Home Sweet Home

by Melanie Shawn

  Lauren pushed her feet down from Ben's waste, hooking her heels into the waistband of his boxer briefs as they moved. She slid them down, and at she did, she moved her hands down the length of his back to grasp his newly uncovered and rock hard ass.

  When Lauren realized that Ben's boxer briefs were not going to slide smoothly down his legs because they were getting caught up on his enormous erection, she slid her hands around his waist, slipping them down his torso and causing him to groan. She then continued their trip further down his body to unhook his boxer briefs and free his manhood from its containment.

  Placing one hand on his shoulder and neck for balance, she used the other to grip his erection, stroking it slowly up and down, feeling him shudder and getting a strong erotic charge herself every time she felt a wave of pleasure roll through his body.

  As she used her hand on his member, she felt the skin of his shoulder and back grow clammy and his breathing sped up, as did hers. Their mouths were so close together, and their connection so visceral and deep that she was having a hard time telling where her breath left off and Ben's began.

  Ben moved his hands up and down the outside of her thighs. He grasped the thin strings which formed the sides of her panties and attempted to pull them down more than once, but because of the angle of her legs, was not able to make much progress.

  It was clear to her that, by the way he was caressing her legs with a slight downward pressure, and the way he continually tried and failed to make progress pulling her panties further down her thighs, that he was trying to give her subtle hints to unwrap her legs from around his waist so that he could remove her most personal undergarment.

  She smiled to herself.

  She was ignoring him.

  For one thing, she was perfectly happy here, with her legs luxuriously wrapped around him, stroking his powerful erection, watching the pleasure in his face as she moved her hand.

  Secondly, she was interested to see where he would go with it. How would he move the encounter forward, what technique would he use, what would he do, what would he say?

  She liked watching him work it all out.

  After a couple more tries, he leaned his head down to whisper in her ear, “Baby, I want to be inside you...”

  She smiled and playfully bit his earlobe, her busy hand never losing its rhythm.

  “Yes,” she confirmed, her voice raspy, whispering in his ear.

  He stroked and subtly cajoled with his hands for a few more moments before finally asking her directly.

  “Lauren,” he panted desperately, “put your legs down for a second so I can slide these down.

  She smiled wickedly, taking his chin in her free hand and angling his face so that they were looking into one another's eyes, their faces less than an inch apart.

  “Rip them,” she whispered intensely.

  His eyes widened, “Are you sure?”

  Her grin spread further.

  “Rip. Them. Now.” she confirmed.

  Ben groaned and buried his face in her neck, taking a firm hold on the filmy garment and ripping it off in one bold move.

  Lauren's thrill of excitement at this strong action caused her to cry out in pleasure, even though Ben's hands were actually nowhere on her body at that moment. Lauren felt herself trembling on the edge of a precipice, on the brink of falling off into the great unknown. But rather than shivering in fright at this prospect, she was bracing herself to readily leap from the cliff.

  As soon as the fabric of her lacy undergarment had cleared her body, she grasped Ben from behind, urging him with both her hands and her legs, to enter her and complete their union. She needed to feel him inside her, filling her, bringing her pleasure just as she was bringing the same to him.

  After Ben had tossed aside her panties, he grabbed a condom from the new roll that was sitting on the counter, ripped the paper with his teeth, and rolled the latex on with one practiced hand.

  Lauren smiled, “You're prepared this time. Someone was confident.”

  Ben laughed hoarsely. “Hopeful,” he corrected her.

  With that, he thrust inside of her, holding himself still as he reached the apex of penetration, stroking her hair, kissing her, and Lauren felt her arousal stoking to ever new heights.

  When she thought that she could take it no longer, he began to move slowly, his pace and intensity building along with her, his arms strong behind her back, supporting her. She felt cherished, protected, taken care of – all of the things that she had only felt with Ben, and all of the things that she was finding out were (despite their innocent-seeming exteriors) some of the hottest aphrodisiacs in the world.

  Lauren felt herself building toward a climax as Ben continued to increase the pace of his movements. Her cries and moans became louder and more insistent, and it didn't even enter her mind that they were in a thin-walled trailer in a compound full of their co-workers – she was too transported, too out-of-her-head with ecstasy.

  But, here again, Ben had her covered.

  As her once-gentle moans and whimpers of pleasure turned into screams of ecstasy, he covered her mouth with his, his kisses giving her the freedom to scream her heart out without fear of being overheard.

  Lauren insides quaked as she came, the most convulsively powerful orgasm she had ever experienced. She felt Ben's muscles tensing under her arms and felt the vibrations of his cries of pleasure at the same time as she, although he never took his covering mouth away from her own.

  After the climax of their passion had spent itself, the air had cooled the sweat from their skin, and their ardor had calmed into tranquil affection and gentle caresses, Ben started to move away from her.

  Lauren looked at him, and then extended her arms up to pull him back against her.

  “Wait,” she whispered, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

  She opened her mouth a few times before she was able to say what she wanted to, because expressing need for or dependence on another person was very difficult for her to do.

  Finally, summoning up all the courage inside of her, she said in soft, tremulous voice, “I'm not ready to feel you leave me yet.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice as he wrapped his arms tighter around her and replied, “Baby, you'll never have to.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ben noticed that Lauren was quiet on the drive back to Hope Falls, pensively watching the scenery unfold outside their window. He watched her beautiful face for the slightest sign that there might be trouble brewing below the placid exterior, but no. She just seemed lost in thought,

  Yes, he told himself with a small smile, I've learned by now that if she's pissed off at me but pretending not to be, what I get is an elaborate production of her pretending to work. This is quite different from that.

  He liked the fact that he was getting to know her so well. He wanted to know everything about her – her history, her likes and dislikes, her facial expressions, her moods, her quirks, her...everything. He was all in.

  Ben didn't know what the etiquette was for letting someone know that you had reached the emotional place in a relationship where you are ready to take it to the next level – he had never been there before. He assumed there was some kind of process you went through, some sort of standard method of indicating to the person that they were the only one that you wanted to spend time with, the only partner you were interested in having.

  He had heard people talk about “the DTR” – the talk that you have with the person you're dating where you “Define the Relationship” – thus the name. When Ben had thought about having that talk with someone in the past, it had always made him shudder – and not with pleasure. No, the shudder that it had inspired in him was one of pure dread.

  When he thought about sitting down on a couch or at a table with a woman he was dating and coming up with definitive descriptions of exactly what they meant to each other, exactly what their relationship consisted of, where their relationship was headed, and what the future he
ld for them – well, it made him want to break out in hives.

  The thought of a “relationship” to him had, in the past, signified the idea of being held down, like that phrase implied – “the old ball and chain.” Why would anyone voluntarily tie themselves down? The very idea of it spoke of a loss of freedom, a loss of personal agency, a loss of... basically everything he valued in his personal life.

  What no one ever explained to him was everything that you gained when you committed yourself to a relationship with someone that you felt so strongly about.

  No one ever told him how the right woman could make you feel like you were able to conquer the world. No one ever told him how the right woman could make you feel like there were endless possibilities open and available to you. No one ever told him how, with the right woman, it wasn't a matter of tying yourself down – there just became only one place in the world that you ever wanted to be, and only one person in the world that you wanted to be there with.

  The right woman.

  That was the key.

  He'd never met the right woman before. He used to laugh when his mother would gaze at him, oh so wisely, and say, “Oh, Benny. Don't you worry about trying to settle down. When you meet the right one, you won't have to TRY to want to settle down with her...it'll be all you can think about! You'll be racing her to the altar.”

  He had honestly thought that she was crazy.

  Until he had met Lauren Harrison, and everything that he had thought was true about the world, and relationships, and his own heart had gotten flipped on its head.

  Now that he was with Lauren, he realized that his mother could not have been more right. All he wanted to do, all the time, was be with her. He didn't care what it was they were doing, he just wanted to be with her.

  It was so far beyond sex that it seemed silly to him to even think about writing off the bond they shared as simply lust driven. It was so much more than that.

  He honestly didn't care if they merely sat together reading or doing the crossword. He loved to eat with her. He loved to talk with her. God, he would probably love doing laundry or going to the grocery store if it was with her. Lauren made everything magic.

  And as far as having ‘The Talk’? Well, he was more than ready. Bring it on. He was not afraid of being tied down to Lauren, in fact, the opposite was true. His biggest fear, at this point, was that SHE would not want to be tied down with HIM.

  He shook his head. Wow, was that a 180 from the way he used to feel about women and relationships. If you needed just one piece of proof that Lauren Harrison had magic at her disposal – was, in fact, magical herself – you need look no further than that. In only a few weeks, she had completely transformed him.

  The only question was – had he done the same to her?

  As they pulled up in front of Lauren's house, she still had not shaken off her pensive mood, and it made Ben nervous to think about leaving things between them on this quiet, low key note. He wanted her last impression of him, and of them, to be upbeat, joyful, and passion filled.

  As she turned to him, smiling quietly, to bid him farewell, he reminded her, “Don't forget, sweetheart. I'm going to be in Sacramento this weekend at the children's wing dedication. So I won't see your beautiful face until Monday.”

  She smiled at him and responded, “OK, sounds good. See you then.”

  Hmmmm. It wasn't a bad sign by any stretch of the imagination, but it also certainly wasn't the high note that he was aiming for.

  Acting entirely on instinct, Ben followed Lauren as she exited the car, grabbed her wrist and spun her around, pulling her against him and kissing her with all of his might. He concentrated, as he was kissing her, on really using the gesture to communicate to her how he was feeling.

  Every bit of passion, every bit of affection, every bit of magic that he felt with every fiber of his being any time she was in the same room with him – who was he kidding, any time she WASN'T in the same room with him as well – he did his best to communicate to her with that kiss.

  When he finally drew back and looked into her eyes, he was rewarded by seeing the unguarded sparkle there that he had seen during their very best times together. Now THAT was the reaction he had been hoping for!

  She seemed to have been robbed of the power of speech, and he liked the thought of leaving her a little off balance, leaving her with something to think about.

  So without another word, he climbed back into the car and shut the door behind him. As the town car began to pull away, he slid the tinted window down and said, “See you Monday, Beautiful.”

  Her only response was to smile and gently touch her lips in wonderment.

  That was perfectly fine with him.

  --- ~ ---

  Lauren sat in her chair at book club, wondering if she should just make an excuse and head home. Things were so confusing with Ben right now, and she really felt that what she needed more than anything was some time alone to work through it in her mind and attempt to come to some sort of conclusion.

  Of course, because her friends were who her friends were, if she DID try to make an excuse and high tail it out of there, the only thing that she would accomplish would be drawing attention to the fact that she had something juicy to discuss. She wouldn't get out of there until midnight.

  She couldn't stop thinking about that last kiss that Ben had given her, just outside the town car door as she was being dropped off the day before. It'd been different than any kiss that they had shared before.

  Lauren realized that what she was about to tell herself was a ridiculous assertion for two people who had been naked together on more than one occasion, had explored every inch of one another's bodies, but the truth was – that kiss in front of her house felt like the most intimate, the most personal thing that she and Ben had ever shared. Really, it felt like the most intimate, most personal thing that she had ever shared with anyone.

  It was freaking her out.

  The more she thought about it, the more she felt like an idiot for entrusting her heart to someone like Ben Stevens.

  First of all, she didn't know what his intentions were. What was he planning to do if the show got picked up? What was he planning to do with the show DIDN'T get picked up?

  What was to say that he wouldn't be treating her like a stranger again the next time she saw him? They had gone from piping hot to icy cold before in the blink of an eye – what made her think that it wouldn't happen again?

  What, for that matter, made her think that she wasn't one in a large group of women that Ben was seeing right now? What made her think that what was happening between them was special to him in any way?

  What if, from his perspective, this wasn't even something that was “happening” so much as it was just one of his many random hookups that happened as he traveled from town to town, charming his way through all the local ladies with his television star status?

  Oh, God. Is that what she was? Was she little more than a local groupie?

  Her instincts told her that this was so much more than that, not only from her perspective, but his as well. After all, she made her living by reading people, she couldn't be that wrong about him... could she?

  She shook her head. Not possible. Not after that kiss. Not after all she had felt coming from him as he held her, not after the way that he looked at her when he pulled away... not after that.

  She glanced around, wondering how much longer the meeting was going to last before she could make her graceful exit and noticed that every single person in the room was staring at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  Amy glanced at her watch. “Six minutes and 47 seconds,” she pronounced definitively, “I believe that makes Sam the winner, at seven minutes. I don't believe we were playing with Let's Make a Deal rules, where your guess is invalidated if it goes over the correct answer, were we? I believe we were just playing that the closest guess wins.”

  “You bet your ass that's how we were playing,” Sam said decisively, �
��Now hand over your ten dollars, losers!”

  The rest of the girls reluctantly pulled ten dollar bills from their purses, grumbling all the while. Karina said, “Yeah, even if we didn't think that, it wouldn't be worth getting in a fight with you about it, Little Ms. Competitive.”

  “Damn straight,” agreed Sam, not in the least offended.

  “What is going on here?” Lauren said, puzzled.

  “We had a bet going, about how long it would be until you came out of the trance you were lost in and realized that we were all sitting here staring at you. I was the timekeeper,” Amy explained.

  Lauren sighed. Dammit. Now they were going to make her talk about it.

  “So, you know now you have to talk about it, right?” Karina asked.

  “I realize that,” Lauren replied.

  “I assume,” Karina continued, “that this has something to do with the recently ubiquitous Ben, correct?”

  Lauren laughed, a short and ironic bark of a laugh, and said, “If only he actually were ubiquitous, that would solve a lot. The fact that I have no idea just exactly how present in my life he's going to be after the next week is over is a big part of the problem I'm dealing with.”

  “So... are you actually in a good place with him right now?” Amanda asked, “The last I heard, things were pretty rocky between the two of you. If you are now hoping that he sticks around, I guess that's changed. Right?”

  Lauren shook her head, looking miserable. She threw up her hands as if in surrender. Amanda immediately crossed the room to sit next to her and wrapped her arms around Lauren's shoulders.

  “I don't know if things are good or bad between us!” she exclaimed, “that's another huge part of the problem but I'm trying to deal with!”

  Karina said, “OK, I think we're gonna need to take this one step by step. The last thing we all knew, you guys were giving each other the cold shoulder, and you had just seen him bring a girl into his room. Which you were really pissed about. Take it away.”