33. Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Benjamin
T he room was quiet apart from the crackle of the fire and the steady breath of Francesca sleeping beside Benjamin. He looked down at her, elbow propped to rest his head in his hand, tracing her rosy cheeks, thick lashes, and parted lips with his gaze. They’d managed a foundation-shaking orgasm together, linked, released into each other. The sex had been . . . indescribable. Something so engulfing and pleasurable that Benjamin was shocked he hadn’t passed out in the hushed little room alongside his satisfied lover.
And yet his heart thundered violently in his ears.
He’d held back since they’d sought shelter. Doing his best to keep his distance and not give in to the desires he’d been harboring for her since day one. It hadn’t been easy. They were sardines crammed in a cramped tin surrounded by a storm that screamed touch her with every gusty howl. He’d managed pretty well, considering the proximity, only slipping up once as she danced and swerved in his arms, singing one of his favorite songs with shameless abandon. She’d been so alluring and free and he couldn’t help but take a taste. But the impulsive act had done nothing to scratch the itch.
No, that was all wrong.
She wasn’t an itch.
No man could describe this multifaceted woman as some nagging ailment that needed to be cured. Francesca was perfection in a five-foot-two package, with thick honey hair and that cloyingly earthy scent of eucalyptus and lavender. Curled up and pressed against him, snoring lightly, she was utterly at peace. And he hated the corridor that his mind wandered through the moment they settled in to rest. Each door flashed him a glimpse of what could be.
Fantasies. All of them. Not a single one the reality of how something more permanent with her—with any woman—would go.
Because marriages were doomed.
He’d seen his father slowly extinguish his mother.
He’d helped wealthy men and women strip their spouses bare of their dignity and financial security.
He’d helped win custody battles, where one parent disparaged and ruined the other purely to flex their might. Mothers or fathers who never actually wanted to be the primary caregiver but fought, all the same, to make their former partner hurt.
He’d stood with the bullies and stomped on their castaway lovers like bugs under his expensive leather shoes, all while cashing enormous checks to pad his own security.
He’d single-handedly destroyed girlfriends without batting an eye; played with them for a while then tossed them aside.
He refused to subject Francesca to any of that.
Even if he was confident that they’d remain together, unbroken and functioning, he couldn’t deny that he didn’t deserve her. She was too good for him. Her aspirations to work with foster kids, to help them feel safe and heal, were admirable. She was determined to ensure no child felt discarded like she had.
His motivations had never been as selfless as hers.
Even now, as a professor, he had been looking out for himself. The claim that he was trying to mold students into honorable lawyers who contributed to society was shrouded in his own selfish desire for security—tenure.
Dean McCaffery dangled the carrots of prestige and job security over his head. And Benjamin jumped at every command as he stood beneath his boss’s own Italian loafers, hoping the sense of power the older man gleaned from the interaction was enough to keep him from lowering his heel.
Either way—as a divorce attorney or a professor begging for tenure—he was perpetuating the cycle of power and control instead of equalizing it.
Benjamin looked down at Francesca, who slept so soundly, like she hadn’t rolled down a valley, struck her head, then labored through the snow to be stranded in a tiny powerless cabin with her prick of a law professor. She didn’t deserve his damage.
And she didn’t deserve the chill that would come in the morning either.