Every Hidden Truth (Far From Ruined Book 2)

by Nikole Knight

  I curled into him as my eyes burned, my throat thickening against my will. I wanted to beg him to hold me forever, but like all things, this moment, too, would end. The knowledge of our inevitable separation made me want to weep. I didn’t want to lose this, whatever this was, now that I’d found it. I didn’t want to be incomplete again.

  “Si? You okay?” Ben’s voice was deep and husky as he cradled me to him, his hands running over my back in loving sweeps.

  I nodded, unable to form words to explain the stinging moisture accumulating in my eyes. “Just… don’t let me go, yet.”

  He didn’t. He cradled me close, like I was fragile and irreplaceable. After kissing my cheek, Ben slid his lips to my ear, and his whispered promise nearly broke me. “Never.”

  One lone tear escaped the corner of my eye and trailed down my cheek, mixing with our combined sweat as it disappeared into Ben’s neck.

  Wow, I thought. So, this is what it feels like.

  Twenty-Four

  Warm and sated, I woke to the sound of Ben’s deep breathing in my ear. Blinking my eyes against the sun streaming through my open blinds, I burrowed into my pillow to hide from the light. I must have forgotten to shut my blinds last night.

  After all, I’d been rather distracted.

  With a giddy, satisfied smile, I basked in the spring soap drenching my sheets and the hot, deliciously naked body framing my back. Ben’s limbs coiled around me, locking in place like an anaconda about to swallow me. How did he ever manage to sleep alone? He was the epitome of a snuggler.

  I bet he had a secret stash of stuffed animals hidden under his bed. I laughed at the thought.

  “Shh.” His garbled rebuke slurred against the back of my neck, and I bit my bottom lip to quiet my amusement. “Too early. Go back to sleep.”

  I tried to obey, but the sunlight was too bright. There would be no more sleeping for me, yet I didn’t mind lying limp and sated in his hold, relishing the closeness. When he slipped his leg between mine and pressed his half-stiff cock against my ass, I sighed in contentment even as my body mumbled a warning.

  A dull ache resided in my lower back, hips, and thighs, but I had half a mind to ignore the pain and tempt Ben into a round of morning sex. Judging from his snores, he wasn’t up for it, but I could get him in the mood.

  Unfortunately, my ass was not happy about my train of thought, and I couldn’t really blame it. After over a six-month dry spell, my body wasn’t used to this.

  Maybe morning sex was a bad idea.

  Stretching the best I could in Ben’s vise-like grip, I tightened then relaxed my muscles in hopes of working out the leftover discomfort. It was the best kind of soreness, but I cringed nonetheless when my ass throbbed. Curse Ben and his amazing, wonder-cock.

  He groaned against my neck, clearly unhappy with my movement, and I snickered under my breath as I settled once more.

  “I’m still sleeping,” he grunted, nipping at a tender spot on my shoulder where he’d bitten me last night.

  I jerked at the sting. “Ow. Dick.”

  “Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry at all, but I melted when he kissed away the pain. “I didn’t mean to leave a mark.”

  Yeah, right! He’d littered my body with love bites and hickeys, and he’d enjoyed every second of it. To be honest, I didn’t mind it, either. Apparently, I was a bit of a masochist. I enjoyed the subtle pain of his teeth sinking into my skin.

  “You can mark me if you want. I don’t mind.” My tease turned into a moan as he bared his teeth and bit the nape of my neck. “Fuck me!”

  And cue my insatiable morning wood.

  Sniggering, he licked at the bite, his breath fanning over the moisture, and I shivered. “I already did.”

  “Shut up.”

  As his hand cupped my hip, I wiggled my ass against his erection, and he gasped, his fingers digging in. “You really want to tempt me, right now?”

  “Maybe.” My sly response cut off as he rolled on top of me, blanketing my back with his weight.

  I turned my head to the side so I could breathe as he panted against my spine, his lips starting at the back of my neck and traveling down. He kissed each vertebra, and I fisted my hands in the sheets when he reached my tailbone. And then he went lower.

  Holy shit! That was new.

  A wanton, moaning mess, I begged him not to stop. When he licked his way back up my body, I craned my neck to kiss his mouth desperately.

  “Condom. Lube. In the drawer.” Apparently, complete sentences were beyond the capacity of my lust-addled brain, but Ben understood.

  He hesitated, sliding our lips together as he hovered over me. “Are you sure? I don’t…” He massaged my left ass cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  My ass said no, but my cock said yes. And I was a hot-blooded, eighteen-year-old male. Was this seriously a discussion?

  “I swear to God, Ben. If you don’t get inside me…” I left the threat hanging, and he shuddered.

  Scrambling over the mattress, he opened my side table and snatched the necessary supplies as I hugged my pillow, excitement buzzing through me. My ass was going to hate me, but I was too impatient to ask Ben if he wanted to switch.

  Plus, I really wanted him inside me, again.

  “Wait.” He shot me a panicked look as he knelt naked on my bed, his gorgeous penis standing at attention. “It’s Saturday. Don’t you have to work?”

  “Shit!” I lunged for my phone, shoving him out of the way as he cackled. Sure enough, I’d slept through my alarm. If I was going to make it to work on time, I needed to be in my truck yesterday! “Damn, I forgot. Do you have practice?”

  His pout was adorable as he glared longingly at the bottle of lube in his hand. “Yeah, in an hour.”

  We stared at each other for a moment before I shuffled over the blankets and copied his position, knees sinking into the mattress. I traced his sternum, eyeing him with what I hoped was a naughty gleam in my eye. “Call in sick?”

  The moment I wrapped my fingers around him and pumped, he nodded. “Call in sick.”

  It took all my self-control to separate our ravenous mouths, but I needed to call my boss before I got fired. I’d never played hooky from work before, so I didn’t feel all that guilty. Plus, Ben’s mouth was a welcome distraction and solidified my resolve.

  Feigning illness, I spoke to my boss as Ben spread my legs and made himself comfortable between them. His mouth was hot and wet, and my eyes rolled back into my head as I did my best not to give away exactly what I was doing right now. Hopefully, I sounded really sick, like I was about to vomit and not like I was about to orgasm inside my boyfriend’s mouth.

  I rang off and tossed my phone on the bed, whimpering as I delved my fingers into his curls. “If you don’t stop, I’m coming in your mouth.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t want that.” Impatient, he flipped me over and draped himself across my back. “Are you sure?” His voice was husky and strained, and I nodded vehemently, desperate for relief.

  Last night, Ben had been shy and unsure, allowing me to lead, but not this time. He was gentle at first, preparing me for him, easing inside me, slow and torturous. But the moment he received my pathetic moan of approval, he drove into me with abandon.

  His rhythm was choppy and unpracticed, but the angle was perfect. Smashing my face into my pillow, I grappled for purchase on the mattress, begging incoherently. My vocabulary dissolved into wordless grunts and growled demands for him to fuck me. And holy hell, did he fuck me.

  Thank God, my dad wasn’t home, because I couldn’t have been quiet if I tried. Lucky for her, Mrs. Kolkowski was half-deaf, but I pitied the rest of the neighborhood as Ben proved once and for all that I was, in fact, a screamer.

  My ass was not going to be happy when this was over.

  Sweaty and gasping for oxygen, we collapsed onto the bed minutes or possibly hours later. I couldn’t tell; I was too blissed out.

  Ben wrapped me in his arms, securing me to his side, a
nd I hitched my leg around his hips, my calf resting between his thighs.

  “Holy shit.” His chest chugged as he threw one arm over his eyes. “That was… I think I died.”

  With a chortle, I kissed his pec, nibbling on his nipple. He whined like a baby, tugging on my hair to stop me.

  “I don’t think I can walk.” I pecked his collarbone and snuggled into him, and he tightened his embrace.

  “Did I hurt you?” His genuine concern warmed my chest, and I shook my head.

  “No, I’m fine.” My ass begged to differ, and Ben read my lie.

  Tilting my chin, he arrested my gaze. “Silas, was I too rough?”

  “I’m pretty sure the whole, ‘God, Ben, fuck me harder,’ was a clear indication that you were not too rough.” I arched an eyebrow as he looked away, flushing to the tips of his ears. My shy Ben was back. “And I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m okay with rough.”

  He hid his embarrassment beneath his forearm, but his lips tipped in the corners. “Always so crass.”

  We lay together, our skin smelling of sex and sweat. I listened to the erratic beat of his heart slow to a more natural rhythm. Perfectly at peace, I drew designs on his torso as he massaged my scalp. I could have drifted back to sleep, but I didn’t want to miss a single moment of this.

  “You wanna jump in the shower?” he asked after a fashion, and I shook my head.

  I chose honesty, even though it was rather humiliating. “Not yet. I just wanna stay here for a while.”

  “Okay.” He pecked the top of my head, and I smiled.

  At some point in the late morning, we showered the dried salt from our bodies and changed my sheets. Dressed in only our boxers, I sat on the countertop as Ben cooked his famous cheesy eggs. I ignored the now-obvious pain in my lower body and snuck an aspirin or two when Ben wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t want him to regret what we’d shared this morning—or last night—because I sure as hell didn’t.

  Last night had been nothing like I ever experienced before. It had been amazing and terrifying and heart-wrenching. As lame as it sounded to my own brain, I couldn’t deny how it had been vastly more than simply sex between two bodies. I had never felt that kind of life-altering connection. And he stayed and held me afterward.

  There was something indescribably fulfilling about waking beside the person with whom I had shared something remarkable with the night before. How had I ever settled for anything less?

  When the eggs finished cooking, Ben joined me on the counter, and we ate in comfortable silence. His shoulder brushed mine every so often, and our dangling feet bumped purposefully. It was the best breakfast I’d had in a long time.

  I cleared my plate first and rested my head on Ben’s shoulder as he ate. I kissed the bone and muscle, grinning against his skin as he peeked at me from the corner of his eye. He chewed his eggs with a shy smile, his cheeks coloring.

  “I’m glad you stayed,” I blurted, and he set aside his mostly empty plate and cocked his head curiously. I didn’t need him to ask for clarification and answered the unspoken question. “No one’s ever stayed before. Well, technically, I’ve never had sex in my bed before, but, like, the other times, I wasn’t allowed to stay. I just mean—”

  He interrupted my mushy sentiment with a kiss, and I responded gratefully.

  When we parted, he nuzzled my cheek. “Where else am I gonna go?”

  Dissolving into goo, I simpered at the beautifully sappy exchange. “You’re such a nerd.”

  “Yeah, yeah, love you, too.” He hopped down from the counter, seemingly blasé over his flippant words.

  As he added our dishes to the dishwasher, I sat immobile on the breakfast bar, eyes wide and heart hammering. “What did you say?”

  It took him a moment, but his body locked mid-reach to the sink. “Nothing. I said, ‘yeah, yeah,’ and then I stopped talking.”

  The pain in my heart far outweighed the ache in my ass as he took it back, covering his slip, and I flinched. “Oh.”

  With his back to me, he mechanically filled the dishwasher as an awkward silence descended. Did he love me? Last night, there had been moments where I wanted to tell him, where he might have reciprocated, but we’d kept our silence. Maybe it had been too much in the face of the intimacy we’d shared. Or perhaps, I didn’t want it to happen in the heat of the moment.

  If he loved me, I wanted him to tell me with his brain clear. I imagined he would appreciate the same transparency. I knew with every fiber of my being that I loved him, that he loved me, too. It shouldn’t be so difficult to voice it, should it?

  “I’m just gonna use the bathroom.” With maroon cheeks, downcast eyes, and shoulders hunched, he pointed to the bathroom door off the kitchen.

  The moment he turned his back, panic seized me. Something precious was about to be broken between us, and after everything we’d experienced last night, I couldn’t let that happen.

  So, I opened my mouth and practically shouted at his retreating form. “I love you!”

  He froze, spine straightening. My words hung in the still air as my stomach lurched. Oh my God, did I really just yell the words like a psycho? And now I was totally going to puke.

  Sometimes, I was my own worst enemy.

  Cautiously, carefully, Ben faced me, lips parted in shock.

  Since I was terrible at these types of interactions, I rambled to cover my insecure fear. “I know it’s supposed to be, like, a thing, and that I should’ve waited for, like, a romantic moment. Obviously, screaming it at you in my kitchen isn’t the best scenario, so we can totally scrap this whole thing, if you want.”

  He approached me slowly, measuring each step as his blue eyes crashed and swirled like a hurricane.

  I kept going. “We could just pretend that I didn’t say anything—”

  “Don’t ruin this.” His finger touched my lips, rendering me mute. “Say it again.”

  Well, that hardly seemed fair, but I could deny him nothing. “I, uh, I love you.”

  Pushing between my legs, he cupped my face and beamed at me, his dimple carving into his cheek. “You have no idea what you do to me, do you?”

  He smashed our mouths together without awaiting a reply, and I mewled against his lips as he devoured me with barely contained need. And I returned his passion with my own as I attached myself to him like a barnacle. I craved him with every molecule in my body; I was his. Even though he threatened to consume me until there was nothing left, I surrendered willingly.

  “You hit me like a hurricane,” he confessed into my quivering mouth, kissing me again and again until I was breathless. “You whipped through me, leaving me in ruins. You destroy me.”

  That sounded violent and painful, and yet he looked like he quite enjoyed it; maybe I wasn’t the only masochist in this relationship. “Ben—”

  “But you put me together again, fitting the pieces in ways I never knew they could go. I can breathe with you.” He rubbed our noses together as I fought the burn behind my eyes. “I love you, Silas.”

  I whined, pressing my forehead to his as I glared through glassy eyes. “You can’t go saying shit like that! I practically yell at you and you get all romantic and crap. That’s not fair.”

  Ben chuckled, peppering my face with kisses as I sniffled. “I don’t care if you shout it at me, as long as you never stop saying it.”

  Humiliated yet light as air, I nodded shyly. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  He spoke it like a promise, offering me the jagged shards of himself, and I took them with the utmost care. I fit the pieces inside myself, making me whole. Then it was my turn. I offered him my tattered, ragged heart, praying it was enough. And he cradled it in his hands, using my broken fragments to seal his own gaping wounds.

  Warped and twisted, pieced together like a discombobulated tapestry, we fixed each other. We were bent and bruised, disfigured and damaged, but we were not ruined. Our scars didn’t make us weak; they made us fucking beautiful
.

  Words were cumbersome and unnecessary, and I tightened my hold on his neck as he hauled me into his arms and marched through the house. He climbed the stairs, kicked open my door, and planted me on the bed.

  Crawling after me, he tucked the covers around us and yanked me into his body. He held me like he would never let me go, and I curled into him, wishing I could burrow inside his body and never leave. We couldn’t stay here forever. Tomorrow was a new day with expectations and responsibilities. Life would move on.

  But today… Today, we would lay in my bed. We would waste away under cotton sheets and lose ourselves, if only for a while. We would relish every kiss, every touch, and commit them to memory. Because this was forever ours.

  We mapped each other’s skin, learning every path and trail. We explored and discovered until I knew his body like the back of my hand. It was the most exquisite type of torture, and we surrendered until there were no more secrets between us.

  By the time the long rays of sun stretched across my bedroom floor with late afternoon light, we had each other memorized.

  Twenty-Five

  Monday morning, Ben waited for me by his car. I blushed furiously when he tugged me into a rather passionate embrace. Ignoring the students around us, he kissed me with exuberant desire. I was shocked the snow at our feet didn’t melt from the heat. I dissolved into him, molding myself to his body, as I kissed him back fervently.

  When we parted, I grinned drunkenly as I shook the Ben-induced cobwebs from my brain. He nuzzled his chilly nose into the crook of my neck, seeking shelter from the late January air. Warmer from the toasty cab of my truck, I yelped at his icy skin, shoving him away as he snickered.

  “What was that greeting for?” I asked breathlessly, and Ben shrugged as he twined our hands.

  “What? I need an excuse to kiss my boyfriend?” He hauled me toward the school building.

  I rolled my eyes. “Psh, that wasn’t a kiss. That was borderline public indecency!”

  With a covert wink, he leaned in and captured my mouth with his, and my blood hummed. “Like you’re gonna complain.”