Chapter 38
THEN: Freshman Year, November
Paloma
Bennett’s dad looks so much like him, it’s almost unsettling. Both much too tall and well built, the beard and slight lines around his eyes and mouth are all that separate the man in the crisp suit from his son.
“I just need to grab a few things from my room. Can you wait here for me?” Bennett asks.
I nod despite the fear clogging my throat.
Don’t be a baby, Polly.
Bennett kisses my forehead and moves past me to the hallway.
The quiet is awkward and unsettling, compounding the anxiety I’m already battling.
Adam Reiner steps forward, not even that close to me, to reach for something on the countertop beside me.
“Hey.” A smoky voice. Male. Indistinguishable. “Need some help?”
Hands on my waist, holding me still. A punishing grip.
“You look just like your mom.”
My stomach rolls, sickness threatening. I nearly jump out of my skin, flinching back and away from him, knocking my hip hard into one of the elaborate drawer handles. A hiss of pain explodes from my lips, skin burning so hot I’m sure I must be on fire.
Seven whines, pushing past Adam Reiner’s leg to get to me.
“Are you all right?”
He isn’t talking about my hip. That’s obvious from the worried furrow of his brow, the tip of his chin and hunch of his body—the same tactic I’ve seen Bennett use before, attempting to shrink his massive frame.
“Yeah—I’m—”
God, am I about to cry? My voice is tight and scratchy. It feels like speaking through swallowed shards of glass.
Adam looks me over again, gaze assessing—seeing too much, too easily.
“Are you—”
“Ready?” Bennett calls, stepping back into the room with a few hangers of thicker winter coats tossed over his shoulder. I nod and nearly sprint toward him.
It’s only when his arm is around me, his lips are to my hair, that I feel completely safe again.
· · ·
We make it back to his place late, Seven quietly trailing us as we step into the pitch-black living room. I’ve calmed down, the rush of adrenaline and embarrassment both having faded out. In their place is a calm I only tend to feel in Bennett’s strong presence.
And Seven’s.
“My roommates are out for the night—since we don’t have a game until Sunday evening. If you want to stay here.”
I’ve never met his roommates or his friends. I don’t even know their names; we never talk about them. Sometimes I think it’s because Bennett’s realized I don’t have any friends myself.
It’s not strange to me, like it might be to others. I’m used to being a secret; good at keeping them, too. Especially when it’s something I want.
And I want Bennett Reiner.
The stereo in his room plays “You’re the Only Good Thing in My Life” by Cigarettes After Sex—a band whose lyrics I used as a poem once in one of our letters to each other. The beat is slow, sensual. So is Bennett. His body is so large and warm, sturdy and unshakable—the same way he is to me.
He means so much to me—I think I’m falling in love with him, and he can barely admit to liking me. The cacophony of the self-conscious thoughts that plague me only ratchets up higher.
I reach for him, anxiety and excitement plaguing every sense until my heartbeat is rushing through my ears. Sinking to my knees between his massive, slightly spread thighs, I tuck my hair back over my shoulders and pull at his sweatpants.
“What—”
“I want to do something for you,” I breathe, skin flushed and warm beneath his intense gaze. “Please . . .”
He swallows visibly, his throat working heavily, but he does nod.
He’s hard as I grasp him beneath his sweats—and proportional to the size of his body. My stomach flips in anticipation and worry, but I continue, working him with one hand as I pull down his sweats and boxers just to expose him to me. Big and heavy, hot in my hand.
I spot his white-knuckle grip on the bed on either side of me, and roll my tongue to wet my lips before placing my mouth over just the tip of him.
A moan works from Bennett’s throat, and he presses a hand to my shoulder. To . . . stop me? I pull back but keep my mouth mostly on him as I blink up at him.
He looks . . . almost in pain. No part of him seems relaxed or like he’s feeling any sort of pleasure. My stomach plummets, ice searing through my veins as I pull up and off him, falling back on my butt in my haste.
“Is this . . . is it too much?” I ask, my voice small. “Or is it me?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
Where my skin is likely ashen pale, Bennett’s face is flaming red—not so much an embarrassed flush, but like an indication of pressure building up.
Like everything inside him is too much, too overwhelming, and has nowhere to go.
He won’t look at me, his eyes fixed on the carpet between us, his hands covering his lap where he’s hastily pulled up his sweatpants. As if he’s shielding himself.
“It’s—it’s too much, I think,” he admits, voice flat, eyes closing tightly.
A pang throbs in my chest, rejection sliding through my soft shield easily. I stay quiet, shrinking down and hugging my knees to my chest.
The weight of the silence between us is nearly unbearable. But my thoughts feel messy and harmful, half tossed into the past, and nothing will come out. I can’t soothe him when I feel like this, the sting of his words and movement still fresh.
The sound of dark, taunting voices threatens in my head.
Finally, Bennett exhales a sharp breath and sits up straighter, his hands moving to grab tightly at his thighs. “It’s not you,” he says, his voice rough, almost defensive. “You’re perfect. I—I just . . . I can’t.”
It’s as if he’s scraping my skin with the knife of his words. I flinch and nod.
“I haven’t done this before,” he says, the words harsh, like they’ve been pulled from him against his will.
My body settles. I’d entertained the thought that he might be inexperienced, but pushed it away—mostly because he’s a collegiate hockey player. I made a stupid assumption and stuck to it, even in the face of glaring obvious hints. So his admission doesn’t shock me.
If anything, it soothes me.
Bennett rubs the back of his neck with one hand, shoulders twitching up like they sometimes do when he’s anxious.
His face somehow burns even brighter. “Like . . . anything like this,” he adds, the words tumbling out faster now, in a rush to rip the bandage off.
“I don’t know how to explain it right but .
. . I’ve never wanted to do that with anyone before.
And I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but—” His voice cracks, and he stops, clenching his jaw so hard it looks painful.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” I whisper, wanting desperately to reach for him but knowing that until he can look at me, see me coming, I won’t risk it.
“It doesn’t feel like that,” he says, the words almost mocking. “It feels like something is wrong with me. And . . . I’ve been okay with that.” He nods, eyes squeezing closed again. Another twitch, his hands gripping his thighs harder. “But with you . . . it’s different.”
“That’s okay,” I whisper.
“It’s not.” This time the words are harsher, but all that anger is only directed inward. “And now you’re stuck with an eighteen-year-old virgin who doesn’t know what he’s doing, and . . .”
His words hang in the air, sharp and self-conscious, and I can feel his embarrassment radiating off him. Like our conversations in the locker room or on Seven’s walks, I stay quiet, allowing him to explain.
It’s my only way of showing how desperately I want to know every part of him, deeply. Intimately.
“And that’s not fair to you, Paloma. I want to make you feel good and I don’t know how or where to even begin. And when you touched me just now? I felt so terrified of how good it felt that I stopped you? How pathetic is—”
“Stop it,” I cut him off, fierce and protective. My hands are tight as I grasp his wrists, still kneeling on the floor beneath him. He finally looks at me, his beautiful ocean-blue eyes bloodshot and full up with self-hatred. It makes me almost seasick.
He’s terrified of this.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. He grimaces and starts to jerk away from my hands. “You’re not any different for that, okay?”
His lips part, but no words come out as he stares and stares at me. Finally, his hands relax from their white-knuckle grip, one drifting to sift his fingers through my hair—an act I know now calms him.
“You’re not . . . ?” The question is nearly unspoken with how quiet he whispers it. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“Never,” I say, my throat tight. My hands slip off his wrists and onto his thighs. “We don’t have to do anything, Bennett. But if you ever want to try—”
“I do.” He nearly moans the words, half in pain, forehead leaning to press against mine. I push up, climbing to sit astride his lap. A blowjob was overwhelming for him, but this might be easier to start with.
“Is it stupid to say I’m scared?” he asks, raw and painfully vulnerable.
“No,” I say fiercely. I grab his chin in my hand. “No, sex is terrifying. Even for me.”
I don’t mean for the admission to slip out, but I move on as quickly as I can so he won’t read too much into my words.
“We can go slow,” I say, pushing him languidly back into the mattress. “And you can stop me if you don’t like it, okay?”
Bennett swallows hard, his eyes flicking up to meet mine. “I just . . . I don’t want to mess it up,” he murmurs, his voice thick with vulnerability.
“You won’t,” I promise. “There’s no right or wrong way. Just feel.” I rock forward along the still-hard length of him.
I’m torn between the desire to kiss him and the need to watch him.
A moan pulls almost unbidden from his throat, seeming to surprise him.
“Does that feel good?” I ask.
“I want to make you feel good,” he gasps out, hands in the right place—along my waist—but tentative. I continue to move for him, dipping my head down to kiss his lips, along his jaw, and down to his neck.
His hands flex, jerking me a little harder over the mass of his bulge, and a long, low moan pulls from my mouth, breath against his skin.
“Like that?” he asks, taking a second to kiss my neck before whispering, “Please. I want you to make that noise again. Show me.”
I shake my head. “It feels good because it’s you,” I say, the words a little huffed and vulnerable. “Everything you’re doing feels good—touching my hair or my waist. I like it all.”
He looks almost frustrated as I pull back and lock in on his eyes. And I know him enough now to know those words aren’t comforting.
“I need you to show me,” he begs again. “I can’t . . . I can’t always read your body language. And I never want to do something you don’t want.”
My throat sticks.
“You have to tell me. Please, show me.” The words melt from a plea to a roughened command.
“Here.” My breath hitches as his hand, tucked into mine, brushes against my clit over my shorts.
“Like this?” he asks, playing his fingers over the area like a pianist warming up. I nod, a whimper slipping out of my throat at the almost teasing touch.
“Yes,” I pant. “Is it too much?” I ask, still riding across him. Still desperate. “We can stop—”
“No,” he growls out. “Don’t stop. That—the rocking feels so good.” Every word is low, and the clear sound of his own pleasure has me threading closer to the edge of that cliff.
“Does it feel good to you?” He slows his movements for a moment. There’s vulnerability and uncertainty in the question, and my hand comes up to cup his cheek, like I can soothe it away.
“Yes.” His hand works its way up my back to the loose strands of dishwater blond flowing over his skin. In a moment of anxiety, I snap out a quick command: “Don’t pull my hair.”
Bennett freezes, only for a moment, before carefully brushing his fingers through the ends, the tingling effect on my scalp making me moan.
“I would never hurt you,” he insists, words said into my ear as he tucks one strong arm around my waist, pulling me closer.
His thrusts pick up, faster and more insistent.
The hand in my hair glides carefully to my jaw, holding the side of it to pull my eyes to his, our foreheads nearly touching. “Tell me you know that. Say it.”
“I do,” I breathe, answering his command with shocking ease. “Please, don’t stop.”
“Are you going to come?” It’s a genuine question, and I nod into his neck, pressing my lips to the hot skin there as I let myself go—crying and moaning out.
He shifts his hands to my hips, setting the pace, using his strength to move me up and down the length of him as he roars out his own pleasure in an animalistic, uncontrolled rumble.
That sound makes me come, my own pleasured keening pressed into his throat as Bennett continues to press and pull me until I stop him.
My eyes flicker over him slowly, affection pulsing from my heart, painful in its intensity.
I want to keep him here, against my body and away from everything I know can hurt us.
I want to tell him everything, my darkest moments, and watch as he holds them in his hands, careful with them as he’s always been with me.
I want to—but I can’t.
So instead, I press another soft, lingering kiss to his lips.
“Good?” he asks, breathless and still panting. I collapse on top of his big body, lax in his still-firm grip.
“Good,” I whisper; such an understatement. He strokes his hands up and down my back, petting my hair, soothing me slowly in the aftermath. It’s a level of care I’ve never experienced.
I keep my face pressed between his neck and the pillow to hide the tears it brings.