His Wife for a While (8 page)

Just then Ben came into the room with an uncorked bottle of wine and two stemmed glasses.

"I thought a little of this magic elixir would help us to relax," he said.

He poured the rich red wine into one glass and handed it to her. As he poured one for himself, he commented, "I should have thought to serve it with that delicious dinner you made."

"Oh, that's okay," she told him. A tiny burst of joy exploded inside her at his compliment.

When he sat down next to her,
Chelsea
instinctively inched away from him toward the arm of the sofa.

"Boy, am I tired," he said. "I've had a long day."

Disappointment welled inside her, hot and strong. "Too tired?"

Ben looked at her, puzzlement narrowing his gaze. The implication behind her question struck him the same moment she realized she'd actually asked. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth, her eyes wide with embarrassment.

He laughed softly and shook his head. "It's okay. I understand. And, no, I'm not that tired." He twisted a little so he could look at her. "But at least now I know…" The rest of the thought petered out as he couldn't quite decide how to phrase his thought.

"Know what?"

Ben looked toward the far end of the room, then ran his fingers over his jaw. "Well, I was wondering how you wanted to… um, do this thing. The baby thing, I mean." He shook his head, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity and murmuring, "Of course you know what I mean."

Suddenly, the wood of the coffee table top became riveting, as if it had been made of some rare and mysterious tree that grew in the rain forest rather than plain, old oak. When
Chelsea
didn't respond, he lifted his gaze to her face and nearly laughed at the deer-in-headlights look she was giving him. He slipped the wine glass from her fingers and set both his and hers on the table.

"Obviously, we need to talk about this."

"You're not backing out, are you?"

"Relax. Of course not. I wouldn't do that. But you have to admit… there's more than one way to skin this cat."

She blinked, and her lips parted as her jaw dropped.

"I'm sorry,
Chelsea
. That was a very poor choice of words." He sighed. "What I meant to say…" He hesitated long enough to moisten his lips. "There's Mother Nature's way; one man, one woman… bing, bang, boom… and nine months later a baby is born. And then there's the more… clinical method. You know, doctors and appointments and specimens and… well, you know, things like that."

The whole time he was talking, her face became rosier, but she never broke eye contact with him.

"Ben, you must think I am a complete and utter idiot." Her head shook back and forth slowly. "Never. Not once did I think about the, um, clinical method."

She rubbed her palms up and down her thighs. "I did consider adoption. Did a small amount of research on the internet. But I soon found out it's very expensive." She drew her bottom lip between her teeth, evidently pondering his suggestion. "Does health insurance cover something like that? And if it doesn't, how much does it cost? How long does it take? And what's the success rate?" Her hands stilled. "Would you prefer the, um, artificial route over…?"

"Bing, bang, boom?" He grinned.

"This isn't funny, Ben."

"I know," he told her. "But I have to do something to break the tension. I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin talking about this. And you don't look much better."

She nodded. The two of them sat there together on the sofa, so close yet so far away from each other, and
Chelsea
could feel the silence that she'd embraced all her adult life swiftly becoming her enemy. Finally, she whispered, "I'm worried about the time frame. What if the doctors require us to go to counseling? How expensive is something like that? Will my medical insurance cover any of the costs of the procedure?"

"I don't really know the answer to any of those questions, Chels. I'd have to assume that, if neither of us have any health issues that would keep us from, you know, making a baby the normal way, the insurance company wouldn't agree to pay anything. Do you have any? Health issues, I mean?"

She shook her head. "No. You?"

"Not that I know of."

Chelsea
frowned, her thumb tracing tiny circles on her thigh. 

He slid closer to her and covered her hand with his. "Listen, stop worrying. It's going to be okay. I only brought it up because, well, because I was wondering. That's all. I'm fine going with Mother Nature. Her method is… pretty damn perfect from what I hear."

Relief rounded her shoulders. And when he scooped up the wine glasses and handed her one, she took it and smiled. Really smiled.

"So, what do we drink to?"

His question took her off guard. "Drink to?" she asked.

"
Chelsea
, we're in the middle of a successful campaign here," he said. "We've accomplished one of our goals by saving Reed's Orchard from being sold." His green eyes darkened and his mouth tipped into an off-center grin. "Don't you think we should drink to the complete success of our deal?"

"Well... sure."

"To success," he said, and lightly tapped the rim of his glass to hers.

"To bing, bang, boom."

He laughed at her joke, and she joined him, despite the raw anxiety churning in her chest. She watched him take a deep swallow and then she took a tiny sip. The wine tasted fruity and slightly sweet and it trailed a warm path down her throat.

He reached behind her and turned down the brightness of the lamp on the end table.
Chelsea
's spine straightened so quickly she sloshed wine onto the back of her hand.

"Ohhh, look what I've done," she said. What the heck was he doing?

"Atmosphere."

His answer told her she'd spoken the question aloud.

"But... but..."

"It's okay," he assured her gently. "We don't have to do anything right away. Let's just get comfortable. Let's just relax."

He took the wineglass from her hand and set it on the coffee table. She hadn't noticed when he'd set his down. He took her fingers in his and pulled them toward him.

"But I've spilled the wine," she protested, panic rising into her throat, and she weakly tried to pull her hand from his grasp.

"Oh, but I have the perfect remedy for that," he murmured, his voice tinged with wickedness.

Slowly, his warm lips touched the back of her hand and he gently sucked the wine from her skin.

For the second time that day
Chelsea
felt a slowing down of time. No, this was a complete cessation of life as she knew it. Ben's tongue was soft as velvet against her flesh. His lips sent a delicious heat radiating up her arm.

Because his head was bent, she wasn't able to see exactly what he was doing. So she wasn't prepared when he kissed the tender spot between her index finger and thumb. The tip of his nose brushed back and forth across her tingling skin. He sniffed gently and slowly and deeply, and the muscles in her stomach tightened almost painfully.

He was inhaling her scent. She found the action extremely erotic. Although she felt sluggish and giddily drunk, she knew it had nothing to do with the wine. It was something else altogether; she was actually feeling... sensual.

The realization made her gasp softly and she snatched her hand from his grasp.

"Why are you…?" The words she uttered sounded strangled.

He lifted his head to gaze at her, his green eyes holding a mixture of perplexity and some other dark, mysterious emotion she was afraid to identify.

"Well," he began. "I guess I'm trying to... turn you on... get you in the mood... arouse you."

She blinked several times. "Is that absolutely necessary?"

Ben leaned back against the couch, lifted his hand to his face and deliberately rubbed his fingers across his mouth and chin. He darted a look at her, then another. Finally, he said, "No, I guess it's not. But, then, I also guess we should talk about this a little more."

"Do we have to?" This time her question came out sounding squeaky and
Chelsea
was so mortified she wanted to hide her face in her hands. But she forced herself to finish. "Can't we just... you know... do it?"

She watched his frown deepen.

"Seeing as the two of us have differing ideas as to how we should 'do it,'" he said, "I don't see how we can get around talking about it."

Chelsea
's lips set in a grim line.

He sighed heavily and glanced toward the ceiling. When his gaze returned to her face he said, "Okay. Let's take this slow. There's no reason to be embarrassed, we're both adults. We know what has to happen in order for you to get pregnant." He hesitated a moment. Then his tone became quite soft as he asked, "How did you want us…" he indicated the two of them with a back-and-forth movement of his hand "…to go about making love?"

Closing her eyes at the sound of his last two words, she willed her pounding heart to calm, but the effort failed. Miserably. She slowly raised her eyelids and gulped in a deep breath.

"What we'll be doing certainly can't be called... making love," she said stiffly.

"Oh? And what is it called?"

Chelsea
swallowed nervously. "We'll be... well, we'll be..." One of her shoulders lifted. "…procreating." Her face flared hot as the word passed her lips and she was forced to look away from him.

His eyebrows arched high. "Sounds kind of stark to me," he remarked. When she made no response, he asked, "How does this procreation work?"

Her gaze flew to his face. "
Ben.
" The tone of her voice and her agonized expression implored him not to force her to explain.

"Oh, I wasn't asking you to break down the intimate nuances of the act itself," he said, ignoring her silent plea. "I think I learned that in eighth grade health class. But I would like you to clarify the preliminary details involved in your plan."

"Preliminary details?"
Chelsea
searched his face for some sign to tell her he really wasn't going to insist on a description, but he only nodded and settled back against the sofa to await her answer.

Damn it! He was going to make her do this. Clearing her throat, she took a shaky breath. "Okay, well," she began slowly, "I thought we'd go back there…" she pointed down the hallway to indicate the bedroom "…and take off..." Here her voice failed her and she simply fingered the collar of her blouse to convey her message. She ran her tongue over her dry lips. "And then...I thought we'd get into the..." Her voice turned quavery and she closed her eyes as she hurried to state her last thoughts. "Then we'd have... well, we'd have..."

Realizing she simply couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, she clamped her mouth shut and turned her head away.

"
Chelsea
." His voice was gentle. "Look at me."

When she did, she saw that his expression was just as gentle as his tone.

"
Chelsea
, this is what you're trying to say. You want us to go back to the bedroom. You want us to take off our clothes. You want us to get into the bed. And you want us to have intercourse." He took her hand in his. "Tell me how you expect to do those things, when you can't even bring yourself to say the words."