Where I Belong

I’ve never seen anyone go from one emotion to another so quickly. If I blinked, I probably would’ve missed it. He begins jumping up and down, almost knocking me onto my ass in the process. “A weal castle! Daddy! Pwincess Mia said we can go to a weal castle!”

Ben laughs as I stand up. “You ready to go, buddy?” He picks a squirming Nolan up and smiles sweetly at me. “Are you ready, Princess Mia?”

Am I? For friendship with a man that I can’t stop thinking about? p-ssy humming sex. Shit. I force a nod and swallow down my fear. “Lead the way, noble knights.”

**

Nolan’s excitement was infectious and it grew as the evening played out. When we pulled up in front of the castle, he couldn’t get out of the truck fast enough and practically sprinted toward it. When he got his picture taken with the King, he couldn’t take his eyes off him, even when Ben and I told him to look at us so we could take pictures of him with our phones. He stared at him with eyeballs the size of dinner plates, his mouth forming a tiny O. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. And when the actual show started and Nolan got to see the knights in action, jousting and sword fighting right in front of him, I don’t think he blinked even once.

And then there was Ben. I kept catching glances from him the entire night, meeting his eyes every few minutes when I couldn’t keep myself from looking at him. I’m sure my struggle was obvious, considering he caught me each and every time I gave into my temptation. But the look he shot back at me wasn’t the one I was used to. It wasn’t the look he gave me when I knew he was thinking about doing things to my body. I was familiar with that look. The greedy shift in his eyes, the tightness in his jaw, the way his nostrils flared like he was a caged pit bull. But I didn’t get that look tonight. Instead of the raw thirst I had seen in his eyes on more than one occasion, I saw tenderness. A friendly affection. He regarded me sweetly but there was nothing behind it. No underlying hunger.

And God, I wanted to be devoured by him.

“He is completely passed out.” I observe, walking next to Ben and focusing on Nolan’s exhausted face. I reach up and brush his wild brown hair off his forehead, smiling at his sleepy state. “I don’t even think an actual dragon could wake him up right now.”

Ben opens up the back door of his truck, laughing softly at the sight of Nolan’s face as he peels him off his shoulder. “I figured he’d crash hard after all of this.” He buckles Nolan into his car seat, closing the door and grabbing the passenger door handle. “I may have withheld his nap from him today in hopes of getting to talk to you alone on the drive back. My son likes to monopolize the conversation, as you witnessed on the way here.”

I smile, climbing up into the truck after my door is opened for me.

Nolan talked nonstop on the drive to the dinner show, and every time Ben tried to talk to me about something other than dragons or knights, Nolan would adorably cut in and change the subject. I’d be lying if I said I’m not grateful for Nolan’s missed nap.

I settle into my seat and buckle up. “I can’t say I blame him. Dragons and knights are way more exciting than what Tessa and I did today.”

He closes my door and gets in on the driver’s side, starting up the truck and pulling away from the castle. I inhale, taking in Ben’s scent that has completely filled the space between us. He smells like pure Ben. No cologne, just him. Like a man that knows exactly how to please a woman. Shit. Don’t go there. “How’s your mom doing? Tessa mentioned a few months back that she was really sick. Is it breast cancer?”

I cross one leg over the other, angling my body toward him. His one hand stays firmly planted on the wheel while his other relaxes on the console between us. I’m glued to his fingers, the fingers that I moronically doubted that night. I didn’t think there was a chance in hell he’d get me off the way he did. And now that I know what those fingers are capable of, I’m fascinated by them. I actually can’t stop looking at them. The length, the thickness, the f*cking tips of them that played me like a record. I want him to turn his hand up so I can straddle his fingers and ride out my pent up orgasm right now, but that’s not going to happen. He clears his throat, gaining my attention and I’m quickly reminded of the question he hit me with before I wandered off into finger f*cking la-la land.

I paint on my most convincing I wasn’t just fantasizing about what you could do to me face and answer. “Yeah. She’s doing great right now. The treatments aren’t making her nearly as sick as they did in the beginning. It was awful when she first started them.” He glances over at me and gives me a sympathetic smile. “She wouldn’t eat anything and she didn’t have the strength to get out of bed. I couldn’t leave her side for more than a few minutes at a time because she was constantly getting sick.”

“But she’s doing better now? Does she still have it?” he asks, turning onto the main highway that led to Ruxton.

I nod once. “Yeah, she still has it, but I guess the treatments are working because she’s doing so much better than she was. I think she’s gotten most of her strength back.” I lean my head back against the seat rest, shifting my eyes from Ben’s profile to the road in front of us. “I just, I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to her. She’s the only family I have left besides my aunt.”

The hand that I had longed to mount reaches over and grabs mine. He squeezes it gently, comforting me. “Nothing’s going to happen to her. And she’s not the only family that you have. Tessa would kick your ass if she heard you say that.”

I laugh and he smiles at me. His eyes shift to our conjoined hands. After one gentle squeeze, he lets mine go. I hold in my disappointment and rejoin my own hands together in my lap. “So, Officer Kelly.” My God, does that have a ring to it or what? Images of him doing things to me in that uniform flash in front of my eyes too fast to focus on. I blink rapidly as his eyes meet mine and darken. And that look, the look that he’s hitting me with is directly connected to the pulsing spot between my legs. I clear my throat and the dirty thoughts from my mind. “Do you like being a cop?” Good save. I hide my heated face behind the strand of hair that fell out of my clip, shifting my attention to the road in front of us. My body goes rigid when his hand brushes my face, tucking my hair back behind my ear.

“I do,” he replies coolly as if he didn’t just touch me. As if he’s completely unaffected by that touch. His hand returns to his lap before he continues, his eyes returning to the road as mine neglect it completely. I am entirely too focused on him and his smooth voice. “It’s never boring, that’s for sure. Plus Nolan gets a kick out of it.” His lip curls up into a smile. “When he’s not playing knights, he’s usually playing cops and robbers with me.”

I look to the back seat at a very sleepy little boy whose head is slouched against his car seat. “He really is the cutest kid I’ve ever seen.” I pry his wooden sword out of his hand and place it onto the seat next to him. “You’ve raised this incredible little boy, Ben. If I ever have kids of my own someday, I hope they turn out as awesome as this one.”

Our eyes lock. “If there was any woman that was born to be a mother, it’s you.”