One of her slim dark eyebrows immediately arched, but she merely nodded. “Happy Thanksgiving,” she said, then turned to leave.
“Hold up.”
She turned. “Ben, there’s nothing else that needs—”
“Says you. You got to give your little speech, now I get to give mine.”
“My whole point was there is no need—”
“You might not need to, but I do.”
Now she looked uncomfortable and a lot less strident.
“Fi—”
“Can we not do this?” she asked, surprising him with the quiet way she’d made the plea, those big, beautiful amber eyes of hers imploring him to do as she asked. “Can’t we just let it go?”
“We can,” he said, thinking the way the tension left her shoulders in abject relief made him feel even worse than he had before. Something he hadn’t thought possible since he’d been left standing in Fergus’s pub. “Just as soon as I say what I need to say.” She stiffened all over again, and he had to reach out and take her arm as she tried to turn and walk away. He turned her back to face him, his hand remaining on her arm, just in case. “I can’t leave us like this. With you not even able to bear me talking to you. And it has nothing to do with your brother. I’m here because I need to be here.”
“We can talk,” she said. “Just not about this. It’s already mortifying enough—”
“What’s mortifying is finding out that someone I care about a great deal, someone who has been such an important part of my life, was made to feel anything but important and cared for.”
“We were kids. You were just being a typical adolescent jerk and I was being an overemotional teenage girl.”
He couldn’t have said right then what made him do it. Maybe it was the hurt that was still very clear in her eyes, or the memory of how she’d knocked him flat under the oak tree in Eula’s. He knew what it wasn’t. It wasn’t pity.
He tugged her close until she was flush up against him.
“Ben!” she squeaked, sounding alarmed.
“Shh,” he said, and lowered his head.
“Please, don’t,” she said, her voice ragged. But it was the glassy sheen in her eyes that stopped him.
His mouth still hovering a whisper above hers, he looked into her eyes. “Just a taste, Fi,” he said, his gaze dipping to her mouth, then back to her eyes.
The glassy sheen shifted to a sparkling flash, deep in those shattered, topaz-colored eyes of hers. How had he never noticed how stunning they were?
“I don’t want your—”
“This isn’t that,” he said. “This isn’t about the past. This is about right now.” His gaze searched her face, lingering again on those full, soft lips of hers. “This is about how you made me smile, seeing you again, standing in your own kitchen, hopelessly tangled in your own scarf, the Fiona I remembered.” His gaze went straight back to her eyes. “Fondly. Always fondly.”
“Ben,” she said again, only now it was a whisper, caught in her throat.
His smile was slow, but more certain now. “This is about how you kicked me right in the solar plexus, taking off your coat in Eula’s, looking like an exotic jewel in that gemstone-blue sweater, standing like some kind of hidden treasure amongst all those beautiful antiques.”
“You don’t have to say—”
“I do have to say,” he said, his voice low now so only she could hear him. “I do have to say. I have to say I’m sorry for being that adolescent jerk, for saying stupid things that hurt you.”
“Ben, I—”
“But you’re right, Fiona,” he said, needing to get the rest out. “That was then, and this is now. Then, you were that bratty kid sister I picked on.” He tugged her closer, until there was no way she could miss the unmistakable evidence that his feelings for her now were anything but familial. “Now . . . now I can’t stop thinking about you. I know I don’t deserve even a speck of your attention.” His gaze dropped back to her mouth, and he could feel her body shudder as he looked into her eyes in time to see her pupils slowly expanding in awareness. “A taste, Fi. Let’s bury the past for good.”
“It’s too much,” she said in a shaky whisper, her gaze searching his. “I can’t—this isn’t what—you don’t really—”
“Oh,” he said, hearing the gruff note in his own voice now. “Oh, but I do.” Then he stopped talking and did what he’d wanted to do since she’d slid out of that coat in Eula’s antique shop. He got that taste. Her mouth was even softer than it looked, her full bottom lip like a plump pillow, begging him to take a little nip. She gasped when he did just that, her lips parting in invitation . . . one he willingly accepted. She moaned and her body relaxed more deeply into his as he slid his tongue into her mouth, urging her to take it, take him, take what she wanted. This wasn’t all about him, at least he sure as hell didn’t want it to be.
It was his turn to groan when she did exactly that, taking him deeper, holding him there, then tangling her tongue with his, before tentatively sliding it into his mouth. He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her up onto her tiptoes, tipping her head back as he took the kiss deeper still. The groan vibrating in his throat matched the one he could feel as much as he could hear, doing the same inside of her.
She gripped the front of his jacket, the rough wool fisted in her hands as she held on, little moans escaping as he continued dueling with her, taking, being taken. Then suddenly she was breaking her mouth free of his, pressing her forehead to her hands, still holding tight to him.
“Ben, this isn’t—we shouldn’t—”
He tipped her chin up, urging her to look at him. “Too late, we already did,” he said, his heart still pumping hard. “And I want to do it again.”
Her lips parted on a little gasp and it was all he could do not to take her mouth again. “But—”
“Fiona, I can’t make up for what I said, what I did. All I can do is apologize, and I meant what I said. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never thought you took it like that. I mean, looking at it now, I get it. How could you not? But you always seemed so sure of yourself and so . . . I don’t know . . . but I never—I’d like to think I wouldn’t have, if I’d known.” He searched her eyes. “I didn’t know.” He saw from the look in her eyes that she understood he was talking about her crush on him, not just the nickname.
“I know that,” she said. “No one did. And . . . I guess, if I hadn’t, then it would have been just what you thought it was, a stupid nickname that kids give to each other. I’d have still hated it, but, yeah . . . it wouldn’t have had the same power to hurt. Kerry reminded me that I’d called her a lot worse over the years and she wasn’t scarred by it. I just—”
“Fi—”
“No, Ben, let me finish. I—” She broke off, then finally broke eye contact as well, though she didn’t move out of his arms. “I—this—I didn’t expect this. And I’m not sure how I feel about it.” She glanced up at him. “My crush on you was a long time ago.”
He shook his head. “I—I’m not trying to take advantage of that, or assume this many years later that you still—honestly, Fi, this is something that’s new for me. I have no idea what it means in regard to our past, and frankly, I don’t care. The only thing that matters is . . . is it something you’re interested in? Now? Can you disentangle this from the past?”
“That’s just it . . . I don’t know. This is a lot. I—and unexpected. Very . . . very unexpected. I need to think, I need to—I’m sorry.”
He slid his hands to her waist, then cupped her elbows, and she took a step back, letting go of his jacket, of him. “No, I understand. I—maybe I’m just destined to be an unthinking jerk around you, and I probably overstepped just now, but I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind, and that was before—”
“I think we can both agree you didn’t force me to do anything I wasn’t fully willing and interested in doing.”
“So—”
“So, that doesn’t change me being confused as
hell right now. It’s just . . . it’s a lot.” She smiled then, but he could see the confusion quite clearly on her face. “It’s been a challenging couple of days, and I don’t know if I can just switch tracks like this. Or . . . if I want to.”
Her rejection shouldn’t have sucker punched him like it did, but that didn’t change the fact that it most certainly had. “Fair enough,” he said, when what he really wanted to do was pull her back into his arms. He smiled. “I guess I could have eased into it a bit more. I just—I wasn’t sure if I’d ever have another chance.”
She tilted her head slightly and her smile turned a shade amused. “Doesn’t this confuse you, too? I mean, it’s not just about the stupid name thing, but . . . we’ve known each other a very long time.”
“I guess I’m trying not to think about any of that. Just stay in the moment.” He was doing a lot of that these days, with his life in Portsmouth, with the change in his parents’ lives. Being back in the Cove.
“Well, as we both know, some moments have consequences.” She lifted a hand. “That wasn’t a dig.” She flashed a short grin. “Okay, I’m human. Maybe it was a little bit of a dig. But I’m thinking that we should be a bit more thoughtful about this. Or I’ll just say that I need to be. My life is in a very new and unexplored place right now. On top of that, I have a family wedding to plan. Another family wedding,” she amended. “I don’t know if I can—or should—take on anything more. I . . . I’m not sure I can juggle another thing.” She looked up at him, held his gaze. “I don’t think this—you—is something I should juggle. I need to be certain. Or surely more certain than I am right now.”
“I appreciate the level head,” he said, honestly. “Admittedly, my life is pretty upside down at the moment, too.” Now he flashed a grin. “I guess I just think life is meant to be lived now and examined later. Sit around thinking about it too long, and it can pass you by.”
“I guess we’re just really different people,” she said, still smiling, but the warmth in her eyes was a bit more distanced now, more . . . polite.
He found that he hated that. “Fiona—”
“You know what? You have a tree stand to set up, and I have—well, I have a whole life to re-establish. I’m going to keep my focus on that.”
“I—”
“I’m glad we talked,” she said, frustratingly calm now. “I don’t want things to be awkward between us. I don’t want—” She made a hand gesture between them. “I don’t want this to make things awkward either.” She took another step back. “We’ve known each other a long time, Ben. But we really don’t know each other now.”
“We could change that,” he said, surprised by just how much he wanted to push for more.
Her smile then was surprisingly abashed, and if he wasn’t mistaken, the pink in her cheeks was from more than the chilly wind. She laughed then, and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, as the laughter deepened and she couldn’t seem to rein it in. “It’s just . . . this”—she waved a hand between them—“is completely surreal to me.” More laughter, until she waved a hand as if to say, I can’t speak. “I need to go,” she managed. She started backing up, shaking her head now, her smile self-deprecating between little gasps of laughter. “Take care, Ben. Happy Thanksgiving. Give my best to your folks.” She gave him a little wave. Then another giggle erupted, and she turned and made a beeline for her cottage.
He stood there, staring at the door that had been snapped shut behind her, wondering what the hell had just happened. “What happened was you got shut down, buddy. Shut down, flat.”
He fished his hands in his pockets, pulled out his gloves, and put them on by rote, his mind spinning back over the past ten minutes. He neatly skipped over the part where instead of mending fences, he’d just up and taken a flying leap over one and dragged her over it with him. He should be more upset about that. He was lucky she hadn’t smacked him. Or kneed him, for that matter. He’d have deserved either. If she hadn’t wanted the kiss . . . or wanted to kiss him back. His body reacted to just the thought of how she’d kissed him back. Dear Lord, how she’d kissed him back.
But she was the one who’d kept it together. And she made a lot of sense. She was likely right. About all of it. He didn’t need to be embarking on a new romance now either, given the tangle his life had recently become. He definitely didn’t need to be jumping before looking when it came to anything to do with the McCraes, most specifically Fiona.
And yet, it took considerable willpower to turn his attention back to the business at hand, and not do what he really wanted to do. Which was walk up to Fiona’s front door and bang on it until she agreed to figure out what it would take for them to get back to doing what they’d been doing a few minutes ago.
Because, impulsive, stupid, or not . . . kissing Fiona? Had been, hands down, the best thing he’d ever done. It was as simple, and as ridiculously complicated, as that.
Chapter Ten
Fiona managed to make it calmly all the way back inside the cottage. She even closed the door quietly. Then she leaned back against it, and slid all the way down until she was sitting on the entrance floor of the empty foyer landing. “Holy shit,” she murmured, touching her mouth with her fingertips, as if trying to determine whether or not what had just happened had really happened, or if she’d somehow had a psychotic break and was presently living in some alternate universe. Because if what had happened had just really happened . . . “Ben Campbell kissed me.”
And not the sweet, innocent kiss of adolescent fairy tales, either. No, sir. That had been a grown-up, take-no-prisoners, fully mature, adult kiss. The kind of kiss that led to naked frolicking and—
“Oh my God,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut as her mind helpfully filled in details of where that kiss might have led. One thing she already knew was that Kerry hadn’t been wrong in her assumption about Ben’s . . . um . . . pine.
Her phone vibrated in the pocket of her coat just then, making her jump. She fished it out, her mind still on the glorious Technicolor version of how that afternoon could have gone if she were, well, anyone else but her, apparently. Who turns that down? Even for a one-night—or afternoon—stand? Who does that?
She didn’t even glance at the phone to see who it was, but merely accepted the call as she pressed the phone to her cheek. “Hello? Uh, Fiona McCrae Interiors,” she added, belatedly realizing it could be a work call. She should have looked.
“Fi? Where are you?” Kerry demanded. “Hannah and Alex are both here and lunch is on the table. Or the bar, as the case may be. You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.”
“Ben Campbell kissed me,” she said, still a little dazed.
“I don’t care if—what did you just say?”
“And about his pine tree? Yeah, I think you might not have given him enough credit there. It’s more of a . . . hardwood, really.”
“Have you been drinking? Because you don’t really drink. So you don’t handle it well. I mean, I think we can all agree on that at this point.”
“He wanted to do it again, Ker. And I turned him down. I said no. What’s wrong with me?”
There was the sound of muffled talking, then of scuffling, and then Hannah was in her ear. “Is he there? Right now? Where are you? You know what, never mind. You, uh . . . get here when you can. We’ll start without you. But I want details.”
“We all want details!” she heard Kerry shout from the background.
“I said no, Han. I told him thanks, but no thanks.”
“What? Why? Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“When I was thirteen, maybe, sure. But now—”
There was scuffling, then it was Kerry back on the phone. “Seriously, unless you’re naked in bed right now, and you’re not alone, get your ass over here. We’ve got a wedding to plan. And apparently a sister to set straight. Jesus, do I have to do everything around here?” And she hung up.
Fiona looked dumbly at the phone for a full ten seconds. Indeed, Kerry w
asn’t far off. She felt like she was drunk or something, like she couldn’t seem to get the world to spin correctly, or think linear thoughts. She was so scattered, her thoughts were going in a million different directions. Her body was still twitchy and needy and wondering why in the hell it wasn’t getting what it wanted, especially since it had been offered everything it had ever wanted, and a whole host of things it hadn’t even known it could have.
“Because I said no.” She closed her eyes and rapped her forehead with the face of her phone, then pulled her knees up and rested phone and forehead there.
The knock at the door reverberated through her, making her jump and squeak. When had she become a squeaker? Heart racing, she managed to clumsily get up to a standing position, and wasted a moment smoothing her hair, though God knew why. Ben had certainly seen her looking a hell of a lot worse. And he wanted you anyway, her little voice so helpfully reminded her.
Now he was outside her door. Had he come to plead his case? Had he come to convince her that kisses that good deserved an encore? That they deserved whatever came after kisses that were that good? Because, in the universe of knowing things that she could know? She knew that no kisses were ever that good. And his had been. And then some. She was smoothing her hands down the front of her body, her still-charged-up body, staring at the closed door, trying like hell to make her thoughts settle down to something halfway rational, when the knock came again.
“Fiona?”
The tension went immediately out of her, as if it had been sucked from her with a vacuum. Not Ben.
More knocking. “Fiona? Are you there?”
She rubbed her face with her hands, then winced as hard plastic hit her face. She pocketed her phone and tried that again. Fluffing her hair, and giving herself a good mental shake, she pasted on a smile, and opened the door. “Beanie, hi! I wasn’t expecting you. Did I forget something?”
On her front porch stood the former owner of the place. She was short, about the same height as Fiona, but plump in a way that let a person know she probably gave the best hugs. Her hair was a silvery white and styled into a series of soft waves around her face, setting off eyes that were the prettiest shade of periwinkle blue. She favored soft denim jeans and lively patterned sweaters. Today she also had on a heavy, fleece-lined winter coat made of pink canvas and earmuffs that were little penguin faces. Only Beanie could pull that off.
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