“Huh. So I have a pet penis. Okay, keep talking.” Curiosity had definitely gotten the better of me. “What more?”
Heat flooded the side of my neck as he pressed his face there. “Can’t fucking stand the thought of someone else touching you.”
I rolled my eyes. Such a Neanderthal. And while both were interesting points, neither constituted an occasion for any actual change from our status as friends.
“It’s not just about the baby.” He grunted.
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said, resting my head against his. Foolish of me, but it felt nice, cozying up to him. Besides, he’d grabbed me first.
“It’s the truth.”
“Prove it.”
“Prove it? How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Christ. All right. I only used Sasha…” The rest was a mumbled mess. His warm mouth pressed against my neck, smothering the words.
“What did you say?”
More mumbling.
“Ben, speak clearly.”
With a groan, he raised his head, leaning around to look me in the eyes. “I only used Sasha to get over you. Knew you couldn’t be just a casual thing, and Mal kept asking what had happened in Vegas, if I’d gone out with you or what. Then he started saying you were seeing someone and he thought you were bringing them to the party.”
“What?” I asked, screwing up my nose.
“Yeah.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“Why do you think?”
“God that man is such a shit stirrer.” Another coin for the swear jar. It’d be funding Bean’s college education and first home at this rate. A gap year touring Europe, perhaps.
“Always has been, always will be. So I invited Sasha to that dinner to get him off my back. And I was missing you, and you wouldn’t talk to me, and I thought you were bringing someone else.”
I just shook my head.
“I don’t know if it was just me trying to make you jealous or if a part of it was me trying to move on or what. She was a cool woman.”
My chin jerked up. “You thought she was cool?”
“You didn’t?”
“I didn’t think she was that cool,” I said in a voice without a trace of snobbery. Not even the merest hint.
“No?”
“I’m just saying, I thought she was a little bit know-it-all, really. Arrogant. And her hair was dumb. So … blue.” Her hair was impossibly cool, but no way was I admitting to that.
The silence behind me was deafening.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said in a voice that implied anything but.
“Oh shut up.” I sighed. “Fine, she was somewhat cool.” At some point I’d started playing with his fingers, twining them with mine, touching and toying with them. This was the problem with Ben. For me, being intimate with him came far too easily.
“Anyway,” he said. “That was all before I knew about the baby.”
“That was a deeply crappy and immature thing to do to her.”
“Yeah,” he said solemnly.
“No wonder she was mad.”
A nod.
Fingers caressed the side of my face tenderly.
“I’d have gone medieval on your man bits, if I was her,” I said.
His brows descended in a fierce look.
I just shrugged. Reap what you sow, baby.
“Had to pay her off to keep quiet about you. Adrian and the lawyers sorted it out.”
“No! The bitch.”
“Hmm.”
I huffed out a breath. “So we’ve established that we make each other behave like we’re back in middle school. What does that prove?”
“That we need to figure this thing out between us.”
“I thought that’s what we’ve been trying to do.”
A hand cupped my jaw. “I don’t mean fight it. I’m done fighting it. I mean go slow and figure this thing out.”
My forehead was a mass of wrinkles, I could feel it. I doubt my heart was much better.
“Sweetheart?”
“I don’t trust you, Ben. I’m sorry. I wish I could feel differently. But I keep trying to do this with you, and thinking you want it too, and…”
“And I keep fucking it up.”
“Yes.”
I thought he’d let me go, run off back to the party to lick his wounds—or someone else maybe. But he didn’t. Instead he settled on the bed with his back to the headboard, taking me with him, arranging me in his lap. I didn’t fight him.
“Are you angry?” I asked, mystified.
“How do they say…” He made a low noise that was pure damn sex of the vocal chords, I tell you. “Lizzy, when you say you don’t trust me it makes me feel like I want to tear shit up and go ballistic.”
“That’s an understandable if somewhat violent response.”
“But with our history, shit’s complicated,” he said, rubbing his mouth and bristly beard against the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine. Oh wow yeah. I needed to wear my hair up all the time. That felt divine.
“And as you said, we’re having a baby,” he said.
“True.”
“But I’m not running away this time. Say what you want. Shred me. I’m staying.”
“You are?”
“Yeah.” Capable hands separated my legs, hot skin soothing up my thighs. Christ, I loved it when he touched me. So damn much.
“What are you doing?” I asked, ever so slightly breathy.
“Nothing.”
The backs of his fingers ran up my inner thighs, tracing a path with his knuckles. I nearly cried when he stopped short of my * and turned back.
“I do not believe you.”
Neatly, he folded up my skirt, exposing it all. A sound of pure sex vibrated out of his chest, traveling through into my spine. “Fuck, Liz. Look at you. Love your *. Missed it.”
“Mm.” My shoulders tensed, rising higher. “Ben…”
“It’s okay.”
“This feels dangerous.”
“No. This feels right,” he murmured, teeth nipping at my ear. “You got my dick on a leash. Might as well have the rest of me.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means I’ve given up getting over you and I’m focusing on getting into you instead.”
“Neither of these statements are reassuring me, Ben.” I leaned my head back, twisting to the side so I could see his face. Seemed sincere. But then, I’d made that mistake a time or two before. “Explain in non–rock ’n’ roll speech please.”
“And you said Sasha had an attitude.” The corner of his lips twitched. “Means I’m going to get you to trust me again.”
Me? I had nothing.
Staring at me all the while, he stuck two fingers in his mouth to wet them. Then he ever so slowly traced them back and forth over my labia, making me gasp. Everything down there spasmed in glee. Lord help me. If the man ever guessed to what degree he owned me, I’d be doomed.
“Fuck, sweetheart. You really are out of control. I’ve barely touched you.”
“It’s the baby hormones. They’re psycho.”