Chapter 22 Ben
When I asked Ella to stay, I meant for a few minutes. An hour, at most. How many days had she been here with me now, in this bedroom, trapped with my grief? Three? They were mostly a blur. I’d spent a lot of that time sleeping, I think. Or so out of it that I might as well have been unconscious.
I ate when she told me to eat. Got up and into the shower when she urged me to.
I even managed to help her change the sheets once or twice.
My sessions with Brian were the only other points of memory over the past few days.
Or was I into weeks now? How long had it been since I’d left the clinic in Boston?
I planted my hands on the bed and pushed myself up, the sheets falling to my waist as I rested my back against the padded headboard.
Ella, sensing movement, rolled toward me.
The clock provided just enough illumination that I saw her hand reach out as if in search of me.
Her fingers brushed against the fabric of my boxers, and she sighed in her sleep and snuggled closer, snaking an arm over my lap and draping a long leg over my own.
She nuzzled her nose into the skin at my waist and sighed again, breathing deeply, her face a mask of contentedness.
I reached down and ran my fingers through her hair.
How could I ever thank her for being here like this?
For acting as my lifeline? Even though I’d been out of it, she’d helped.
With her here, the loneliness abated. The crushing grief eased a little.
Waking up to feel her beside me, to be able to roll over and curve myself around her, to have her cling to me as though she could hold me together through sheer willpower alone, had done more for me than I could have ever imagined.
Brian was right. I needed her. And not just to use as a crutch or a distraction.
But was it fair to need her like this? To ask her to be with someone like me?
A man who might lose himself to a debilitating disease?
These thoughts left me feeling unsettled and…
guilty. Like I’d still be using her, or lying to her somehow, or unworthy of her.
You are worthy, I reminded myself, the words sounding out in Brian’s voice. How many times had he told me that? How many more would it take until I actually felt like I was?
I brushed a few loose strands of hair back from Ella’s face, and she shifted again, hugging me closer.
“Mmm,” she murmured. “That feels nice.”
I clung to her words and continued to run my fingers through her hair, wanting to keep making her feel good, like I could somehow pay her back for everything she’d done for me the past few days – or was it weeks?
She turned her head toward me, eyes still closed, lips curling into a lazy smile. “I was having the best dream.”
“Yeah?” I asked, voice raw from disuse.
“Mmhmm. We were in Hawaii. It was warm. Remember what warmth is like?”
I smiled down at her. “Vaguely.”
“I miss it,” she said, snuggling closer.
The sheet fell away from her. She wore a threadbare nightgown, and the thin strap had slipped down her shoulder. Her skin was like liquid moonlight in the darkness. Her breasts pressed against my upper thigh, warm and soft. Unbidden, a swell of lust coursed through me.
I was grieving. Ella was grieving. Seeking an outlet that reminded you that you were still alive was a natural response to grief.
Sex was one of the most common of those outlets.
Up until this point, I’d been too out of it for sex, and this sudden raw, aching need I felt for her surprised me.
I wanted to bury myself inside her and stay there forever.
I wrapped my fingers in her hair, trying and failing to corral my desire. My dick was starting to lift my boxers, and with her arm thrown over me like this, there was no way she would miss it.
A little crease formed between her brows.
She turned her head up and opened her eyes.
Her gaze landed on my face and then fell, slowly, to my waist. She blinked, long and slow, and then leaned closer and pressed her lips to my hip.
The movement caused her tightened nipples to rub over my thigh, and the feel of them unraveled what little resistance I had left.
I gave her hair a gentle tug. “Get up here.”
She pushed herself up and swung a leg over my waist, straddling me in one fluid movement.
She lowered herself slowly, so that the V of her thighs settled right over the hardening line of my dick.
Her hands cupped my cheeks, angling my face up so that she could press her lips against mine.
Thank fuck she’d forced me to shower and brush my teeth before we’d gone to bed.
I wrapped my fingers around her legs and gloried in the feel of muscles bunching beneath my grip, the dichotomy of their strength and the softness of the small breasts pressed against my chest.
“Thank you for being here,” I told her when she pulled away. “You didn’t have to stay so long.”
“Yes I did.”
There was so much emotion in those three words that I actually believed her.
I wrapped an arm around her waist to stabilize her, then sat up straighter, my back against the headboard.
Her nightgown bunched around her thighs, and she reached down and pulled it up over her head, baring herself to me.
I snaked my hands around her back and pulled her close so I could kiss her clavicle.
She rested her weight against my hands, trusting me to hold her up as she arched her back, offering up her breasts, simultaneously rubbing her sex over the length of my cock.
I groaned and dropped my head to pull her nipple into my mouth.
A soft gasp slipped from her lips as I rolled my tongue over and around her tightened bud.
It stiffened further when I clamped it, gently, between my teeth.
I released it only to repeat the process with her other one.
She undulated her hips forward and backward in rhythm with my tongue.
With a small noise of frustration, she sat back a little, even as I continued to ply her nipples, and tugged the band of my boxers down just enough to free my dick.
She wrapped her fingers around my length and stroked me until I strained within her grip.
Her other hand dropped to the seam of her underwear, tugging them aside.
She stopped stroking me and guided the head of my dick to her opening.
She was wet already, and it made me wonder what we’d been doing in that sunny Hawaiian dream of hers.
I stopped wondering the moment she slid down my length.
There was no stopping and starting now, like our first time.
Her body felt like it had already become accustomed to my size, and she took every inch of me inside her in one gloriously slow descent.
“I love this feeling,” she said, voice soft as she leaned back and planted her hands on either side of my legs.
“What feeling?” I asked. I wanted to hear her say it.
“Being so full of you I feel like I could burst.” She arched back and thrust her hips forward, just once, as if to accentuate the words.
I reached down and gripped her ass. “Do that again.”
She moved just as slowly as the first time, her body supple and languid as she lifted her hips and flexed her stomach.
I fully approved of this slower pace. It allowed me to look my fill of her.
To watch her thighs clench. Her breasts rise and fall with every breath.
To glance lower still and stare at where we were joined, see her sliding down over my shaft even as I felt her inner muscles gripping me tightly, pulling me deeper.
It was almost too much right now. Feeling overload after I’d been numb for so long.
Instead of letting myself be overwhelmed by it, I let myself be reminded by it.
This sensation, this thrill of being vibrantly alive, deep inside a woman who cared enough about me that she had literally plastered herself to my side while I went through one of the hardest moments in my life.
This woman who had seen me deep in a depressive state, and instead of running away, had brought her light closer, keeping the worst of the darkness at bay.
I didn’t have the words to thank her right now, so I let my body do the talking. I took a hand from her hip and let it roam, pausing to cup her breast, ply her nipple, and then fall, fingers splayed, down over the warm, taut skin of her stomach before I pressed my thumb against her clit.
She moaned softly and sat forward, gripping my shoulders, still moving in that slow, torturous rhythm.
I followed her sounds and her movements, giving her everything, reading the signs her body sent me.
There, right there. That was how she liked it.
This deep, penetrating angle paired with my thumb stroking her clit.
“Ben,” she breathed, her hips picking up speed.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I told her.
I memorized the sight of her, back arched, head thrown back, shadows and highlights playing over her muscles and softness as she lost the rhythm and came, whispering my name.
I clenched her hips and spilled myself inside of her.
Afterward, we were both out of breath. She slumped forward against my chest and tucked her head beneath my chin. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her closer.
I love you, I wanted to tell her.
But I didn’t. Because at that moment, I wasn’t sure if I could trust the words, or the feeling. Was it my grief talking? My thanks? This brief emotional bliss brought on by sex? Or had I really fallen in love with her?
***
I managed to leave my room around noon the next day. Ella had slipped from the bed much earlier to make breakfast, and I think I must have fallen back asleep after she coaxed me into eating.
The sound of laughter was what pulled me from my mattress, that and a series of little, yipping whoofs that I knew so well. The puppies were back.