could feel him between her legs. His hands left her breasts just long enough to grab her by the backs of her thighs and hoist her onto the edge of the counter. They both groaned as their bodies aligned, his cock pressing against the damp crotch of her panties, and she rocked her hips, wanting more.
He tore his mouth from hers to divest her of her Vote Nixon T-shirt, then invaded her mouth again. Chloe whimpered. God, the man could kiss.
Then he lifted her from the counter, one arm clamped around her waist, the other raking up her spine until it was buried in her hair. Chloe ran her hands across his back, reveling in the flex of his muscles as he carried her out of the kitchen.
She kissed him with all the lust coursing through her veins, attacking his mouth with a desperation that made him stumble. With a growl, he shoved her up against the wall in the living room, and Chloe moaned as their bodies slammed together with the force that she craved. She tightened her legs around his hips and fisted her hands in his hair as he trailed his tongue behind her ear and down her neck.
Somehow they lurched their way down the hallway and into the bedroom. When they reached the bed, he set her on the mattress on her knees before joining her. Their eyes met.
Gently, he reached out and brushed the pad of his thumb across her lips. She stopped its progress with a flick of her tongue, and when Ben’s eyes darkened she sucked his finger into her mouth.
With a curse Ben grabbed her, pushing her back toward the pillows. Suddenly he was on top of her, his weight a welcome burden because she craved the pressure of his erection between her thighs and his chest against her breasts.
She pushed his boxer briefs down as far as she could manage, watching unashamedly when he stood to divest himself of them. He leaned over her to kiss her stomach, yanking her panties down her thighs. Chloe thought she might orgasm from the sheer anticipation of his hot, wet kisses on her clit as they slid closer, closer…
When he pressed his mouth to her, she moaned, digging her fingers into the bed and lifting her hips, giving herself over to him. She writhed, desperate to prolong the sensation yet aching to hit the peak. The sweet pressure building in her body finally crested and broke over her in a warm rush of pleasure that stole her breath.
* * *
BEN KISSED HIS way up her body, loving the little sounds she made in the back of her throat. He nuzzled her breast, sucking her nipple into his mouth. She was so responsive, twisting with need all over again as he ran a palm over her ribs, the dip of her waist, her hip.
“Ben, I want you inside of me.” Her voice was low and throaty, and he couldn’t resist the pleasure of giving her what she asked for.
Her breath caught as he pushed all the way in, and she moaned, her hand on his neck, the arch of her foot stroking up and down his calf. He rocked against her, and the s
weet, sliding friction of their bodies turned sharp. He drove his hips harder, spurred on by the hitch in her breath and her nails biting into his shoulders.
“Ben, please,” she begged, nipping his earlobe and sending lust crashing through his body. Her hands were everywhere, his arms, his back, lower still.
She pulled him in tighter, trying to force him deeper. He knew she was close, so close, and he poured all his focus into making it good for her, into sending her over the edge.
Only after he felt her release did he let himself go, joining her in a blindingly pure orgasm.
CHAPTER 12
STUPID ARCTIC MIST.
Chloe was painting again, but all her positivity from yesterday was gone, replaced with pessimism and snarls.
She’d thought the mind-blowing makeup sex had set things right between them, but when she’d woken up twenty minutes ago, it was to find that Ben had snuck out of the condo this morning without a word.
Since she couldn’t leave the wall half-finished, and Saturday was fast-approaching, she’d decided to funnel her anger into manual labor. Chloe had just poured some paint into her tray when the sound of the front door startled her.
She spun to face the entrance, and very few things in the world could have shocked her more than the sight of Ben, unshaven, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, double fisting to-go cups from Percolate, the coffee shop down the street.
Her heart gave a little kick before she remembered she was kind of mad at him just then. “I thought you’d gone to work.”
He shrugged. “I’ve got a day off owed to me from the business trip. Figured I might use it today to finish off some home renos.”
God, she was a sucker for stubble. She did her best to keep her stare haughty, but she could feel her anger slipping.
“You want some help?”
“Depends.” Chloe shrugged noncommittally. “You have any painting experience?”
“Nope. But I have coffee, and it’s been brought to my attention recently that I’m very tall.”
Chloe decided conceding with grace had a certain merit. She grabbed the roller and exchanged it for the cup in his left hand. “You’re hired.”
Then an amazing thing happened—as they painted, he started to tell her this really great story about the cabin in the picture she loved, how he and his dad used to make up stories about it while they fished.
Chloe dipped her roller back into the paint tray, deciding whether or not she should probe the subject. Ben had gone silent at the conclusion of his story, and she didn’t want to pry. Especially not after yesterday’s blow-up over the trunk.
But she craved knowledge about the man who stood beside her, and here, side by side, painting the living room a beautiful shade of pale gray-blue and freezing because the fumes required an open window, she was finally quenching some of that curiosity. “How come you don’t have any personal stuff?” Her apartment wasn’t great, but at least it was stamped with her style, her personality. “No pictures, no books, no knickknacks. I mean, it doesn’t even look like you live here. How do you live your whole life without accumulating any junk?”
He glanced around the place like he was seeing it for the first time. “I never really thought about that.” He ran his hand over his face, and she could hear the faint rasp of his stubble beneath his palm. “My dad wasn’t very sentimental, I guess. He was more about looking to the future. I’m kind of the same way, I suppose.”
“What about your mom?”
His muscles tensed. “She’s the reason Dad wasn’t very sentimental.”
“I’m sorry.”
Ben shrugged. “Not your fault.”
“She wasn’t around much, then?”
“Left when I was eight. Haven’t heard from her since.”
Chloe exhaled. “That’s a really shitty thing to do to a kid.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t change the past, right? And my dad, he was great.” Chloe could tell he’d been special, just by Ben’s sad smile. “I mean, he really stepped up. Everything I have, everything I am, is because of him.”
“Sounds like you were close.”
He nodded.
“Can I ask what happened?”
Ben’s roller stuttered on the wall, just the slightest pause and slip. When he spoke, his voice was dull. “He fell off a ladder at work.”
“Oh, my God. Ben. That’s awful! I’m so sorry.”
“It was just a freak accident. The rung broke while he was standing on it.” Ben lowered the roller, bracing the pole on the floor beside him. “He was a janitor at a big high-rise downtown. He was washing windows, something he’d done a thousand times before. And then he was just gone.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“How old were you?” she asked.
He started at the sound of her voice, as if he’d just come back from somewhere else. “I was in my second year of college, heading toward a business degree so I could get into advertising. He was really proud that I was going to make something of myself.” Ben smiled, but it wobbled a bit. “That’s what he always said, ‘Ben, you’re gonna make something of yourself.’” Ben shoved his roller into the paint and set about erasing another section of beige. “He would’ve liked you, though,” he said without looking at her.
Chloe shook her head. The compliment was too big for her to fathom.
“He would have,” Ben insisted. “He prized confidence and speaking one’s mind very highly. He always told it like it was. I think you two would have really hit it off.”
Now it was Chloe’s turn to be silent. She needed a minute to take that in.
“I’m sorry I went into that trunk without your permission, Ben.”
He shrugged. “I was just surprised. I haven’t seen that stuff in quite a while. I wasn’t prepared.”
Chloe understood that now. But she wanted to explain. “It felt like a treasure chest, you know? I mean, I thought it was so cool that you had all this stuff, all these reminders of the people you love and the people who loved you. I never considered for a moment that you wouldn’t want those memories.”
She’d finished the lower part of the wall, and she figured Ben would be done in a few more strokes of the roller. She stepped back to take in their handiwork.
“You must have the same.”
“No, actually,” she confessed, and Ben glanced over his shoulder at her.
“I don’t have those kind of memories with my dad. He was always working. Still is. Sometimes I realize that I barely know him. I definitely don’t have any pictures like these.” She ran a hand across the top of the frame that held the shot of the Masterson men fishing. “All of our family photos are stiff and formal and taken by very expensive photographers.”
Ben lowered his roller from the finished wall. “Different worlds, huh?”
“Completely.”
They both turned their attention to the wall. It looked even better than she’d imagined, but her current feeling of satisfaction had nothing to do with arctic mist. “Pretty good, huh?”
Ben nodded. “It’s growing on me. Chloe?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you busy tonight?”
“No.”
“How would you like to go to a birthday party with me?”
* * *
“YOU SURE YOU’RE OKAY?” Ben was staring at her with concern, the apple pie he’d picked up at the amazing bakery near their place—his place, she corrected herself—balanced on one hand as they made their way up the sidewalk to Oz’s house.
“I’m great,” she lied, motioning toward the jacked-up red Toyota Tundra parked at the curb. “I’m still hung up on the fact that’s your vehicle, Masterson. A Lexus? Yes. A Beamer? Sure. But a pick-up? I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years.”
> Ben glanced back at it. “What’s wrong with my truck?”
“The truck is fine. You seem a little too city to be driving it, that’s all.”
He scoffed at her summation, and she returned his eyeroll as she ran her hands down her stomach ostensibly smoothing a wrinkle in her coat. In truth, she was trying to calm the raging herd of butterflies in combat boots that had taken over her stomach.
Meeting the friends. It felt like a big deal. It was a big deal.
She’d agreed in a moment of extreme weakness. He’d just told her about his father, they’d had a nice day painting, and she’d been blinded by the intimacy of it all.
A party? Sure, I’ll go to a party with you.
By the time she’d found out it was a party for a five-year-old and they’d be the only adults there save for his oldest and dearest friend and his wife, she’d been trapped.
She glanced down at her left hand—at Ben’s grandmother’s wedding ring, for God’s sake!—its symbolic weight tethering her to a man she had nothing in common with.
They ascended the front steps and before she knew it, Ben was knocking on the door. Chloe took a deep breath and pulled the ring off her left hand, transferring it to her right. An attempt to keep a little perspective before she went down the rabbit hole.
The door opened to reveal a lovely, fresh-faced redhead with the harried look of a mother—a look that said she’d just handled about twenty things before appearing before them. Her slightly frizzy curls were scraped back from her face in a ponytail, and she wore jeans, slippers and a purple sweatshirt with a big, gold W on the front. Obviously a proud University of Washington alum. Her face lit up when she recognized her guests—well, one of them—and she pushed open the screen.
“We brought grown-up dessert.” Ben raised the pie as proof.
“You are a saint, Ben.” She relieved him of his delicious burden. “You know how much I hate confetti cupcakes. How come I didn’t marry you instead of Oz?”