Making love to Ben is everything and nothing like I thought it would be. I anticipated the physicality of it, his dominance versus my delicateness, but it’s the emotion in his eyes and tenderness in his words I didn’t see coming. His body overpowers mine in every possible way, but I know I can bring him to his knees with the brush of my hand, the scent of my skin, the press of my lips.
After a while I realize he’s holding himself back. I’m desperate to see him lose control, watch his eyes go dark and wild with need.
“Stop holding back,” I implore him. “Let go and take what you need from me.”
“Kate,” he sighs in time to his rolling thrusts. “Kate.” My name on his lips is an oath, a prayer.
I love his voice right now, wrecked and broken and desperate for release. He’s barely hanging on. I get a taste of how he must have felt watching me come: heady with power and possession. I revel in all his sex mannerisms I’m discovering tonight: the unconscious lip bite when he’s concentrating; the vein pulsing beneath his eye; his tangy sweat scent I can’t get enough of. I want to lick his entire body.
I attempt to, starting with his chest, but he must not be able to endure it because he drags me back up, capturing my mouth with his and kissing me with an aching intensity that drives me nearly to madness. When he pulls away, my chest feels empty, like he’s stolen out my heart, my breath, and my soul in one fell swoop.
“Are you close? I can’t hold off much longer.” His eyes are glassy.
“Don’t worry about me. I want to see you lose control. I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel.”
“I can’t feel any better. Trust me.”
“Challenge accepted.”
“That wasn’t—”
I redouble my efforts, clenching around him, grinding my hips, grabbing fistfuls of his hair. I bring him to the brink and in the process, I bring myself there, too.
“Oh God,” I gasp when I realize, and I see his eyes spark with satisfaction that he’s going to win this bet after all.
We both break at precisely the same moment. I shatter a second time and scream his name while he drives into me in two mighty thrusts so powerful, I’m backed up to the headboard. I run my hands over his face, across his shoulders, and down his arms as his breathing slows and evens out. I’m belatedly worried he’ll collapse on top of me but he rolls us to the side, keeping his arms locked around me.
“Fuck,” he says, still panting. “That was . . .”
“The best sex anyone’s ever had? Should be written about in history books?”
He laughs and kisses my shoulder. “I was going to say worth the wait, but that works too. Are you okay? I wasn’t too . . .”
“Ben. Do I look okay?” I stare into his eyes.
“You look . . .” He shakes his head, not finishing his sentence.
“I look what? Striking? Nice?”
He laughs into my neck, deep and rumbly.
I keep trying. “Satisfied? Doubly pleasured?”
His arms tighten around me.
“Mine.”
Chapter 31
I blink my eyes open to light slanting through cracks in the blinds, and it takes me a second to figure out where I am.
In Ben’s apartment. In Ben’s bed.
I briefly wonder if last night was a dream before I turn my head and see him sprawled out on his stomach, spectacularly nude. That ass is definitely not a dream.
He’s got an arm flung over me and it’s heavy and warm. I scan the room; it’s like a clothing tornado blew through here. My dress is draped over an upholstered chair in the corner, my nude heels shoved haphazardly underneath, while Ben’s shirt hangs off a tall bookcase that’s crammed full, spines jammed in every which way. The rest of his clothes litter the floor from doorway to bed, charting our sexual progress like a naughty treasure map. Across from the bed is a tallboy chest of drawers, his cuff links and my hastily removed jewelry resting on top. A framed black-and-white portrait of a midwestern landscape is mounted above the tufted leather headboard. This is a grown-up’s room.
I tuck the gray linen bedspread around me and stretch like a cat. I feel like I do after a day at the beach: skin heated and tingling, hair wild, relaxed and content in a soul-deep way. I’m also parched and in desperate need of some water. I try to wriggle out from underneath him but his arm tightens.
“Where are you going?” His voice is extra-deep and roughened by sleep.
I lean over and kiss him on the cheek. “I need water.”
“I’ll get it.”
After thirty seconds go by with no sign of life, I poke him. “I can do it.”
“Just give me a minute.” He yawns and flips onto his back, and it’s a gooood morning indeed.
“I thought you were the morning person of the two of us,” I tease. He stretches and I try hard not to stare.
Scratch that, I’m totally staring.
“Not today.” He palms my butt cheek and groans, then rolls out of bed, lumbering over to his nightstand. He starts rummaging in his drawer and I leer at him like a deviant, letting out a wolf whistle.
“Hot damn.”
He tosses a drowsy grin over his shoulder. I watch the muscles of his upper back bunch as he pulls on a fresh pair of boxers and swipes at his bedhead. Sleepy Ben may even be hotter than Tux Ben.
“How many calories do you think we burned last night?” I call as he pads into the kitchen. “As my trainer, you need to make sure I’m hitting my goals.”
“Which time?” he calls back. He definitely sounds smug.
My cheeks burn at the memory. I fell asleep almost instantly last night, wrapped in his arms, my head pillowed on his very comfortable biceps. At some point during the night I woke facing away from him, and when I snuggled against him, my back to his front in a “big spoon, little spoon,” I couldn’t resist stroking his thigh—which led to Ben kissing my neck and fondling my breasts, which led to me stroking him until I climbed on top of him and slowly sank down, riding him as moonlight shone in the window and danced across the shadows of his face. We barely spoke this time, wordlessly taking everything each other had to give, our bodies saying everything we needed to say.
His lips are curved in a smirk as he reenters the room and I accept the water bottle he hands me gratefully. “Speaking of calories, I’m starving,” I add.
“Me too. What are you making?” He grins.
“Do you even have any food here?”
He grimaces sheepishly.
“Seriously?” He shrugs and I groan. “Fine, let’s go to my place. I need clothes anyway.”
“You do not need clothes.” He drops back onto the bed and pinches my butt.
“I most certainly do need clothes. I refuse to put on a gown and do the walk of shame across the street. Can I steal something of yours?” I’m already up and rifling through his drawers.
“This should be amusing,” he says, lying back against the pillows and lacing his fingers behind his head.
I pull out a worn navy T-shirt with VIRGINIA emblazoned across the chest. It’s cozy and well-loved, no doubt softened by hundreds of trips through the wash. I pull it over my head and it falls nearly to my knees. Why does it always look sexy in the movies when a woman puts on a man’s shirt, but I look like I’m wearing a tent? “It’s just a tad big.”
He doesn’t seem to mind. “This is like my every college fantasy come true.”
“This is your fantasy?” I hold out my arms, swimming in the tee. “So much for all the lingerie I had planned.”
“Uh, forget I said that.”
I help myself to some pants with a drawstring, then glance over at him. “Can you get dressed already? Move it along.”
“Hangry Kate’s a little scary.” He finally rolls out of bed.
“Guess I’m going to have to wear heels with this
ensemble.” I slip them on and look in the mirror. “This is quite a getup.”
I force him to carry my dress and purse across the street so I’m not the only one who looks ridiculous. Of course it just makes him seem chivalrous.
Once we’ve made ourselves eggs, toast, and coffee and are lounging comfortably on my couch, we compare notes on the week we spent apart. I fill him in on the misplaced Kate file and we laugh about the shocked expressions on our friends’ faces after our exhibitionist dance floor display.
“Speaking of which, now that it’s out there we should probably talk about how we’ll address this at work,” I say, already steeling myself for being the subject of the office gossip mill for the foreseeable future. “I guess the first thing to do is disclose the relationship to our bosses.”
“Yeah, I already did that,” he says around a bite of toast.
“You did what?”
He finishes chewing and swallows. “I disclosed the relationship to Bill.”
I sit up. “Bill your boss? As in the one I met last night?”
“The very same.”
“But you acted like you didn’t want him to know about us!”
He looks at me strangely. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. You gave me a very pointed look when you introduced us.”
“That look was for your sake. I was trying to clue you in that he was my boss and if you didn’t want him to know anything, not to let on. That was before you mauled me on the dance floor, of course.” He smirks.
I’m not following. “So wait, what does ‘disclose the relationship’ mean? Does he know about us or not?”
“Ah, sorry. Yes, I told him, but I didn’t mention your name.”
“When did you do this? Last night?”
“No, it was . . . a while back.” He’s being evasive.
I narrow my eyes at him. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He hesitates. “I sat down with him the morning after you made me dinner.”
I scroll through my mental timeline. “The morning after . . . but that was before—”
“Before anything happened between us, I know. It was preemptive.” His mouth twitches. “I was . . . optimistic.”
“Presumptuous.”
“I prefer glass half-full. I wanted to get my ducks in a row, make sure I wouldn’t be jeopardizing our jobs. The good news is, since we don’t work together directly, we’re mostly fine. We’re supposed to avoid one-on-one collaboration and we can’t discuss any confidential information.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me this?”
“I wasn’t about to share that I told my boss about us after you flipped out and demanded we keep it a secret from everyone at work.”
I snap my fingers. “That reminds me. Do you know anything about a secret meeting between Warner and Hammond? For a second I was worried it might be about us.”
“I can see you’re going to be good at the ‘not sharing confidential information’ part,” he notes dryly, taking a sip of his coffee.
“You do know what it’s about! Of course you do. If there’s a secret out there, you’re keeping it.”
He exhales and sets his mug down. “I could get fired for talking to you about this, but I think you’ll find out soon, so fuck it. There’s a small but vocal minority who thinks they can strong-arm everyone into getting their way on a few provisions of the tax plan. We’ve been trying to work with them, but because our margin for passage is so slim they’ve become less and less reasonable.”
“They’re holding it hostage.”
“Exactly. The teacher credit debacle is one example. When that got leaked, it really lit a fire under Hammond, so we’re trying something a little different. We thought if we could get a few of the more moderate Democrats on board, then the problem goes away.”
“What makes you think you can convince Carol?”
He smiles. “One of the ideas floated was to triple the child care credit.”
“Triple it?” I nearly drop my plate.
“It’d be a way for Warner to salvage some success from your bill, reframe the narrative a little. Not to mention, her numbers would get a bump for supporting the tax breaks. She could be part of the victory lap. It’s a win-win. That’s how we’re framing it, anyway.”
“If Carol flips and throws her support behind the tax bill, that will be a big deal.”
“That’s what we’re counting on. We think where she goes, others will follow.” He takes my hand and starts playing with my fingers, and awareness dawns.
“Wait, was this your idea?”
“I can’t take all the credit, but I campaigned hard for Hammond to go this direction, yes. I was inspired by a certain ball-busting blonde . . .”
I can hardly process all these developments. “So you’ve been working on all of this behind the scenes and didn’t tell me.”
“I wanted to tell you. Desperately.” He brings my wrist to his lips and kisses it.
“But you couldn’t. I get it. However, I’m a bit concerned about what a convincing liar you are. It’s a serious boyfriend red flag.”
“To clarify, I never actually lied.” He drops his head to my shoulder, pressing kisses along my collarbone.
“A sin of omission is still a sin. Any other secrets you’re keeping? Now’s your chance to come clean.”
“Hmm, let’s see.” He tilts his head like he’s considering it.
“I was kidding.”
He purses his lips, eyeing me thoughtfully.
“You can’t possibly be hiding anything else.”
His expression shifts, the look in his eyes distinctly guilty, and my insides tense up. “Okay, now you’re making me nervous.”
He chuckles as he takes my hand again, his other arm wrapped around my legs on his lap. “So you know how I’ve never told you the number one criteria for my ideal woman?”
I stare at him like he’s just asked me to explain nuclear fission.
“Just go with me on this.”
“Um, okay?”
“I never could figure out a way to tell you this without it coming off wrong, but here goes.” He shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “My future wife needed to give me the same feeling I got when I met . . . someone else a while back.”
My face heats. Is he seriously talking to me about another woman?
His eyes take on a faraway look. “About six months before you showed up in my office, I was at an event and saw this woman across the room. I was immediately captivated by her. It was like a lightning bolt. There was just something about her . . . she stopped me in my tracks. I knew I had to meet her, so I wrangled an introduction somehow.”
He’s staring off into space, and I’m simultaneously desperate and terrified to find out where he’s going with this. I hardly want to be compared to some dream woman he’s built up in his mind. I try to remove my legs from his lap, but his arm tightens, holding me in place.
He looks back at me and smiles tightly. “But when I told her what I do and who I worked for, she looked right through me. I mean, she beelined outta there.” He lets out an angry-sounding grunt. “I was . . . I don’t know, pissed. Disappointed.” He takes a deep breath, shaking his head like he’s shaking off the memory.
“So imagine my surprise when I looked up one day and saw that same woman working in the office across from mine.”
I’m so engrossed in his story that I didn’t see the obvious twist coming.
“Wait, what?!” Now I do swing my legs off his lap and sit up. “You’re saying the woman you met . . . was me?”
He continues like I haven’t spoken. “I started watching her. It became sort of a thing for me. What’s she up to today? Can I figure out what she’s working on from here? Do I know the person she’s meeting with? Who’s the guy who’s always in her office
? What insane footwear does she have on today?” He smiles to himself. “No matter how difficult my day was, I could always look over at her and just . . . feel better. Even if it was only for a minute.” His eyes catch and hold mine. “You were the most beautiful distraction.”
“Ben,” I breathe.
He holds up a hand like he’s not done. “Imagine my surprise again months later when I saw her name show up in my email asking for a meeting.” He laces our fingers together. “It was my second chance to make a first impression.”
A sunburst of emotion flares in my chest. “If that was how you felt, then why were you so mean to me?”
He grimaces. “It wasn’t exactly planned. From the email you’d sent, it wasn’t obvious if you remembered meeting me or not, and in my mind I think I just expected you to recognize me.” He swallows. “And then you didn’t.”
“Ben, I’m so sor—”
He cuts me off. “I was agitated that I’d kept you waiting, and then you immediately introduced yourself like you’d never seen me before. Keep in mind, at that point I knew you eat dark chocolate when you’re stressed and I could tell exactly how you felt about something based on which smile you used.”
The tears I’ve been keeping at bay spill over, and he squeezes my hand.
“I treated you like shit because my ego was bruised. It was irrational and stupid and wrong of me. And I’m so sorry for that, Kate. I thought your bill was smart and important, and I wish I’d told you that.”
A sob escapes and the tears are really flowing now, streaking my face like raindrops. He brushes them away with his thumbs.
“But something good came out of all that stupidity. The more I poked you—and poked and poked—the more pissed you got, and it was like a lightbulb went on. If I just kept poking, then there was no way you could forget me this time.”
I close my eyes, overcome. I can’t believe . . . this whole time . . .
Meet You in the Middle Page 31
