Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Ben
M y face had to show my surprise.
“No. Well, maybe in some ways, because I loved Dillon as a close friend and some of that has transferred to her, I guess. They were twins—look a lot alike, but I think part of me feels that brotherly love for her. But I—my interest in her isn’t like that.”
I held Whit’s gaze steadily, making sure she understood. Making sure there was no chance she’d think I was interested in anyone but her.
“I’m sorry you worry for her. That must be hard,” she said, her voice soft and smooth.
I took a long, slow breath. “Yeah. It’s frustrating—there’s no good way to help someone when they refuse to acknowledge their need for help. Until then, I’ll pray for her, and show up whenever I can. ”
Whit’s eyes sparkled back at me. “You’re a good man, Benjamin Michael Holder.”
My stomach dropped out at her saying my full name.
I raised and dropped a shoulder. “I’m all right.”
She chuckled, and then her face turned serious again. “Why was your sister so shocked you were dating me?”
“You’re A-list. It’s pretty rare to meet someone like you to begin with, but to date someone like you… it doesn’t happen to normal dudes.”
“You’re not exactly normal, Ben,” she said, like that was something I would know.
“What do you mean?”
She let go of my hand and crossed her arms over her chest. An unusual thing for her, which I only realized when she did it, and it seemed so foreign to me.
“You are exceptional.”
I opened my mouth to laugh, or refute her, but nothing came out. My eyes were wide as I searched her face, no response emerging.
“Don’t look so shocked. You are. You have been through incredible hardships and personal lows, but you’ve worked to get out of them. And I can’t tell you how much I respect your openness about that—that you don’t try to pretend the things you went through didn’t matter or didn’t change you. That’s amazing.”
Her breathing had elevated a bit, and her arms tucked even more tightly together.
“It’s nice you think that.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. My gaze moved over her, trying to figure out the deal with those crossed arms. I much preferred us holding hands. “Why are you all tied up now?”
“What?”
“You wrapped in on yourself. You have your arms crossed so tightly around you, I bet your lungs can’t fully expand. What’s up?” I sat up on the couch, leaned toward her to get closer, right in her face, for some reason.
She swallowed and looked down at her arms like she hadn’t realized that’s how she was sitting. “I, um… I didn’t want to touch you.”
She shot me a false little smile.
“Why?”
My heart knew before my mind did, though. It was warming up, getting ready for the sprint.
She started to speak, then stopped herself. Her cheeks were flushed and made a stark contrast to her usually very fair skin and her green dress. For a woman with incredible lung capacity, she was breathing in shallow, useless breaths.
“Because all I want to do is touch you.”
The words broke out, as if against her will. She smashed her lips closed and blinked at me.
It took me only a second or two to react.
I reached around behind her, cupping the back of her head, and brought her face to me before she even got those arms uncrossed. My hands slid along the smooth hair pulled into a long ponytail, and my lips crushed against hers. Another second, and she had her hands on my rough cheeks, running into my hair, over my shoulders.
I sat taller, and she leaned toward me so our bodies pressed against each other, both instinctively seeking to close the gap between us that, now that I thought about how long it’d been there, was unfathomable.
For minutes that moved in slow motion and yet felt like we were skipping ahead, we reveled in each other, kissing like it was our first and last kiss, every part of me wanting her, searching for her, needing her. At the tipping point— the one where things would progress past the line of stopping if we kept going, we both pulled back.
I guessed I looked as wild-eyed and well-kissed as she did.
Good grief, she’s gorgeous .
It was nearly painful to sit there next to her and give her space to breathe—give myself space to breathe before I ripped off her dress and made her part of me.
“We should take a breath,” I said reluctantly. Oh, how reluctantly.
The tilt of her head held a question.
“We should. Or this will be way more than either of us signed up for,” I explained, wishing I didn’t care, that I hadn’t made myself promises in the last year that mattered to me.
“I—” she started, but stopped. She took a deep breath and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “I’d like to talk about that.”
“About…” I wasn’t about to put words in her mouth.
“About what you signed up for. And what we’re doing here. I feel like things are different now.” Her eyes were riveted on my face, watching for any reaction.
Unfortunately for her, I had an incredible neutral face. It wasn’t all that neutral—really, it was the opposite of severe. Just a resting smiling face. My mouth naturally turned up, the smile lines just getting started at the corners of my eyes, my general demeanor all saying I’m here for the party . It was something I’d perfected over the years.
I’d always been pretty much that guy . The good times guy up for a game, a prank, a drink, a kiss, a drive, whatever. And when I wasn’t, I didn’t allow myself to show it. People always commented on how laid back I was, how up for anything I was, and I wanted it to stay that way .
But Afghanistan and Dillon’s death had cut that out of me. I wasn’t the up-for-anything guy all the time anymore—guess I was doing a decent enough job showing that to people like Whit since she’d commented on how amazing I was at being real. I wasn’t sure that was my goal, but I was tired of pretending everything was dandy.
With all that, though, I did still have one hell of a neutral face. It gave me time to process, to weigh things, and to let myself decide whether I was going to ride the laid-back train, or whether things would need more of my attention and emotion.
“Okay. Tell me your thoughts,” I said. A little cheap, yes, but she was the person in the position of power, both because of who she was and how I felt about her.
I wasn’t about to flay myself wide open for her if she just wanted someone to mess around with. I may or may not have held my breath for what would come next.
She squinted at me, then a wry smile curled her lips. “I think you like me. I like you. I think we’re kissing in a hotel room with no cameras because we like each other.”
The breath came out on a chuckle. “Your observations are sound.”
“And I think it would be easy for us to just date -date instead of fake-date.”
Impressive . She was so direct. I’d expected more tiptoeing.
“Just like that, huh?” I asked, trying to be casual when all I wanted was to pull her close and spend the rest of the night like that.
“Pretty much. We’re adults. I think it’s kind of lucky that we like each other.” She clasped her hands together and rested them in her lap.
I liked the idea, no denying that, but what if …
“What happens when you get sick of me? Being friends is easier to maintain, and easier to break off when the arrangement isn’t doing what it’s intended for. If we date and something goes wrong before it’s good for you, what do we do then?”
And maybe a large part of me was wondering what happened when she realized how little I had to offer her. I worried for how awkward she’d feel when she realized she didn’t admire or respect me the way she thought she did once I was out of the Army and had no idea what came next.
“Good question. I guess we hope it doesn’t go wrong?”
Her small smile warmed something cold in me, setting to thaw what had been frozen in doubt.
I reached for her then, pulled her gently to me, and kissed her lips. “I’m not about to turn you down. But I don’t think we should start by going for broke. Let’s go easy. It feels like if we go all out, it might blow up sooner.”
Her brow wrinkled, and she pursed her lips, clearly not agreeing with me. “If that’s what you want, that’s okay with me.”
“Okay, good. Since it’s too early to go to bed, what do you want to do?”
“Any chance you’d want to take a walk and see the tree?”