Chapter 44 Benji
The last note of the song hangs in the air before the jukebox clicks and goes silent. I lean down with my mouth close to his ear. “You passed the test, Officer Weaver. I want you inside me tonight. How much time do you need?”
His hand tightens on mine. He doesn’t hesitate. Not even a beat. “Three minutes,” he says. “Only long enough to get upstairs.”
The implication lands and I pull back to look at his face. He took the pill before we came downstairs to the bar. Before the hand-holding, before the dancing, before he knew any of this was going to happen. He took it because he hoped I’d forgive him.
“Look at the confidence on you,” I say. “The absolute swagger. You took it before you even knew if I was coming back upstairs with you.”
“I had an optimistic feeling.”
“You planned for sex on the off chance I’d forgive you?”
“I planned for every scenario. That’s what cops do.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “And optimism is a life strategy.”
I stare at him. Unbelievable. He planned for the best outcome without saying a word.
“Your confidence is a huge turn-on,” I tell him. “I love it. Now put your hands in your lap and let Benji take the wheel. You’ve been independent all day. You drove yourself to work. You drove me here. You’re very impressive. But right now, I’m in a damn hurry and I’m driving.”
I step behind the wheelchair before he can argue. My hands close around the push handles and I shove. The chair lurches forward and Mickey’s hands fly to his armrests.
“Benji, what the hell—”
“No time for questions!” I’m pushing him across the bar floor at a speed that is not appropriate for an indoor space. The wheels hum on the hardwood. A regular at the pool table looks up from his shot and watches a man in eyeliner sprint a wheelchair past him toward the elevator.
“Goodnight, Sheila!” I call out without slowing down.
Sheila looks up from the glass she’s polishing. Her eyes track us across the room — the wheelchair at full speed, Mickey gripping the armrests, me pushing him like we’re late for a flight.
“Goodnight, baby,” she says. “Don’t break him.”
“Goodnight, Tex!” I shout toward the kitchen.
Tex’s head appears in the doorway. He takes one look and grins. “Atta boy, Benji.”
I hit the elevator button. The doors open. I push the chair inside and spin it around so Mickey’s facing me. The doors close. The cab starts to rise.
Eight seconds.
We both know it takes eight fucking seconds for the slowest elevator in the world to reach the second floor.
I grab the hem of his shirt and yank it upward. His arms go up on instinct and I pull the shirt over his head and throw it on his lap. His bare chest fills the small space — the shoulders, the pecs, the arms that I can never get my hands all the way around.
I’m laughing. He’s laughing. His shirt is off and we have three seconds left and I’m already pulling my own shirt over my head as the doors open.
“Go, go, go,” I say, pushing the chair out of the elevator and across the loft. The wheels glide over the hardwood floor and the bed is right there against the back wall. I park the chair beside the bed and set the brakes.
“I can transfer myself,” he says.
“I know you can. But I told you — I’m driving tonight.” I hold out my hand. He takes it. I brace myself, one hand on the bed, and help him pivot from the chair to the mattress. It’s not the way Leah taught him and it’s not graceful. He lands on the bed and I’m on top of him before he’s settled.
My mouth finds his. The kiss is not the careful kind from the conversation on his lap.
This kiss has a sad beach day, tears and missing his mouth behind it.
The taste of him rushes back in a flood that makes my hands tremble against his jaw.
His tongue pushes past my lips and finds mine.
I moan loud enough that I’m sure Sheila hears it through the floor.
His hands grip my hips and pull me down against him. The heat of his body under mine makes my eyes burn. I kiss him harder. My fingers drag down his chest, his stomach, to the waistband of his pants. I pull back just long enough to undo the button.
“Off,” I say. “Everything. Now.”
We strip each other fast and messy. My pants catch on my ankle and I kick them across the room.
His take longer because I have to work them down his legs, but my hands know this choreography now.
His body is bare beneath me, and his cock is already thickening against his thigh.
The body I once could only touch through a layer of heavy cloth now answers me directly.
I reach for the bottle in the nightstand drawer. It’s right where I left it on my last visit.
“Lie back,” I tell him.
“You’re bossy tonight.”
“I’m bossy every night. You didn’t notice before because you were too busy staring at my ass.”
I pour lube onto my fingers and reach behind myself.
“Wait, let me do it,” he says, grabbing my fist.
“No time for that. I’m in a hurry.”
His eyes go dark watching me open myself up, my hand working between my legs while I’m kneeling over him.
His hands grip my thighs, the rough calluses on the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, and I can feel his fingers pressing hard enough to leave marks.
I want marks. I want evidence on my skin that this night happened.
“Benji.” His voice is low and strained. “Watching you do that is going to kill me.”
“Then don’t watch. Close your eyes, Mickey. We’re not slowing down. Not tonight.”
“Fuck, no, I’m not closing my eyes. I’m never closing my eyes when you look like this.”
I add another finger and his grip tightens on my thighs. His cock is fully hard now, thick and flushed, and I wrap my free hand around him and stroke once. The groan that comes out of him makes my whole body clench.
“Enough,” I say. I pull my fingers free and slick his cock with the lube, gripping him firm, feeling the heat and weight in my palm.
“I said I was in a hurry, and I meant it. I’ve been thinking about this.
While I was lying on a couch crying, I was also thinking about this, which is a very confusing emotional combination to go through, and I don’t recommend it. ”
“You were thinking about sex while you were crying?”
“I’m an emotional multitasker. Don’t judge me. I can have many emotions at the same time.”
I rise up on my knees and line him up. The swollen head presses against me and I hold there for one second — in anticipation.
“Eyes on me,” I say.
His eyes lock on mine. Blue and steady. Every bit of him focused on me like I’m the only thing in the room. That’s all I ever wanted.
His hands are on my hips but they’re not pulling. He’s letting me set the pace. He’s letting me drive.
I sink down. His cock pushes inside me, inch by inch, the stretch slow and deep, my body opening around him.
The fullness hits me in a wave that curls through my stomach and up through my body.
My hands go to his chest for balance, fingers digging into the muscle, and a moan breaks out of me before I’m fully seated.
“God,” I gasp. “Mickey. You feel—”
“Keep going,” he says. His hands press into my hip bones.
I drop the last inch. He’s all the way inside me. My ass is flush against his hips and the pressure is everywhere — deep and exactly where I need it.
I don’t wait. I start moving. My hips roll forward and his cock drags inside me, the angle already right, already hitting the spot that sends a bolt of heat through the center of my body. My thighs grip his sides and my hands press flat against his chest as I ride him.
“You feel incredible,” I tell him. “I missed your body under me. I missed having you so deep that I can feel you everywhere.”
“I missed you too.” His voice is barely holding. His hands slide from my hips to my ass and grip. The fingers digging into the muscle, pulling my cheeks apart, and the stretch intensifies. “You have no idea how much I missed you. Staring at the water thinking about you. Not being able to find you.”
“You watched me from the window. I know you did.”
“Every goddamn second. You in those trunks lying on my beach right in front of me.”
“That was the plan.” I rise up and sink back down, harder this time, and the slap of skin makes his head push back into the pillow. “You should know that Dante applied that sunscreen very thoroughly on purpose. We discussed it in the car.”
“You staged the sunscreen?”
“We staged everything. The towel angle, the trunks. It was a full beach day operation.”
He lets out a laugh that breaks into a groan when my hips circle on the downstroke. His cock presses deeper at the new angle and my whole body shudders.
“The lifeguard?” he asks.
“Oh, him? Yeah, he was cute. But I was putting on a show for you and you know it. I’ve only got eyes for you, babe.”
He pulls me down against his chest. His mouth finds my neck, the spot below my ear that he knows makes me lose words, and his teeth scrape the skin. I’m already falling apart and he hasn’t even touched my cock yet.
His arms wrap around my back. The arms that carry him everywhere. His forearms press against my spine and he holds me tight against him.
“I love you,” he says against my throat. “I’m gonna show you off everywhere. Every room. Every bar. Every sidewalk. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
I push up from his chest and find my rhythm again. Faster now. My hands on his shoulders, my hips working, his cock driving deep into me on every downstroke.
He wraps his hand around my cock. I jolt in his lap. His fist is big and rough and the first full stroke sends a spike of pleasure so sharp that my rhythm stutters.
“Damn, Benji,” he says. “You've been holding back with me. This whole time. Being careful. I always knew this is what you'd really be like. Just you — wide open, full throttle. Don’t you dare stop."
“When your hand does that, I forget what I’m doing.”
“You said you were driving tonight, so fucking drive, Benji.” He strokes me again, faster and firm, his thumb pressing the head on the upstroke.
I ride him harder. His hand works me in time with my hips — every time I sink down, his fist pulls up, every time I rise, his grip slides to the base.
The dual sensation of being full of him and stroked by him at the same time is too much.
Every nerve is firing. The sounds I’m making are echoing off the loft ceiling.
I don’t care about anything except the man underneath me and the way his body is answering mine.
“I’m getting close,” I manage. “Mickey—”
“I can feel it. You’re so tight around me right now.”
“Are you close?”
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Right there with you.”
His hand moves faster. I come first. The orgasm rips through me in a wave that arches my spine and locks every muscle from my shoulders to my toes. I spill across his stomach and chest in hot streaks, my cock pulsing in his fist. His grip doesn’t stop. He strokes me through every wave.
I clench hard around him and he follows. I feel him come inside me — the pulse, the heat, the way his hands dig into my hips and hold me down while his body shudders underneath mine.
His mouth is open and the sound that comes out of him is my name, broken in half by the breath leaving his lungs.
I fall forward onto his chest. Our skin sticks together in the mess between us and neither of us moves. His arms close around my back. My face presses into his neck. I can feel his heart slamming against my ribs.
His hand moves up and down my spine in long, lazy strokes. His lips find the top of my head.
“So,” he says. “Am I forgiven?”
I lift my head. His face is flushed, and his eyes are soft.
“You’re getting there,” I say, pushing the hair back from his forehead. “But I think the forgiveness process is going to require extensive, ongoing effort on your part. I’m talking nightly when I’m in town. Possibly twice a day.”
“I can commit to that,” he says.
“And every time we have an argument, you should know that the makeup portion of the evening will look exactly like this.”
“Then I’m going to argue with you constantly.”
I laugh against his chest. His arms tighten around me and the laugh becomes a sound that is half joy and half release.
“Mickey.”
“Yeah.”
“I need you to know something. What you said on the porch. About there being no version of your future without me in it.” I trace my finger across his pecs, over the place where his heart is still beating harder than resting.
“That’s the thing that brought me back. Not the badge or the uniform or the photo frame.
Those were good — the frame was actually brilliant.
I’m impressed. But the thing that got me was that sentence.
Because that’s what I needed to hear. Not that you’re sorry.
That I’m permanent. That you really see me as part of your future. ”
His hand comes up and cups the back of my head. His fingers push through my hair. “You’re permanent,” he says. “Get used to it. I’m not letting you go.”
I’m right where I belong. In the arms of a man who’s learning how to hold me in the open.
He’s not perfect at it yet. He’ll get it wrong again. His cop brain will scan a room and his hand will drift toward the armrest and I’ll notice. But I’ll reach for his hand and put it back. Every time.