by Vi Lily
Before long, he starts stroking my hair. “Shh, baby, shh. You’re going to hurt your throat.”
He seems desperate to comfort me and I wonder if he’s one of those rare guys who hates to see a girl cry. Unfortunately, his words do nothing to soothe me and I continue to blubber.
“Beth, come on, baby, you need to stop,” he pleads. “Seriously. You’re… you’re getting snot all over my chest.”
Even though it’s a lame attempt to bring me in from the storm, his words make me laugh through my tears and I sit back. He’s not kidding — his chest is soaked. I hope it’s more tears than snot. I start to wipe my eyes with my sleeve, but realize I’m still wearing his sweatshirt and I really don’t want to get snot on that too.
He scoots off the bed and pads to the bathroom, bringing back a roll of toilet paper. I take it from him with a murmured thanks, unroll a length, then proceed to clean my face and blow my nose as he gets back into the bed.
I offer him some tissue for his chest, but he laughs it off, then pulls me back to his chest as he lays back. He strokes my hair again and I start to relax, a shuddering sigh escaping me.
“I’m sorry I let people hurt you,” he whispers. “I have no excuse for that. I just sat back and watched you be abused.” His voice catches on the last word.
“But I want you to know that I hated every minute of it. I wanted to beat everyone that even dared to look at you funny. But I didn’t. Instead, like a damn coward, I stewed in my hurt, feeling all self-righteous because I was being vindicated every time some jerk took a cheap shot at you.” He shakes his head, the anger at himself evident.
“I’m a jerk. And I don’t deserve you. You’re way too amazing for a douche like me. When we get off this mountain, I won’t blame you one bit for kicking me in the balls and telling me to take a hike.”
Despite the pain that’s still threatening to drown me, I giggle as I slide my hand over his hard abs.
“I, um, don’t want to… uh, kick you,” I whisper, because my throat is back to feeling like it’s caught fire. I want to say more, say that not only do I not want to do kick him, but that I don’t want to tell him to leave, that I want him in my life from now on. Forever. I still want that secret future that I’d always envisioned for us.
But I hold my tongue.
It was huge to me to hear that Ben was willing to “forgive” me if I’d willingly cheated on him. I mean, that. Is. Freaking. Huge. That alone makes me want to just throw caution to the wind, as they say, and sail that effing boat into the sunset.
“I would take Rod to school every morning,” he continues, “and listen to his bull, listen to him saying godawful stuff about you, laughing about how crappy your mother was treating you. All I wanted to do was punch his teeth down his throat. And kick your mom’s butt.”
His hand moves from my hair to my arm and I can’t help but notice how his fingers brush the side of my breast. I don’t think it’s intentional, but damn…
I have to focus my thoughts back to what he’s telling me.
“And through it all, through all the bullying and abuse, you’ve held on. You’ve ‘risen above’” — he does the one-handed air quotes again — “and never let them see that they were getting to you. I was so proud of you.”
He chuckles then, bouncing me again. “I heard about what you told Raine and her minions in the bathroom. I don’t think those bitches have ever been called bitches before.”
I laugh with him for a minute while I think about everything he’s said. And he’s said more, much, much more than what his words have told me.
He was angry I was being hurt, even in the midst of trying to deal with feeling betrayed from both me and his dad. He wanted to hurt people for hurting me. He recognizes how crappy it is that my family turned on me.
And he’s proud of me. For how I didn’t cower, didn’t fall apart. Wow.
But I can’t let him shoulder the blame. “It wasn’t up to you to fight my battles,” I whisper. “I’m a big girl, and not as much of a sissy as you’re making me out to be.”
I can feel him shake his head. “No, it was our battle, since it was that ass — my father who did that to you, who just left you to deal with all the fallout. I know you’re tough, but you couldn’t fight the whole school, hell, the whole town by yourself.”
“More like the whole state,” I joke, even though it’s sort of true.
Ben sighs then, heavily. He shifts to the side then, out from under me and pulls me up to the pillow next to him. Our noses are nearly touching, and he reaches out to run his hand down my cheek, then cups both my cheeks in his big hands.
A storm of emotion is on his face and his eyes cloud over from it. I watch in fascination as tears gather in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry for what my dad did,” he whispers and I shut my eyes so that I don’t break down again. He kisses my eyelids.
“For what he stole from you,” he continues, his voice catching in a choking sound. “For stealing your innocence.” The last word is said with a sob and I open my wet eyes to stare into his that are mirroring my pain.
“I know that you wanted… that you wanted to give your, your virginity, to me,” he whispers. “And I’m sorry that a pathetic excuse for a human being stole that from you.”
Ben leans forward then and gives me the sweetest, softest kiss on my forehead. I reach up and clasp his wrists, wanting to hold him against me.
It’s too much, all this emotion. I feel like I’m about to splinter. I cling to his wrists, his lips still against my forehead and just sigh against his mouth. I realize then that I love this boy-man so much. So damn much.
He hurt me, yeah, but I would no sooner blame an injured animal for biting me than I would blame him for striking out when he thought the worst. He was hurting, just like I was. Did he act badly? Yeah. But would I have acted any differently if I’d had the same “evidence” that he had, thinking that he’d willingly cheated on me?
No.
I would have blamed him just like he blamed me. I wouldn’t have listened to him as he tried to explain either; I would have just thought that he was making excuses.
I’m done. Sooo done with all of this. The rape I don’t even remember. The video. Being ostracized like an eighteenth century fallen woman. My family turning on me like I had singlehandedly managed to bring about Armageddon.
Done.
“Ben,” I whisper against his lips and watch as he opens his wet eyes and looks at me.
“Make love to me.”
His beautiful eyes widen at my request. He looks shocked, like that was the last thing he expected to hear. It probably was, after we talked about the painful past few months.
“Baby, I—”
“Shh,” I interrupt him as I place a finger over his lips, smiling when he kisses it. “I want this. I need this. After what happened…” I move my hand and wave it in the air, like I’m fighting off the emotion that threatens to overcome me again.
I force myself to suck in a deep breath. “I just want to start the new chapter in my life with something beautiful. And I know making love with you will be beautiful.”
His breath leaves him in a hiss. I don’t doubt that he wants me; I mean, hell, I saw exactly how much he wants me in the bathroom. And while that makes me a little nervous, I can’t help but feel empowered by his desire.
I can still see the hesitation in him as he thinks way too much about everything. He’s most likely thinking that I’m too emotional right now, or too sick, or too whatever.
“Please, Ben. I need you. Erase the bad and fill me with the good.” Oh crap… that double-entendre was seriously cringe-worthy.
But those words have the effect I need.
He closes his eyes and a look of what might be taken for resignation crosses his face. If I didn’t have evidence that he desired me, I would be backpedaling on my offer right now.
“Beth,” he groans my name, a plea. For lenience or what, I don’t know. He sits up then, pulli
ng me with him.
His hands are on me in the next instance. He slides them over my hips and pulls on me, tugging me closer, until I’m forced to straddle his lap.
“I’m gonna make you feel so good, baby,” he tells me as he buries his head in my neck and kisses along its length. “Been wanting this since I met you.”
At that, I push back against his shoulders and look up at him. It’s funny, we’re still not at eye level, even though I’m sitting on him. Our size difference is a little intimidating.
I place one hand on his chest and finger the ends of his hair with the other. It’s gotten longer since we’ve been apart. He always kept it pretty short, but now it’s almost to his shoulders. With those tatts — pe’a he called them — his dark skin and long, dark hair, he’s really rocking the Polynesian vibe.
And, oh man, is that sexy.
Something has awakened inside of me, something that I never even knew existed. I don’t mean to get all poetic or anything, but Ben’s eyes have a new look to them as he pulls back and stares down at me while tenderly brushing the hair from my face. The look calls to me somehow, pulls at me, like he’s managed to grab one of my heart strings and is tugging me toward him.
“I love you, baby,” he whispers.
Oh my gawd… My eyes instantly fill with tears as I slide my arms around his shoulders to pull him closer. I touch my lips to his briefly.
“I love you too,” I whisper back, against his mouth.
He’s on me then at my admission, like a predator on prey. His mouth is hard and hot, his tongue thrusting, forcing me to respond. I feel overwhelmed, almost panicky, at being so completely consumed by him.
It isn’t a kiss; it’s a branding.
“Wow,” I breathe when he pulls back all too soon.
“Yeah, wow,” he whispers as he kisses me again. I feel as if my very being is being pulled into his, the two mating in some eternal cosmic dance.
Okay, so maybe the writer in me is a bit of a drama queen.
He breaks the consuming kiss and traces kisses along my jaw, over every inch of my face, on the tip of my nose and even my eyelids as they flutter shut.
Waves of sensation crash over me and I’m floating in a sea of such passion that I feel like I just might drown in this man’s touch. And he is a man, not a boy, no matter his age. There certainly isn’t anything boyish about his body… or his maturity. The fact that he could admit he was wrong in how he treated me, sorry for not listening to my side of what happened, admitting that he’d decided that even if I had been guilty of cheating on him, he’d wanted to move past it just because he wants to be with me.
“Wow,” I whisper against his mouth when he moves back to my lips. Yeah, I know I’m not being too poetic at the moment. I’m seriously too overwhelmed.
“Just you and me from now on,” he says against my lips. “Never gonna let you go, baby.”
A part of me recoils at that statement because, seriously, it sounds kind of stalkerish. But the ultra-feminine side of me is squee-ing like a third grader over a new Barbie.
“Mmm,” I moan. “Not gonna let you go, either.” I realize that I mean it, to an extent. I mean, if he no longer wanted to be with me, I wouldn’t exactly tie him up and force him to stay. But I know I would do everything in my power to make him want to stay, because I feel more love for Ben than I have for human being ever.
Despite the past few months, despite his temporary rejection of me, my heart knows that he was hurting by not being with me, just as mine was. If there’s such a thing, then I would say we’re true soul mates. Closer to each other than most human beings ever get.
And then we show each other just how close we can get.
I can’t move. My body is broken. Nothing is working right.
And it’s all because of Ben.
We made love so long and so intensely that my body turned to a squishy goo that’s only still lying on the bed instead of slipping through the floorboards of the cabin because my skin is holding it together.
I had no idea that making love — there is no way what we just spent hours doing can be called “sex” — would be so overwhelming. Nothing I learned in Sex Ed, nothing I’ve read in all those romance novels I’ve devoured over the years, nothing I’ve seen in movies, could have prepared me for the onslaught to every sense, every nerve ending, every freaking cell in my body.
All my muscles and organs and blood vessels working together in unison to make sure I know that Ben is the Polynesian god of all pleasure.
Hell yeah he is.
We’re both exhausted, but he doesn’t release me. He continues cuddling me like I’m the most precious thing in the world. He’s panting against my neck and I wrap my arms around his shoulders and lay my head against his throat. I can feel his pulse pounding.
After a few moments, he slides his hands under my butt and then raises up and walks us on his knees over to the pillows, where he gently lays me down, following with his body as he holds his weight off me with his elbows.
His eyes are on me again and while I would expect a look of arrogance, instead he looks concerned. His big hand comes up and he gently runs a finger down my cheek.
“Are you okay?” he asks with a whisper.
I grin. “Better than okay. I feel ay-may-zeeeeeeen,” I say as I stretch my arms above my head and wince. Of course, he notices.
“What’s the matter, baby?” he asks, concern clouding his voice.
I giggle. “Little sore,” I admit, and he laughs in relief.
“Sorry, I’ll leave you alone,” he says as he moves to my side and pulls my upper body onto his chest. He’s a hard, yet surprisingly comfy, pillow.
“Just for a little while,” I tell him on a yawn as I trace circles around his chest. “I need a little nap, then can we do that again?”
His chuckle bounces my whole body, but his hand moves to my hair and he threads his fingers through it, pulling gently on the damp tangles. I wince; I know my hair is going a horrid mess when it dries after being washed with bar soap.
“We can do that as much as you want, baby.”
I fall asleep then, wrapped up in strong arms. And love.
Chapter 4
Ben
T WO MORE amazing days were spent in the cabin, making love and laughing. Talking about the future and a little of the past, though neither of them wanted to ruin what they had by dwelling on the crappy stuff.
Thursday morning, just as he walked out to gather more wood, Ben spotted something glinting in the bright sun in the distance. He paused just outside the cabin and put his hand over his eyes. The sun was glaring against the snow and he squinted hard to make out what it was he was seeing.
A vehicle. Coming their way.
He turned and ran back up the porch steps. “Beth!” he yelled, even though it was a tiny cabin and it wasn’t like she couldn’t hear him whisper from the front door.
He’d left her naked in bed — and purring like a kitten. She’d told him she wouldn’t be able to move for a week after their last love-making session.
“Get dressed, baby,” he said more quietly, while fighting back a grin at the sleepy, almost drunk look she gave him, her hair a tangled mess covering half her face.
“We got company.” He laughed when she bolted upright and sprung from the bed.
Ben went back out to greet whoever it was heading their way. The storm had passed completely by Monday night, but it had left a lot of snow behind, much more than had been predicted. There was no way Beth would have made the trek to the Jeep and there was no way he’d leave her behind, even if she had mostly recovered from the flu already, with just a lingering cough.
She’d joked it was all the “Samoan injections” he’d given her that had helped her get better.
God, he loved that girl.
A part of him wanted to stay there at the cabin, to keep things the way they were — no one else around, just the two of them. It had been perfect, like a vacation.
No, l
ike a honeymoon.
He snorted to himself at his thoughts. Eighteen and a junior in high school was a little young to be thinking along the matrimony lines, he knew. But, damn, she made him do that, to envision a future. A forever with her.
And he’d made sure he told her that, right before they made love. He wanted Beth to know that it wasn’t sex, not for him. It was love. And it was for forever.
The vehicle was close enough now that he could see it was a Forest Service truck. Probably saw the chimney smoke and was coming to investigate. He turned when he heard the door open and watched as Beth stepped out onto the porch. He frowned at the fact that she wasn’t wearing a jacket, so he slipped his off and draped it over her shoulders. She smiled up at him and he couldn’t help himself — he leaned down to steal a kiss.
She sighed heavily as they watched the SUV — with snow chains — pull up in front of the cabin.
“Well, it was nice while it lasted,” she sighed. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He couldn’t have agreed more as he leaned down to kiss the top of her head.
“Yeah,” he matched her sigh. “Woulda been nice to stay here longer, huh?”
“Forever,” she breathed as she squeezed him. Ben knew then that Beth was on the same page he was; forget the world, their world, and just live on love. He laughed at his stupid thoughts. Pussy whipped for real.
“Although having a toothbrush woulda been nice,” she muttered.
He chuckled. They’d been using a washcloth and soap, which was nasty as hell, but it was better than nothing. He had to agree that toothpaste and a brush would have been good.
And a hairbrush for her hair. Since all they had was that bar of soap, after he’d washed her hair it was a tangled disaster. Of course, all the sex hadn’t helped the situation. They both had tried to comb it with their fingers, but Beth had said that she was probably going to have to cut it all off. Said she’d been thinking about it anyway and she’d asked him what he thought.
“It’s your hair, not mine,” he’d shrugged. “I’m not in love with you because you have hair like a Barbie. Shave it all off if you want. I’ve always kinda had a thing for Vin Diesel.” She’d laughed and punched him in the arm.
