I teetered on the edge, but something held me back. I didn't understand. Biting my lip, sighing, I tried to relax and let it happen. Ben was almost lost to the world, but he slowed, stopped, though the expression on his face told me how much of an effort it took.
"What's wrong?" he rasped, his eyes searching mine.
"I don't know," I admitted, a frustrated sob welling up in my chest. I wanted to, I did, more than anything, I needed release. Every part of me ached for it.
"Stop," he commanded.
My wrist ached. I pulled my hand away, a heavy sense of defeat in the pit of my stomach. He loomed over me, his hand replacing mine, a feather-light touch that still made me gasp. He rubbed slowly, gently, in little circles that had me twisting and moaning within moments. His shaft bobbed in the space between our bodies, stiff and neglected, but his only focus was on me.
"Let go, sunshine," he murmured. "When you're ready, just let go. You've been holding this for so long. You don't have to anymore. Pour it out. Let yourself shatter. I'll be here." His lips brushed my forehead. "I'll be here."
He wasn't just talking about now, tonight. He was talking about all of it. Everything. The fear, the insecurity, the pain and the anger and all the clutter that got in the way of just being. This wasn't just a release for my body, it was a release for my soul.
That was his gift to me.
"Please," I gasped, opening my eyes, only then realizing that I'd closed them. His face was inches from mine. His fingers still moved, relentlessly, and my body began to shudder in ways I couldn't control. "Stop. Please."
He did.
My whole body throbbed. I was ready, but I wanted, needed. I couldn't find the words to ask, reduced to one raw exposed nerve, and I had nothing but the ability to reach up with my one free arm, trembling, my fingers digging into the taut muscles of his ass. With all the strength I had left, I pulled him to me.
He sank inside me with a groan, his eyes clouded with lust when he managed to drag the lids open again and look at me. "I won't last," he warned me, quivering with the effort of holding back. "Are you ready?"
I managed to nod.
"What do you need?" His words sounded thick and heavy on his tongue, like he was drunk on me. "Is this enough?"
I nodded again, my inner muscles quivering and clenching. So close.
With a growl, he began a brutal pace. One hand captured my hip in a bruising grasp, and with the other, he held himself up, giving the leverage he needed to pound and pound and pound so hard the bed shook.
On the first thrust, I was already lost.
My climax swept me up like a riptide, and instead of one swift peak, it carried me along in ecstasy, until he was spent, and further, achingly sweet, achingly perfect. When he stilled, shuddering with release, I moaned softly. The embers were still burning, achingly intense pleasure still radiating.
"More?" he murmured, his fingers finding the place just above where we were joined. "Are you not finished, sunshine?"
Breathless, boneless, I nodded. Hoping he understood.
He caressed me, catapulting my body back to those heights. I didn't recognize the feral sounds I was making, and I could feel my back starting to ache, all of my muscles quivering, my eyes rolling back in my head as I came. And came. And came.
When I finally went limp, the last few aftershocks jerking my exhausted limbs like a puppet on a string, he sighed.
"So beautiful," he whispered. He smiled, his lips against the side of my head, almost kissing but not quite. He was still so hard inside me, just as hard as when we'd started.
"Are you not finished?" I managed to whisper, teasingly, having caught just enough of my breath to form words. It was a stupid question. I could feel his seed inside me, but God, I wanted more. I never wanted this to stop.
A quiet chuckle, as he moved his hips a little. I gasped, another little aftershock shivering its way across my skin. "I almost think I could fuck you again. Would you like that, sunshine?"
Was he serious? I stared at him.
"Would you?" he repeated, with a tiny thrust.
"Yes," I moaned. "Of course, I just didn't think..."
"Neither did I." He pulled back and slammed his way home, with a groan that sounded ripped from deep inside his chest. "Fuck. But here we are." He nibbled at my ear, and I cried out, my body pulsing with bliss.
It was pure sin, feeling him slide so easily with our mingled wetness inside of me, knowing there was something about me that defeated his very biology and made him need beyond need. I was his own personal Viagra, and I cried out his name until I really and truly lost my voice. He didn't stop until my pleasure started to mingle with too much pain, my body resisting against the onslaught of sensations I'd endured tonight. He saw the change, the way I bit my lip a little too hard, my forehead knotting in a silent wince. Pulling out, he knelt over me, stroking himself and asking me softly where I wanted him to mark me.
The answer was easy.
Everywhere.
It took a long time, but he did. Chin, neck, chest, stomach, all were anointed, before he collapsed beside me, chest heaving. He untied the remaining knots with shaking hands. A string of creative curses spilled from his lips as he wound his arms around me, not caring that he spread the mess across our skin.
"Darling," he whispered after a long silence. "If I have a heart attack in the next few minutes, will you promise to put my dick away before the EMTs get here?"
I giggled.
If this was aftercare, I didn't need it. I was pillowed in bliss, ignoring the stickiness that dried on my skin and feeling nothing but a warm glow. All the same, I liked it. We snuggled together, and for the first time, I allowed myself to forget.
I allowed myself to pretend.
Darling. It was just a figure of speech. But it sounded so good, coming from his mouth. Like he actually meant it.
Like I really was his darling.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ben
I fell in love with Jenna Hadley, and there was no point in pretending it wasn't true.
I'd accepted that weeks ago. But I resisted telling her, even as I laid my plans to completely blow her mind. She had no idea that my little business trip was actually a research expedition, and I'd arranged everything. Our honeymoon was going to be perfect. There was just one minor setback.
"That's sadistic," was Daniel's very helpful input.
"Thanks," I said bitterly, stirring my drink. "But it's not that easy. What am I supposed to do, just tell her?"
He nodded. "Much better than letting her wonder and wait. Why would you put someone through that kind of agony? She's crazy about you, Ben. Are you blind?"
"You can't possibly know that," I said.
"You're right," he said. "Maybe she's really the greatest actress of all time. But Maddy tells me what she says about you."
But she's lying to Maddy.
Unless, of course, she's not.
"It's not quite that easy," I said.
"It is that easy," Daniel insisted. "Just open your mouth and form words with your brain. Maybe your tongue gets involved at some point. I don't know. I don't control your life."
"But you wish you did."
"You've got to admit, things would go a lot more smoothly for you," he said, without a hint of irony. "That was a double entendre, by the way."
"Oh, the tongue thing? Yeah, you're very subtle. I knew I should've called Wozniak instead." I crumpled my napkin up, bitterly.
"Wozniak wishes he had my game," said Daniel, seriously. I had to laugh, Sometimes, he was a hilarious drunk.
"I just don't want to dump it on her all at once," I said.
"What the hell do you think your plan is, then? It's a thousand times worse. She's definitely going to cry, and she'll probably hit you."
"Happy tears," I said. "Happy punches."
"You idiot." Daniel looked at me with a sour expression on his face. "You really don't get it, do you?"
"Feel free to enlighten m
e." I sat there, head in my hands, staring at the insides of my eyelids.
"No." He was using the kind of tone that a less authoritative person would bow down to, and that irritated me more than anything. "You'll just argue with me, and we'll both waste our time, and in the end you'll be even more convinced that you're right."
"I won't say a word," I promised him, looking up to meet his irritated gaze. "Just tell me what you're thinking, because I have no idea what I'm doing."
A smile was slowly forming on his face. "You have no idea how long I've waited to her you say that."
"Oh, my God." I let my head thump down into my hands again. "Shut up."
"I thought you wanted to hear what I was thinking."
"I'm going to kill you," I said. "Slowly. I know where you sleep."
There was a moment of silence.
"You're afraid," he said, simply. "You see her taking the same path Daria did, and you think she'll eventually go somewhere you won't be able to follow. Your conscious mind is resisting the comparison to your ex-wife because they're really nothing alike, the circumstances couldn't be more different, but the fight-or-flight part of your brain can feel it. That's why you panic. You're afraid to have her, because you're afraid to lose her."
"I didn't lose Daria," I protested. "She walked away."
"Then what are you afraid of?" He cocked an infuriating eyebrow at me. "Don't tell me you're not. I know it when I see it."
"That's because you're always scared, Chicken Little," I griped. "So you smell it everywhere. You're just projecting."
He was making a lot of sense, but I really didn't want to admit it. My only excuse for my fear was the fear of losing my company - but I couldn't tell him about the settlement, he'd never let me hear the end of it.
"Right. I'm the one who's scared," he grumbled. "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean the sky's not falling, you know."
Jenna must already know. She had to. How could she have possibly missed it? The paper-thin justification of our fake marriage hardly explained anything we'd said or done in the past few months.
And if she didn't, well, the honeymoon would be an even bigger surprise than I'd planned. That wasn't a bad thing.
Was it?
Chapter Thirty
Jenna
As the wedding insanity began to ramp up, with more and more last-minute emails from the planner making sure I was okay with this type or flower or this minor color variation, I made more of an effort than usual to stick to a routine. I had to retain some semblance of sanity, and caffeine was always the first step.
So that's how I found myself in my favorite coffee shop, ordering my usual, on a morning like any other. With the minor exception that it was the day before my wedding.
It still didn't feel real. Not even close. I knew the venue - a beautifully remodeled vintage movie theater, complete with the lush red and gold accents - and I'd signed off on the invitations, the cake flavors, the damn place card designs. But all the time, it felt like I was sleepwalking through someone else's life.
And things were about to get a lot more surreal.
"Excuse me," said a voice from behind me, as I sat down at my table. I looked up. There was a woman standing there, her gaze fixed on me, like she could read my life story off of my face. "Are you Jenna Hadley?"
I cleared my throat. "Can I ask who you are?"
"I'm Daria."
For a moment, it seemed like the whole world fell silent.
I don't know what I expected. She was tall and beautiful, curvy, with the smoky eyes of a French movie star. I could see how Ben would fall for someone like that.
"Daria," I echoed. "Do I know you?"
She smirked. It was almost a mirror of Ben's, but not quite. "Don't play dumb. It's a bad look on you." She sat down, gracefully. "I have to admit, especially considering the timing, I was suspicious. But I'm not anymore."
I cleared my throat. "Suspicious?"
She smiled at me, sympathetically. "Did he really not tell you? Well, that I can believe. He certainly doesn't like to talk about things that don't paint him in a flattering light." With a single gesture, she beckoned the server, and he came. "One cup of chamomile tea, please."
I watched her, trying to understand. Was this all a test? Did she really believe a word I was saying? Did I seem nervous?
Hopefully, no more nervous than was appropriate for the situation.
"I'm Ben's ex-wife," she said, finally, frowning a little. "Jesus - really? How much hasn't he told you?"
I swallowed hard. "I know everything I need to know."
"Oh, honey." She reached across the table and patted my hand; I withdrew like a snake had bitten me. "You think that now. Someday you're going to regret trusting him. Believe me. Why do you think he didn't mention me?"
"Maybe you don't matter to him anymore." I felt bad, saying it. But it was the only way to convince her that I really didn't know who she was. "He's moved on. It must have been a long time."
"Oh." She smiled down at the table. "Did he tell you that you were the first woman he ever loved? He told me the same thing. Of course, when I met him, he was nineteen. So it was probably true."
Nineteen. He was practically a kid. They both were.
"Did he tell you about the Huntington's?" she asked me, her eyes suddenly piercing.
My heart plummeted.
"He told me about his mother," I lied. "That's all." I prayed that wouldn't be a fatal miscalculation.
Daria's mouth thinned. "But he didn't tell you about himself?"
"No," I admitted. Something about her expression told me that she'd been in the dark, too - at least for a while. "But he said he'll tell me when he's ready. I can understand if he doesn't want to take the test..."
"He got the test," she said, simply. "When he was ten years old. His father gave him the choice, which is borderline criminal, if you ask me."
My heart thudded audibly in my chest. "Was it...?"
She shook her head. "He wouldn't tell me," she said, with a bitter smile. "How's that for fucked-up?"
I swallowed hard. "Really? That doesn't seem..."
"Fair," she finished for me. "No, it doesn't. Seeing as it would've had a pretty profound effect on my life. I only found out about the Huntington's through some pretty clever investigative research. I didn't tell him right away. When I finally asked him, he admitted it ran in the family - and that he knew. He knew whether or not he was going to get sick. But that was all he'd tell me. He was angry, but I never asked about it again. I think that was when I knew it was over. The fact that he'd hide something like that from me. I kept trying to make it work, but I just couldn't forget. It was as good as a lie, to me. You don't think to ask someone - when you first start dating, you know, 'oh, by the way, do you have a neurodegenerative disorder that you're not telling me about?'"
I exhaled softly. "Maybe he doesn't."
"Maybe," she said. "Then why hide it? Don't tell me you haven't wondered the same thing."
I had. Of course I had. I hated that I had, that me and Daria shared so much in common. I wanted to snarl at her for invading his privacy like that, for trying to involve herself in something so deeply personal. But I was on the verge of doing the same damn thing. How could I possibly go on, not knowing?
"I've noticed you two together," she said. "I think Ben expected me to turn tail and run to another city when things fell apart, but I wouldn't be smoked out. We still pass each other on the street, and he always sees me, but he always pretends not to. He loves you, Jenna. And I can tell you love him. I just want you to know, that's not always enough." She blinked heavily. "Some things can't be repaired."
"Is that a threat?" I demanded.
"No," she said. "It's a statement of fact." She exhaled, slowly. "A regret, if you will. We both did a lot of things out of spite, but I hope he came out of our relationship a better man. He thinks everything I do is for some evil ulterior motive, because that's the story that suits him. But if I could see him be hap
py, I'd sleep a little easier at night." She smiled, faintly. "I know I seem like a stalker. If you don't know the whole story, it certainly comes across that way. But we were obsessed with each other, at an age when that means something. It's hard to disentangle. I might have been the one who walked away, but he was the one who left. Long before we were ever apart, there was nothing left between us. But we had to cling to the only thing we knew."
I stared at her, trying to understand. She wasn't exactly stable, but she wasn't completely off her rocker, either.
"I'll leave you alone now," she said. "Just know that whatever he tells you, I wish you nothing but the best."
What was the meaning of that? Was she just trying to put me off my guard, or had I really fooled her so well?
Of course, with the way I felt about him, maybe it was that obvious. Maybe it showed on my face every minute of every day.
If someone had asked me, a week ago: do you believe in "one true love?"
Of course not. It's such a stupid concept. Out of all the millions of people in the world, the idea that there's just one person with whom we can be truly happy - is there anything more absurd?
But I felt like I'd found it, in the strangest way possible. The only problem was I didn't know how I could possibly hold on.
***
I was pacing my apartment, trying to wrap my head around the reality of all this. Daria's voice echoed in my head, her unwanted questions and advice making my brain ache with the impossibility of accepting it all.
My phone buzzed with a text from Ben.
Got your something blue?
I answered him, quickly.
I'm not superstitious.
A moment later, my doorbell rang. The man himself was standing there, with a roguish smile, and as soon as I stepped back to let him in, he whipped out a box from behind his back.
"I'm going to go ahead and guess this is blue lingerie," I said, taking it from him.
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