“Laney,” he said a moment later, his voice raspy as he found his own release. When the tremors faded, he collapsed on top of her with a guttural groan, his face pressed to her breast.
“I swear you are everything I’ve ever wanted, Laney,” he mumbled against her skin.
She tightened her arms around him and kissed the top of his head before closing her eyes. A moment later, he rolled away and disposed of the condom before curling up against her body and throwing his arm over her. Ben was a cuddler, which she loved about him, and he always pressed little kisses to her hair or behind her ear as he nodded off.
When she felt her eyelids getting heavy, though, she lifted his arm off of her and slid out of the bed. She thought he’d be tired enough to sleep through her gathering her clothes, but when she turned back to the bed after getting dressed, he was awake. Barely.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yeah, it’s getting late. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to get away for the rest of the week. We have a big group coming in and it’s some kind of guys’ trip. That means a lot of drinking and who knows what, so it’ll probably take all of us to keep things under control without making them feel babysat, if you know what I mean.” She leaned over the bed to kiss him, and he put his arm around her, as if to hold her there.
“If it’s quiet tomorrow afternoon, I’ll ride over on the four-wheeler and let Sam know I’ll be responding from the lodge.” He paused, pushing her hair away from her face. “If that’s okay. If you think you’ll be too busy or you want some alone time, that’s cool, too.”
Maybe telling him another night would be for the best, she thought. After tonight, she should probably put a little distance between them. But that’s not what she wanted, so she shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll be too busy. And they have to sleep eventually, right?”
“I’ll try not to keep you up too late,” he said, but the way his lips kicked up at the corners told her he didn’t mean it.
“Speaking of being up past my bedtime, I need to get back so I can get some sleep.”
She saw the amusement fade and felt in her gut that he was about to ask her to stay the night. But then his expression cleared and he kissed her. “Drive safely. Text me when you get there.”
One more kiss good-night, and then Laney picked up her present and went down to her car. She winced as she fired the engine and tried to pull out of the driveway and head up the road while giving it the least amount of gas possible. Hopefully his parents were sleeping.
For the entire drive back to the Northern Star, she tried not to look at the flamingo on the passenger seat and cursed herself for not staying in bed with Ben. She knew he’d wanted her to. It was only his promise not to ask for more than she was willing to give that kept him from saying the words, but she hadn’t considered howshefelt about it until the moment had passed.
She wanted to be in his bed right now, her back pressed to his chest and his breath warm on her hair. And that scared the hell out of her because she felt as if she was losing herself in him, and she wasn’t even sure she’d found herself yet.
