“What’s five?” she asked, unable to take much more of this teasing. “Four was a boring one. I’m ready for more sucking.”
His grin was slow and careful, mocking her agony. “You’re going to like this one even less, I’m afraid.”
She pulled her lips into a pout. “No sucking?”
“Lots of sucking, but only on my terms. Number five is that you have to let me make love to you the way I want to. Slow and careful, and for as long as I feel like it.”
“I don’t care how you make love to me, you arrogant fool, as long as it gets done.”
“You’re a liar,” he said, and kissed her, proving it. “You hate taking things slow.”
It took only five seconds of his mouth gentling over the top of hers for her to realize he was right. She didn’t want to take things slow and drift through romance. She wanted force and power. She wanted him to spread her legs right there in the middle of the empty living room and take everything.
So of course, that was the last thing he intended to give her.
“If I pick you up and carry you to the bedroom now, are you going to fight me?” he asked.
“That depends. Do you want me to fight?”
His mouth quirked in a half smile. “A little.”
“Then, no,” she said primly, and lifted her arms. “You may whisk me away to your bed of roses and ply with me champagne and strawberries. My body is yours to do with as you please.”
He slapped her on the ass instead, startling a gasp out of her and filling her body with liquid desire. She could feel the heated impression of his hand on her skin. “You jerk—what was that for?” she cried. “That wasn’t romantic.”
His half smile was full-blown now. “I want your body, not your servitude.”
She immediately dropped her eyes. “Of course.”
As she was still looking down, she saw the moment he grabbed her nipple and gave it a playful wrench. “You can’t goad me into fucking you.”
“Of course not.”
“I’m going to cover every inch of your body with kisses.” He released her nipple and drew close, the hard wall of his chest forcing her to take a step back. “I’m going to run my fingers through your hair and over your skin. I’ll touch my mouth to your breasts.” His fingers grazed over the body parts in question. “I’ll lick a path from this spot behind your ear all the way down to your toes.” His fingers moved to pass over her pulse. “I’ll tease you open by savoring the taste of your inner thighs.” His fingers didn’t miss that spot either, nudging her legs apart as he stroked the damp folds. He leaned closer, his breath hot against her ear. “My kisses will be soft—too soft, and you’ll beg me for more.”
“Not beg,” she managed, her voice a whimper. “I don’t beg for anything.”
“You’ll beg for me.”
He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom as he’d threatened, and she didn’t fight back. Not even a little.
Chapter Eight
Ben’s bedroom had been emptied of everything except the bed, a white canvas of sheet and comforter, a statement so bold it was impossible to ignore.
“You asked them to keep your bed.” She spoke lightly and allowed him to continue carrying her that direction, but there was no denying the quake of emotion threatening to overtake her. “They’ve packed up everything else.”
Ben didn’t bother answering her. He laid her out on the comforter instead, taking his time arranging her limbs to his satisfaction. As he also moved his hands in a reverent splay of fingers over flesh as he went, she allowed herself to fall into the lazy satisfaction of it. And she forgot her protest entirely when he followed up each touch with his mouth, her body devoured and suckled and licked until she was nothing more than a quivering collection of parts.
He was just about to bury his face between her thighs again, forcing her to forget everything but the feeling of his tongue against her clit, when she remembered.
“The bed. Why is there a bed?”
He looked up from his position near her belly, his expression going from dazed to bemused in a few short seconds. “What are you talking about? I thought this would be more comfortable than the floor.”
She shifted, and the movement jolted his body against her mons, reminding her of how close she’d been to satisfaction. With a groan, she gripped his hair and forced his attention upward. “All the rest of your furniture is gone, though. You specifically told the movers to keep the bed because you knew you’d be bringing me back to your apartment.”
Understanding washed over him, and he flushed. “Well, yes. I assumed we’d eventually find our way here.”
“Because it’s number six.”
“Yes. Because it’s number six.” He seemed wary now, though not so much that he rolled away. Instead, he used his higher position to begin kissing the curve of her stomach, his tongue tracing the lines of muscle and bone until she almost lost her train of thought again. There was a spot, right on the thrust of her pelvic bone, where all her nerve endings seemed to be linked to immediate memory loss.
“Ben. Stop for a second.” She needed to think. She needed to focus. She needed for Ben’s cock to stop pressing against her leg, swelling with so much promise. “If you kept the bed, that means you assumed we’d be having sex here.”
“Shall we say instead hoped? Assumed makes me seem like such an asshole.”
She half laughed, her heart beating too fast to give in entirely to his humor. Somehow, in all the distractions of sex and foreplay, she’d forgotten that there was so much more to Ben’s napkin list than the loss of his apartment. “If you hoped the day would end with sex in this room, then you have number seven in here with us. You were planning on unveiling the final task in this very room and then fucking me on this very bed.”
“I’m still planning on fucking you on this very bed.”
Panic took over, and she cast a frantic look around. “Where is it?”
“Livvie, don’t.”
“I’m serious.” No bookshelves, no filing cabinets, no secret safes tucked into the walls. “Is it close by? Did you bring it in here with us?”
“That’s not fair, and you know it.” So far from letting her escape, Ben covered her body with his own, sinking her into the mattress. She struggled for all of ten seconds before she realized that was what he wanted, that her movements gave him an excuse to clasp her hands and pin them in place above her head, his body primed to enter hers. “Of course it’s in the apartment. I told you I put this whole plan in motion a long time ago.”
“I can’t do this.” She tried to break free again, and again was thwarted—but this time, it was his hurt look more than his strength binding her. “I’m sorry, Ben. I thought I could make this just about sex, but I can’t. Not if you had the audacity to keep this bed in here and to actually—”
“I didn’t know.”
She bit her lip and risked another glance at him. He was poised above her, their bodies pressed lengthwise together, as close as two people could possibly be without engaging in actual intercourse. And he looked more devastated than she’d ever seen him before.
This was a man with unflagging confidence, a man who looked the world straight in the eye and told it what he wanted. Her heart felt as if it were going to be yanked out her chest.
“I didn’t know,” he echoed, yanking even harder. “About what you went through to start your career, about the way men have treated you over the years, like something they can buy if they dangle the right incentives. I swear to you I never would have presumed to put any of this into action if I had.”
She didn’t say anything, afraid that to open her mouth would be tantamount to opening the floodgates.
“Please believe me, Livvie. I meant it when I said you’re the last woman on earth I’d ever want to hurt.” He
leaned down and brushed his lips on hers, either the bravest or the most foolish person alive. “I made a mistake. I know that now. When I pulled out that napkin yesterday, I put my needs and desires, my wish for more, ahead of what you want.”
“And how is this different?”
“Because I can change.” His eyes met hers. “Because I can do better. Because even though I’m sorry about the way I confessed my feelings, I’m not sorry to finally have them out there.”
She shook her head, refusing to accept his offering. The truth was, she didn’t want Ben to change. His arrogance and his charm, his high-handed way of attempting to seduce her—they were all part of the package. They were the reasons she hated him, yes, but they were also the reasons she loved him.
He began to pull away. “But you’re probably right. There are some things you should see before we take this any further.”
“No.” She stilled him by clamping her legs around his thighs, afraid that to lose what physical contact they had would mean they could never return to this place. She liked this place. It was real and honest, and even if the scraping against her heart was a little raw, she wasn’t ready to let it go yet. “If it’s what I think it is, it can wait.”
A grimace crossed his face. “If you think keeping the bed was a high-handed move, you should wait until you see what’s in my briefcase by the door. You’re not going to like it.”
“Show me after.” She held her legs tighter, angling her body so that his cock nestled near her entrance. “Make love to me first, and then we’ll talk about all the ways you fucked our friendship up forever.”
Ben proved powerless against her persuasions—a kiss that landed a little south of his lips and the tight clench of her bare thighs around his strong and hairy ones. With a groan and a slow, deep kiss that sent her reeling, he sank into her. Into her, into her, his body and his heart and everything he had to offer.
The fit of him was perfect, a deeply satisfying sensation of fullness that she felt as a shock all the way down to her toes. Based on his low groan of satisfaction, she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. He seemed almost hesitant to keep going—as if out of fear of hurting her—but she raked her fingernails across his back as she drew him deeper into her body.
There was no questioning how incredible it felt to have Ben—her Ben—stretching her wide, his powerful body plunging into hers without regret. “Fuck, Livvie. You were right about that hour. If you don’t stop making those noises, this is going to last no more than a minute.”
“What noises?” she asked innocently, but she knew what he meant. She couldn’t help herself from crying out each moment of pleasure, the breadth of him forcing her to open wider, to let him in, to give way to the orgasm she felt encroaching at an alarming rate.
She would have liked to explore more possibilities with Ben—to have him flip her over and fill her from behind, to climb on top of him and ride until he felt the same kind of helpless pleasure being drawn out of him—but he brought his lips to hers in an attempt to silence her.
His kiss was deep and lasting and did nothing to stop the cry from tumbling out of her throat. If anything, it hastened it. That kiss was a promise to love her and cherish her. That kiss was an apology for all the ways he’d pushed too hard. That kiss was a declaration that what they shared was not—could never be—just about the physical connection they shared.
It took only a few short seconds of that kiss before she felt her vagina clenching in waves around his cock, pulling at his orgasm as fiercely as hers had been given. Her entire body rose and fell, every thought but that of him falling away.
He collapsed in a bundle of muscles and sweat on top of her, burying his head in the side of her neck with a contented sigh.
There were hundreds of things she could have said in that moment. She could have thanked him for keeping no part of himself back. She could have told him that every one of his feelings was reciprocated, even if she wasn’t willing to admit it out loud. She could have nuzzled words of love into his skin until they both fell asleep from exhaustion.
But this was Ben. More than all that romantic nonsense, she mostly just wanted to hear him joke with her again. It was the only way she’d know they might someday be able to make this okay.
“I didn’t beg,” she said, her voice breaking the warm silence. “In case you were keeping track, I’d like the records to show that I didn’t beg.”
He turned his head and studied her, as if trying to figure out what it was she wanted to hear before speaking. His hesitance hurt her more than she expected. She didn’t want him to censor himself around her. That wasn’t who they were.
“I wasn’t keeping track,” he said carefully.
“Well, I was,” she said, and decided to take a different tack. “How’s the tattoo holding up? I don’t think you were supposed to exert yourself that much today.”
More of that careful watching, of a not-so-confident Ben struggling to find his place again.
“I don’t know. You tell me.” He moved off her until he lay on his stomach by her side. The bandage had slipped most of the way off—what tape the water hadn’t loosened, the sweat of their lovemaking had made up for—and she risked a peek. “Do we think I’m going to live?”
“It’s red and puffy, but not infected.” She traced the outline with her finger. It was actually looking a lot better. It was yet another example of how unfairly the cards fell in Ben’s favor, but he pulled off that butterfly tattoo way better than she ever could have. “What’s the big deal about the monarch, anyway? I know it was our little game in Tokyo that night, but I don’t think I’d ever heard you talk about it before that.”
He twisted to look at her, grabbing her fingers and holding them tight.
“What is it?” she asked, alarmed. “What does it mean?”
“Number six is in that briefcase by the door. Will you grab it for me?”
She snatched her fingers back, surprised to find them shaking without him there to hold her. “What are you talking about? I thought six was selling your apartment.”
“Ah, but we’re finishing my list first, remember? There’s a folder in there I think you should see.”
She rolled out of bed, not bothering to cover herself up as she went in search of the briefcase. It was exactly where he’d said it would be, another piece of planning she wondered how far in advance he’d done. When she returned to the bedroom, she saw that he’d dressed in a pair of tracksuit bottoms that made him look like an athlete just come down from the game of his life.
“There.” She tossed the file onto the bed. “Now what?”
“You’re a surprisingly uncurious person. You didn’t peek in the jewelry box, either. Did you never snoop as a child?”
She snorted. “What would I have snooped for? The extra key to the outhouse?” She saw the stricken look her remark caused and decided to take it easy on him. He really hadn’t known about her childhood—she’d done too good of a job at keeping it all locked away, at keeping a part of herself locked away so no one could touch her. “Am I supposed to look in there? Will it reveal the secrets of the monarch?”
“Yes,” he said simply, and stood next to her looking down at it.
She cast a questioning glance his way. “But what if you’d gotten the unicorn tattoo instead?”
“It wouldn’t matter, Livvie. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
No, and unless she picked up that folder, she probably never would. Not one to scare easily or back down from a fight—especially with this man—she did as he asked and flipped it open.
She half expected a swarm of butterflies to come rushing out in a swirling orgy of a magician’s trick, but it was only a map. A well-marked map, with red dots dispersed over the globe and lines linking them, the same kind of map they always tucked into the seatbacks of airplanes to depic
t the many places the airline traveled.
She ran her finger along the first two paths, landing in Paris and London, skipping over to Prague, staying for a while in Milan. It didn’t take her long to figure out the pattern set out before her. Each red dot was a major city, an important city, a city she’d been in at some point in her life.
Her brow furrowed as she looked up at Ben. “You’ve been tracking me?”
“Not exactly. Tracking makes me sound like a hunter.”
“Isn’t that what you are?” Livvie found it difficult to set the paper down. She had a similar map in her bedroom, hidden underneath the paper cranes in that same jewelry box of treasures she would never admit out loud to owning, except hers contained even more dots for all the cities she had yet to get to. “You creeped on me in leather pants and somehow stole a copy of my passport. Should I fear for my life?”
“You have nothing to fear from me. Not now and not ever, no matter what happens next.” Ben put his hand over hers, his palm hot against her skin. “Do you know anything about monarch butterflies?”
“Not really. I don’t like things with wings, to be honest. They freak me out. I’m afraid they’re going to land in my hair.”
He used his finger to nudge hers along one of the many lines extending out of New York. “They follow a migratory path from the north down to Mexico every year, since it’s too cold for them in the winter. No matter where they’re from or how far they have to fly, they always come back to the same place.”
Her fingers started shaking again, but his hand wouldn’t let hers go.
“Sometimes it takes generations to make the trip. Their life span isn’t long enough for each butterfly to make it on its own, but it doesn’t matter. They’re born knowing where to go.” Now he lifted her hand and pressed it to his chest. “No journey is too far. No mountain range too high. Time and distance mean nothing.”
Model Behavior Page 10
