Once in a Lifetime (20 page)

Her heart squeezed. “You saved them from falling through the cracks. You gave them so much, Ben.”

He busied himself with cleaning up the trash and shoving it back into the bag the food had come in. Then he balled it, aimed for the trash can twenty feet across the room, and shot.

The bag swooshed into the can.

And still he stayed quiet.

“Did I upset you?” she asked.

“No. I like the way you care about stuff,” he said. “You aren’t quiet about it, and though you’re reserved, you aren’t shy. When you have your heart and soul in something, you’re in it.”

Her breath caught. Had anyone ever gotten her the way he did? No. And that’s when she knew. Truth was, she’d known for a damn long time. She had her heart and soul in something, all right—
him
. She closed her eyes and gave herself a lecture.
Don’t you sleep with him. Don’t you dare. Not until you tell him…

He turned his hand over and entangled his fingers with hers. “I like the way you care,” he said again. “I like the way you care about me.”

“Is that why you’re here?” she asked, heart pounding. “And not at the Winter Festival?”

“I’m the seniors’ ride, but wasn’t in the mood for a crowd. I have to go back to get them later,” he said, and he rose. “I’ll take my spoils now.”

Oh, God. “We should play another game,” she said quickly, and jumped up, heading to the dartboard. “We’ll make it the best of two out of three—”

Strong arms wrapped around her from behind, and he turned, effectively caging her in between the hard wall and his harder body. “You reneging?” he asked, mouth against her ear.

“No, but—” She sucked in a breath as his hands roamed over her, molding the shirt to her curves. “I was just thinking it might be more fair if—”

He whipped her around to face him and then backed her to the kitchen counter, lifting her to it.

Her bare ass touched the cold surface, and she yelped.

“I claim
you
,” he said, and his lips descended on hers.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and traced her tongue over his lower lip, knowing it drove him wild.

Pinning her with his big body, he let her feel what she did to him. “I’ve got a question,” he said. “A serious one.”

Her heart skidded to a stop. Oh, God. “Okay,” she whispered tentatively.

“What are you wearing beneath my shirt?”

She stared at him. “Not much,” she confessed.

This made him swear roughly, reverently. She laughed again and then realized that whenever she was with him, she was laughing, or smiling.

Or having an orgasm.

It’d been a long time since she’d had someone like him in her life. Maybe since…ever. But even as the warm fuzzies washed over her, so did fear. Because this was all an illusion; he wasn’t really hers. And at that thought, her smile faded.

His did, too. “Should I go, Aubrey?”

“You mean…leave? Now?”

“If you want.”

“No.” She knew she should be embarrassed by how quickly she answered, but she felt only panic at the thought of him leaving. “Don’t go.”

There. She’d said it. She’d put it out there and couldn’t, wouldn’t, take it back. Tomorrow would be a different story, and she’d face that then, but for now, right this very minute, she knew what she needed.

Him.

Inside of her.

Ben caught her close and slowly lowered his head to hers, giving her plenty of time to stop him.

Fat chance of that. Not only did she not stop him, she grabbed him and pulled him even closer.

He was smiling when he kissed her, his lips fitting smoothly over hers. Then he straightened and kicked off his shoes and tore his shirt over his head. “It’s only fair to even the score,” he said.

“So you’re being a gentleman by stripping?”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll help,” she said, and unbuttoned and unzipped him so she could slide her hand inside his jeans.

Ben groaned, the sound echoing in the otherwise silent loft, a hotly erotic sound. “Ben?”

He cupped her face and deepened the kiss, and when she was completely lost, he slid his hands beneath the hem of the big T-shirt and cupped her bare bottom. “Mmm,” he said, low and husky. Tugging her closer, he continued moving against her so that she could hardly breathe. “Aubrey?”

“Yes?”

“Be sure.” Pulling back, he looked deep into her eyes, probably searching for a sign that she was going to regret this. “If I stay tonight,” he said, “I’m going to be in your bed in about five seconds. I’m going to make love to you until neither of us can walk.”

The words brought a rush of heat. “Was that supposed to scare me off?” she asked.

The faintest of smiles crossed his mouth as he pulled the shirt off her, tossing it behind him, leaving her bare to his gaze. He looked his fill with a groan, and then looked some more.

She was shaking for him. “Ben, I want—”

“Want? Or need?”

He was going to tease her now? “
Need
, damn it. I need—”

“Me.” His fingers skimmed up her inner thighs and then in between, making her forget to worry about what exactly he would decide to claim as his spoils, making her forget her stupid list, making her forget just about everything, including her own name. “Say it, Aubrey.” He was at her ear, the words hot along her skin. His lips grazed her earlobe, and a rush of heat shot hard and fast southward.

“Yes,” she managed as he took her to the bed, pinning her to the mattress beneath his delicious weight. “You. I need you.”
Only you…

“How?” he asked, voice husky as the tip of his tongue played with her nipple before sucking it hard between his hot tongue and the roof of his mouth.

“Th—that,” she said on a moan.

“Me kissing you?” He switched to her other breast and gave it the same torturous teasing. “Is that what you want?”

His questing fingers were inching closer and closer to where she needed them, close but not…quite…getting there. “And your fingers!” she gasped, giving up and arching into him.

He rewarded her with both, kissing her hard as his fingers traced their way up her thighs, and then between. The touch nearly levitated her off the bed, would have for certain if she hadn’t been anchored by his body. Applying pressure in the exact right spot, his lips—God, those lips, doing diabolical things to her as well—combined the sensations so that her head spun, and she cried out.

“Anything you want,” he murmured against a breast. “You want me to touch you? My mouth on you? My hands gripping your hips as I sink in and out of you until we’re both screaming each other’s name?”

She let her eyes drift closed as her lips parted on a “
God, yes…
” He was still just playing with her, but she was done playing. Fisting her hands in his hair, she pulled his mouth to hers. He let her control the kiss, and another, and another. Finally he lifted his head, gave her a wickedly naughty smile, and took over, shifting down her body, kissing every inch he passed. He didn’t stop until he’d made himself at home between her legs, holding them open with his shoulders.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, nipping first one inner thigh, and then the other, and then…in between. “Say the magic words, Aubrey. Tell me what you want now.”

“Your mouth, I need your mouth.”

He gave it to her, and her breathing hitched, and then stopped altogether. Her blood seemed to flow through her veins like liquid fire. White-hot, pulsing need ripped through her as he gave her exactly what she wanted.

When she’d stopped shuddering, he was resting his head on her belly, watching her recover.

“Now you,” she said, reaching for him. “I want to feel you inside me. Please, Ben. Inside me now.”

He rose up. “Wrap your legs around me.” His voice was rough, his hands gentle, as he slid his hand up her legs and directed them around his hips. He sank into her, hard.
Perfect
.

Their groans of pleasure commingled in the air. Leaning over her, he bent low and kissed her—fervent, erotic, rough, and wild.

Her body, already on fire for him, erupted again. Ben’s hands slid to her hips, cupped her ass, and, lifting her up against him, he thrust deep. It was enough to have her crying out, arching against him in an attempt to draw him even deeper. “Yes,” she moaned, clutching at him. “Like that.”

He growled low in his throat as he gave her what she wanted, on his terms. Slow. Purposeful. Taking her to the point of no return and beyond, to a place where she couldn’t have said what she wanted next if her life had depended on it.

It didn’t matter. Ben seemed to know exactly what she wanted. That was the thing about him. He instinctively knew when to be aggressive, when to be gentle and coaxing, and, best of all, he knew how to drive every last worry right out of her mind.

A
long time later, they collapsed on the bed, gasping, sweaty, breathing like lunatics. Ben threw a hand over his eyes as he tried to catch his breath, because though he could lie smooth as silk when he wanted to, he never lied to himself.

This wasn’t just sex between him and Aubrey. This was love.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“Okay.”

She was quiet so long that he dropped his arm from his eyes and turned his head.

She was looking at him, eyes shimmering with a suspicious sheen. “It’s about my list,” she said softly. “You’re on it.”

Ben stared at her. “You said I wasn’t.”

“I…misled you.”

He took this in for a full minute, running through his memories and coming up completely blank. “I don’t understand. What did you ever do to me?”

She sat up and reached for his shirt again, pulling it back over her head and down to mid-thigh.

Covering herself from him.

He wasn’t liking this much. “Aubrey.”

“Don’t you want to put something on?” she asked.

“After you answer me.”

She ran a hand over her eyes, and he realized her fingers were shaking. “I’m trying,” she said. “I’ve been trying for a while.” She shook her head. “No, that’s a lie. I didn’t know how to tell you. It’s been killing me slowly, but I—” She broke off and let out a long breath. “I screwed up.”

He pulled her hand from her face. “Just say it.”

“Okay.” She drew a deep breath. “Do you remember when Hannah broke up with you?”

“Yes.” It had been the summer after he’d graduated high school, and he had been night surfing. Alone. It’d been a dangerous, reckless thing to do, but he’d been stupid back then and had often pulled such stunts. It’d been some sort of teenage testosterone-driven dare, a challenge between him and life, and he hadn’t been too particular about who might win.

When he’d come back to shore, Hannah had been waiting on the beach for him. She’d stared at his feet and told him she was breaking it off because they were going to college in a few months, and they needed to spread their wings.

He remembered feeling blindsided. He’d told her that he didn’t need to spread his fucking wings, and she’d smiled a little bit sadly and said she was setting him free anyway.

He hadn’t seen her for two years. He’d finally run into her by sheer accident on spring break, and they’d reconnected. And though she’d never asked and he never told, he’d spent the two years away from her having a damn good time spreading his wings.

“What about it?” he asked Aubrey now.

“I told her you slept around with other girls, one of them being me. It was why she broke up with you.”

It took him a moment to find words, and even then he only had one. “What?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, chewing on her lower lip. “I caused her to…break up with you.”

He shook his head. She was making no sense. “You were two years behind us in school. You didn’t even know Hannah.”

“We were in after-school tutoring together. I was there for Spanish Two. She was in danger of failing Spanish Four.”

“You’re lying,” he said flatly. “Hannah was a straight-A student.”

“She’d always been, yes,” she agreed. “But Spanish flattened her. She had to get her grade from an F to a C or lose her upcoming college scholarship. She came to tutoring every day for an hour.”

He stared at her as the first inkling of doubt began to creep in. Hannah had been busy every day after school, but she’d told him she was working at the optometrist’s office where her mom worked. More than that, the college scholarship thing was setting off alarm bells in his head. Hannah had been all set to go to the University of Washington at Seattle—with him. But after she’d dumped him, she’d gone to a community college instead. He’d always assumed it’d been so that they wouldn’t be at the same school. But what if that hadn’t been it at all? What if what Aubrey was saying was true—that Hannah hadn’t brought her grade up enough and she’d lost her scholarship? “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why did you tell her we slept together?”

“I’d like to tell you the whole thing,” she said, “but the short answer is that I was jealous.”

“Jealous.”

“Yes.” She clasped her hands together and kept her eyes on them. “I’m not proud of that. I’m sorry, Ben.”

Was she serious? A “sorry” was supposed to make it all okay? He jerked upright and yanked on his pants.

“Wait,” she said, jumping up, too. “Let me tell you the rest—”

“I don’t give a shit about the rest.” He shoved his feet into his shoes and turned back to her. “Just tell me one thing—why now? Why are you telling me this now?” Then it hit him, and he let out a harsh laugh. “The damn list. You need to clear your conscience. Well, congratulations, Aubrey, you did it. Job well done.” He snatched up his shirt and, without putting it on, stormed to the door. Needing to know one more thing, he whipped back. “Wait. Why did she believe you?”

Aubrey stood there before him, pale, eyes filled with regret and other things that he didn’t want to see, wearing
his
damn shirt, looking devastated. “I can be very convincing,” she said softly.

“Yes,” he agreed, staring down at her bowed head. “You can.”

She winced as the barb hit, and he told himself he didn’t care. “So what was this between us? Amendment? You fucked me to make up for lying about fucking me?”

“No.
No
,” she said. “You saw my list.
FUCKING BEN
was not on it.”

“Well,
BEN
was on it. Don’t tell me you’re also fucking the pumpkin man.”

“Don’t you get it?” she cried. “I didn’t plan to sleep with you at all!” She tossed up her hands. “And trust me, this”—she gestured to the bed—“was
not
how I planned to make amends.”

“Okay, so out of morbid curiosity, how
were
you going to do that? How were you going to give me back the two years I missed out on with my wife?”

“I didn’t know!” she said. “I still don’t!”

Suddenly drained, he moved to the door. “You let me know when you figure it out.”

When he was gone, Aubrey’s legs gave way, and she slid down the wall. Hugging her knees, she dropped her head to her chest and fought the tears.

She remembered that long-ago night as if it were yesterday. She’d been at a party where she hadn’t belonged. It’d been for seniors, so she’d been lying low when she saw Hannah and a girlfriend get in Hannah’s car to leave. Talking and laughing, Hannah had pulled out into the street without looking and caused a wreck. With the cars still smoking, and horns and alarms going off, Aubrey had watched in disbelief as the two girls had switched spots, crawling past each other in the front seat so that Hannah was no longer behind the wheel.

When the police arrived, Hannah’s friend—the sober one—had saved Hannah from getting a DUI.

Aubrey couldn’t believe it. As the girl who had always gotten in trouble for every little infraction—and some that weren’t even hers—she had been infuriated.

The next day at tutoring, Aubrey had told Hannah that she knew what she’d done. At first, Hannah had pretended not to know what Aubrey was talking about—until Aubrey told her she’d seen it herself. Hannah had paled but rallied quickly, telling Aubrey that no one would ever believe it.

Their tutor had broken up the heated whispered exchange, yelling at them to be quiet and work. Hannah had told him that Aubrey was trying to cheat.

Aubrey had gotten detention.

“You see?” Hannah had whispered. “No one will ever believe you over me. The girl who dresses like a prom queen when she’s not. The girl who needs tutoring in all her classes. The girl no one wants. Even your own dad picked your sister over you.”

Horrifically wounded by this, her secret and humiliating hot button, Aubrey’s mouth had disconnected from her brain, and she’d said, “Ben has no complaints about me every time we meet in the woods.” Not about to stop herself—her biggest regret—she’d gone on. “And I’m not the only one he’s doing it with, so obviously he’s not getting off on
you
.”

Hannah had stormed out, earning herself detention right alongside Aubrey. But she’d dumped Ben.

And then eventually fate had stepped in and gotten them back together, though Hannah must not have told Ben about Aubrey’s tale.

But he knew now…

Ben didn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Aubrey’s face as he’d left. The regret and fear and misery in her expression haunted him, making him want to toss aside his hurt and anger and soothe hers.

So he stopped closing his eyes because he
needed
to hold on to the hurt and anger. He needed that badly, and as to the reason why—well, he didn’t want to study that too closely.

When dawn came, he went for a run. He beat Sam to the pier, but not by much. When Sam came up level with him, he stopped and frowned. “You okay?”

Ben grunted in response and took off. Sam caught up with him but didn’t ask another question. Ben ran hard and fast, and Sam kept pace, never slowing until Ben did.

Just before they got back to the pier, Sam spoke. “You know where to find me if you need anything.”

Ben met Sam’s gaze and saw nothing but sincerity. He nodded. “Thanks, man, but I’m good.” Actually, he was the opposite of good, and they both knew it, but Sam let the lie go.

Ben skipped the bookstore. The work he had left to do there was minimal. He knew he needed to finish, but hell if he could face her yet. So he went to work and put in twelve straight hours on a subterranean water leak out at the dam, which was threatening the properties below the harbor. That night he stumbled into bed, exhausted, and proceeded to stare at his ceiling for hours.

The next morning he heard a polite knock at his door.

He ignored it.

He ignored the doorbell, too.

But he couldn’t ignore whoever the hell was letting himself into his house. He slid out of his bed, prepared to take on the intruder bare-handed and in his boxers, thinking maybe a good old fight would loosen the two-day-old knot in the center of his chest. He was ready when he padded into the living room, but stopped short at the sight of his aunt Dee.

She was in his kitchen, unloading a bag of groceries. She had a carton of eggs in one hand and a gallon of orange juice in her other as she looked up and caught sight of him. “Hey, baby.”

There were flowers in a bouquet on his table. “You brought me flowers?” he asked inanely.

“No. They were on your doorstep. I just brought them in. There’s a note,” Dee added. “It’s sealed, or I’d have totally sneaked a peek. Although I can guess.”

Ben could, too, but he didn’t want to go there. “You going to the senior center today?” he asked Dee.

“Yes. It’s bingo lunch.”

“Take the flowers with you.”

She gave him an assessing look. “Okay. Did you want to go get dressed and eat, or would you rather kick my butt for intruding?”

“I’m still trying to decide.”

She smiled. “Go on. Find some clothes. I’ll be done here by the time you’re back.”

“Done with what?” he asked.

“Breakfast, silly.”

“Breakfast,” he repeated, stunned into stupidity by heartache and lack of sleep.

“Yes.” She beamed at him. “Remember all those mornings you got up at the crack of dawn to come make me breakfast after my chemo? Well, I’m returning the favor.”

He didn’t want breakfast. He wanted…Aubrey. He wanted her sated and boneless in his bed, with one of those smiles on her face that was just for him, as though he were the best thing she’d ever seen.

At the thought, emotion swamped him. He told himself it was all anger, because she’d ruined it. She’d ruined everything. But the truth was, it felt more like sadness and regret than anger.

Dee’s smile faded, and she set down the orange juice and eggs and came to him, wrapping her arms around him. “Rough morning?” she asked quietly.

He shrugged.

Just as he’d done for her all those mornings when she’d been sick and exhausted and scared and hurting, she didn’t ask a bunch of questions. She accepted that some days were just shit. “You look like hell,” she murmured.

He let out a low laugh. “Thanks.” He went to his room to yank on a pair of jeans and then came back to the kitchen.

“Sit.” Dee gestured to a chair with her wooden spoon. “You’ll eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Did I ask you if you were hungry? No, I did not.” Again she pointed to the chair and when he didn’t budge, she shoved him.

“Bully,” he said without heat, and let the five-foot-two woman push him down to the chair.

She smiled and patted his shoulder. “I learned from the best, you know.”

“I wasn’t this mean,” he said.

“Oh, please,” she said on a laugh and affected his low baritone as she imitated what he’d said to her whenever she’d resisted him. “You will sit there and shut up and eat, Aunt Dee, and if you don’t, I’ll force it down your throat.”

“I didn’t say it like that,” he said, but surprised them both by laughing.

She smiled. “Aw, that’s better. You probably want to know why I’m here.”

“You’re here because you’re nosy.”

“Yes, well, there’s that.” She came over with a loaded plate and the juice. She set them both down in front of him and hugged him.

“Again?” he asked.

“Hug me back or I’ll keep at it.”

Because she looked so worried, he let her boss him around. He hugged her back, letting her hold on for as long as she wanted, which was about a year. “I’m getting gray hair here,” he finally said.

She pulled back and smacked him upside the head. Then she cupped his face and stared into his eyes. “I’m here because I got the mom feeling that something is wrong. Is it hard being back here?” she asked quietly. “In Lucky Harbor? With us? Is that it? You’re going to leave again?”

“No. And it’s not hard being back. I like being back,” he said, no longer surprised to find that it was absolutely true. He might have started out a true city boy, but he’d also been a lost one, without people who cared. And then he’d landed here in Lucky Harbor, where everyone cared. He liked that—a lot. The place fit him; it always had. “I’m not leaving,” he promised.