“Just spend a few days with me until I can clear this up.”
As a teenager, she took care of her own problems; she never shared them with her parents if she could help it. So, as an adult, to have him demand to take over what she deemed her issue, bothered her. It felt as if she couldn’t handle what she should handle.
“Benton, honestly, I think I will be fine.”
“Then I’ll stay here,” he said, tone brooking no argument.
Huffing out a breath, she said, “You are the most stubborn, ridiculous man I know.”
His lips twitched. “And you’re the most stubborn woman I know.”
They made a pair, the two of them, refusing to give way to compromise. But she couldn’t see where they would meet in the middle. One of them had to concede. She was beginning to realize it would be her. She couldn’t make him sleep on the couch for days and she knew he would continue to refuse to go away. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stay with him a few days. If she was truthful, she admitted she needed help with Brad. Obviously by herself she wasn’t enough of a deterrent.
“All right. I’ll stay with you. But only for a few days.”
“Good. Go pack.”
The urge to stick her tongue out at him proved almost a temptation she couldn’t resist.
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”
He just stared, one eyebrow rising.
She sighed. “I’m going.”
“You’re something else when you’ve had too much to drink,” he told her.
If she wasn’t mistaken, there was a tinge of fondness in his tone. She flashed him a smile. She certainly felt less restricted, but she didn’t want to become an alcoholic to shed her shyness.
Abandoning him in the living room, she padded barefoot to her room and pulled a suitcase out of the closet. Only half of her attention was on packing. Mid-way through, she stopped, pressing her fingers to her lips as she remembered what kissing him felt like. The memory wouldn’t leave her anytime soon. The temptation he presented... It nearly irritated her, knowing she would go to bed with him if he asked.
“Not that he will...” She murmured, shoving more clothing in than she needed.
The bathroom adjoined to the bedroom. She gathered up her toiletries and an extra bag for shoes. Though he claimed she would only be there a few days, Andrea knew it could be longer. She didn’t know what he planned to do about Brad, but knowing Benton, she might not want to. Not that he could do away with Brad in the way she suspected he wanted to. Or she hoped.
Dragging her belongings out to the front door, she looked at Benton. He stared at her luggage, a doubtful expression on his face.
“All that for a couple of days?”
“I’m a woman.” She wouldn’t tell him she expected to stay longer. He might decide to persuade her from the beginning.
“Are you going to wear that?”
She looked down at her dress. “Oh... I’ll go change.”
A pair of yoga pants, a sweater and slip-on shoes were the best she could muster considering the hour. Benton turned off her lights and locked the door behind them, carrying the burden of her bags. She followed him to his Jeep and helped him load. Climbing into the warm cab, she settled in and drifted as he started driving. The last thing she remembered was the low hum of music on the radio and the outline of his face in the scant light of the street lamps.
Chapter Eleven
The cool December air blew over him, chilling his skin as he vacated the limousine and walked down the dimly lit path to his home. The week passed swiftly, despite his worry about having Andrea so close. They seemed to have fallen into a sort of uneasy pattern. They made breakfast in the morning and went their separate ways; at night, one or the other of them cooked dinner and they went to bed. He hadn’t known how having another person living with him would be, but she tidied up and mostly kept to herself.
Brad proved elusive. His apartment remained furnished, but abandoned. It stayed dark the entire week. Ryan picked the lock and searched, but couldn’t find anything leading to where he might be staying. Benton put feelers out to all his contacts in the city. It seemed that Brad essentially vanished. Still, he felt confident they would eventually find the man. For now, Andrea kept a restraining order to have contact with the police if necessary.
He would find the man. And until he did, Andrea would stay with him.
Sleep proved difficult, knowing she slept across the hall. His damned mind conjured up images of her in her sleepwear, and wouldn’t let him forget the kiss they shared. He knew better. Losing control and touching her had been his undoing, as he knew it would. The flimsy barrier he erected crumbled when he crossed and his body craved more.
He didn’t know what changed. They spent over a year avoiding one another, dancing around the attraction and pretending it didn’t exist. When he watched her standing there, pride etched in the slim lines of her body even as she struggled not to fall apart, something broke loose and he left rational where it stood. The taste of her sweet lips, the feel of her smooth skin and the press of her body against his, it haunted his dreams when he could sleep.
Pausing at the door, he reminded himself that their cohabitation was temporary and he needed to keep thinking of it that way. Getting used to her being here would only make things worse when she left. Though he wanted to keep her safe, he expected having a woman living with him would put a crimp in things. But it didn’t.
He found her in the living room, asleep on the couch beneath a blanket, book dangling from her fingers. Tracing the lines of her face with his eyes, he thought she looked even more innocent sleeping. How could he let a woman like her into his heart? She didn’t deserve the ugliness he experienced; what could he offer her that another man couldn’t? She needed stability, a man who would give her the world and put her up on a pedestal.
The urge to touch her gripped him strongly. Crossing to her, he slipped the book from her hand and set it on the coffee table. He brushed her hair gently from her eyes, lingering on the smooth skin of her cheek. She made a soft noise in her sleep and leaned into his touch. Parts of him that had no business tightening did. He wanted to pull her into his arms and carry her to his bed. He wanted to love her until she couldn’t breathe.
Andrea’s eyelids fluttered and he knew he should move away. But he didn’t. When those blue eyes fixed on his face, he remained touching her and went against the screaming of his brain, sitting down in the small space offered from the curve of her body.
“Hi,” she said sleepily.
He needed to break the spell. “Have you eaten?”
She shook her head, her hand coming up to cover his. The motion sung straight up his arm, hitting him somewhere in the chest. His breath caught on the seizing of his lungs as she rose up, sinking into him. His gaze dropped to her lips, rosy from the warmth of sleep. Now that he knew how she tasted and how she felt, it was a struggle to resist.
“What are you doing to me?” He asked, not intending to say it aloud.
She sighed softly, hands coming to his chest.
Leaning down, he gently rubbed his lips across hers. If possible, she melted into him further and his arms went around her, tugging her into his lap. She tasted of hot cocoa and chocolate. His grip grew more possessive as he slipped his hand beneath her bottom and caressed, palming the firm curves under her thin pants. She whimpered into his mouth and his control broke.
Lips slanting, he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and traced it with his tongue. She met him, all shyness stripped bare. Her eagerness and boldness sent lust spiking hard in his gut, and he wanted to stretch her across the cushions and press himself to her. He wanted her clothing gone; he wanted to feel every part of her. Those luscious, full breasts straining against his chest begged to be explored, and he gripped her hips, trying to keep his hands put.
He hadn’t meant to touch her or kiss her. His inner dialogue all day reminded him to leave her alone, eat dinner and go to bed. But that obviously didn’t deter hi
m or he wouldn’t be going against everything he felt he should be doing.
Pulling back, he considered her flushed face. Her eyes shone bright with desire, her chest rising and falling rapidly. He drew a finger across her lips, sliding down to press against her fluttering pulse. She closed her eyes against his touch and he struggled to find a reason not to give her what she wanted.
“Andrea.”
“Don’t say anything, Benton.”
She laid her head over his heart and he knew it must be pounding furiously. He couldn’t recall a time he wanted a woman more. And damned if his excuses paled in comparison to the thought of being with her. But he couldn’t promise her anything; not knowing a woman like her deserved more than a tumble beneath the sheets. He couldn’t hurt her that way and a part of him knew he was bound to.
For this moment, he let himself go. Sliding his hand into her hair, he stroked across her scalp and down her neck, fingers tangling in her curls. Everything about her was soft, until you riled her up and she proved a spine of steel lay underneath. He admired the strength beneath the kindness; she showed that a woman could be compassionate and stand in the face of her fears without losing herself.
An innocent, pure and untouched by the atrocities of the world; he didn’t want to bring the ugliness he knew to her. But sometimes a person had to give to get what they wanted. He wanted her to work through the trauma, talking with someone, even if that someone wasn’t him. He never wanted to see that look on her face again, the one of complete defeat and terror.
Resting his cheek against her head, he said, “Andrea, it helps to talk about things. I know. I have nightmares too.”
She moved out from beneath him and looked up at him, those blue eyes solemn. For once, he couldn’t read what was in them.
“You have nightmares too?”
Outside of professional help and his Army friends, he didn’t talk to anyone about the dreams. He knew they all carried scars from the war and the actions they were forced to take. It wasn’t a natural thing to kill people. It wasn’t something he enjoyed. But there came a time when it was kill or be killed; right or wrong, he knew he did it not only for himself, but for those people he swore to protect.
The need to turn away from her assessing gaze proved almost too strong to resist. Still, he kept his eyes locked with hers, knowing that whatever he saw there he needed to face. If she thought less of him, he knew there was little he could do about it. If it helped her get through this, then it would be worth it.
“Yeah. You don’t come back from Iraq without baggage.”
“How do you get through that? How do you leave it in the past?” She asked, her voice small.
He shrugged. “You don’t. You just learn to live with it, day to day, knowing you did all that you could. I know when I leave this Earth, God will judge me for my actions and there isn’t a damn thing I can do to change that. I hope he knows I took lives to save others. Is that right? Maybe not. But defending people who can’t defend themselves is enough for me.”
She kept quiet, that beautiful mind of hers whirling in her head, clouding her eyes with the struggle he sensed she fought within. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she thought or how she dealt with the situation for months without help.
“Did you... Talk to someone?”
“Yeah. I talked with a counselor at the VA. Someone who understood what I was going through, who’d been there himself.” At her conflicted look, he drew a finger across her cheek. “Don’t think it was easy. It took me a good year to get there.”
“But, didn’t you just get out of the Army a year ago?”
He shook his head. “Two years ago. Two years shy of my end of active service.”
“What happened?”
He hesitated and saw the regret on her face. Before she could say anything further, he held her away from him and lifted his shirt. A scar snaked its way from above his left hip and across to his back. It was a reminder; of many things.
“Oh Benton...” She reached out, tracing the line. He felt the heat of her fingertips searing into him and he alternately wanted her to keep touching him and stop all at once. “What happened?”
“Shrapnel.”
He could tell she wanted to ask him how, but her courtesy kept her from saying it aloud.
“An IED. We were out on patrol.”
Memories flooded him, as they always did; his men, laughing and joking with him, the sudden explosion outside the driver’s side door and the ringing in his ears... Disorientation, as drug himself back from the edge of passing out and his fingers slick with blood as he crawled over the hump to shake the driver. The guy was just a kid. Barely out of boot camp and overly excited to drive the Humvee. A few more feet and they would have missed it.
“I got lucky. I just lost a kidney. Two and a half feet, that was all there was between me and death.”
She placed her hand against his cheek, concern for him evident in her eyes.
“The driver...” His eyes went distant, unseeing.
“I’m so sorry, Benton.”
He focused on her face. “I didn’t tell you this to feel sorry for me. I wanted you to know that I didn’t get through it by pretending it didn’t happen. It took time, and it took counseling.”
She dropped her gaze. “Was it... Painful?”
“Hell yes. I won’t lie to you. It wasn’t easy and I didn’t go into it spilling my guts to some stranger. I resisted. And the more I resisted, the worse it got.”
Weariness overtook her, from the drooping of her shoulders to the pulling on the corners of her mouth. He wanted to comfort her, he wanted to tell her everything would be fine. But he couldn’t lie to her and he knew the only way to get her through it would be brutal honesty. If it meant exposing that raw wound that simmered beneath the surface, telling her how he felt displaced when he came back, how he couldn’t get into the rhythm of the civilian world, then he would do it.
“The nightmares won’t go completely away, but the counselor can give you tools. And the more time that passes in healing, the less you dream about it.”
A battle carried itself out in her face. He knew she heard the reasoning in his words and he hoped she realized to live, she needed to learn how to get past the fear.
A simple smile lit up her face, hitting him hard in the chest with something entirely different than lust. It frightened him in its intensity and he nearly pushed her away and scrambled off the couch. But he was a man who faced what scared him, so he wouldn’t push her away when she needed him.
“Okay. I’ll call around soon and see what I can find.”
“Good.”
She laid against his chest again. “Thank you.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing and relished in the feel of her against him for as long as this moment lasted.
Chapter Twelve
Benton awoke the next morning to the smell of breakfast. Rolling onto his back, he stared at the ceiling, one arm flinging into the empty space beside him. It mocked him, told him what he could have if only he would take it. But a part of him held back, hesitating because he knew what going down that path could mean; to both of them. And the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
Scrubbing at his face with his hands, he tried to erase the feeling of her skin in his head, the way her lips took as hungrily from his as he did from hers. The blankets twisted around his feet told him how terrible he slept. He dreamed of her all night; in his bed, beneath him, his hands on her body and her lips whispering his name. How he would survive another week or more like this he didn’t know.
“Get a grip,” he muttered to himself, throwing the comforter aside.
Thankful the house had two bathrooms, he took to the one adjacent to his room and showered. To calm his thoughts and his lust, he allowed cold spray to wash over him, sufficient to leave his skin freezing. He dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his stomach telling him he couldn’t hide out in here forever.
He found her standing at t
he stove, dancing to an imaginable song in her head. She fought with the bacon, tiny and barefoot in an oversized shirt and leggings. Red hair curled down her back in a semi-tangled mess, somehow sexier than if she styled it. Barefaced and real, she stood in his kitchen like a goddess; one he struggled to resist. Everything about this screamed of home and it scared him that he thought that way.
Once he found Brad, neutralized the threat, she would be gone and he would be alone again.
Andrea looked up then, letting out a little squeal of surprise. “Oh, Lord, Benton. You scared me! You are too quiet.”
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