Chapter Eighteen #2
They returned to their silence. Charlotte let her mind drift where it wanted to go.
She could see Emma and Jack’s smiling, happy faces and their adorable little Isabel.
She could see Ben’s taillights pulling away down her grandparents’ driveway that last night before she left for Mexico.
Angel’s face hovered before her eyes for a moment and then Alastair’s.
“We’ve been through so much to get to this place where we are right now. ”
Ben turned and met her gaze. “We have; there’s been so much pain and heartache. If there’s more of it to come, I don’t know what we can do to avoid it.”
“Me neither.”
“How brave do you feel?”
“Brave enough to jump right in with both feet. Brave enough to forget the past and embrace the future.”
“Then you feel as brave as I do. I don’t want us to take our time anymore, Charlie.
We’re not getting any younger. I want us to move forward into a new life together.
I feel as though we’ve been marking time.
We had to deal with the past and figure out who and where we are in the present, but now it’s time we get started on our future. ”
Charlotte leaned her head against his shoulder.
“You’re right. I feel as though we’re finally back on the right path.
We got off track and took this major detour for too many years.
I don’t know why, but it feels as though little Isabel somehow gave us permission to move forward.
I’ve been dreading her arrival, and today was hard, but somehow it feels like she’s telling us it’s time for a new beginning.
” She looked up into his eyes and he nodded slowly.
“It does. Yes, seeing her brought its pain, but somehow it also brought me some peace.”
Charlotte blinked against the sting of tears. “A part of me still doesn’t want to feel any peace. I’ll never forget, never leave our child behind, but I do understand what you mean.”
Ben wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “There is no way we’ll ever forget our little one. She’s a part of us and always will be. I think now we finally found our way back to each other, we need to live the hell out of every moment.”
Charlotte smiled at that. “I agree.” She rested her hand on his thigh. “And I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t start right now.”
Ben met her gaze. “Are you sure?”
“More sure than I’ve ever been of anything. We’ve avoided it because we both feel that making love to each other will cement our bond. Now we both know, we’re both clear that’s what we want. It’s time for us to move into our future, and that’s where our future starts.”
Ben stood up and offered her his hand. She got up and led him inside, straight up the stairs, and into her bedroom.
Her heart was racing, her hands were trembling.
The time was finally here. Physically she’d wanted him from the first moment she’d seen him again.
They could have made love at any point since she’d been back and it would have been good, she knew it.
But it wouldn’t have been everything, it wouldn’t mean what it did now.
Ben closed the bedroom door behind him and stopped just inside it. Charlotte took a step toward him and he rested his hands on her shoulders. “I love you, Ben,” she said as she untucked his shirt and pushed it up.
Ben pulled it up over his head and off. Then he got rid of her top.
He unfastened her jeans and pushed them down while she wrestled with his buckle.
In a moment, they stood before each other in their underwear.
He cupped her face between his hands and kissed her deeply.
Charlotte stepped closer and looped her arms up around his neck, pressing the full length of her body against him.
He felt so good, his arms around her, his hard, naked chest pressed against her, his hard-on pushing at her through her panties.
He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes.
She took hold of his hand and pulled him down onto the bed with her.
When his lips came down on hers again, everything but the feel of him faded away.
His hands moved over her; hers moved over him.
His body was everything she remembered and more.
Somehow her bra and her panties were gone.
She stroked the palms of her hands over his broad, muscled back.
He felt strong, reassuring, he was her rock.
He always had been. He shifted his weight onto her, propping himself up on his elbows and looking down at her.
His eyes were so full of love. She drew in a deep breath as he moved his hips.
She spread her legs wider and moaned as his hot, hard head pushed at her entrance.
She braced herself for the thrust that she knew would come.
Instead she moaned again when his fingers closed around her breast and he began to move against her.
It felt so good, her nipple was tingling, tight and erect in response to his touch.
She was getting wetter with each movement of his hips.
His cock felt so good, but it was rubbing against her, not moving inside her.
“Please, Ben. I need you,” she breathed.
He slid his hand down between them and tormented her clit. The way he stroked her, was taking her right to the very edge. He opened her up with his fingers and then she felt him push at her entrance.
“Do you want me?” he breathed.
She nodded. She wanted him so badly she was gasping with every breath.
“Tell me, Charlie.” He thrust his hips gently. Pushing so he was just inside her, and then he held still, looking deep into her eyes. “Tell me you want me. Tell me you need this.”
“I want you, Ben. Oh God, I want you so much. I need you. I need you inside me. I need you to make me yours again. I need you to be mine again. I need—” She didn’t get to finish as he thrust hard and buried himself deep inside her.
They both gasped and began to move as one.
Her hands came up around his back as her hips moved with his.
She clung to him as he thrust into her, over and over.
He carried her away, back through space and time, back to the place where only the two of them existed.
He was making her whole again, and making her fall apart at the same time.
The pleasure was building and building; each time his hard shaft plunged into her, he carried her higher.
She felt him tense and on the next stroke she came undone.
Her orgasm tore through her and then she felt his release.
They clung to each other as they flew away on a tide of pleasure.
It was a long time before she finally came back down to earth—a long time, but Ben was with her the whole of it.
She was lost in a dark universe filled with exploding stars, and he was by her, in her, and with her through all of it.
Somewhere out there, they became one again.
And this time she was determined, nothing would ever tear them apart again.
When they finally lay still, she kissed the side of his neck. “Welcome home,” she whispered.
He lifted his head and smiled down at her. “Welcome home yourself. I’m glad we made it.”