“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were busy.”
“It’s all right. You have the documents?” Benjamin asks. Alexander hands him the documents, his gaze fixated on Daniel, who is trying to get his attention.
Alexander bends, brushing his hand through Daniel’s hair. “God, he really does look more like Ben every day.”
“That’s what I say.” I cross my arms over my chest, glancing at Benjamin, who sets the work on his desk.
“When do you leave?” Alexander asks me, a notable hitch to his voice. He’s being cautious, but his eyes dart away from me.
“Now, actually,” Benjamin answers, appearing by my side, sliding a possessive hand across my waist.
Alexander is quick to retreat, smiling apologetically. “I’ll get out of your hair then.”
“We’ll be back in a week. We’ll have drinks, yeah?”
Surprised at the invitation, Alexander nods. “Sounds good. Bye, Daniel.” He looks at me, for only a moment. “Bye, Darcy. Have a good time.”
“Thank you.”
He lets himself out, and Benjamin chuckles, shaking his head. “I need to find him a wife, set him up with someone.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s clearly still hung up on you.”
“You’re becoming green,” I murmur to him, repeating the words he once told me, throwing my arms around his neck.
His smirk warms considerably. “Damn right I am.”
“I like that you still get jealous over me.”
“I know you do.”
“Let’s go,” I whisper against him excitedly.
“Hell yes. Let’s go.”
I pick Daniel up, waiting for Benjamin to shut down. He moves fluidly around the office, at ease with his surroundings. I recall first setting sights on him, tumbling over useless words he could easily see through and navigate.
Somewhere inside of me, even then, I hoped. I dreamed.
But how could I have imagined this?
This man is my husband. The baby in my arms is ours. Benjamin catches me staring, and the smile he flashes me knows my thoughts.
No doubt he can read them clearly on my face.
I hide nothing from him. Why would I when he’s looking at me like this?
***
By the time the jet lands on the tarmac, the sky is dark, the sun having set over the horizon hours ago. The moon is almost full, a beam glowing on the ocean surface. Benjamin’s eyes are closed, his head laid back, looking identical to the child tucked in his large arms.
My husband is the man I conjured up in those dreams that felt so far away, so unreachable, but this is my reality. I take a quick picture of them together with my cell phone and send it to Doris, who I know will cherish and understand how good it is to see Benjamin this way. The small cottage we will spend this week in is just up ahead, behind a white picket fence and gardens upon gardens of flowers. Tiffany scouted the place almost a month ago and sent me the picture. It wasn’t hard to fall in love with the beachside cottage’s simplicity.
I comb back Benjamin’s hair softly, and his dark eyelashes flutter.
“We’re here,” I say quietly, not wishing to wake Daniel. I take Daniel from him so he can retrieve the bags with Dimitri, stepping along the pebbled pathway to the stairs leading to a wraparound porch. Right behind me, Benjamin unlocks the door.
The car engine starts, and Dimitri drives away, heading down the road to a separate cabin where he will stay. Benjamin slides through the doorway, carrying every bag we’ve brought. I giggle, pressing down on my lips when he drops one of them on the wood planks with a grimace. To our relief, the small bundle of energy in my arms doesn’t stir whatsoever. I move through the house, checking the doors and finding a kid’s room. A crib has been brought in, no doubt because Tiffany thinks of everything.
When Benjamin appears, handing me his bag, I’m able to lay Daniel down to change him into pajamas. His eyes part with reluctance at my movements, but his thumb is in his mouth and he is more than ready for me to settle him down for the night. He yawns against my throat as I rock him soothingly, rubbing my hand over his back.
At home, I play him lullabies, or sometimes “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to get him to drift off, but I didn’t pack anything. Today, I hum the start to the Judy Garland classic, and eventually the vibrations become words. I sing to him, swaying to the imaginary orchestra in my head.
“If happy little blue birds fly, beyond the rainbow…”
I near the end of the song, my own eyelids heavy from listening to the sound of his heartbeat slowing against my chest, and Benjamin is standing in the doorway, leaning against the threshold as if he’s been there a while. My cheeks flush slightly at being caught, but the contentment on his face relieves me of embarrassment. I settle Daniel into the crib as gently as I can. Benjamin turns on the monitor, adjusting the microphone volume. I turn to check that he doesn’t close the door the entire way, but I don’t have to. He’s left it ajar.
“I swear there for a moment I thought he was going to wake up.” I kick off my heels after we close ourselves off in the bedroom. Furnished with whitewashed furniture and seashells on every surface, the room couldn’t resemble the beach more if it tried. Such a distinct difference from our apartment, I admire the fragility, the feminine ambiance of the room while I unzip the back of my dress, dropping it around my ankles.
“He likes his sleep like his mother.”
He can’t see me gape at the admission since his attention is on unknotting his tie. I can’t argue with that.
“Well, you know, I’m actually rather awake right now,” I state suggestively, placing the red dress over the chair. Benjamin’s gaze is on me, his eyes slanted playfully while he unbuttons his dress shirt, intuitive enough to know what I’m implying.
“Is that so?”
The blush that spreads across my face is betraying. His shirt parts as the last button slips under his fingers, and my mouth dries. I avert my gaze to conceal how easily he can stun me. My bag is open on the dresser, and I take out my nightgown. Suddenly I’m pressed against his front, my thighs easing into the wood drawer.
My eyes meet his in the mirror in front of us.
Sliding his arms under mine, he takes the nightgown and drops it down into the bag. “You won’t need that.”
A magnificent force of man behind me, I can’t help but wonder if I pale in comparison, especially scantily clad, the lasting effects of Daniel’s birth marked on my body forever. I should regard the stretch marks as simply another battle wound, one of many, but compared to the towering god-like specimen holding me, it’s hard to retain my confidence.
At the way my arms instinctively move to cover my stomach, he catches them, holding my wrists. He only lets them go to nudge my chin, to force me to look at him. He stares down at me, his lips turned up on the corners, bringing out his soft dimples.
“Don’t hide from me.”
My chuckle lacks weight.
“At every moment of every day, I dream of your body, Darcy. Don’t hide it from me.”
My arms drop at his command, my limbs becoming like jelly.
“Touch me,” he whispers, scaling his hand over the length of me, his palm gliding over my curves. Stopping at the base of my waist, his fingers tense, gripping down on my hip to spin me. Stumbling, drunk on his proximity and the smell of sea salt that has somehow already scented his skin, I lay my hands upon him, enjoying the way his chest extends and then falls at my charge. I dip my tongue into the crevice between his pecs, my fingers working on removing his belt, multi-tasking at its finest.
He tilts my head to gain access to my mouth. “Christ, I’m already hard and you’ve barely touched me.”
We’ve both gasped enough air, our lips hovering against each other in anticipation when the sound of the baby monitor picks up a soft whimpering coming from Daniel. We let the breath go on an exhale collectively.
“Damn,” he sighs, releasing me. I pick up his dress
shirt from the floor and we glance at each other, both wearing disbelieving grins while I work on the buttons. “You look way too good wearing my clothes.”
“Pray I can get him down quickly.”
When I open on the door, I’m not shocked to find Daniel bouncing on his feet, irritated and wailing now. His tear-streaked cheeks are beginning to splotch red while he waves his arms out for me to pick him up.
“Danny, what’s wrong?”
The minute he’s in my arms, his cries become hiccups, his head falling exhaustedly onto my shoulder for comfort. I lower the volume to the monitor so the entire house doesn’t echo with his cries. Since he doesn’t need a change, I take a seat, unbuttoning the shirt enough to see if he’s hungry. He latches onto my nipple, his small fingers curling into my chest, which calms the part of me that was nervous it was a nightmare that woke him. With no choice but to stay until he’s full and sleepy, I lean back into the chair, planning to lull Danny to sleep.
When his body weight slackens, very carefully, I lift myself out of the chair and set him back into the crib, smiling when his head tilts to the side, his arms stretching up over his head. I escape into the hallway before I make noise and wake him again. With a skip through the bedroom door, I jump to a stop.
Benjamin is asleep in nothing but briefs, his body leaning against the headboard.
Despite the uncomfortable position, he’s too peaceful to wake. After a day of work and a night of traveling, plus a baby to care for, sleep is a new luxury for us. I flip the covers back and plant my knee into the mattress, touching Benjamin’s thigh.
“Ben, lie down.”
His eyes open slowly. “No, I’m awake.”
I lay on my side, hugging the pillow. “Let’s go to sleep.”
He needs little convincing. His large form slides down off the headboard, and after burrowing into the covers, he gravitates toward me, pulling me into his front. My eyes close, encompassed by his warmth, his chin against my shoulder.
“Is he okay?”
I nod, already dozing off. “Sleeping.”
I’m not sure how much time has passed when I awake, but the sky is still dark. The lower part of my body is reacting to the soft tickle of fingertips against my skin, parting open the dress shirt I wore to sleep. I stir, moaning softly while Benjamin covers my breasts, placing kisses along my shoulder.
“I couldn’t stop myself,” he says, his voice hoarse.
“I don’t want you to.” I’m primed and ready for him at the drop of a hat, aroused by him in my damn sleep. My thighs are damp with need, my stomach flittering with anticipation as his fingers dive under the waistband of my panties, sliding between my dripping sweet tissues, fondling the tender folds to arouse me further. The soft part of his wrist urges my thigh to widen, so he can travel further down and enter me with a single finger.
“Open up to me,” he whispers. “Let me in.”
I lift my arm, clasping the back of his head when his lips drift across my cheek languidly, his attention focused elsewhere. My knee bends, my toes digging into the mattress as he retracts his finger to rub my clit, knowing exactly where to coax to make me squirm…to make me desperate.
“Ben.”
The last effects of sleep have left me, my skin coated with perspiration as I move with the rhythm of his fingers, which he rotates, piercing me with two and removing them to focus on the small budding of restless nerves.
“That’s it. Move with me, baby,” he says. “Give into it.”
The door in our bedroom which leads straight to the beach is cracked open, our only form of circulating air. I’m taking up whatever is remaining, my desperation sucking up all the air in the room. It makes our bodies naturally tremble, despite being anything but cold.
“Ah, I’m close,” I moan. “I’m so close.”
My thighs clamp on his hand the second I feel the jolt in my belly, the stars in my eyes. I let out a soft cry, not realizing there’s no need to be quiet since Daniel is a few doors down. Benjamin’s arm over my chest holds me in place as I quiver, too weak to resist when he pushes my legs apart from each other, intent on milking the rest of my orgasm to completion. The constant rocking of my hips has made him rise against my back, hard as stone.
I loosen my grip on the comforter when he ceases the sweet torture on my sex, and I’m able to take my first real gasp in minutes, dropping my head back onto him while he slides off my underwear.
Without words, I beckon him for more, my hands sliding against his skin, the muscular thickness of his thighs. It takes no navigating. He’s hard enough that his cock with just a tilt of his hips drives into me with ease, the sleek arousal between us lubricant enough to refuse down-time. He grips my shoulder, his teeth sinking into the flesh as he pushes himself through the swollen canal, massaging the tender insides, regenerating the nerves that have exploded.
“Fuck me,” I beg him in the darkness, needing more. Always needing more.
And like always, he obliges, kissing me rougher, driving into me harder. We fuck like dancers who know a choreographed routine by heart. Our bodies are temples we’ve both explored. We are aware of the pleasures we can receive, of the noises we can coax from each other.
Benjamin easily shifts us both so that I’m flat on my stomach and he’s coming at me from behind. Sex is just as important to us as talking, eating, laughing. It has been from the beginning.
The only thing that’s changed from back then has been our ability to submit to each other equally, to understand when the other desires the high ground. Benjamin hasn’t said it in so many words, but his hands that trap mine on the mattress, his body dominating mine from above, demand my submission, which I offer graciously and abundantly.
I’m his. I want him to always know that.
We own each other.
There is no me without him and no him without me.
***
Benjamin’s side of the bed is empty but warm when I wake, my thighs aching. After a few minutes, I’m coherent enough to remember that we’re in South Carolina on vacation and I’ve slept in.
Before I go in search of my husband and son, I haul myself out of bed and into the bathroom for a shower to wash off the scent of sex and brush my teeth. I throw on a black bikini, wrapping a sarong around my hips, and open the bedroom door. I instantly hear seagulls, only loud because the door to the beach cottage is open.
Accompanying the noisy seagulls is child’s laughter, a high-pitched wail of joy that can send a shiver throughout my entire body. Stepping out onto the patio, I shield my eyes and spot them under the blazing sun. I can’t help but smile, appreciating the sight of Benjamin, free and happy in nature. He’s confined to his office, or meetings, and even our city apartment far too often. Seeing him relaxing on the Carolina beach is a sight to behold.
Daniel is throwing around sand, wobbling on his unstable legs, his arms wrapped in thick floatation devices. He’s wearing the trunks Doris gave him, and I make a mental note to take a picture of him sometime today to send her. Benjamin’s wearing black trunks that conform to his masculine thighs as he chases Daniel, who is now set on playing some form of tag. He won’t get far without falling. Benjamin’s hands are there when he does and torture him with the wiggling of his fingers, tickling.
Daniel’s fit of laughter can probably be heard all the way where Dimitri is staying.
“Having fun, are we?”
Their heads turn at the same time at my amused question. Benjamin gasps, grabbing Daniel’s hand. “Look! It’s Mommy!”
“Mama!” Daniel shrieks as Benjamin helps him to me. He trips twice but eventually makes it, stretching on his toes for me to pick him up. When he’s in my arms, Benjamin leans in, pressing his mouth to mine with a smile.
“Good morning.”
I blush, unable to help myself. “Yes…it is.”
***
Laid out against Benjamin, tucked between his thighs, I regard the book on my lap with zero intent to actually decipher the sen
tences. Daniel is on the blanket as well, playing with a soaked-through teddy bear. He’s completely immersed in it, speaking gibberish, his own private language. An umbrella shields us from the scalding sun, and to fight off the heat spells, we have the water. Daniel splashed Benjamin the entire time, to my everlasting amusement.
Benjamin has a hand rested on my thigh, tracing the beauty marks absentmindedly. “Voglio quel libro,” he murmurs in Italian. I want that book.
I repeat it, without half the grace as him, a fluent speaker, rubbing his thighs. There are still water droplets on them from when he jumped in the water a few minutes go. “Fitting for me.”
“Very fitting.”
Utilizing my husband’s vast knowledge of languages, I listen to him speak, picking up on his teachings as best I can. He’s a patient tutor. I lean against his chest, humming contentedly when he presses his lips to my cheek, his tenderness disarming, but not at all unlike him.
“Je t’aime,” I tell him. I love you.
He squeezes me closer. “Tu es ma vie, mon amour.”
I tilt to him with a pleased smile. “I like that one.”
He grins. “I thought you would.”
We move together simultaneously, our mouths magnets, drawn to each other, impossible to resist. We touch lightly, apprehensively, lingering in the closeness, that moment of anticipation before he swoops in and takes me swiftly. My heart still leaps at his attention, as it has since I first laid eyes on him. My mouth naturally slackens so his tongue can slip through, and taste me, drink me in. We only pull apart when Daniel knocks into my legs with a wild laugh, oddly pleased to have interrupted his parents’ intimacy. It’s contagious—his innocence, his unfaltering joy of the world.
We’ve hardly been witness to that kind of life. Now that we have him, it’s easy to fall victim to bliss.
“Danny boy, you want some help?” Benjamin asks exuberantly, shifting back into the sand so he can stand. He settles down onto the edge of the blanket, accepting the bucket Daniel is holding out.
Possessed By You (The Consumed Series Book 3) Page 20
