Chapter 44 #2
I laugh, my entire body relaxing around him so he can slide in farther. Only Bennett would casually ask that, unaware of the sexual undertone of the question—he means it genuinely.
“I just need a moment,” I say, and he nods before dipping closer to me, using a hand beneath my neck to pull my body up toward him like an offering, pressing soft kisses along the tender skin of my throat.
His ministrations work like magic touches, relaxing my body to the intrusion of him.
I’m not a virgin, but it’s been over a year since I last had sex.
And I’ve had no self-love intimacy, too scared to try anything.
So, beyond Bennett’s hands and mouth—and now the massive cock between his legs—nothing has touched me there in a long time.
And somehow where I thought I’d feel terror-struck and overwhelmed, I don’t. I feel safer with him here, in his embrace, with him inside me, than I’ve ever felt.
“Okay. I’m ready. Please.”
He moves and it’s like electric shocks across my body. He’s everywhere, no part of my body untouched by him—his fingers, his soul, his words.
It’s slow, careful; despite how large and intensely intimidating he is, he’s always been this with me.
Careful. Gentle. His body is stretched over mine, so close that my nipples press against the sparse hair of his chest. His hands grasp the curves of my waist. Everything about him is manly, seeming older than his eighteen years—even his soul.
I want to be here, intertwined with him, forever.
The pace at which he makes love to me feels like he’s searing himself into my marrow, unescapable and permanent. I’ve never been touched like this, taken care of like this, loved like this—if that’s what it is. Maybe what it could be.
“Bennett,” I breathe, eyes fluttering as an orgasm sneaks up over me—not so intense, but prolonged and filled with light.
“Oh god, Paloma—” he stutters out. “I can feel you squeezing me—fuck.”
My entire body only tightens further around him, my orgasm rolling into a second one because he’s panting and thrusting and losing his careful control. He curses so rarely; it works like a shot to my adrenals to hear it now. To know I make him feel that way.
I think I could get off on his reactions to me alone.
“Please, Bennett—”
“You feel so perfect,” he breathes.
“Are you going to come?” The question is half stuttered, half moan.
“Yes,” he breathes. “Can I? Can I come inside you?” A growl bursts from his lips against my ear. “I need to come inside you, love.”
I know he’s wearing a condom, but the words are intense and heady. I nod, fingers gripping the muscles of his shoulders, feeling the softness of his stomach against mine as his hips stutter before his abs contract and his mouth turns from my neck.
“You’re the only thing I’ve ever cared about,” I whisper, a broken confession spilling unwanted from my lips. I blink back tears, and he slows down. “Ever.”
He bites into my shoulder.
It makes me come again, fingers fluttering to the back of his head like I can hold him there. Like I can keep the mark of him on me forever.
· · ·
We lie across rumpled sheets under the glow of moonlight, his body stretched out beneath me.
His music plays softly from the speaker on the sill, Iron and Wine soothing and lulling filtering through my ears, competing with the thump of his heartbeat.
Yet I feel energized while he looks sleepy and sated, beautiful.
So handsome and so far above me, there’s a piece of me forever shocked that he’s here, underneath my fingers.
“How old were you? When you had your first kiss?”
He blushes at the question, despite being naked and entangled in my arms. “Sixteen. It was a girl who had a crush on my best friend. I think she was trying to get him to notice her or make him jealous.”
I smirk, shaking my head and tracing my fingers over his brow. “Impossible. You’re perfect. And way better than him.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
“I don’t care,” I whisper into his mouth. “I only want you.”
I feel almost high on him. My heart pushes at my ribs, beating like it might reach from my chest and into his.
There’s a giddy feeling in my chest, like butterflies. It like something from a fairy tale, and not the usual anxious sickness I’m more used to in the aftermath of sex.
“What about you?” he asks, hand brushing my hair back from my face softly as I nuzzle into his biceps where his arm is wrapped around me.
“What about me?”
“I want to know everything.” He punctuates the word with a heady kiss. “When was your first kiss? Have you ever fallen in love with someone? How old were you when you first made love to someone?”
My stomach hollows, anxiety ripping through me like a whip. I jerk away from him, scrambling back slightly. He sits up, following me like he wants to grab for me, keep me close, but is fighting the impulse.
“Why—why would you ask me that?”
Stop. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.
It doesn’t matter. I can’t stop myself from snapping, “You’re ruining this. You’re ruining everything.”
His face shutters like I’ve slapped him, but he doesn’t move away. Instead, he looms closer.
“Wait,” he commands, even with his voice soft as a whisper. He grasps my wrist in his hand, his other settling on my cheek, his pinky firm against the soft skin beneath my jaw, his thumb slowly caressing the swell of my bottom lip. “Paloma—”
“You don’t want to know that.” I try to shake my head, try to force myself to jolt away. But I can’t. I don’t want to, body pliant in the steadying strength of his hands.
“There is nothing you could say that would make me go, P,” he says firmly. “Tell me.”
A tear works its way down my cheek, falling softly over his fingertips.
“I was ten when someone kissed me for the first time,” I say, throat full with a trapped cry. That little version of myself shouts in my head, hands over her ears—Stop, stop, stop!—as if she knows I shouldn’t say this. He’ll leave.
Good. He’s better without this.
“He was . . . one of my mom’s friends.”
I see the words hit him. The implication.
A huff of his breath through his nose. He nods. “What else?”
My brow dips. “You—that’s not—”
“Someone hurt you,” he says, brow furrowing. He doesn’t ask. He just says it, as if he can see everything I’m desperate to hide. “Tell me, Paloma. Let me be there for you. Trust me, please.”
His words are a plea. The sob I’d tried to smother wrings free, pathetic and needy.
“What else?” he asks again.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Paloma—”
“Stop,” I cry, my voice louder than I mean for it to be. I move back away from him again. “Please, Bennett. I don’t—I can’t talk about this yet. Just . . . please.”
“Okay,” he says, hands up in a placating gesture that’s meant to be as calming as his tone.
We sit quietly in the ruinous aftermath of the mess of my own making. You ruined this. Like you ruined him. Like you ruin everything.
Bennett stands slowly, naked but not desperate to cover himself in the way I am—the sheet drawn up over my body.
“You didn’t eat,” he says, eyes focused on his feet. “I know you’re hungry. I’m going to make you food, okay?”
I nod, too afraid to ask him the questions burning in my throat—Are you angry? Do you hate me? Do you regret it all?
I reach out for his hand, but my stomach swoops and I pull back. It feels wrong to be allowed to touch him after I yelled at him.
“Can I . . . can I sit by the water again?”
“Of course you can,” he says, voice exasperated. He leans in, hands in my hair, cupping my head in the massive stretch of his palms. “You can have anything you want, P.”
His words feel intense, blanketing me in safety and warmth. Guilt and anxiety war in equal measure. I’ve never felt safer than I do with him. And yet, the terrifying thought of losing that is enough to drive me almost mad with wanting to keep it.
“Just wear something warm, okay?” He kisses my forehead long and hard, as if he can tattoo the feel of his lips on my skin.
It doesn’t stop the pain from the physical loss of him and the safety of his arms.