The Stillness Of You (5 page)

“
You
smell real nice.” I spoke without thinking and tried not to wince.
What the hell was wrong with me? You smell real nice? She was going
to think I was some backward hick from the north.

Her eyes
widened just a smidge and then she blushed. The girl full-on
blushed. When was the last time I’d made a girl blush? Not in the
last three years that’s for sure and I wasn’t going to count
Sendin’s sister, Eve. First off she was only fifteen so that didn’t
count and secondly, she’d sneaked a couple glasses of the rum punch
from the King’s annual family Christmas party.

“Well, that’s
better than the alternative I guess,” she said softly.

I didn’t
answer. I just shook my head like an idiot.

“So what do you
think of it?” she prodded.

“Your
shampoo?”

“What?”

Okay, her
eyebrows were really close together now and she was looking at me
like I was crazy. Which, I probably was, but hell, what could I
say? This girl had reduced me to a level of idiot that I’d not seen
since I was fourteen when my mother caught me masturbating in the
shower.

“
Have you
been smoking weed when I wasn’t looking? You’re not making sense.”
She jerked her head. “I’m talking about the barn.”

Right. The
barn.

What fucking
barn?

I turned
and saw it. The barn. A barn that was out in the middle of nowhere
and just like the rest of the property it was rundown. But you
wouldn’t know it by the look on Georgia’s face. She looked like she
had just found buried treasure.

“Come on,” she
said breathlessly.

She took
off at a jog and I followed slowly, enjoying the view because I
couldn’t take my eyes off her butt. Or her ankles.

By the
time I reached the barn she had already yanked open the main doors
and was inside. It smelled musty and even the power of her summer
scent couldn’t hide the old, unused air.

I stood
beside her and glanced around at nothing. There wasn’t anything
inside the barn other than a couple of old pitchforks and a
wheelbarrow that was missing its wheel. There was however a good
amount of light filtering in on account of the gaping holes in some
of the walls and the windows that had no glass. But the roof was
good. There was that.

We poked
around a bit and then I followed her back outside until we made it
past the trees and stood in the middle of the knee high weeds in
what would one day be an amazing yard.

“What do you
think?” I asked, turning to look at her and surprised to find her
gaze on me.

For a
moment she said nothing, though she didn’t need to, her shiny eyes
said it all. “It’s perfect. It’s more than perfect.” She closed her
eyes and whispered. “It’s so quiet and…still.”

I turned
in a full circle, my decision made as I nodded.

“Yeah, it
is.”

Georgia

I was up at my
usual four in the morning staring at the bottle of klonopin in my
hands. I’d shoved it beneath the underwear in my top drawer because
I hated looking at it, but this morning I sat on the edge of my
bed, fingers running along the top of the container as I stared at
concrete evidence that yes, I was damaged.

I wasn’t whole
or normal, no matter how much I tried to forget about what the
pills I took meant, or how when my mind started to race, it was
enough to freak me the hell out and I would eat klonopin like it
was fucking candy.

I was
afraid to take the drug on a regular basis because of Zoe. She was
a girl I met when I was in the hospital and she’d been totally
addicted to klonopin.
She lived and breathed the shit and it made her into a real
life zombie. The Walking Dead had nothing on her. She was a boring,
washed out walker, who did nothing but read the same book over and
over again and haunt the halls of Oak Run in pajamas with little
pink panthers all over them. God, she didn’t even wash her hair
unless one of the nurses helped her.

I had a
feeling she traded sexual favors from some of the other patients,
in exchange for their klonopin. Drugs were easy enough to hide if
you knew what to do.

I knew I
was supposed to take klonopin regularly in addition to my regular
dose of lithium, but I was so afraid of the addiction and how the
pills made me feel, that I’d been weaning myself off them for
several weeks now. I wasn’t having too much trouble sleeping and I
hadn’t had a manic episode since the infamous walk through the quad
next to my dorm dressed in only my underwear, brandishing a
confiscated steak knife.

I wasn’t
back there anymore. I wasn’t. I was good. I was calm and as long as
I kept taking my lithium I’d be fine.

I’ll be fine
.

With a sigh, I
fell off of bed and tossed the bottle back into my underwear drawer
before crossing the room to stand by the window, so that I could
look into the dark. This was my favorite time of day, this little
slip of time between sleep and awake and down there it was quiet
and calm.

It was
also officially the Fourth of July and Ben wanted to celebrate. He
was thrilled that he’d managed to get hold of the real estate agent
in charge of the house, and he was to meet with her on Saturday,
the fifth.

He was
making an offer. He was here to stay.

I let my blinds
slip back into place and paced my room a bit, my mind reeling back
as I thought of the night before and how I’d fallen under his spell
as surely as if he’d made me drink a Ben Lancaster potion.

I wanted
him in a way I’d never experienced before, not with anyone. Not
even Travis Bartlett, the guy I’d given my virginity too after
months of heavy petting and night that had included a bottle of
vodka and a half a bag of weed. This was different. This was grown
up and real and I had no clue how to deal with it.

I wanted
Ben Lancaster in a way that ached. It was as if in the space of a
few days, he’d leeched into my bones or his soul had somehow melted
into mine. Was that even possible? Or was I delusional?

I glanced
back at my underwear drawer, a frown on my face. Had I overdone the
lithium? Should I be taking the klonopin or was my mind just
scrambled and confused? Was it possible that I was reading
everything wrong?

An image
of his dark eyes assaulted me and my heart jumped. No way had I
misread things. What I was feeling was real. It was real and it was
amazing.

Ben
Lancaster was like the yummiest piece of chocolate ever. And it
wasn’t just because he was the hottest guy I’d ever met. Sure, he
could give any movie star a run for their money with his tall, dark
good looks and a body to die for. He was completely and utterly
lickable, fuckable and wildly successful. But I’d been around guys
like him before—I’d fucked guys like him before—yet he was
different.

I didn’t
want to fuck Ben. I wanted to matter.

Ben
Lancaster was the whole package. He was smart, funny, with a wicked
sense of humor. He had his shit together. I could tell. The guy
wasn’t out partying every night, banging chicks because he could,
and trust me, if he wanted to have sex with a different girl or two
every night he could.

I can’t
lie. I’d done some research—Google can be a girl’s best friend
these days—but there was nothing to find. I looked at pictures of
him while he’d played with the Kings and even a few of him at the
clubs, but there were no wild stories, no inappropriate photos or
videos.

He seemed to be
the guy every girl dreamed about bringing home, and he was so far
from what I deserved that I just knew if we acted on our
attraction, it would end badly.

Ben
Lancaster was the total opposite of me. Of what I had been and what
I was afraid to become once more. And I didn’t know what to do
about it.

I felt
his interest. The way his eyes lingered a tad too long or his hands
touched the small of my back whenever he could. We’d spent the
entire day together and by evening my body thrummed with repressed
passion and the need to connect.

We’d
stopped for dinner at a little Italian place on our way back to the
loft, and it seemed as if only a few hours had passed, but it was
nearly midnight by the time we made it back.

We’d
talked about his plans for the house and I was more than happy to
sit and listen to him. In that moment, I didn’t want to be anywhere
else but with him. I wanted to be in his orbit, to soak up his
energy and goodness. I wanted to crawl into his lap, sink my hands
into his hair and open his mouth with my own.

I’d
watched him and I had wondered what it felt like to be with him. To
get naked with him. To have sex with him because surely laying down
with Ben Lancaster wasn’t anything like the hookups I’d had in the
past.

That’s because my hookups over the last
few years were usually drug and alcohol fueled
.

My cheeks were
hot and I swore as I grabbed my running gear out of the closet.

Shit, I
needed to focus on something other than Ben Lancaster. The clock
beside my bed glowed nearly five now and I threw my hair into a
ponytail, pulled on my running gear, and headed for the kitchen to
grab water.

I’d just
opened the fridge door when that familiar sliver of energy told me
I wasn’t alone anymore.

I turned
around—as nonchalantly as I could—and hoped he couldn’t see the
exploding pulse at the base of my neck. Already my nipples were
pebbling and I thanked everything that was holy—or even remotely
holy—that I’d worn my padded bra with the extra inch of
padding.

I had to take a
second or two before I could even speak, and used a few more to
study him in the dim lighting.

He hadn’t
shaved, so his jaw was once again shadowed with dark stubble. God,
I loved that look—that I just got out of bed and I’m all man, kind
of look. His hair was rumpled as if it hadn’t been brushed, though
he was dressed in a Nike T-shirt, nylon shorts and he wore running
shoes. He smelled of mint toothpaste. My favorite.

“I thought I’d
join you.”

Shit, his voice
touched on that note again, the one that gave me shivers and I
cleared my throat, hoping I wouldn’t squeal like a stupid mouse
when I eventually managed to say a few words.

“
Oh.
Good, I mean I hope you can keep up to me.” Idiot. The guy could
probably run a four minute mile and not even break a
sweat.

“I’ll try, but
promise you’ll go easy on me.”

His grin
was contagious. “We’ll see,” I answered lightly, tossing him a
bottle.

“I thought
maybe we could run the Rocky steps?”

I laughed
and shook my head. The Rocky steps. He was adorable. “Sure, follow
me.”

We headed
out into the quiet early morning, and followed the trails of fog
that fell along the sidewalks. There were a few other runners out,
but it felt like we had the world to ourselves and for the moment I
enjoyed both the silence and the feel of Ben running beside
me.

We didn’t
say much. We just put one foot in front of the other and by the
time we reached the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the sun was peeking
through the darkness. I stopped at the bottom and glanced around.
We had the place to ourselves.

Ben’s
damp T-shirt clung to his chest and stretched across his wide
shoulders, and as he turned slightly I couldn’t help but notice the
way it clung to his back, filling in all the hard nooks and
crannies of his very male body. When I dragged my gaze up to his
face, my heart jerked so badly I almost choked. His eyes were on me
and the look within them made the heat in my belly curl hard and
fast.

It was
startling. My physical reaction to him. I was no angel, in fact, I
was about as far away from angelic as you could get, and had been
since about the age of fifteen.

God, I was the
girl who would screw anyone, anytime, anywhere, because I could.
Because I had the power. Because my brain chemistry was so fucked
up that I felt like I could do anything I wanted with no
consequence and the high was incredible.

How many
times had I had sex for the express purpose of having sex because I
could? Not because I wanted to? Or even enjoyed it?

Too many times
to count.

And the
thing of it was, I don’t have a problem with anyone—girls or
guys—hooking up because they want to or because it felt good. I
don’t have a problem with that because they own their bodies and as
long as they’re in control emotionally it’s all good. Hell, I
wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if someone had an orgy every single night
as long as it’s what they wanted.

There was no
judging.

The
problem with my past was that most of the hookups and crazy shit
I’d done had been because I could, because they filled in the holes
and made me feel powerful, not because I wanted to and that’s a
huge difference.

But now I had
Ben Lancaster with his eyes that were way too dark and way too sexy
and at the moment, in this silence that blanketed us, they were way
too damn intense.

I should
have dragged my gaze from his and studied Stallone’s sculpture.
Maybe glanced up at the sky and commented on the humidity and the
fact that I thought it was going to be a bitch of a day. I should
have done anything to break this connection. But I didn’t. Instead
I caught my breath and just took him in.