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“You tell me why, Ben. Why do you keep asking if you’re the only one for me? Jesus! Isn’t it enough that you’re the only man I’ve been with in twenty years? You need constant reassurance that as soon as we’re apart, I didn’t fall in bed with someone else? Why, Ben? Is that what you did?”
“I just want to know why it’s so easy for you. It’s killing me not to be with you, yet you seem fine.”
“Fine? I seem fine. Really?”
When he nodded, she picked her clothes back up, but he yanked them away.
“Don’t hide from me, Liv. You either run, or you hide, and tonight I’m not going to let you do either. Talk to me, tell me how you feel.”
She reached out and grabbed the sheet, yanking it hard. It came off the bed and she wrapped it around her.
“You always do this.”
“What do I do, Liv? Is it so bad that I want to know you better?”
“It isn’t that you want to know me better, it’s that whatever you want, you have to have right now. You push too hard. You decided you wanted to know more about me, so you followed me around and asked me questions, endlessly. You wouldn’t stop, Ben. You forced it. Let’s go back further. You came to my house. You showed up there. You didn’t even call. You came. And you didn’t ask. You just stayed.
“You insisted I tell you about my life, whether I was ready to or not. Then, worse, you made me, forced me, to listen to yours. I wasn’t ready for that.
“I asked you to give me time to follow my dreams. One rodeo, Ben. That’s all I’ve done. Competed in one rodeo. Is that all I get before you swoop in…” her eyes filled with tears.
Ben watched her pace back and forth next to the bed, trying to hold the sheet up as she did, but it would slip, and she would trip on it. And every time she did, she’d glare at him, as though it was his fault.
And he, asshole that he was, thought it was the cutest, sweetest, craziest thing he’d ever seen. She tried to be mad at him, but she sucked at it. It was harder than hell for him to fight the smile trying to escape his lips. She was adorable when she tried to be mad.
When she growled at him, he couldn’t help it…he laughed, and she stopped moving. She stood next to the bed, holding the sheet up with one hand, glaring at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but he couldn’t stop laughing.
“No, you’re not. You’re not sorry at all. You think this is funny.”
“Liv. Olivia. Olivia Fairchild. It isn’t funny.”
“Then why are you still laughing? You can’t stop, can you?”
He couldn’t. He tried to, but he couldn’t. Maybe if he didn’t look at her. But where else could he look? He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her on top of him.
She smiled, not mad anymore. He hoped what he was about to do wouldn’t make her mad again.
“Liv.”
“Ben.” Her eyes softened, her lips still smiling. She was being silly now, but he had to do it anyway.
“I love you.”
18
Ben held his breath. Her expression didn’t change, and she didn’t say anything. Nothing. Had she heard him?
Finally, she moved. Her hand came up and her fingers stroked his cheek. Then she licked her lips. Twice. She put her hand on the back of his neck, and pulled herself up, so her lips were closer to his.
She kissed him, softly at first. Lips brushing lips. Then she went deeper, her hand pulled at him, her fingers dug into his skin.
“Liv—”
“Shh.” She unwrapped herself from the sheet and threw it to the side. Her hands pushed at his shoulders, forcing him to lie on his back.
“Skin on skin,” she murmured as she climbed on top of him and rested her body against his.
