Chapter 7 #2
Eden placed her hand just below her throat.
I can't breathe. She wanted him. She wanted it to be easy.
Effortlessly casual with plenty of room to get more serious.
And he offered her that! It was too good to be true.
Even though she was also going out with Liam the following night.
And I'll probably want to fuck him too! How did she balance these two sides of herself?
The serious woman with the goddamn slut?
These men didn't even know about each other! They didn't know they had already shared her! What if they wanted more? What if they got jealous? What if one crashed and burned, and she had to put on a brave face for the other?
What if I just care about the money?
She inhaled a deep breath to still her jitters. Only then could she assess the bag flopped over her shoulder and the coat haphazardly strewn across her lap.
Benson. Benson Smith.
She closed her eyes and imagined the ideal relationship with him, aware that such a thing would probably never happen.
Him. Me. Endless nights of interesting conversation followed by the kind of mind-blowing sex that defined her twenties.
Maybe he'd port her around the world for extravagant vacations.
Maybe he'd introduce her to his daughter if they got more serious. Maybe she'd even move in with him.
Did that say she should be charging him? While she knew of plenty sugar relationships that graduated to real love and marriage, Benson might be the type to be turned off by that. Graduating a relationship, anyway.
She kept her eyes closed. Cuddling. Secrets.
The occasional argument or disagreement that left things unsettled for a few days, but were eventually overcome.
Her, learning more about money and investments because of his background, and him, discovering trash TV that she watched to lull herself to sleep at night.
Give. Take. Them not taking their age difference seriously at all.
Because they were just two adults making the best of things.
Fuck, what have I done?
Eden hoisted herself up. Without thinking about her haggard appearance, she hurried back to Benson's apartment, conveniently marked with the memorable number 10. She knocked in between taking out her phone and thinking of something to text to get his attention.
The floor was on fire. Or, perhaps, that was her feet sweating so badly she had to dance between them to stay cool.
The heat flared up her legs until it snatched her by the waist and stole her breath.
Her heart was more nervous than her mouth, which chomped on her bottom lip as she knocked again and panicked over what to text.
You don’t just walk out on a forty-five-year-old man like that and expect him to…!
The door opened. Eden’s mouth went dry over what she saw. All the moisture is evacuating to other parts of me. Hot damn.
Benson had dressed down in his loungewear.
Gone were the jacket and pants. Even the shirt was abandoned.
For all she knew, the man had no underwear on.
Just a pair of black sweatpants and two slippers on his feet.
There was that bare chest she had lain against more than once.
And those arms! The way one snaked up his doorway and the other landed on his jutted out hip killed the last of any self-decency Eden still had for herself.
I’ve gotta bang this guy. Now.
It really was that simple.
But first? She had to blurt everything really on her mind.
“I’m sorry.” Eden led with that while focusing her sight on his face – not his chest. “That was really rude of me. I just got overwhelmed… no. No excuses.” She huffed herself into a spine-straight stance that looked him right in the eye.
Benson remained silent. Gorgeous, and silent.
“Before our date tonight, I had to seriously ask myself what I wanted from you. I seriously considered asking to be your sugar baby because if I put that upfront, then we would know who we were to each other. I could take total control of the situation from my point of view. Because you’re going to get bored with me at some point.
You’ll realize that I’m too young for a man like you who wants to settle down again soon.
I was really good at playing a part last weekend.
It was temporary. I could let loose and fulfill some of my own fantasies, too.
And here you are, breaking that fourth wall I had built around myself and was guaranteed by the resort.
Can you blame me for being confused? About what I want from this?
I wasn’t supposed to see you again. Even though I wanted to.
It feels like fate, but I can’t trust it.
I shouldn’t trust it. My entire dating history is with men who either want to use me for my youth or treat me as just another notch in the bedpost. So, I spent all of last night and today thinking really hard about what I wanted from you.
And I couldn’t figure out how to put it into words all night while we were on a date, so I panicked and ran when you kissed me, but it wasn’t like last weekend.
We weren’t a fantasy. We were just two people who shouldn’t have had anything magnetizing us together. ”
She finally paused. Benson lowered his arm.
“I can tell you what I want,” he said.
Eden almost dropped her purse and coat while watching his muscles move.
“I just want to take things one day at a time.”
She looked at his stubbly facial hair, his muscular arms, and that thrice-damned bare chest that made her weak enough in the knees to cry. His sweatpants hanging off his waist. His slippers pointed toward the floor. The scent of a cleaned-up man who had been out all day with plans for a long night.
“And I just want to fuck you.”
“Well…” He moved out of the way – a tacit invitation she couldn’t resist as Eden took one step forward. “What’s stopping you?”
The door closed behind her. “Maybe I’m not good at being assertive when the ball is in my court.”
He remained standing by the door as Eden shook off her shoes and put her hands on his bare abs.
Good God Almighty. Her eyes fluttered shut as she instinctively reached for the drawstring on his sweatpants.
Slowly, Benson inched her back toward the foyer wall.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t need to fuss with this thing. She could just pull down his pants!
“That’s funny.” Both of his hands slammed against the wall above her head.
Only then did Eden, in all her breathless vision, realize that he now had her surrounded.
“Because you’ve had the ball in your court since we saw each other in my office.
Every step has happened because you took it.
” He glanced down at her hand, now wrapped around his hardening cock.
“Kinda like how you’re helping yourself to that. ”
She couldn’t take her eyes off the ones glaring down at her with nothing but tempest-timed lust. Her hand didn’t move, but it was still in his sweatpants, stimulating him. Whoops.
“You’re somebody’s dad,” she squeaked.
“And you’re half my age. I don’t give a fuck.”
Eden pushed her head back against the wall. He could have pressed, but he didn't need to. She was right there with him. I might just lose it. The power dynamic had snapped back to where it belonged.
“I want you to fuck me,” she said, wishing she were louder, bolder. Instead, such uttered sounds made her sound like a sultry vixen seducing this older man into her web of self-preservation. “Now.”
A triumphant grin touched Benson’s lips. “Say that again.”
Her chin lifted, a spark of defiance returning to her voice. “Fuck me, Benson.”
He didn’t need a third invitation. With a growl that vibrated through her entire body, he yanked her dress up over her hips.
His hands were rough, urgent, hooking into the delicate lace of her lingerie and pulling them down in one eager motion.
He wanted her available, like she had been at La Mariposa.
Make me a Butterfly again, Ben. Always ready.
Always available to him. Ready to pleasure and be pleasured in the more lurid of places.
She almost asked him if he remembered their erotic tryst in the beachside bathroom. How wet and wild it had been. Instead, she cried out, her hand knocked off his cock because he needed to be inside of her.
He didn't give her a moment to brace. One strong arm hooked behind her knees, the other banded around her back, and with a display of effortless strength that stole the air from her lungs, he hoisted her up.
Her legs flew apart, wrapping around his waist as her back slammed flat against the solid wall.
A sharp gasp escaped her, a mix of shock and unadulterated thrill.
The world narrowed to this – the hard line of his body pressed against hers, the fabric of her dress bunched uselessly around her waist, and the insistent, hard length of him nudging against her entrance.
There was no finesse now, no drawn-out teasing.
This was the moment she had fantasized about.
He shifted his hips, aligning them perfectly, and drove into her.
Benson commanded her with a single, powerful thrust that knocked a guttural cry from her throat.
It wasn't pain as much as it was a sudden intensity, a stark reminder of the reality of him versus the pale imitation her vibrator had offered.
He was hard as steel while offering the kind of give that no toy had ever replicated in her life.
And for a breathtaking second, Eden was possessed.