“Ben—”
“No, listen to me.” He stepped closer and touched her chin with one warm hand. “I’m really sorry about the way I fucked everything up. I’m sorry about those reporters at the airport, and I’m really sorry I tricked you into going to the Bahamas with me.”
“Ben—”
He cut her off with a kiss, his lips softer and gentler than they’d ever been. She tried to focus, tried to tell him that it was time they parted ways, but the feel of his hot mouth on hers was too distracting. Seeing as she’d just lost her job, the last thing she should want to do was have sex, but her body instantly responded to Ben.
“Let me make it up to you,” he murmured into her mouth.
She wanted to argue, wanted to tell him the only way to make it up to her was to leave, to take his complications elsewhere and let her work it out on her own, but her desire for him was too damn strong.
One last time, a little voice pleaded inside her head.
She shouldn’t listen to that voice, she knew that. Falling into bed with Ben, even if it was just one last time, wouldn’t make the situation any better. She still wouldn’t have her job, the press would still be sniffing around her, Ben would still be asking her for things she wasn’t sure she could give. Sex wasn’t going to change that.
Yet she couldn’t ignore her body’s need for this man. And when his blue eyes locked with hers and asked an unspoken question, she couldn’t seem to say no.
So she nodded.
Without another word, Ben led her toward the bed and slowly peeled the robe off her body. Then he lay her down on the patterned bedspread and kissed her again. He kissed everywhere. Her lips. Her nipples. Her stomach, her thighs, her clit.
As his tongue dragged across every inch of her, all the events of the night dissolved and fled her body in the form of a soft whimper.
Silently, Ben removed his own clothes and lowered his body on hers.
Their gazes collided, and what she saw in his blue eyes stole the breath from her lungs. He looked turned on and contented and even a little vulnerable, which made her heart do flip-flops in her chest.
“Maggie,” he finally said, his voice coming out hoarse, ragged.
She waited for him to continue. He didn’t. Instead he started to move inside her, his pace a languid rolling rhythm that had her gasping with impatience. He ignored her tiny whimpers, the way she gripped his buttocks and tried to pull him deeper inside her.
“There’s no rush,” he whispered, pushing strands of hair out of her eyes.
He resumed the slow pace and she wasn’t sure how long they lay there, how long he rocked inside her and made love to her. Minutes could have ticked by, hours even, but Maggie didn’t care. Her eyelids fluttered, then closed, and she almost purred, breathing in Ben’s spicy masculine scent.
She kissed his chest, running her tongue along his collarbone, meeting his gentle thrusts with the measured rise of her hips. And just when she thought she’d pass out from ecstasy, he withdrew his shaft and slid down between her legs, pressing his lips to her swollen clit. Licking, sucking, until she cried out from an orgasm so intense a wave of dizziness crashed over her.
Ben didn’t let her recover, nor did he resume his lazy pace when he slid back inside her. “Now we can rush,” he muttered, thrusting into her so fast and so hard that an astonishing second orgasm seized her inner muscles.
She cried out again. Stunned, unprepared for that second explosion of pleasure. A moment later, Ben shuddered and came, finally allowing himself his own release.
He kissed her forehead, and then gently rolled off her to dispose of the condom. Staring at his sinewy, sweat-soaked back, Maggie bit her lip to stop herself from asking him what just happened. Sex happened, yes, but something between them had shifted. Something that scared her, yet exhilarated her at the same time. Something she couldn’t explain with words, or label, or even analyze.
And for the first time in her life, Maggie wondered if that something might just be love.
Chapter Twelve
Maggie didn’t wake him before she slid out of the apartment the next morning. She knew it made her a coward, knew she should’ve woken Ben, maybe even talked about what happened between them last night, but she wasn’t ready to face any of it yet. Something had changed last night and she knew he’d felt it too. It showed in the way he’d held her after sex, the way he’d tenderly stroked her hair and fallen asleep with his head against her breasts. The entire exchange had been so damn intimate that she didn’t even know what to make of it. It worried her. So much that she was leaving the apartment without a word and heading to the community center despite the chicken pox risk.