CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Becca
This is so freaking wrong, but I can’t stop.
I wring the note in my hands, my heart thudding in my ears, my whole world feeling like it’s doing flips.
It happened as we were all saying goodbye. Ben dropped the note into my handbag. I was turned away from everybody else, so it was easy for him to do it unnoticed.
I spent the car ride home with my fingers twitching to open the note. But I didn’t want to take it out in front of Mom and Dad. What if they found out what it was?
What if they told Alex?
Now, sitting on the edge of my bed, I stare down at Ben’s sparse and masculine handwriting.
Let me pick you up. Text me yes.
I bite down so hard my teeth hurt. The tension works its way through all of me, corrupting the future, like a bad film eating away at a photograph. I see my older brother with his mouth open, yelling, waving his hand in absolute rage.
But then I imagine Ben with our son on his knee, one powerful hand propping him up as he helps him with his little camera.
With a flash, suddenly, the image changes. Ben’s looming over me at the party, his dark suit is hugging onto his strong arms, his intense eyes holding me in place. Then, in the fantasy, he reaches out quickly, grabbing my thigh and sliding his hand up between my legs.
He pushes the fabric of my dress right against my sex, grinding his hand up and down, making my pussy tingle with the heat.
I whimper, both in real life and in the dream, imagining the heel of his palm applying more pressure.
Then I’d start riding it, if I had the confidence, grabbing onto his wrist and twitching my hips against him.
My body trembles as I imagine reaching orgasm, just like that, and then he’d lean down and whisper in my ear. “We’re not done yet.”
I open my eyes and take out my cell phone.
Yes, ten minutes, the park near the hotel. I’ll wait.
Sending the text with the address I hurry over to the closet, changing into jeans and a baggy shirt. It’s easier to move in than the dress.
Heck, I feel like I’m in a spy movie.
My phone call was a failure. The whole purpose was to avoid this, to make sure I didn’t have to resort to sneaking around. And here I am choosing a darker shirt because it’ll make me harder to spot.
Like Alex is going to be roaming the streets, searching for Ben and me.
Tying my hair up in a ponytail, I grab my phone and leave the hotel room. I’m conscious of how quietly I walk down the hallway, not wanting to wake Mom and Dad as if they’re going to spring from the room demanding to know where I’m going.
It’s guilt whispering at me, trying to ruin this.
Whatever this is.
I was the one who told him we had to stop. But I was also giving him a chance to fight…and this note, it’s like fighting.
I spot the park by the moonlight shining off the archway. My gaze moves down, to Ben’s moonlit-colored hair, to the savage twist in his lips. He leans against his tinted-window sedan with his arms folded.
Taking a few steps forward, I falter as I stand beneath him. He rears up, staring down at me, everything about him tense.
“I want to fight this,” he growls. “But you’ve got me so damn obsessed, Becca.”
I let out a long-awaited moan as he leans down. It’s the kiss I imagined all through dinner, sitting with his leg brushing mine under the table, knowing I couldn’t follow my lust.