Her Wings

by Liz Peters

  After about half of the morning had passed, Ben had been fairly successful at keeping his focus on the group of four that he was currently working with. Although, he couldn’t stop himself from looking up when he heard a familiar laugh coming from the other side of the room. He saw Ali with one of the male students that had been fairly successful in the class so far — Chase Stevens. They were happily working at their second practice round, and the final one before they would be evaluated by their instructor on their performance.

  Ali was obviously having a good time, though Ben couldn’t stop himself from feeling the pang of jealousy that stabbed at his emotions in response to seeing that. It was probably for the best that both of them moved on. He just hadn’t expected her to be moving on quite that quickly. When Chase rested his hand on the small of Ali’s back to escort her out of the room after the morning session, Ben realized that he’d been clenching his hands tightly and had to take a deep breath to help himself relax.

  Instead of joining the rest of the group out in the hall, Ben made a beeline for his office. Fortunately, he’d packed a lunch, as he didn’t want to be around anyone right now. He certainly did not want to be subjected to watching Ali and Chase spend the rest of the break period flirting with each other. He’d far rather be sitting in his office sulking by himself.

  If this was how things were going to be, then Ben was just going to be especially diligent treating Ali like he did the rest of his class. He could act like he was entirely disinterested in her as a person and put all of his focus on what he should have been focused on all along — doing his job.

  As if to make this day all the more unbearable, Ben had to face saying goodbye to his friends later that night. On his way home, he grabbed a quick carryout meal for the three of them, their last one together. When he walked in, he found Jeremy and Camille packed and almost ready to go. They had spent one last day sightseeing on their own and were a bit quieter than they had been for most of their stay. They engaged in some general conversation and had a quick meal together, then Ben drove them to the airport. None of them were feeling very good about splitting up so they kept their goodbyes short and sweet.

  Ben came home to an empty apartment feeling more lonely than he ever remembered feeling in a very long time. He couldn’t believe that just a few short weeks ago he was content to spend his free time sipping tea and reading a good book. Now that he’d experienced the fun, laughter, and companionship from both his friends and Ali, he realized what he’d been missing.

  Never had he ever been so uncertain of his life decisions as he was right now.

  Chapter Nine

  Ali

  Alicia knew she was supposed to stay away from Ben. He’d been right the day he showed up at her apartment and told her that they couldn’t do what they’d been doing anymore. It wasn’t just that things were starting to be obvious in class to the people around them, but Ali was starting to lose focus on the things she needed to really pay attention to. It was a hard enough program without staring at your teacher’s ass in a pair of uniform trousers instead of paying attention to what was going on. There were a few parts of the class that she could get through without too much difficulty, but things were starting to get out of hand for her.

  That didn’t mean that Ali hadn’t been crushed by him ending things between them so abruptly. Ben might have been right, but that didn’t make any of this feel right. There were days that she found herself staring, zoning out and just remembering what had happened the night she had given him a ride home from the bar.

  She had no idea why she couldn’t get Ben off her mind. It wasn’t like they’d been anything too serious, and it definitely wasn’t the first time that Ali had a fun romp with someone she hadn’t been in a relationship with. Although it was a mystery she had to admit there was definitely something about him that she couldn’t distract herself from. Being in the same room with him every single day was starting to become an exquisite form of torture.

  The last few days had felt like moving through mud. It could have been a month as far as Alicia was concerned, and the rest of the course was stretching out in front her like some endless expanse that she didn’t think she was ever going to be able to get through to the other side. In addition, Ben had suddenly started showing up everywhere that she found herself outside of the classroom as well, and all she could do was try to avoid him. If she didn’t, there was no way she was going to be able to stop herself from pulling him down into one of those scorching kisses that he’d given her back in her apartment. It was just a little over a week ago, and she could still feel her lips burning from the memory of it.

  Today had been particularly hard. She’d been distracted at every turn, and the man had been all the way at the other side of the room for a majority of it. Every now and then, he would pass by where she stood, wafting his familiar scent on the gentle breeze that trailed along his wake. This was starting to get ridiculous.

  Ali could feel the knot in her stomach tighten every time something happened that brought her attention back to Ben. If things got any more difficult, Ali was fairly certain that she was going to lose her focus, and that was unacceptable.

  She had done her best to try to take her mind off of things. She’d even managed to go along with Chase Steven’s flirting with encouragement from Kristina. It was something to take up time, but it wasn’t what she really wanted. Every time he started, it just reminded her that she’d much rather be rolling around in the front seat of her Jeep than to be sitting in a restaurant with Chase. But, it was a distraction, something she could do without causing too much trouble.

  Today he was at her side, always just to her right, and always talking. Half the time she’d just tuned it out as background noise, but what he was saying finally came into focus for her as she turned to face him.

  “Mostly, I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to grab dinner with me tonight?”

  Ali’s eyebrows shot up as recognition hit her with full force. Going on a date with someone hadn’t even been on her radar since that night with Ben. Her mind had been totally preoccupied with the one night stand they’d managed to pull off more or less successfully. She hadn’t yet realized that to the world, she was single. Sabrina was the only one who knew the truth of her situation. Although someone must have suspected something since they had ratted them out to human resources.

  It took Ali a moment to think over her response to Chase. There wasn’t anything about him that she found particularly alluring, but going out with one of her classmates might take the heat off of the situation a bit. If a little dinner out with someone she didn’t particularly care about was what it took to start to smooth things over around here, then so be it.

  “Yeah... I mean if you want to. Where?” Ali tried to focus on the work in front of her, but at least pay Chase enough attention to not make him feel ignored. Even if she was thinking of Ben, Chase deserved better than that.

  “Maybe that new Mexican place out by the bridge in town?” Chase shrugged a little noncommittally, though she could tell it was just him trying to look cool and nonchalant.

  “Yeah, why don’t I meet you there at like seven? It’ll give us both a chance to go home and change clothes.”

  It felt a little less like a date when she agreed to meet him there on her own and more like she was just hanging out with a friend from class. She certainly didn’t want him to pick her up. It also meant that if things didn’t work out between them, Chase wouldn’t know where she lived. Ali had learned a long time ago how to play it safe. Even that thought brought Ben to mind. Living as neighbors in the same apartment complex wasn’t the same as some random guy from her class knowing where she lived.

  She had instinctively felt safe with Ben. He was unlike anyone else she had ever been involved with. He was older, but it was much more than that. Maybe it was the fact that on the outside, he was super straight-laced, a real rule follower. Privately though, she had seen an entirely different side of him. In bed, the
man was a beast.

  Whereas most men appeared to be good on the outside, but assholes once you got to know them, this guy was somewhat opposite. The duality of what he was in public versus what he was behind closed doors was every woman’s fantasy.

  The surprise on Chase’s expression when she accepted his invitation at least brought a laugh out of Ali. It had been a while since she’d found herself laughing in class. Maybe it had been a good idea to accept an invitation from a friend. At least it gave her something to look forward to besides going home alone and wasting the night away watching corny movies on television and eating popcorn straight out of the microwave bag. Now she just needed to make it through the rest of the day intact, and then push through the remainder of this class one day at a time.

  ALI FOUND HERSELF HANGING back after class in the foyer of the training center long after everyone had left. She wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking, but she felt like she was waiting for something. Without thinking it through, she did the one thing she probably should have done days ago and made a beeline to Ben’s office.

  She made a couple of quick raps on the door then swung it open to face the person she most wanted to see and the one she was most reluctant to talk to. Ben was standing there behind his desk, frozen with a file in one hand that hovered over the bag sitting in his chair. He was clearly packing up to leave for the night, and Ali had interrupted him. She didn’t care at the moment. There were a few things she needed to get off her chest.

  “Ben, I’m not even going to apologize for just barging in here. We need to talk.” She stopped as soon as she got into the room, closing the door behind her even though there was clearly no one else in the building. This conversation needed to be between the two of them only, and there was no way she was going to be able to stop herself now that she’d started. She was on a roll.

  “I don’t know what there is that we need to talk about, Ali. We had this discussion already. This isn’t something we can do. There can’t be anything between us — not while you’re my student here. Even you being here right now doesn’t look good. Besides, I thought you had a date tonight.” Ben’s face turned down as he spoke the last sentence. She could see the obvious distaste he had for that situation, and it made her chest feel tight.

  “It’s not a date...” That was the only sentence Ali could muster, and it was half-hearted at best. Maybe she should have been angrier, but at the moment, all she could feel was like everything that was happening was a complete disappointment. This wasn’t how she’d thought any of this was going to go.

  “It certainly seemed like it was a date to me when the two of you were setting it up in class. You’ve been moping around for days, so have I, I suppose, but at least he got a laugh out of you.” The bitterness in that comment was one that Ali hadn’t been able to foresee either. She’d thought he was the one who didn’t care about her, that giving her up for the sake of their jobs was something that had been an easy decision for him, but clearly, she’d been wrong.

  It struck Ali all of a sudden that she’d been too wrapped up in how all of this was affecting her to see how it might be affecting Ben. He’d been keeping his distance, perhaps for the same reasons she had been trying to distract herself. Maybe being in the same room together had been just as hard for him.

  Ali didn’t even try to come up with some witty response or to correct him on what he’d misinterpreted. Nor did she have the words to tell him everything she’d been processing for the last few days. She certainly had no explanation for what she was doing as she walked around the desk, sliding her hands up Ben’s chest to pull him down into a hungry kiss.

  Ben could have easily pushed her away or broken the kiss between them. Ali wouldn’t have been at all surprised. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her crushing her into his chest as he deepened the connection between them and telling her everything that she needed to know. He clearly wanted this just as much as she did, and there was no way that Ali was going to be able to deny them now. It didn’t appear that he was going to either.

  Before Ali knew what was going on, Ben’s fingertips dug into her ass, lifting her off the floor and plopping her down on the desk. Half of the things that had been sitting on the surface clattered onto the carpet at the foot of the desk, forgotten as Ben’s lips found Ali’s throat. Her fingers threaded into his hair, pulling him in closer while her legs went around his waist. The skirt she’d decided to wear today slid up her thighs until it was bunched around her hips, letting Ben’s body fully slide between her thighs just where she had wanted him since the last night they’d been together.

  It may not have been her intention to have sex with Ben on his desk in the middle of his office this evening, but obviously, that was what they both wanted. There was no way she was going to stop it now that it was happening. Instead, she moved along with him as his fingers twisted in the cotton underwear she was wearing to yank them hastily down her thighs and drop them on the floor. Without a moment’s hesitation, his hands went to the zipper on his pants, working it open in one smooth move.

  Their bodies crashed together once again, and this time, Ben’s full length slid easily inside of her as Ali let out a soft sigh, wrapping herself around him to pull him in against her. Their lips joined as they moved together, forgetting the rest of the world around them in order to get lost in each other.

  This was the thing that Ali had been missing. This was the answer to the mystery. She needed Ben, more than she needed anything else, and she was unable to resist the powerful force that drew them together any longer.

  Chapter Ten

  Ben

  Ben found himself sitting alone in the dark of his apartment later that night thinking about everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks. It had all been such a whirlwind and everything that he had done had been against his better judgment. Now he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to cut Ali out of his life entirely.

  It had been a long time since Ben felt like he’d had feelings for someone, at least real ones. There had, of course, been women he’d been attracted to, but never someone he felt like he wasn’t going to be able to stay away from until now. There was something about Ali that he knew he wasn’t going to be able to avoid, and there was still nearly a month left in the class. That left him with a limited number of options for what they could do to manage the situation between them.

  Firstly, Ben and Ali could try to go on like nothing had happened and just stay away from each other entirely. They had been trying that since their breakup and wound up banging once again like a force that could not be deterred. It wasn’t a realistic expectation for them to be able to keep their desires at bay and pretend like there was nothing going on between them. The recent incident on his desk was proof, and damn he wanted more of that. Their fire was his drug and without realizing it, he had become an addict.

  There was always the possibility that they could continue on in secret until the end of class. There was little hope that no one would catch on as someone had already noticed that there was at least an attraction between them. It had been enough for them to report it to human resources, though Ben still had no idea who had put in that report. He also had no idea how much any of them knew or had seen.

  The final option was for one of them to quit. There was no way he was going to ask that of Ali. It wasn’t just that this was the thing she’d wanted to do most of her life. They’d discussed that back in the bar on the first night they’d hooked up. It wasn’t fair of him to even bring that up to her with all the effort and hard work she was putting into her career and her future. That meant he was going to be the one who would be leaving if that became the final decision.

  No matter what he chose, it wasn’t going to be an easy decision, and Ben needed some advice. There was really only one person he could imagine turning to ask for it — Jeremy. His best friend was only a phone call away all the time, though if he’d needed him up until a few days ago, he would only have had to walk to the gu
est bedroom in his apartment. Now, of course, when Ben had a giant dilemma sitting in his lap, Jeremy was in an entirely different state.

  Without thinking about what he was going to say, he picked up his phone to call his best friend. Anxiously, he waited for the ringing to stop and the familiar voice to pick up on the other end of the line.

  “What’s up, old man?”

  It was good to hear Jeremy’s voice rather than just sit in his apartment stewing in his own thoughts, but Ben knew he had a lot of business to get down to before this call was over.

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you picked up.”

  The stress in Ben’s voice must have been obvious as soon as he spoke because Jeremy immediately dropped the playful tone in his voice and got serious.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Ben had done a pretty admirable job of holding it together until the moment his best friend asked him what was wrong. Everything that he had been holding in for what felt like an eternity was about to spill out. He let out a long sigh that melted into a groan as he rested his forehead in his hands.

  “So, the breakup with Ali didn’t take. We couldn’t stay apart, and I just fucked her on the desk in my office.”

  The pause on the other end of the line was obvious, and Ben was starting to get nervous about what Jeremy was going to have to say about all of this. Ben felt like a teenager that was confessing to his parents something idiotic he had done, but he knew he needed to hear the truth from someone who had his back and wasn’t a part of the situation.

  “I had a feeling something like that might happen, but Dude! Your desk?!”

  Ben let out a low groan, rubbing his fingers over his eyes.

  “Yeah, I can’t believe it either. At least no one saw us. I think. We’re only halfway through the class and I have no idea what to do now.”