What the hell was a thirty second truce!? I wasn’t sure. But I wanted to find out. My eyes narrowed. “Okay?”
“Because, really, my life feels like I’m in the middle of this crowded room, where everyone is talking entirely too loud, and all I want to do is turn the volume down. Being with you turns the volume down. Kissing you fucking mutes it.”
His brutal honesty turned my breaths shallow. I stood there completely oblivious to everything else around me but him and the sudden desperate look on his face. I guess I understood what he meant. I wanted to mute the metaphorical noise too.
“Truce,” I uttered.
And just like that, as if a gun had been shot signaling the start of a race, there was absolutely nothing holding him back. He closed the steps between us in an instant. His hands tangled all through my hair as he grabbed hold of my neck and yanked me close against his body.
No time to waste. Our lips collided. And I melted completely into him, his mouth warm and hot and inviting. With one probe of his tongue, I opened up to him.
There was a relief in kissing him again. Because I'd missed him so damn much in the last week and I honestly never thought I'd get another chance to do this with him. It made me want to squeeze everything I could out of this moment.
I stood on my toes so that I could press closer to him. My hands moved to hold his face in place against mine, the rough stubble of a skipped shave or two scraped against my skin. Obviously I wanted him. But it surprised me more to find that I could practically taste the way he wanted me. So much emotion behind his kiss. So much longing. More than I could have ever expected.
Compared to this kiss, our first kiss had been tame. This kiss trampled all over tame. This kiss was needy and greedy and raw as hell. My body shivered from the intensity. The fact that he knew me as Juniper somehow changed things. Made everything more honest, I suppose, at least on my end. There was no façade of Lilly to hide behind. Not anymore.
Just me. Just him.
All too soon, Ben pulled his lips away from mine. I guess thirty second meant only thirty seconds. He didn't move away just yet, though. Instead, he brushed the hair away from my face, staring down at me, inhaling deeply.
“Perfectly quiet,” he whispered.
Then he sighed and stepped backward, out of my embrace.
I crossed my arms over my chest, a little unsteady and a little annoyed with him. Maybe his thirty second truce had been a bad idea. My hormones were already through the damn roof. Add one hotter-than-hellfire kiss from him, and now all my body could think about was sex. It tingled for it. Demanded it. Ached for it. It didn't seem to give a rat's ass that I probably wasn't emotionally ready for it, now or maybe ever. Not after the psychological terror Quinton had gotten off to, always putting me through his kind of hell.
Then again, maybe normal sex with someone normal and safe like Ben could mean everything and be exactly what I needed. Could good sex with someone good heal bad sex with someone bad? Was that possible?
“I have to go,” he told me. “I'll come back by tomorrow.” He started trotting down the steps of Rhett's porch. “Oh, and by the way,” he added over his shoulder. “I hate that you're living here with Rhett.”
What was his freaking problem with Rhett?
“Not much you can do about that,” I shouted after him as he crossed Rhett's sand-pit of a yard for his Jeep.
“You're right. For now. Bye, Juniper.”
“Bye, Ben,” I whispered, more to myself, wondering what he meant by for now, as he hopped in his car and started the engine to leave.
I need to be more careful with him. Because if I wasn't, then I was going to go ahead and fall in love with the guy. Hell, I might just be halfway there already.
CHAPTER 14:
BEN
It was becoming exceedingly difficult to go even ten minutes without thinking about Juniper. It was all my brain, and frankly, other parts of my body, wanted to think about. I wanted to stay mad at her. Really, I did. Because I'd trusted her and she'd lied to me. It fucking hurt that she'd confided in Rhett about her true identity first. Would she ever have told me the truth had I not found out about her on my own? I wasn't sure.
But here I was, on the phone with my lawyer, discussing a plan of action for Juniper's life.
“First priority has to be the baby,” I said to the man I knew far too well. Most people my age didn't even have a lawyer, let alone have their lawyer's number memorized by heart. I guess I wasn't most people. “And Juniper must be terrified of the baby's father if she won't even go to the doctor.”
“Medical records are confidential. She can go to the doctor and not worry,” he assured me.
Thank the Lord!
Shifting the phone to my other ear, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Great. And what were you saying about paternity and all that?”
“When the baby is born, the mother is not required to put the father's name on the birth certificate. At least not in North Carolina.” Thank you, North Carolina. “If the father does find out that she had this baby and he suspects that he's the father then he could petition the court to demand a paternity test. To do that he would have to prove that they had some type of relationship. After this guy established paternity, if that were the case, then it would be up to the mother to file a petition to terminate his rights based on her abuse. But that's unlikely in most cases. It would have to be proven that the father would be harmful to the child, which they couldn't really prove until afterwards if something goes wrong.”
Yikes. That would be way in the future, but nevertheless my stomach churned. Would it be best if this man never found out he had a child? That seemed wrong on so many levels. If I had a child in this world and the mother didn't tell me about it, I'd be furious.
Juniper and I had never discussed her baby's father in detail. She'd hinted at his abusiveness, though, and if that man ever laid a single finger on Juniper in her past than I never wanted her or the baby near that man again.
“Ben,” said Joe, my lawyer, with strain in his voice. “Can I give you some advice here? As a friend?”
Uh-oh. Not sure if I wanted his advice. “Sure,” I said tentatively, figuring I'd at least hear him out.
“You must really care for this girl if you're asking all these questions, I get that. But be careful. Don't do anything that could jeopardize your parole. What do you have left? Like three weeks?”
“Yeah, three weeks.”
“Okay. Make sure she stays off the grid for as long as possible. No credit cards, no phone calls, no emails, no Facebook. I don't want this man showing up and you doing something stupid that would automatically land you back in jail. Okay?”
“Yeah. I get it. I believe she’s been careful so far.”
“Good. Keep me updated with the situation.”
We got off the phone. If nothing else, at least now I knew it was safe for her to go see the doctor.
I opened the door to the Jeep. I'd been sitting in the car talking on the phone on my lunch break. Then it occurred to me—I'd given Juniper her cell phone earlier today. She probably hadn't had any internet access before today. That meant no connection to email or Facebook or anything like that. What if she'd already gotten on her new phone and checked something like that?
I yanked my hands through my hair a couple times. Shit. Why hadn't I already thought of this? Jerking the car door closed, I started the engine and threw the Jeep into reverse. Then I zoomed out of the parking lot, like a criminal fleeing the scene of a crime, and raced down the road for Rhett's place.
Ten minutes later, I pulled into Rhett's driveway and ran for his front door. I didn't knock, just took a chance that it might be unlocked, which it was, and flung myself in through the door.
What the hell was she doing leaving the front door unlocked?
“Juniper,” I yelled, more like growled, my eyes scanning the living room. No sign of her. No answer. What if this man had already used her IP address, to track her location, and
had come for her? I rushed for where I remembered the bedrooms were in Rhett’s house.
I barged into the first closed door I found. And in retrospect, maybe I should have calmed the hell down and tried knocking first. But worry and adrenaline had taken over and I didn't exactly think before acting.
The room I barged into was a bathroom. Thick steam and the smell of shampoo hit me. Along with something very hard over the head.
I saw a glimmer of a wet, wonderfully naked Juniper holding something white and large in her hands before I fell to the floor and everything went black.
* * *
Blinking my eyes open, I stared up at the bathroom ceiling. I winched immediately. My head throbbed like I'd been hit by a truck. Maybe I had been. Something sticky trickled down the side of my face. I moved to touch the spot that hurt when a hand caught my wrist.
“Don't touch,” said a voice, “you're bleeding.”
It was Juniper. My eyes focused on her face hovering over me. Her hair dripped with water and her skin had this beautiful, red 'fresh-out-of-the-shower' glow to it. And her tits... Oh, good Lord. She was still naked.
I should have been a gentleman and pinched my eyes shut, maybe told her to find some clothes first before she worried about me. But fuck that. She. Was. Beautiful. Hell, I could have been bleeding out and dying on the floor and it wouldn't have stopped me from basking in the pure splendor that was her body.
Her breasts were perfectly plump, her nipples pink, and her bare skin creamy. Maybe it had been far too long since I'd seen a naked woman, but she had to be the most stunning thing in the world. “Damn, baby, you're beautiful.”
I fought the urge to run my fingers over those gorgeous tits.
“Eyes up here,” she said, meaning her face. She had a smile on her lips so I knew I wasn't in that much trouble for looking. She gently pressed a warm wash cloth to my forehead. “You're possibly concussed.”
I laughed, working hard to keep my eyes on her eyes now. Peripheral vision was my new best friend. “What did you hit me with anyway?”
“The lid to the back of the toilet.”
Holy shit. It was a wonder she hadn’t killed me.
“I thought you might be Quinton,” she said. “I don't know what I was thinking.”
“Quinton's your ex?” I asked. She’d never said his name before now.
“Yeah.”
“Well, if you're going to tend to my wounds naked, you can hit me over the head any time you'd like. It's hot as fuck. You're hot as fuck.”
Blush darkened her already pink cheeks. “I should get dressed.”
“No!” I tried to sit up, but my head throbbed too much to move. I'd had a concussion before playing football. This didn’t feel nearly as bad as that had, but maybe there were different degrees. Either way, my head was the least of my concerns. “Don't. Please,” I begged. “If I do have a concussion, you have to stay with me and keep asking me questions.” I had no idea if that was true or not.
“Only if you forgive me for the Lilly Davenport thing,” she said, her voice low and raw. Her eyes suddenly shined with unshed tears as she stared down at me. I hadn't realized me withholding my forgiveness meant that much to her. Or that I was hurting her. I knew now how truly sorry she was for lying to me.
I reached out and touched her cheek. “You're already forgiven, Juniper.” I forgave her the moment I found out, even if I hadn't realized I had until now. I couldn't seem to stop myself from doing everything for this girl.
“Don't just say it because I'm naked.”
I smiled. Her naked body certainly didn’t hurt. “I’m not. I promise."
Her eyes narrowed. I wasn't sure she believed me. Either way, she didn't move to get dressed. Instead she finished wiping the blood off my face, found a giant bandage in the first aid kit from under the sink, and covered the cut above my eye.
The spot she’d hit already felt swollen. I’d have a black eye in another thirty minutes, if I didn’t have one already. She grabbed her new phone off the bathroom counter and looked up at-home-care for a concussion. The verdict was: I needed rest and to take it easy for the next forty-eight hours. The internet also said I shouldn’t drive.
She was much more bold and confident than I ever would have guessed. Your average woman would never have sat here with me, comfortable, for as long as she had without any clothes on. Hell, if the roles were reversed, I wasn't even sure I could have done the same with that much confidence. It was a very sexy quality. She had confidence, she was intelligent, so why had she ever let herself fall into an abusive relationship?
I still didn't understand that.
After she had the bandage on my head, she insisted we go lie down in her bed. I had absolutely no objections to that. She did, unfortunately, grab a towel and cover up. Not before I noticed her small belly. I'd been too distracted by her breasts to notice her stomach before. It surprised me that I found even the swell of her stomach to be attractive. Was it wrong to think even pregnant she looked amazing?
Her room was Ellie's old room. My oldest sister had lived here with Rhett, platonically of course, before she’d married Nate West. It had been years since I’d been in this room, and it was now stripped of everything that used to make it Ellie's. All my sister's eccentric decorations gone. Only a banged-up old dresser and a queen air mattress in the corner occupied the room now. With Rhett, I'd discussed everything from Juniper's clothes to food. But never had I thought to ask him about her sleeping situation.
It pissed me off. And a growl escaped my lips as I collapsed onto the air mattress, pulling her down with me.
“What is it now?” she asked me, as she curled into my side.
“Nothing,” I answered, my jaw tight, my eyes on the ceiling.
It wasn't her I was mad at, it was myself. And Rhett, too, for not telling me about the air mattress. I hated that it was Rhett taking care of her, in any capacity, instead of me. I wanted to be the one to provide for her. Between my debt, my parole, and the fact that I lived with my parents—I was in absolutely no position to do that for her at the moment. It frustrated me like no other.
I dug my phone out of my pocket and sent a quick text to my mom. I told her I banged my head, was fine, but needed to take the rest of the day off. The only thing I had going now was my job. In order to keep that, it was probably better if I kept my mom informed about everything. Me randomly disappearing at lunch would be exactly the type of thing to upset her.
Now that that was taken care of, I dropped my phone beside me on Juniper's air mattress and sighed.
“Don't go back to being moody with me again, please,” she said, drawing my attention back to her. “You were being cute in the bathroom. And you promised you weren't still mad at me.”
I stared down at her—all snuggled into my side with only a towel to cover her body.
The look on her face made me catch my breath. She gazed up at me with big blue eyes, as if she wanted me to strip off my jeans, roll her over, pin her down, bury my cock deep inside her, and make love to her with all the pent up sexual desire I'd been trying my best to ignore since the moment we first met.
The idea of being inside her sent my heart racing. I was already mostly-hard from watching her play naked nurse in the bathroom. But one look of longing on her face, and all the blood in my body rushed south. It was terrible timing, since my head still throbbed from its run-in with the toilet lid.
“I'm not mad,” I gritted.
“You sound mad.”
She traced her fingers over my chest, slowly, sending shivers all through my body.
“I'm turned the fuck on, that's what I am,” I bit out. “Which sucks. Because I'm pretty sure you're turned on, too. And with my head, it’s terrible timing. You just had to hit me in the head, didn't you?” I chuckled, but it wasn't funny at all.
Her finger tips brushed lower, over my stomach and close to the edge of my jeans. A trail of tingles followed her touch. She was fucking asking for it.
�
��You're the one who barged into the house and into my bathroom without knocking. What was that even about?” Her hand moved under my shirt.
“I... well, I thought... and then...” I couldn't even form a complete sentence. “I—”
“Can we call another thirty second truce?” she muttered. Her hand stopped. “I know I'm not emotionally ready for sex, not after the way Quinton used to be with me. But I'm...” she trailed off, sighing, biting down on her lip. Her blue eyes were still cutting right through me. What did she mean by the way Quinton used to be? What the hell had this man done to her? It made my heart hurt, assuming the worst. “But,” she continued, “I don't know if it's pregnancy hormones getting to me, or just you, or both, but I'm... I need... I'm feeling…”
She groaned, unable to finish a thought, either.
“Never mind,” she whispered. “Sorry.”
“Wait.” Forget my head. Forget my pain. Forget everything else. “Are you trying to tell me you're feeling extra...” I chose my next word carefully. This already seemed a little hard for her to talk about, I didn't want to embarrass her. “Needy?”
“Yes.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“Lord, have mercy,” I swore.
Maybe I couldn't provide for her in any other way, not yet at least, but I could certainly help her in this department.
Not missing a beat, I rolled her body over and peeled open her towel, exposing all of her creamy skin to me. I felt a little like a kid on Christmas morning, unwrapping a present. I'd just seen her naked a few minutes ago, but now everything was about to be different. I was going to get to taste her and touch her and make her come for me.
This was way better than Christmas morning.
CHAPTER 15:
JUNIPER
Ben made me feel like a sex-crazed teenager. My mind tried to argue that these feelings belonged to the pregnancy hormones. But I had to disagree. It wasn't like some gorgeous stranger off the street could have ever held this much power over me. Only him.
Kill Devil Hills: A Complete Beach Romance Series (4-Book Box Set) Page 66
