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Ben was both funny and smart, and she enjoyed teasing and talking with him.
Enjoyed it too much, maybe.
It was easy, Olivia knew, to start building castles in the air after mind-blowing sex and interesting conversation. A dangerous combination, that.
Not, she told herself, that she was building castles or anything at all. She’d had a good time tonight, that was all. A very good time. But she wasn’t looking for a relationship, never had been, and she didn’t expect more from Ben Chatsfield than an incredible week.
She just needed to remind herself of that once in a while.
She wandered back out to the restaurant while Ben locked up and turned out the lights. The room was plunged into darkness, the city dark with only a few twinkling lights spread all around her.
Olivia stood in the middle, listening to Ben move around and trying to fight a sudden, intense wave of loneliness. There was absolutely no reason to feel lonely. No reason not to feel totally happy and satisfied. This was exactly what she’d wanted and no more. Intensity in bed and nowhere else. No emotion, no actual closeness...
She couldn’t handle those things. She couldn’t want them.
She heard his footsteps behind her and before she could turn around she felt his arms slip around her waist, drawing her against his chest. He bent his head and kissed the curve of her shoulder, the same place he’d bitten during their lovemaking.
Olivia closed her eyes, suppressing the sting of tears. She didn’t even know why she felt like crying. Maybe it had all been too much; she’d lived, by choice, in virtual emotional isolation for the past fourteen years, saving it all for the stage, and so perhaps tonight had been bound to wreck her.
Ben lifted his lips from her neck. ‘Shall we go back?’ he murmured, and wordlessly Olivia nodded.
They didn’t speak as they headed out of the restaurant and into the elevator, and not when they walked down the corridor to Olivia’s suite. She swiped the key card and stepped inside, Ben following her, neither of them speaking.
She headed towards the bedroom, because that was where she wanted to be, in Ben’s arms again. Olivia stopped on the threshold, her breath coming out in a rush as she surveyed the transformed room. Candles flickered by the windows, casting shadows across the bed that was scattered with rose petals; their fragrance filled the air.
She turned to him, saw he was looking rather adorably self-conscious. ‘You’re actually a romantic, aren’t you?’
‘Only in certain situations.’
‘Now I know why you wanted to go back to the bedroom,’ Olivia said, and kissed him. His arms came around her and she fit herself to his body like she’d always been there; it was being away from him that had felt strange.
‘This time it’s going to be different,’ Ben murmured.
‘Not that different, I hope,’ Olivia answered, and he laughed softly, no more than a breath of sound.
‘We’re going to take our time,’ he told her, and then laid her gently down on the bed. The rose petals released their scent, the lovely fragrance seeming to wrap around her as Olivia lay on the bed and gazed up at Ben.
‘I can see the benefits of a little romance,’ she said, and he smiled, his hands going to his shirt.
‘So can I. Definitely.’
‘You don’t actually have too many buttons to unbutton,’ Olivia remarked as he started to undo his shirt. ‘I kind of took care of that earlier.’
‘A little excited, were you?’
‘A little.’
He shrugged off his shirt, and she gloried in the sight of his bare chest, the taut, sleek muscle and sprinkling of dark chest hair veeing down to his trousers. He was such an unbelievably sexy man.
He stretched out next to her on the bed, wrapping his fingers around her ankle before sliding his hand slowly upwards, under her dress, across her belly and then finally to cup her breast. ‘This dress,’ he murmured, ‘is a little in the way.’
‘A little,’ Olivia agreed again, and she wriggled around for Ben to unzip it. It was already torn just as his shirt was, but she was more than happy to consign the dress to the bin. Although on second thought, maybe she wouldn’t. It certainly held some fond memories.
But as fond a memory as their time in the kitchen had been, Olivia knew this was already sweeter. Better. Ben’s gentleness, as he cherished her body with his own, would be her undoing. He would unlock her heart.
And as he moved inside her, his gaze fastened to her own, a tenderness suffusing his face as he brought them both to climax, she thought that might actually be a wonderful thing.
Afterwards she lay amidst the rose petals, breathing in their fragrance as Ben lay next to her, his hand resting lightly on her belly. She felt, Olivia thought, almost perfectly happy. Too happy to worry or even think beyond this moment, beyond the sweet perfection of this night with Ben.
