Chapter 65 #2
A sob stabs at my throat, voice sticky. “Please, believe me.”
Bennett’s arms loop around me, tugging me into his warmth so I can sob into his soft chest and release everything I’ve held back from him since I met him.
“I do,” he whispers. “I do. I believe you. God, Paloma.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I breathe, shame casting my eyes down.
“Don’t,” he nearly cuts me off. Water sloshes over the lip of the tub as Bennett picks me up and steps to sit in the bath, still fully clothed. He settles me onto his lap, facing him. “Please, P. I believe you. I believe you.”
He whispers the words like his own form of poetry, soothing and protective in equal measure.
“You’re okay—you’re safe now.
“I’m so sorry, P.
“I won’t let anything happen to you again.”
We sit like that for a long time. I try to focus on anything but the torrent of emotions still plaguing me—the left-out detail of my story that’s begging to be told.
Instead, I take in the movement of the water.
His big body taking up too much space. The soft damp fabric of his shirt against my chest where he’s got me crowded into his body.
My fingers fiddle with the button of his shirt.
“Can I wash your hair?”
The question is as soft as his fingers as he tips me back by the neck, until my hair swirls in the water.
He keeps hold of my neck in one hand, using the other to grab for the shampoo.
I turn in his arms, still naked and vulnerable.
He spreads his legs to pull me closer between them, my back to his chest now.
Bennett presses a soft kiss to my temple before sudsing his hands and massaging my scalp, careful and slow so he doesn’t get anything in my eyes.
He does the same slow movements with the conditioner. It’s our routine, at least a version of it—and I can feel that it soothes him arguably more than me.
Maybe this is the moment—a fresh start. A clean slate, all my darkened secrets finally in the light.
Not all of them.
“Take your time,” Bennett whispers after he’s wrapped me in a towel and shucked off his wet clothes, grabbing his own towel off the bar on the wall. “Take as long as you need.”
Calm settles over me like a weighted blanket, like Bennett’s massive body might.
I wring out my hair, using all the luxury products that I haven’t allowed myself in years, taking the time to plait my wet hair into pigtail braids before slipping on his massive Berkshire shirt and forgoing the rest of the clothes he left out for me.
I still feel raw as I emerge from the steamy room, but my throat catches as I see the pretty lights he’s plugged in along with the usual lamp.
Bennett turns from his computer, Ben Howard plays softly through the speakers as he steps toward me. He’s changed, too, soft pajama pants and no shirt like he usually sleeps.
I stand there blankly, unsure what to do now. Unsure of where I belong.
My fingers play at the stiff wet end of one of my braids as I chew on my lip.
“I’m not tired,” I blurt. “I couldn’t sleep if I tried.”
Bennett smiles, small and quick, but I hold it close to my heart, warming myself from the inside out. “I know, love. I want to show you something.”
He walks over to his dresser, just past the golden lamp on his bedside table. Tucked against the wall is a tall, full-length mirror. Tall enough to capture the hulking form of the 6’6” goalie—and me.
I look down at the ground quickly, but Bennett sweeps up a hand to my chin.
“Look,” he whispers. “Tell me what you see.”
“I see . . . something bad. Someone who hurt you,” I whisper, ashamed of the words but needing him to know. To understand that I hate myself for it all.
“Stop it,” he whispers, his head dipping to nuzzle the crook of my neck. I go nearly boneless as he scoops an arm around my middle. “Look.”
“Bennett . . .” My eyes cast down just slightly, avoiding the glass.
“Just look, P. This is the girl I’ve loved for four years of my life. Steadfastly adored. My soulmate.” He tilts my head again to look in the mirror. “You. Exactly like this.”
I look.
His body encases mine, and it’s hard not to focus on just him—on the rugged lines of his face that mix so well with the aristocratic nose he broke when he was twelve.
Of the clean cut of his stubble, the soft waves of his chestnut hair that look like warm coffee or the freshness of fall in the city.
The long, thick muscles of his arms, the grip of his hand on my hip—
On the generous curve of my hip. I follow my own body down to my ankles, seeing the tightness of my legs that allow me to swim every day.
To run away, when I’ve needed to. I see the way Bennett’s shirt falls over me like I could live in it forever.
Like it was made for my body. Mine. I see my face, bare and clean, looking youthful and content.
Beautiful. My skin, pink from the hot bath that the boy I love made for me.
Warm from the way the boy I love holds me.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, kissing my neck. “So strong. You aren’t that little girl trapped in that house anymore. You’re so smart, clever. Kind and wonderful.”
“I’m not. I’m mean.”
“Your meanness has kept you safe. I don’t care if you’ve used it against me, because it’s kept you safe.” He emphasizes it again, hands crawling up my body to grip the small of my waist.
“I’ve been so horrible to you,” I whisper. “I don’t—”
“I would crawl through broken glass to get to you, P.”
His voice is breathy and soft, but the words build pillars in my mind, making something new in the rubble of destruction. I turn in his arms.
“I would for you, too,” I say, feeling ridiculous at the repeated sentiment, but I don’t know how else to say it.
He presses a hard, fierce kiss to my lips.
“I know,” he says, before kissing me again, gentle and slow, as he backs up to his bed, scooping me into his arms and settling me on his lap as he sits.
His hands smooth against my skin, leaving chilled bumps in their wake as he pulls my shirt up and over my head. Music plays. His eyes sparkle like living waters, and I feel the last piece of my armor break.
I push my hands against his shoulders, letting him settle into the mattress slowly as I rock against him and kiss him again.
He rolls me beneath him, my thighs stretched impossibly wide around the bulk of his body.
The way Bennett looks at me feels the exact same as the first time, on soft blue sheets with waves crashing outside and soft moonlight along more boyish features. When this pull between us was unmarred and pure. Something soft.
Maybe for him, nothing ever changed.
His pants come off and I can feel him against me. Skin to skin.
We kiss, touch, push into each other for a long moment, before I press against his shoulder and roll until I’m on top of him again.
I lift up, looking at him for approval as I reach back and hold him in my grip.
He’s so fucking big it should be frightening, but I’ve never wanted anything more. Because it’s him.
Him, him, him, like a silent chant.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
He nods, but his lips press to my cheek, his hand caressing lightly against my skin. “Please don’t break my heart again,” he begs, then follows it with a watery smile and half chuckle. “I don’t think I can take anymore.”
“Never,” I vow. “I love you,” I breathe, as my hips slip down and I take him slowly into my body.
He jolts, hips arching, and I moan a curse at the sheer size of him.
“Say it again,” he begs. “Please.”
I push up on his chest when he’s still only halfway inside me.
“I love you.”
I breathe in and sink the rest of the way down, huffing and moaning as he takes up every inch of space and then some.
And we stay there, hips flush. Completely connected.
His eyes shine with tears; his cheeks are wet. He reaches up to touch my cheek and I realize I’m crying, too—for the first time, happy tears.
“You’re so beautiful,” he mutters again, eyes in awe of me even as his gaze doesn’t dip to my body. He’s only looking at me. Me.
“I love you.”
“You’re so perfect.”
“Just you.”
“Just you,” he whispers back, picking up the pace. “Just you and me, forever, love.”
Falling in love with Bennett was like jumping into the ocean, expecting the water to be icy and painfully cold, only to be completely encompassed in comforting warmth. A warmth that has never faltered.
“I love you,” I say again, because I can’t help it. He slows again, savoring the feeling of us this close, before he presses his lips to my neck, just below my ear and whispers poems into my skin as he makes me come again and again, until we’re both wrung out.
Love from Bennett Reiner will always be this—perfect and warm.
It’s homemade versions of my favorite food, warm blankets, firm hands on sore muscles, and gentle fingers in my hair.
It’s slow indie music that’s just soft enough to be a lullaby, but with lyrics so beautiful my ears ache to listen.
It’s poems ripped from his favorite books lying on my pillow, with the words he struggles to say splayed on softly crinkled paper.
“You’re the only person who has ever had me,” I breathe, tears still spilling quietly over my cheeks. “All of me.”
My words make him moan into the curve of my neck.
“I’ll take care of you forever, P,” he says, angling his neck to press our foreheads together in the quiet dark. “You just have to let me, love.”
I release a hiccupped cry, overwhelmed by how I feel about him, distraught over the cycle I’ve felt perpetually stuck in that wouldn’t allow me to have him until I could defeat this evil thing I’ve let live in my head since I was fourteen.
Bennett tucks me against his chest and pets my hair, soothing me, whispering soft poetry that I’m almost sure is his, until I’m calm again. Until I fall asleep with him still inside me.