Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cat
W arm water burbles over my skin as Bennett holds me in his arms. I’m scared to move, afraid I’ll shatter the illusion he’s created if I animate more than my lips to offer a reply. Even the words I speak feel packed with trip wires. One misstep, and he’ll raise the defenses and blast me away so that I can’t get close to him.
“It’s a form of dementia,” he says after a long silence. “Her brain is essentially shrinking, and there isn’t much time now. I try to adjust to the rapid changes in her personality, but it’s like meeting a different person every time I visit. I rarely see my mother anymore. I mean, physically she looks the same, but . . .”
“I understand what you mean,” I say when he doesn’t continue.
“Do you?”
His walls are rising again, and I need to find a way to stop them. If I want a ceasefire, I’ll have to agree to the terms of this war, and that means I’ll need to lower my walls as well.
I’ll have to explain how I understand what he’s going through.
“I wasn’t always an only child,” I say. “I had an older brother.”
“With dementia?”
“No, cerebral palsy. It was pretty severe. He never walked or talked, and he spent most of his life in a wheelchair, but he was my brother and I loved him.”
His shoulders deflate a bit, and he pulls me even closer, wrapping his arms around me so that I can fully relax in his hold. “Tell me about him.”
The way Bennett holds me and wants to know more about my brother has undone some tight thing inside me. It uncoils and loosens until the knot in my throat dissolves.
“His name was Seth. He had blond hair and blue eyes, just like me, but his eyelashes were way fuller than mine.”
“Eyelashes, huh? I bet he got all the ladies.”
I chuckle against his neck. “Oh, the nurses loved him, that’s for sure. He couldn’t express himself with words or actions, but his eyes held so much life. It might sound crazy, but he could communicate. When I would play around his chair or place a toy into his hand or lap, there was joy. When Dad fell through the ceiling while trying to remodel the upstairs bathroom, there was concern. He spoke through his eyes.”
“How’d you deal with his loss?”
I take a deep breath and try to find the right words. Nothing seems to convey the anguish my family felt—and continues to feel—in my brother’s absence.
“I don’t think we ever really dealt with it,” I say. “Not in a healthy way, at least. Mom locked up his room and sold all of his medical equipment to recoup some of the costs. She and Dad kind of act like I never had a brother at all, which is hard for me because I did .”
“I never knew you had a brother,” he says. “I don’t think Kindra knows, either. She’s said you’re an only child on several occasions.”
“It’s not something I tell many people.”
“Including your best friend?” His fingers land beneath my chin and raise my face so that I’m looking into his blue eyes. “Kitten, it seems I’m not the only one on an island.”
“Well, maybe I was partly wrong. Maybe islands aren’t so bad if you let people visit every now and again.”
“Is that all we’re doing?” he asks. “Just visiting? Because I’m not so sure anymore.”
His words register in my mind, but I don’t have time to respond as Bennett moves us to the other side of the hot tub. I spin in his arms and sit on the seat, facing him as he cages me between his biceps and hovers above me, his mouth so close to mine. I close my eyes, and he kisses me.
And this kiss is unlike any we’ve shared before.
The vulnerability transfers to the intimacy, and the kiss sparks something inside me. It’s wild, unbridled, and brimming with warm passion. It’s honey and peppermint. It’s devoid of familiar hatred and rife with something foreign.
It’s dangerous.
I push him away and gulp air. When he kisses me like that, so completely, I can’t breathe or think. He reduces me to a mindless blob of need.
“Bennett, what are you saying?” I ask.
He closes his eyes and presses his forehead to mine, but the words require more vulnerability than he can muster, it seems. Instead of angering me, his silence reassures me. Despite the consequences, we are very much on the same page.
“Me too,” I whisper.
Bennett groans and releases me so that he can drop down beside me. “We really can’t be anything, can we?” he asks as he stares at the drooping monstera blocking his view of the door.
“I don’t see how we could,” I whisper, and here come the tears again. I clamp down on the inside of my cheek to give myself another painful sensation to focus on so that I can forget about the way my chest aches.
“I hate keeping it a secret, but if that’s the only way, then?—”
“If I’m being honest, I don’t like keeping it a secret, either. What’s the point of having mind-blowing sex if you can’t brag about it to your girlfriends?”
Bennett smirks. “Mind-blowing, huh?”
“Don’t start.”
“Come on, kitten. A little praise never hurt anyone.”
“Your ego is the last thing that needs stroked.”
“Is my cock the first thing?”
I groan and smack his arm. “Are you genuinely incapable of serious conversation? I’m beginning to get concerned.”
“Okay, okay.” He sighs and falls silent, but a question nags him until he’s forced to ask it. “So . . . are you gonna go for Maverick since we can’t be anything?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I mean, what’s happened between us kind of . . . changed some things in my head.”
“Right.”
More silence fills the spaces between our words, and an uneasiness settles over us. We have no trouble with the hot-and-heavy moments, but the quiet times that pass so easily between lovers create an obstacle course I’m not sure we can get through.
Bennett’s hands grip my waist, and he pulls me onto his lap so that I’m straddling him.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me go.
His grip tightens as he looks into my eyes, and I’m almost afraid. There’s a fire there I don’t recognize. And it’s aimed at me.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me, Cat. Can you do that?” His hips pulse upward, pressing his hard cock against my bikini bottoms. “Can you tell me you don’t think about me when I’m not around? Can you say you don’t look for me when I’m in a room?”
I do all of those things and so much more, but that doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean that outing ourselves to everyone is the answer.
“What if it doesn’t work out?” I say. “What then? We’ll be forced to split our friend group, and that’s after enduring their questions and commentary for God knows how long.”
“And what if it does work out?”
I close my eyes and bite back a moan as he rolls his hips again.
“So tell me the truth,” he demands. “Answer my questions. Tell me it wouldn’t rip your heart out to go a day without me now.”
His girth brushes against me again, and my eyes nearly cross. This isn’t fair. He knows I’ll say whatever he wants to hear when he’s dangling an orgasm in front of me.
Well, two can play that game.
I grip his shoulders and grind my hips. “Do you think of me , Bennett? Is that why you want to know if I think of you?”
His hands grip my hips, trying to stall my movements. “What are you doing, kitten? Don’t be disobedient.”
“Oh, I’m very disobedient.” I pick up speed and grind a little faster. Water and heat slosh between us. “Now tell me, what sort of things do you think about? Dirty things? Or are they sweet?”
He grits his teeth as a moan spills from my lips. I can’t help it. The friction feels amazing.
“Do you look for me in a room?” I bite his neck and hump him like my life depends on it. “Fuck, you do, don’t you?”
I do whatever it takes to keep from answering those questions myself, because the answers terrify me almost as much as that heat in his gaze.
“You’re going to make me come if you keep that up,” he says.
I smirk and keep moving against him. Again, this is incredible for my confidence. I don’t think I’ve ever made a guy come in his pants.
“Kitten, if you make me come like this, I’ll have to punish you later for embarrassing me.”
“You gonna strip me down and bend me over your knee?” I whisper in his ear. “Tell me how you’ll do it. Tell me how you’ll punish me.”
His hand slips between us, and he squeezes my breast. “The spanking is just the start. You’re in need of a lesson, and I want to make sure you don’t forget it.”
I grind on him harder, and he sucks in a breath.
“I’m serious, Cat. Cut it out,” he says.
My hips roll and rock as he grips me tighter. His cock is a steel rod, and my skin is electric. The water conducts our spark, heightening the sensations until I fear I’ll come too.
He buries his face between my breasts, holding me against his firm body until I can barely move my hips. His cock jerks, pulsing like a faint heartbeat as he grunts against my skin and comes. Seconds later, he releases me and swipes the hair away from my face.
“Oh, kitten.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “You’re in trouble.”