Once in a Lifetime (11 page)

A
ubrey’s bones liquefied. “What?”

“You heard me,” Ben said, voice so low and rough as to be a growl.

She had no idea what it said about her that she reacted to this with a shudder that was a mere millimeter below orgasm. Not taking her eyes off Ben, she reached up and slowly began to unbutton her coat. There were a lot of buttons. Each one she popped open made his eyes darken further.

After the last one, she let the coat fall. Before it hit the ground, Ben slid a hand on the nape of her neck and drew her in, his mouth closing over hers. Soft, then sure and demanding, and the hunger consumed her, hot and terrifying.

As if he felt the same, he let out one low, mirthless laugh and whispered, “Damn, you drive me insane” against her mouth.

There was a note of dazed frustration to his tone, and Aubrey absolutely knew the feeling. He wasn’t in her future, and yet he tasted better than her wildest fantasies. And God help her, but she wanted more.

Leaning in again, his mouth hovered near hers as his gaze raked down her body, sending sparks racing along every nerve ending. “In those fuck-me boots, you’re as tall as I am,” he said.

“Is that a problem?” she asked.

“Hell, no. I like it. We’re all lined up.” Proving it, he hauled her in against him, one hand sliding up to sink into her hair, the other low on her back, nudging her even closer. She let out a low moan at the contact, and his lips curved in a sinful smile. His mouth should be illegal in all fifty states, but she bet he could do things with it. Things she wanted.

Bad
.

He nipped at her lower lip, and she parted for him, but then he bypassed her mouth, skimming along her jaw. She heard a needy whimper. Hers, of course. Her eyes fluttered closed as he kissed a hot path to her ear and ran the tip of his nose along her lobe. “You sure this is what you want?” he asked.

Was he kidding? She was clutching him, her hands fisted in his shirt, rubbing against him like a cat in heat.

“Aubrey.”

She didn’t know why, but the sound of her name on his lips did something to her. Something sinfully wicked, but more, too. She took a deep breath, wrapped her arms around his neck, and melted into the planes of his hard body. “Yes. This is what I want.”

“I’m not sweet,” he reminded her.

“Or beta,” she said. “But I’m not looking for that kind of man right this very minute.”

“What are you looking for?”

“You. This.”

He traced her spine with his fingertips, leaving a trail of fire that she felt all the way to her toes. Holding her gaze prisoner, he brushed his lips across hers, his hands sliding with purpose from her back southward, until he was cupping a cheek in each hand, rocking her into a most impressive erection. There was a jolt of electricity as he skimmed further south, beneath the hem of her dress.

She arched back as his clever fingers traced the edge of her thong, teasing, stroking up, and then down, and then further, between her legs.

Less clothes. She needed less clothes between them and more full frontal contact. As if reading her mind, he gave a quick yank and her thong tore free and slithered to the floor.

His eyes were black with desire. “Do you have a condom?” he asked.

“Bathroom.”

He scooped her up so that she could wrap her legs around him and carried her there. He set her on the counter and flicked on the light.

“Bottom drawer,” she managed.

He found the box, not commenting on the fact that it hadn’t been opened. In return, she didn’t comment on the fact that he obviously didn’t have a condom on him. She reached out to turn off the light but he put his hand over hers. “On,” he said.

Contrary to what anyone might think, she hadn’t actually done this in a while. She assumed it was like getting back on a bike, but just in case it wasn’t, she wanted room for error. “Ben—”

“On,” he said firmly, and before she could say another word, he pulled off his shirt and she found herself sighing in pleasure at the sight of him, all lean, tough planes delineated with muscle born of years of hard physical labor.

Watching her watch him, he kicked off his work boots and finished stripping with easy, economical movements.

He was hard.

Everywhere.

Okay, well, if
this
was her view, he was right—the light could absolutely stay on.

“We good?” he asked, clearly amused by the fact that he’d just caught her drooling over him.

Yeah, she was good. So damn good…“I didn’t know I was going to be so attracted to you naked,” she admitted.

“Liar.”

Yeah, he was right. She
was
a big fancy liar. She’d known she was attracted to Ben for a very long time. Possibly forever.

“Now you,” he said, reaching for the zipper on her dress.

She held him off. “Maybe we should move to my room.”
Which would have more forgiving light than these harsh fluorescents…

In answer, his mouth came down on hers. She opened to him completely, not that he gave her a chance to do anything less. Still kissing her, he shifted to stand between her legs, opening them wider, then wider still. She lost herself in the way he devoured her mouth, so that when her dress fell to her waist, she gasped in surprise. She opened her eyes and looked into his.

“I wish you could see yourself the way I’m seeing you,” he said hoarsely. Her heart clenched because she caught something in his gaze she didn’t often find when people looked at her.

Raw desire.

This worked for her, but there was something else as well, possibly affection—not that she wanted to acknowledge it. Still, it was there, as apparent as the racing of her pulse. Then he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers as his hands stroked her heated flesh.

Her plan had been to infiltrate his defenses, get him naked, and—she hoped—get an orgasm while she was at it.

Stick to the plan, Aubrey
.

But…but what if this was his first time since Hannah? She opened her mouth to ask, but he kissed her until she lost her train of thought. He kissed her as though he knew
exactly
what he was doing. If he was just getting back on the bike, he was having no problems. “Ben?”

He dragged that hot, talented mouth down her throat, along her collarbone, to a breast. She stopped breathing. But when he sucked her nipple into his mouth at the same time he slid a hand between her thighs, she cried out, arching back, giving him full-pass access without even realizing what she was doing.

She completely forgot what she’d wanted to ask him.

He teased her until every thought left her brain, and then he dropped to his knees and ran his hands up the inside of her legs. Holding her in place right where he wanted her, he leaned in and continued the torture with his lips, his tongue, his teeth, groaning his approval when she gasped out his name and slid her fingers into his hair. Her eyes strained to stay open because there was something about seeing him get so turned on by pleasuring her. But her eyes drifted shut in sheer, lustful bliss.

“Watch,” he said, and she tried to, but he did something diabolical in tandem with his tongue and fingers that had her writhing mindlessly into him. He was taking her apart one lick at a time, and she was already quivering, on the edge, toes curled. She knew that she could give herself a somewhat satisfying orgasm in about ten minutes. A man, when she chose one, could usually get her off in about twice that.

But Ben had her shuddering in less than five minutes.

She was still lost in the throes and thinking she’d never had such an erotic experience in her life when he entered her with one hard stroke and reminded her there was more.

So much more…

She opened her eyes to find him watching her, unwavering and intense. She slid her hands up his chest and around his neck, pulling him closer as they moved together.

Unbelievably, she started to tighten around him again, though she tried to hold back. She wasn’t sure why, but before she could think about it, he stroked a thumb over her swollen, wet flesh and she was gone, gone, gone. Her cry of pleasure seemed to push him over the edge. Fisting one hand in her hair, the other on her ass, holding her in place, Ben buried his face in the crook of her neck and came with her.

She didn’t move for a long moment, couldn’t. Ben didn’t, either, and she wondered if he was as stunned as she was by the sheer sexual power they held over each other. When she finally shifted to get up, he tightened his grip on her. Face still pressed against her throat, she felt him just breathe her in. After a few minutes, he gave her a slow, lazy nuzzle, then kissed her with surprising tenderness before raising his head.

She took stock. Her dress was bunched around her waist, her only item of clothing. Well, except for her footwear. “I’m still wearing my boots,” she said inanely.

He smiled. “The memory of how you look, just like this, is going to fuel my dreams for a long time to come.”

She gave him a little nudge. Taking the hint, he disentangled their bodies with care, but she couldn’t control the needy little gasp that escaped her at the loss. He went still for a beat, but she nudged again. Her torn panties were useless, but she managed to twist her dress back into place.

Ben hadn’t made a move to get dressed. He unselfconsciously dealt with the condom disposal and then offered her a hand to help her hop down from the counter.

Life was simple for guys, apparently. No complicated emotions to think about. They could walk around naked without worrying what they looked like.

Of course, she thought, Ben didn’t have to worry. He looked…edible.

The bastard.

She bent for his clothes and shoved them at him.

Taking his sweet-ass time, he pulled on his pants and straightened, and she did her best not to stare at him. But she failed. She couldn’t help it; he was just so damn…hot. She let her eyes soak him up, from his still-bare chest to the fact that though his pants were on, they were unbuttoned and riding low, and he was still semihard. He looked…dangerous, she decided. And primed for another round.

Her body was game.

He flashed her a smile. He knew what she was thinking. She turned her back while he finished getting dressed, which made him laugh softly and pull her around to face him again. “Okay?” he asked.

She swallowed her half-hysterical laugh. “Well, let’s see. I just had wild monkey sex with a man I can’t get along with to save my life, in the bathroom above my shop, no less—which, by the way, I don’t even think is locked.” She tossed up her hands. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

He studied her a moment. “We got along just fine in the past hour, I’d say.”

She felt the blush race up her face. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I suppose I do. Do we need to talk about it?”

“Hell, no.”

He looked relieved. “We said this wasn’t going to change anything,” he said. “We both got what we wanted.”

“Yeah,” she said. But what if she suddenly couldn’t remember what she’d wanted?

And suddenly, he wasn’t looking so relieved. He was looking…wary. “Did you change your mind, Aubrey?”

“No.” Not that she would admit it anyway, not even over the threat of death and dismemberment.

“Good,” he said with quiet steel. “Because I don’t want a committed relationship.”

“Ever?”

He hesitated. “Not any time soon, anyway.”

She absorbed the unexpected shock of disappointment, and, she hoped, kept it from her face. “Then we’re good.”

He paused again, as if searching that statement for honesty. “I locked the shop before I came up here,” he said. “The flower shop and bakery are long closed.” He smiled, his voice light and teasing when he added, “So no worries. No one could have heard you.”

Oh, hell, no, he didn’t just say that. She opened her mouth to tell him that they’d
both
been loud, but she shut it again.

Because he was right.
She’d
been the noisy one.

Damn. She should really have orgasms with other people more often. She moved from the bathroom to the door of her loft and not so subtly opened it for him to leave.

Ben looked amused but didn’t say one word as he crossed the room. As he came up even with her, he cupped her jaw and planted one hell of a kiss on her. If she hadn’t still been trembling from what they’d just done, she’d have pushed him away. But as it was, she had to fight her limbs, which wanted to cling to him like Saran Wrap.

Lifting his head, he sent her one last look of wicked promise, and then he was gone.

Alone, she shut and locked her door and then leaned back against it.
What had she just done?
There was really only one man in town who had the power to hurt her. And she’d just had sex with him.

B
en dreamed about Aubrey writhing in ecstasy in his arms. Best dream ever. He was late getting out of bed, but it was worth it, he thought, hitting the road running as he headed along the harbor. The icy ocean air—so cold it felt like hell had frozen over—sucked the breath from his lungs, but the discomfort was nothing compared to what he’d felt in some of the places he’d been.

Sam was waiting for him at the pier, running in place, his breath puffing out in little white clouds. “Thought maybe you weren’t coming,” he said, and looked Ben over carefully. “Rough night?”

Yeah, not exactly. “I’m good,” Ben said. And he was. Possibly a little too good.

Sam let it go, and they ran hard, as usual. No words necessary.

An hour later, Ben was in the bookstore when Aubrey stormed in with eyes flashing, boots clicking as she moved across the floor, anger coming off her in waves. She was wearing yet another businessy dress, this one made of soft, sweater-like material that covered her from chin to knee but nicely hugged the curves he now knew intimately.

He was pretty damn sure he should have been over her enough not to get hard at the sight of her. “What’s up?” he asked.

Like he didn’t know…

“My car won’t start,” she said animatedly, furious and beautiful. “Something happened to it overnight.”

Yeah.
He’d
happened to it. He’d pulled the coil wire late the night before after a drink with Luke. The coil wire was still in his pocket, as a matter of fact.

Aubrey stalked across the store, straight to Ben’s still-steaming to-go cup of coffee, which Leah had poured for him. She drank from it as though it were her lifeline.

All without making eye contact with him. “Black. Blech.” She sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t afford a mechanic.”

She wasn’t going to need one.

“It’s always something,” she said, sounding tired. Frustrated. At the end of her rope.

Still not looking at him directly.

Another man might have felt guilty as hell, but Ben told himself he wasn’t another man. He wanted to know what she was up to, what was wrong, and he’d meant it when he’d said he wanted to know if she was okay. And yeah, after last night, he was more curious than ever. There was no better way to figure her out than to drive her around. “Where do you need to go?” he asked.

She looked down at her phone, thumbing through screens with dizzying speed.

He put a hand on her. “It can’t be far,” he said. “You need to open the store in an hour and a half, right?”

She finally looked at him and then blushed. He figured that was the “wild monkey sex,” as she’d called it. The best wild monkey bathroom sex he’d ever had. “Do you need a ride?” he asked.

“No,” she said quickly. Too quickly.

“Look at you, lying so early in the morning.”

She blew out a breath. “Okay, so I have a few…errands to run.”

“I’ll take you.”

She drank some more of his coffee and just stared at him. “Why would you do that?” she finally asked.

Because he was a jerk. “It’s the neighborly thing to do,” he settled on.

“We’re not neighbors.”

“Okay, it’s the thing to do for someone who screamed your name as she came.”

She sputtered. “I so did
not
scream your name.”

“The mirror practically shattered,” he said.

“I can’t believe—that is just so rude of you to say.”

“I loved it,” he said simply, and watched as a good amount of her defensiveness drained away. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s hit the road. I’ve got an errand, too. The stain came in for your shelves. Oh, and I need to buy more condoms.”

“You do
not
need more condoms. Remember? We decided we were a one-time thing—” Then she seemed to finally catch his drift and realized, belatedly, that he was just yanking her chain. “Shut up,” she said.

He gave her a slow, long, hot look, and the last of her temper appeared to vanish. She squirmed a little bit, and with that little telltale move, made his entire day—though he couldn’t have said why to save his life.

“What are you going to do while I’m…doing my stuff?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’ve got my own stuff to do in the truck while I wait.”

“Yeah?” she asked. “Like what?”

He pulled out his phone. “Like kicking Jack’s ass on a game we’re playing.”

“
Call of Duty
, or something equally alpha and macho?”

“Something like that,” he said.

She finished his coffee and handed him the empty cup. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s go. I need to hit the grocery store first.”

Two minutes later they were on the road, huddled up to the heater vents in his truck.

“You need a newer vehicle,” she said, squinting through the foggy windshield.

“Shh!” He lovingly stroked the dash of the truck. “Don’t listen to her, baby. You’re perfect just as you are.”

Aubrey rolled her eyes. “A little attached, are we?”

“Very,” he said. “This was my uncle Jack’s truck, you know.”

She glanced at him. “No, I didn’t know.”

“I helped him rebuild her.”

“He died while fighting a fire, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Ben and Jack junior had been fourteen at the time. It had devastated the both of them—Jack, who’d lost his dad, and Ben, who’d lost the only father figure he’d ever known. His aunt Dee had given Ben the truck, though officially he’d had to wait several years to be old enough to drive it.

Unofficially, though, he and Jack had used it to make more than a few illegal and illicit late-night trips. The truck had seen him through some pretty hairy times. He’d never get rid of it.

“That must have been a terrible loss for you,” Aubrey said quietly.

It hadn’t been his first loss, and even at age fourteen, he’d known shit happened. But yeah, it’d sucked hard. “I had Dee,” he said. “She kept me on the straight and narrow.” Even when he’d only added to her grief, she’d never given up on him.

“I’ve met her,” Aubrey said. “She’s a wonderful woman. Strong, too.”

Ben smiled. “She had to be to keep a rein on Jack and me.”

“I bet,” Aubrey said on a soft laugh. “I can only imagine the holy terrors you guys must have been. Are you in contact with your parents at all?”

“No.” And what went unsaid was that his dad refused visitors and he didn’t even know where his mom was.

Aubrey turned from him, looking out her passenger-side window. “I was raised mostly by my mom,” she said quietly. “She was twenty-one when she had me. My dad was a few years older, but still not ready for a family—though he took my sister in the divorce.”

Ben glanced over at her, but she still wasn’t looking at him. “They split you up like two pieces of furniture?” he asked.

“Yep,” she said lightly, but the tenseness in her shoulders gave her away.

“And you don’t see him much, right?” he asked.

“No.” She shrugged. “He’s pretty busy,” she said. “He has two new daughters now.”

“And a puppy.” He paused. “And a dollhouse.”

She turned her head and met his gaze, looking surprised that he remembered.

Didn’t people listen to her? Care about her? He hated the idea that it was probably far more likely that she rarely opened up and
let
anyone listen to her. “Parents can really suck,” he said.

She choked out a short laugh. “Yeah.”

The coil wire in his front pocket was starting to weigh him down now, big-time, but he pulled up to the grocery store.

“Be right back,” she said.

Good as her word, five minutes later she was back with a mysterious brown bag, and then directed him to a town house complex. “Be right back,” she said again.

When she reappeared a few minutes later, he once again slid his phone away and looked at her.

“What?” she asked. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

“Can’t tell unless you smile.”

She flashed him a very fake smile, and he made a big show of looking at her teeth. “Perfect,” he said, and flashed her a
real
smile. “Are you going to cross a name off your list?”

She studied him a moment. “Not yet.”

He looked at the town house she’d just come from. “Who lives there?”

“Carla. My sister.”

“You bring your sister groceries?”

Aubrey shrugged, a little embarrassed, he thought. “She’s a resident at the hospital and working crazy hours,” she said. “She’s exhausted and doesn’t have time to do stuff like get food.”

“That’s…sweet of you.”

She looked at him. “You and I both know I’m not sweet.”

It was true that he’d never thought of her as particularly sweet, but he was beginning to change his mind. “Your boots are wet.”

“I watered her plants.”

Yeah, he was definitely changing his mind about her. “Where to now?” he asked.

She hesitated.

“We can just sit here if you’d rather.”

She was turned away from him, staring out into the gray morning so that he couldn’t see her face. He didn’t have to; he could sense the eye roll. “The pier,” she finally said. “And this time,
no questions
.”

Aubrey’s nerves were high and getting higher. She didn’t wait for Ben to turn off the engine at the next stop. The moment he pulled into the pier parking lot, she slid out of the truck and then paused, glancing back at him. “You’re waiting here, right?”

“Right.”

She didn’t trust him. “Promise?”

“What are you so worried I’m going to see?” he asked in that lazy, calm voice that made her want to crawl into his lap and cajole him into taking her to the same place he’d taken her last night in her bathroom.

But that wasn’t going to happen. That had been a one-time thing.

The best one-time thing ever…

Shaking that off, she looked at him. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he
hadn’t
promised. He was in dark reflective glasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes. His hair was finger-combed at best, and he had sawdust on his jeans from working at her bookstore. “I mean it, Ben,” she said. “This is my business.”

“Whatever you say, Sunshine.” He pulled out his phone, presumably accessing whatever shoot ’em up, kill ’em game he was playing with Jack.

It was as close to a promise as she was going to get, and she knew it. She blew out a breath and then caught sight of his screen. Not a shoot ’em up, kill ’em game at all. “
Words with Friends
?” she asked. “
That’s
the killer game you play?”

“It can be killer,” he said lightly, his manhood apparently not threatened in the slightest. “Hey, do you know a seven-letter word that’s got the letter
X
in it? I’ve got a triple-word opportunity here.”

“Extinct,” she said, “which is what I’m going to make you if you follow me.” She shut the truck door on that ridiculous threat and walked off.

The Ferris wheel was lit up but not turning. It was icy cold outside, but she ignored the wind as she walked past the diner and then the arcade. Between the arcade and Ferris wheel were two kiosks. One sold ice cream, another sold locally made items.

Both were closed now. The ice cream shop was actually boarded up. The two brothers who ran the place didn’t work during the winter months. One of them, Lance, suffered from cystic fibrosis, so they usually—providing Lance’s health allowed it—took off somewhere south for warmer weather.

The other kiosk wasn’t closed for the season. In fact, the woman who ran it was there right now, getting ready to open up for the day. She was busy flipping through a stack of receipts and not paying any attention to the pier around her until Aubrey stopped right in front of her.

Her name was Cathy, and she sold beautiful handmade scarves, hats, and throws she and a few other local women created.

Looking up with a friendly smile, Cathy said, “I’m still closed, but if you see something you like, I could probably be talked into a quick deal.”

Aubrey reached out and ran her fingers over a knitted infinity scarf the color of a rich ruby. Soft as heaven. “It’s beautiful. They’re all beautiful,” she said.

“That one would look good on you, with that coat and your golden hair.”

Aubrey pulled it off the rack and draped it around her neck. She peered into one of the mirrors hanging on the side of the kiosk.

“Pretty,” Cathy said.

Aubrey looked at her reflection and met Cathy’s eyes in the mirror behind her. “You don’t remember me.”

“Oh, I remember you,” Cathy said. “We were in PE together. And cooking class.”

Aubrey let out a breath. “I came here to see you.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve never been able to forget how I teased you for being so skinny,” Aubrey said quietly. “It was rude, and so wrong.” It’d haunted her all these years.

“Well, I
was
skinny,” Cathy said, and adjusted Aubrey’s hair so it fell better over the scarf in the back. “And I’ve always thought you did it because you were jealous.”

“Definitely jealous,” Aubrey said. “I had to run off my nightly junk food every single morning and I was
still
curvy. I was unbearably jealous of how you looked, but it’s no excuse.”

Cathy once again met her gaze in the mirror. “I was anorexic. Did you know that?”

“No.”
God
. Aubrey closed her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Cathy.”

“I was anorexic,” Cathy said again. “And no one noticed that I was starving myself. Except you.”

Aubrey opened her eyes and once again met Cathy’s.

“You got me to eat one of the cheeseburgers we made for cooking class—do you remember?” Cathy asked. “It was our midterm, and we were required to eat what we cooked. I tried to throw mine away, but you told on me and then I had to eat the burger in front of the whole class.”

Aubrey winced at the memory. “Yeah, I remember. I—”

“No, listen to me.” Cathy’s voice shook a little now. “I hadn’t eaten in a week, Aubrey. That burger was the best thing I’d ever tasted. It helped me to start eating again.”

Aubrey let out a breath. “I’m glad. So glad. But I shouldn’t have done any of that to you. Not that I’m trying to excuse myself, but I was trying to lose weight. I needed to fit into a stupid pageant gown for an upcoming beauty contest, and I couldn’t. I was starving myself, too, and so hungry and angry all the time—but I wasn’t anorexic. I was just a bitch.”