Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ben
N ikki, once again, opened Whit’s door when I knocked later that weekend on Sunday afternoon. Whit’d been swamped all weekend, then I’d been busy with plans I’d made thinking she’d be busy, and now, here I stood, taking whatever scraps were available.
Fine, that sounded a little poor me. But the weekend without her had made me realize I didn’t like being without her. And that reality had me confronting the awful truth that I would almost always be without her if we were together, if we continued dating and let our relationship progress. She’d always be this busy, touring, living life at a clip I could hardly imagine.
“Ben, good to see you. I need just a minute of your time,” Nikki said, not actually looking at me, but focusing on the phone in her hand, her fingers a blur over the screen .
“Sure. Everything okay?”
“Perfectly fine, just want to update some documents and debrief a bit.”
She turned and walked abruptly into the dining room, so I took that as a sign to follow her.
While she spoke—something about the tour going well and being pleased with the latest buzz—I checked my watch, mentally counting the hours I’d steal with Whit before she needed to sleep and I’d have to go.
“So just sign there and on the next page, and we’re good.”
I scribbled my signature where Nikki indicated, and she gave me a nod which signaled the conversation was over. Relief flooded as I nodded back despite knowing she wouldn’t see and began the hunt through the house to find Whit.
I knocked on her door, and she answered a moment later, long hair wet and dripping over one shoulder.
Oh, and in a towel.
My gaze ran over her—the wet hair combed away from her face, the little droplets lingering at the dip in her collar bone, the towel tucked in on itself at her chest and ending mid-thigh, leaving the miles of her legs exposed.
I swallowed, looked back to her eyes, expecting to see an amused smile, or maybe even some frustration with my so clearly objectifying her. But none of that was there. No.
She was all fire, her lips slightly parted, her eyes almost glassy with heat, the color in her cheeks darker now. She moved back and opened the door wider, and I stepped inside, renewing the vow I’d made to myself, promising myself that I wasn’t the kind of man who’d take what he wanted in that moment, demanding my fingers not reach out and pull the towel away and watch those little drops of water continue their journey down a body I wanted to the point of pain.
I walked past her, hands clenched and shoved into my pockets to keep them from acting on their own, and made my way to the couch, where I stood and looked out the window. Then I realized her drapes were open and she was standing there in a towel, so I jerked them closed.
Mercifully, when I turned around, she was gone.
Whit
Had a man ever looked at me like that?
Ever?
Yes, of course I’d been wanted. I’d been looked at and told I was desirable—sometimes with flattering language, sometimes with words so debasing, I needed a shower and a therapy session after.
But that moment with Ben…
I took a shuddering breath and blew it out, counting. I slowed my heart, calmed my mind, pulled up my jeans, fastened my bra, pulled on a T-shirt. I towel-dried my hair and combed it, ran the towel over it again.
I shouldn’t have answered the door. Honestly, I’d thought it was Nikki with a reminder. I’d finished my training session with Kendra and jumped in the shower so I’d be ready for Ben. I was fast enough to run a few minutes early. Somehow, I’d forgotten that he almost always ran early, and I hadn’t been expecting him to come right to my door. But Nikki had been distracted, had probably just sent him up, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t knocked .
The worst part was, I didn’t want him to clench his fists and walk away. I wanted him to let himself have what he so clearly wanted—what we both did. Maybe that was the difference in how it felt to be looked at, and how it felt to be looked at by him .
I shook away the thought, knowing that wasn’t going anywhere helpful. We hadn’t talked about it directly, and though I wanted to, we had other things to deal with today, and admittedly, no time to take that other path, as much as I also wanted to.
“Hey.” I moved across the room to where he was staring at the closed curtains.
“You need to close your curtains. Some creeper with a long-range lens could have seen you,” he said, his shoulders hunched and arms crossed.
“Okay.”
No point in arguing with him—no point in reminding him that the hedges, the trees, the fence around the property, that all those things would keep people out, and if they didn’t, the blinds would, and if they didn’t, the fact the window was a good thirty feet from where I was standing and the angle wouldn’t work would prevent someone. None of those things would matter, and it wasn’t worth arguing.
He must have been surprised by my lack of comment, so he turned, his gaze sliding over my jeans, shirt, face, hair again, not all the heat gone from his look. He held out his hand, like he needed me to agree to his touching me. If only he knew how much I agreed.
He took my hand in his warm one and stepped to me. He set the back of my left hand into the palm of his left one, then ran his right finger over the callouses.
“I love your hands.” He sounded gruff.
My voice, usually my power tool of choice, lost itself somewhere as his eyes and fingers studied my hand. I’d always loved my hands, too. I’d known from a young age they were the key to making music—first piano, then guitar and violin and fiddle.
“They’ve been insured since I was eight.”
His head lifted, and he raised a brow. He knew enough about my parents that he wasn’t all that surprised. His finger tip traveled from the pad of my index finger to the base of my thumb, traced up to the end of my middle finger, then the dip in my palm. His gentle exploration of my hand was sending every sense and thought flying around my head.
“So many expectations piled on you,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself.
I swallowed, nodded, watched.
“And now?” he asked, his voice still that low, toe-curling rumble I’d rarely heard from him.
This version of Ben Holder was the stealth one, no doubt. Less casual, less controlled, and one hundred percent irresistible to me.
“Still are.” I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the insurance, or the expectations. I wasn’t sure if I was, either. Both were true.
Slowly, he brought my hand to his chest and pressed it over his heart, where I could feel the muffled thump of his heartbeat. He held my hand there with both his hands and just looked at me, almost too long, until he said, “I hope you know, whatever happens this week, I’m really proud of you.”
Tears immediately pricked my eyes, making me press my lips together hard to fight off the answering sob yearning to be released. He was so sweet, so unconditional, and it was beautiful and destructive to me.
I pushed against his chest and let my hand drop when he released it, then summoned a smile and cleared my throat. “I need to tell you a bit about next weekend so you know what to expect.”
I sat down on the couch, and he followed.
“I’m all ears.”
“I’ll be leaving Tuesday, I think, or maybe early Wednesday—honestly, I’m so jumbled right now, I have no idea. I’ll be in rehearsals the rest of the week, and then I think Nikki has you flying in Saturday. You said you had to be back for Monday, right?”
He nodded and grabbed my hand, making my heart race again as though it had ever calmed in the first place.
“Okay, so because of that, you’ll leave on a red eye that night. I’m sorry about that, but it was the only way we could get you home before work on Monday thanks to the time change. I’ll head back Tuesday night or Wednesday. Usually we do a little press tour the day or so after if I win…”
And not to sound like a jerk, but I knew I’d win. Out of six awards, I’d win something. If the duet with Jamie and I won, I’d be accepting since he was on tour and wasn’t making an effort to come back for the show. Which, by the way, was perfectly typical of him—no wonder he didn’t get nervous.
“That all sounds reasonable. What are you performing?”
“I’ll be in a kind of Country medley with a bunch of people.” I rattled off the list of names, burying Colton Danes’ name in the middle. I wasn’t going to give that guy the time of day enough to worry about him, and with eight of us performing, I should be able to avoid him on stage.
“I’m looking forward to it. I’ll get my tux?—”
“Oh, I hope you don’t mind, I got you one. I actually need you to go get it fitted. I had your sizes and stuff, but it’s custom, so you’ll need to have them finish it up in person.”
He blinked twice. “Okay. Should I maybe have been on some kind of workout regimen to prepare for this?”
I bit my lip and smiled at him. “No. You’re perfect.”
He raised that sardonic brow at me. “Perfect, huh?”
“For me, yes.” A sappy smile lingered on my face. That smile fled when I saw the answering frown on his. “What?”
“I wish it were true, that was I perfect for you, Whit.” His voice held notes of sadness and regret even as he tried to keep it light and playful with a half-smile.
“What makes you think you’re not?” I asked, clasping our hands together and placing my other hand on the jumble of fingers.
Instead of a casual smile or a pithy reply, he took a long, slow breath. A jolt of alarm went through me, and my heart willed him to speak, to say anything, so I could reassure him how wonderful I thought he was.
“I don’t see how I could be. You’re this… force of nature, and I’m a guy who likely doesn’t even have a job come summer.”
He studied our hands resting on my thigh, the creases bracketing his frown making me want to smooth them away.
“No ideas on what’s next?” I asked carefully.
I was walking a tightrope with this conversation and did anytime his future job prospects came up. I wanted to know, wanted to hash it out with him, but had no clue how to make sure he knew I didn’t care what he did. I could find him a job in the industry if he wanted, probably in a heartbeat—he was charming, good-looking, and smart, so he could jump into just about anything. The way he’d adapted to me, my life, the tour, all of it—he could handle anything.
And that was without the factor of his Army training, the pressure and leadership he’d had to withstand. But none of those were things I felt I could say without sounding like it was important for me that he had a high-paying job. I didn’t give a flying moon pie about his income, or what title he held. I loved that he’d been a soldier only because it’d clearly shaped him. But I wanted him to find satisfaction, to find that relief I felt whenever I stood on stage and strummed my guitar.
“I may be coming up with something. It’s in the earliest stages of ideas, so I’ve got some more things to figure out before I tell you about it,” he said, and I could have sworn I detected a nervous tint to his words.
I squeezed his hand. “I can’t wait.”
“I’m definitely ready to feel like I have a plan again. I don’t like feeling my way around in the dark like this. And not knowing what I’m doing makes going to work even harder than usual right now.”
“Just normal days are hard?”
He let his gaze wander over my face, catch on my lips a moment, before he answered. “Most of them are right now, yes. The new commander is pretty bad—just negative, trying to make us all super hooah—super intense. But it’s a down time of the year, and it’s making me forget all the things I do like about it.”
“Tell me those things.”
“I like the people. There are a bunch of idiots, sure, but then there are the best people I’ve ever known. Dillon was one, and I hate that he’s gone, but because of him, I know Bec, and Thatcher. And you know your cousin… Flint is it , you know? He’s the best kind of person, even if he is a crotchety old bastard.”
His genuine smile sent a fall of longing and joy through me, a crazy mix of satisfaction at seeing that beauty on his face and the desire to see it stay there.
“I’m glad you have Thatcher at work. And hopefully a few others?”
He nodded. “Yes. There are a handful of others that are like brothers to me. It’s one of those things that military life does that few other jobs would. When you go through the things we went through, there’s a bond that will always be there. We’re like brothers, even though many of them, I wouldn’t choose to spend time with outside of work anymore. It’s hard to explain, but… that’s one of the things I don’t know how to walk away from.”
“If you leave, you’re not walking away from the people, right? You’ll still be their brother, their friend. You’ll still talk to Thatcher, you’ll still support Bec, and I am sorry to tell you, but I think Reese has added you to his rare collection of things he won’t let go of, so you’re stuck there,” I said with a teasing smile.
He chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll never be rid of Flinty, that’s true. You’re right—it’s not like I’m trying to burn it down. I just need a change. I’ve been talking with my therapist about this—trying to figure out how to make peace with doing the right thing for me while still allowing myself to process some of the other feelings.” He stopped and rolled his eyes. “I swear it was easier when I pretended to have my crap together.”
I leaned over and put an arm around him. “You not having your crap together is one of my favorite things about you,” I said, not able to keep back my laugh.
“Oh, the truth comes out!” He pushed me away with a playful nudge. “Enough about me. Let’s game plan so I can see you before you go because I’m one of those pathetic boyfriends who likes to see my girlfriend more than once a week.”