AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s the kind of thing a guy could get used to if he wasn’t careful.
“Anyway, glad you brought it up. I’ll be gone a lot this week with long days and late nights. Might not see you much, and”— Jesus, just spit it out —“I don’t want you to think it has anything to do with last night.”
“Ooh. Okay, sure.” She smiles. “Thanks, Ben.”
Fuck, I shouldn’t have told her to call me that. Begged her, more like.
Her eyes drop to where her hands have come together in a loose hold. “Um, about that. I know we were kind of hoping last night would resolve the tension and all that.” She takes a deep breath, and I stop breathing altogether. “And I want you to know, it’s totally fine and won’t affect anything. I mean, we’re good. We’re fine. Totally.”
“Totally,” I say back, feeling anything but, even though I’m pretty sure this uncharacteristic rambly business is her way of letting me know she can tell I’m in worse shape than before I got to sink inside her… but she won’t hold it against me.
“Full disclosure?” Those gorgeous brown eyes come up, meeting mine in an apologetic wince. “It didn’t work.”
* * *
Lara
I don’t know what reaction I was expecting exactly. Maybe something along the lines of somber acceptance, a pained step back, “Sucks to be you!”— Okay, not that last, or really any of the scenarios that have been running through my mind on repeat as I obsessively debated whether to come clean or not.
Ben isn’t callous.
He wouldn’t make light.
He wouldn’t laugh.
Oh. Well.
Okay, apparently, he would laugh. But not at me.
Head tipped back, this almost relieved sound bursts free. And then he reaches out and pulls me into the hard-packed perfection of his chest, holding me tightly in a way that’s somehow both reassuring to my mind and confusing to my heart.
“Ben?” I whisper, trying not to bury my nose in his chest.
He smells so good.
“I’ve been dying here, Lara. Not sure how to own up to it. Feeling guilty as fuck and more stupid than that for ever thinking— whatever.” Big hands wrap around my shoulders, and he pushes me back just far enough to meet my eyes. “That plan was an epic fucking fail.”
Relief gusts out of me à la, “Yes! Oh my God, Ben, I have no idea what we were thinking.”
His blond brows push high. “Right?!”
“And worse, I can’t even make myself regret it.”
“Exactly! I mean, it’s really, really hard to regret something that good.” He pulls me in for another smothering-but-what-a-way-to-go hug I don’t even have time to sink into before he’s setting me back again. “Now, if you were upset, I’d hate myself. True story. But since you’re not, and you don’t think it was a mistake?—”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong.” My hand goes to my forehead. “I know it was a mistake. Just one I can’t bring myself to feel too bad about, since neither of us got hurt. I mean, what’s the harm if it only happens once and we don’t let it change anything?”
Ben’s eyes are locked with mine, his hands wrapped around my shoulders, thumbs brushing soft circles as I fist the side of his shirt.
When did I grab his shirt?
“Lara,” he says, his voice losing that ramped-up energy of the moment before. “What if?—”
He looks away, letting out another slow breath I don’t quite know how to read.
He lets me go, bracing his hands on the counter. I step into the spot beside him and wait.
Eyes on the floor between us, he chews on his cheek. “You really don’t think it’s going to change anything, Elliot?”
