“Still, I would prefer the couch,” she said firmly.
He pulled himself up to his full height and looked offended. And determined. “Women who sleep in my apartment, sleep in my bed. Unless we’re related. Which you and I are not. You, of all people, will be sleeping in my bed.”
She didn’t ask, or let herself wonder, what the of all people meant. “Ben, I—”
“Then again, I probably should sleep in the bed. With you. What if I need you in the middle of the night?”
That stopped her. Having Ben talk about needing her at all, but especially in the middle of the night, brought all kinds of fun things to mind.
Then she frowned. Maybe he was talking about all of the not-so-pleasant possible side effects of the alcohol in his system. He could have trouble breathing, his heartbeat could become erratic, he could even have seizures. Sure, that thought was what she needed to ensure she wouldn’t get any sleep at all.
“You could…”
His low chuckle brought her eyes to his face and she realized by the look in his eyes that he was not referring to needing her to hold his head while he threw up in the toilet.
“Ben, I am not having sex with you tonight!” Unless he kept asking. And kept looking at her like that.
“So you keep saying,” he said as he headed for the kitchen. “You hungry?”
“No. I’m fine.” She turned back to look at the art again. “Where did you get these?”
A minute later, he emerged with a Pop-Tart in one hand and a glass of water in the other.
“Africa.” He took a bite of the strawberry pastry.
“You got them in Africa or they’re from Africa?”
“Both. I got them when I lived there.”
Jessica turned to look at him. “You lived in Africa?” How did she not know that? She’d made a point of finding out everything she could about Ben. Maybe Sam didn’t know.
Ben’s gaze remained on the masks. “My father was a missionary in Africa. I lived there from the time I was twelve until I was eighteen and came back to the States for college. After medical school I went back and worked until I had to come back here for…my mom.”
She had known that Ben had come to Omaha after his mother passed away to take care of the funeral arrangements, her estate and all of the other things that kids, unfortunately, were left to do when their parents passed away. She also knew that Sam didn’t know why Ben had chosen to stay in Omaha after everything was settled. But Sam wasn’t a guy to push or prod. If Ben had said he didn’t want to talk about it, Sam wouldn’t have talked about it.
“You lived in Africa right before you came to Omaha, then,” Jess said. “I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t talk about it.”
He put the rest of the Pop-Tart in his mouth.
“You regret coming back to the States?”
He swallowed and shook his head. “Of course not. I had to take care of things for my mom.”
“Do you plan to go back now?” She’d had no idea that Ben leaving was a possibility. He’d just gotten here.
“No,” he said shortly.
“Not at all?”
“There’s no point.” He tossed the Pop-Tart wrapper on the breakfast bar between the kitchen and the eating area. “Goodnight, Jessica.”
He stood watching her, obviously expecting her to turn and head down the hallway to his bedroom. She did turn, reluctantly. He seemed upset and she didn’t have any idea why, but she felt compelled to make him feel better.
“If you need anything, you’ll call me?” she said, turning back.
The melancholy expression was gone in a heartbeat and he gave her a sexy grin.
“If I need anything?” he asked, suggestively.
She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help her smile. He was incorrigible. “Let’s run down the list of things you can call me for. Vomiting,” she listed, ticking the items off on her fingers. “Shallow breathing, cold clammy skin, hypothermia or mental confusion.”
“Basically I can call you only if I experience any of the symptoms of alcohol poisoning?” he asked wryly.
“Basically.”
“Got it.”
She smiled and reached out to touch his forearm. He seemed surprised by the touch, some of the water in the glass he held sloshing over the rim. She smiled, letting herself enjoy affecting him—and knowing it—this way.
“And Ben?” she said gently.
“Second thoughts already?”
The question was blasé, but the roughness in his voice proved that he was not any more casual about even this minor touch than she was.
“I want you to know…” She trailed off, having fun teasing him.
“Yeah?” The huskiness was even more pronounced.
“I…”
He stepped closer. “What?”
Jessica quickly realized that she had to quit the game before he ended up convincing her that his intoxicated state didn’t matter. In fact, she knew in her gut that Ben was in complete control of his reflexes and compulsions at this point and would remember anything that happened in Technicolor detail. Still, she couldn’t go back on her avowal not to go to bed with him tonight or he would never believe anything else she said again. The need to maintain some control between her and Ben was strong and she could only assume it was because she also knew, in that same spot in her gut, that once she lost any control around Ben, she would lose all control.
“Ben, I am…”
He moved closer, trapping her hand between her breasts and his forearm. “Yeah?”
She licked her lips and gathered her resolve. “I am sleeping on the couch. No arguments.”
He didn’t argue. He sighed.
“You’re very bossy, you know that?”
“I’ve been told something like that once or twice.”
He stepped back from her. “And you always think you know what’s best for everyone.”
She couldn’t deny it. “I’m very often right.”
He sighed again. “Fine. There’s only one activity I’m interested in staying up for tonight and it isn’t arguing.”
She fought a smile. “Good. Go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He leaned in before she could react and pressed a not-so-quick-but-nothing-erotic kiss to her lips.
“If you need me, I’m down the hall and to the left,” he said, stepping back and smiling with satisfaction.
Jessica could only assume it was in response to the look of surprised arousal on her face.
“And I mean if you need me for anything,” he added.
“I don’t intend to be in need of anything,” she said, somehow.
He gave her a wink. “And I intend to get to work on changing that first thing in the morning.”
Then he pulled his shirt over his head, pausing long enough to give Jessica an eyeful before he turned down the hallway, unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants as he went.
Jessica almost ended up on her nose leaning around the corner to keep him in sight as long as possible.
Chapter Three
Jessica’s nipples were perfect. The entire left breast was damn nice. He was assuming the right matched, but it was still covered with terrycloth.
Even if it didn’t, Ben was currently the happiest man on earth.
The towel she’d wrapped herself in had slipped as she reached overhead for the bottle of mouthwash in his medicine cabinet. Ben was glad he’d put the bottle up high. The more she reached, the lower the towel slid. She was, of course, unaware that the mirror in front of her reflected to the mirror on his dresser, which he could see perfectly from the bed. He’d never noticed it before but was now very thankful for the way he’d arranged the room.
Jessica in his bathroom, in nothing but a towel, warm and still wet from her shower, was a fabulous way to start a day.
She reached up again, retrieving dental floss, and Ben knew exactly what to do.
Jessica was known as a non-dater, a non-flirter, a non
-partier. It wasn’t that she wasn’t friendly to the staff and downright magical with the patients, but she didn’t go out. Period. She wasn’t nasty about it or judgmental about those who did. She just always said no thank you.
Well, he was in the mood to do a whole bunch of stuff definitely including flirting and partying, and Jessica was, for some reason, the only person that he wanted to do it with. It didn’t make sense, but he’d had a lifetime of trying to make sense of things and he was tired of it.
If his attraction for Jessica didn’t make sense, it certainly didn’t mean that he couldn’t enjoy it.
He was going to try something new—he was going to just go with it.
Ben pushed himself up out of bed, pausing only long enough to drop his boxer shorts near the clothes hamper.
His major morning erection would impress Jessica, or scare her. Either way, there was no time like the present to start getting to know each other better.
“Good morning.”
Jessica sucked in a quick breath and grabbed the top of her towel. The fact that the top edge of the towel came below her left breast registered in the next second.
She yanked the towel up and spun to face him, her face red.
“Good—”
Her gaze dropped, her cheeks got even redder and she pulled her eyes back to his face. But her eyes dropped to his jutting erection again.
Ben grinned. This was going well.
“I…” Jessica croaked. She stopped to clear her throat, lifted her gaze again and blinked a few times, then turned her eyes up toward the ceiling. “Good morning.”
“You look great in the morning.”
“Um, thank you.” She continued looking up.
“Your neck is going to get a kink in it,” Ben told her, amused.
“You could use a good duster,” she replied conversationally. “There are cobwebs all over that light.”
He glanced up, never having noticed the fixture before, not to mention the cobwebs. “I certainly wouldn’t be offended if you reached up there and tried to brush them away,” Ben said.
She looked at him and frowned, opened her mouth, then glanced down at her towel. He watched as her mind put the pieces together. Reaching up, towel sliding down, breast exposed, him here in front of her…
He wondered if her imagination went as far as his did. Like to him taking her nipple into his mouth, sucking, making her moan.
A certain part of him liked the idea a lot. He grew harder. Not that Jessica noticed. Her eyes were back on the ceiling.
Ben crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the glass shower door. He decided to let it go. For now. He had no doubt that he would eventually be very familiar with Jessica’s nipples. “Are you finding everything you need?”
Her eyes remained trained on the light fixture overhead. “Yep. Yes. Um, yes. I’m fine.”
“Don’t need anything at all?”
Without looking where she was going, Jessica began inching toward the door.
“Coffee,” she said. “I definitely need some coffee.”
Ben grinned watching her, and vowed to make Jessica more comfortable being naked around him as soon as possible. Practice made perfect, after all.
“I’m going to shower and I’ll be right out.”
“Gre—” Jessica’s response was cut off when she slammed the door behind her.
Jessica was dressed in record time. There was no coffee pot so she was now searching Ben’s cupboards for something, anything, other than Pop-Tarts that would pass for breakfast food. She was trying to keep her pulse at a normal, steady rate too. Which she might have been able to accomplish if she could quit thinking of Ben standing in the bathroom in all his glory.
It wasn’t her fault that all of the food in his kitchen reminded her of him. Naked. Aroused. Largely aroused.
That guy was simply made to be naked. It wasn’t fair to cover all of that up with clothes.
She opened the cupboard near the fridge. It held a jar of peanut butter. Only a jar of peanut butter. Peanut butter that would look good smeared all over Ben…for her to lick off.
Jessica groaned, slammed the cupboard shut and yanked open the drawer by the fridge. The Twinkies were penis-shaped. She stared down at the three individually wrapped cakes. Okay, they weren’t exactly penis shaped. But in her imagination, at the moment anyway, it didn’t take much.
She stomped to the fridge but it held only beer and bottled water. The beer reminded her of the bar last night and the way Ben had pressed her up against the car. The water made her think of the shower he was taking right now. Naked. The bread on the counter could be used for… Jessica frowned. She couldn’t think of anything specific, but as long as Ben was there and naked, it would be fun.
“What are you doing?”
Jessica jumped and spun toward Ben, who stood in the doorway. At least now he was dressed.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.
“Quit sneaking up behind me!”
He grinned and went for the cupboard where his three mugs were stored. “I’m not apologizing. The view from back there is awesome.”
He’d been awake for all of thirty minutes and he was already making her hot and bothered. She could only imagine what he would do when he got some caffeine in his system and got warmed up.
“To answer your question,” she said, changing the subject quickly. “I’m trying to make you breakfast. But you have no food.”
Ben leaned against the counter behind him. “I eat at the hospital.”
“All the time?”
“Unless I go out. Or have something delivered.”
“You don’t know how to cook?”
“I don’t want to cook.”
“Ever?” Jessica asked. “You never get the craving for a home-cooked meal?”
Ben took a sip of coffee. “I got away from home-cooked meals living in Africa. Not a lot of meatloaf and chicken pot pie down there.”
She hadn’t thought of that. “Don’t you get sick of the hospital food and going out?”
“I don’t worry about food too much. I eat when I get hungry because if I don’t, eventually I won’t be able to function. In the past, food’s simply been a requirement. Whatever is there is there.”
“What do you mean in the past?” she asked.
“I’m turning over a lot of new leaves,” he said. “I’m going to enjoy life more, savor things, not let my work be everything. One of the things on my list is to eat once in a while just because it tastes good.”
She made a mental note to make him her famous lasagna and fudge brownies soon. That would win him over. Then she frowned. Why was she trying to win him over anyway? Win him over for what?
“Why are you frowning?” he asked, lifting his cup again.
“I was wondering where I could get some eggs. I’ll cook for you.”
He looked at her over the edge of his cup as he sipped. When he’d swallowed he said, “Nah. I’ll take you out.”
“You want to go out?” She crossed her arms. “I figured you’d be hungover.”
He didn’t look hungover, she conceded. In fact, he looked…sexy.
He had stubble along his jaw, having obviously chosen not to shave. He was barefoot and was dressed in a green, slightly rumpled T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts.
“I feel fine,” Ben said.
“Not even tired?”
He shrugged. “No.”
“Headache?”
“No. Which is disappointing. I’m sure you’d hold my head in your lap and rub it for me. Then fix me tea and nurse me all day.”
It did sound nice. “Self-inflicted syndromes don’t get that kind of attention,” she told him.
“If I was actually sick, you would stay?”
“If you asked nice, I might.”
He grinned and stepped closer. “I could ask really nice.” His hand stroked the back of her arm right above the elbow.
She cleared her throat as she tried to i
gnore the sparkles of heat that were suddenly dancing through her.
“I’m a good cook,” she said, a bit breathlessly.
Ben looked her directly in the eye. “Jess, I am absolutely sure you’re a good cook. Just as I’m sure you’re good at everything you do.”
“Good at everything?” she repeated, surprised. “Why do you think that?”
“Because you do everything a hundred and ten percent.”
She didn’t answer. He and Sam must have talked about her. How else would Ben know so much?
“It’s a compliment,” he said, squeezing her arm.
“You sure?” Sam had never appreciated her perfectionist tendencies.
“How is giving a full effort to something a bad thing?” he asked, removing his hand from her skin and turning to refill his coffee cup.
“I tend to expect everyone to give one hundred and ten percent,” Jessica admitted. “It annoys people.”
He chuckled. “I haven’t found you annoying so far.”
Her stomach did the flipping thing that was becoming familiar already. “But you don’t want me to cook for you?”
She wanted to, which was completely stupid. She’d learned to cook by trial and error, and had generally hated every minute of it. Cooking healthy was a pain in the butt when drive-thru burgers and fries were so easy and quick, but even she had known that kids needed vegetables and milk. She hadn’t even known how to pick good fruit when she’d first started putting food on the table for her siblings. Now, thanks to determination and an ability to learn quickly, she was practically Betty Crocker. For some reason, she wanted Ben to know that.
“Sometime I do,” he promised. “But I have some quick business this morning, so I thought we could have breakfast out. I’m buying.”
He looked so different, Jessica thought as they went out to the truck that his friends had apparently dropped off from the bar at some point.
Before today, she’d seen Ben only in hospital scrubs and the slacks and shirt from last night. Now he looked…relaxed and casual. Even his eyes looked different. Usually his expression was concentrated and serious. He laughed at the hospital, of course, but he always had an intensity about him, like he was ready to jump in and operate on someone at any moment and be totally competent at it.
Just Right: The Bradfords, Book 1 Page 6
