23. Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Gina
The alarm blares Sunday morning. Benji fumbles my phone to turn it off, then dramatically collapses onto his back.
I’m already up and mostly dressed, but I drop onto the bed beside him. “Did I keep you up too late last night?”
He grabs me, and I squeal as he rolls us. “Fuck yeah, you did,” he murmurs, kissing my neck.
I missed him, but I also wanted to be awake when he came home from stripping for the guests in cabin four to see how it went and how he was feeling about it. He so clearly loves dancing, but I know how dancing on that stage in Vegas sometimes made him feel.
He came home smiling but worried about my feelings. We talked about it, and talking turned into kissing, kissing turned into touching and touching turned into an exploration of how many times we could come before we fell asleep.
Turns out I can keep up with a twenty-five-year-old just fine.
But I still stifle a pre-coffee yawn as he lifts my shirt to kiss down my stomach. He unbuttons my shorts, but two sharp beeps of a car horn outside make him groan. “He’s early. I haven’t had breakfast yet.”
I laugh. “Invite him in for a PopTart.” I’d pay good money to see the look of utter disgust on Clay’s face.
“I was talking about you,” Benji says against my stomach as his lips continue their journey south, “so no, I will not be inviting him in for breakfast.”
This time, the honk of the horn goes on and on until Briar yells something from the RV. Benji reluctantly climbs off me and reaches for his clothes. He’s on Super Secret Anniversary Errands, and since he can’t drive my manual truck, he’s arranged for Clay to drive him.
I’ve told him he doesn’t have to go all out—that I can’t afford to—and he’s promised he won’t.
Turns out that’s a lie.
I race through my usual Sunday task of cleaning all the cabins from guests who’ve gone home—it’s my busiest day as most people end their week-long or weekend stay on a Sunday—and make it back to my cabin by mid-afternoon only to find the curtains drawn and the most amazingly delicious scent in the air courtesy my slow cooker sitting on the counter.
Blue, purple, and pink light spills over the living room, a small disco ball hanging from the ceiling, sending bright reflections spinning slowly over the floor and furniture. Trouble races about, chasing them, the sound of claws scrabbling for purchase obscured by the beat of club music.
Trouble ignores me as I let the door close behind me, but Benji, wearing only faded, loose jeans, grins at me, grabs a pink drink in a recycled glass tumbler, and meets me at the door.
“What—?”
He presses the drink in my hand. “A Shirley Temple,” he says with a wink. “Welcome to Vegas.”
Lights aside, a few shiny garlands hang down from the ceiling. I wouldn’t have guessed Vegas, but I see what he was going for.
“I thought,” Benji says, pulling his phone out to turn the volume of the music down, “that we could recreate the night we met. Fill in any gaps that are left.”
My heart might burst into confetti. For a hot second, my eyes get all watery.
“Minus the part where we get too drunk,” Benji adds. “I want you to remember this.”
I wrap an arm around him and pull him close. He kisses me, and it feels like home. “It’s perfect,” I say, my voice cracking.
His hands go to my hips, his thumbs sliding under the waistband of my shorts the way he always does. He smiles that warm, swoony, dimpled smile. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I don’t want to let go of him, and I still have the drink in one hand.
“I have something for you, too. It’s in my pocket.
The left one,” I add quickly because the engagement ring and wedding band are in my right pocket—possibly the only place they’re safe from Trouble—and I’m not ready to fess up about finding them.
His hand slips down, dipping into my pocket. He gropes around slowly before pulling out the keychain. A single key sits next to a small flashlight, a multi-tool, and a wood and leather Happy Lake Lodge tag.
“I want you to have your own key. To my cabin.” So he knows this isn’t just a matter of convenience—he’s been using the key under the garden gnome in my tomatoes—I add, “I want you to move in and make this your home, too, beyond the summer. Officially. If you want.”
His hand closes over the key chain. “Oh, I want,” he says in a thick voice. He pockets the key, kissing me long and hard until Trouble runs up his leg.
Benji moves quickly, plucking the cat before the claws reach his abs. “If you’re going to be like that, you can wait in the RV for your mother to get home.”
“Where is Briar?” I ask. I’ve hardly seen her.
“She’s good. She’s spending the day with Clay, helping him out. He bought that dive bar.”
“Gallo’s? That’s not possible. Lou would never sell it. She’s not even back in town.” I received a postcard from her the other day. She lost her phone and unless she finds her ex, she’ll run out of money and return home within a week.
Benji shrugs, lifting Trouble to his shoulder, where the cat perches like a parrot. “Maybe I misunderstood.”
He must have.
Benji flinches as Trouble sinks some claws into his skin while following a shard of light.
I wince in sympathy and turn off the party lights. “He needs to nap in a sunbeam,” I say, opening the curtains as Benji sets the cat on the floor, “so we can have some grown-up time together.”
“I like the sound of that,” Benji says as he wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me close again.
I slide my arms around his neck. “I need to shower first. I’m disgusting.”
He nuzzles against my neck. “You aren’t, but I’d better help you.”
“I need your help,” I whisper as he lifts my shirt.
Then we’re shedding clothes, leaving them to fall wherever as we shuffle and bump our way to the bathroom. We break apart long enough for him to close the door and for me to turn the water on. Then we’re back in each other’s arms, naked and kissing.
Benji scoops up my hair, and I feel the edges of my shower cap against my hairline as he eases it on. I break our kiss to laugh. “What are you doing?”
“It’s not shampoo day,” he murmurs, moving to kiss my jawline.
“It’s not sexy.”
“I’ll rail you just as hard with a shower cap on,” he says, continuing the trail of kisses onto my neck. My nipples go rock-hard from his words, from the feel of his lips on my neck and his cock against my hip.
I want to be railed hard in the shower, and I don’t want to deal with my curls, so I leave the shower cap on as I drag him into the shower with me.
My already small shower is smaller with Benji in it.
It’s not possible for our bodies to not be touching, which is perfect because I love the feel of his slick wet body hard against mine.
I’m feral for it, and when he slides that well-muscled thigh between my legs, I might even growl a little.
Or maybe it’s because his hand is on my breast, his fingers plucking my nipple.
Or it’s his lips on my neck. Or the noise he makes when I wrap my hand around his cock.
I gasp when he lifts me, and my back hits the cold tiles of the wall. Oh god, he’s going to slip. I wrap my legs around him and hold tight. He grinds the length of his cock against my pussy, and for a moment I almost forget how precarious this feels.
I cup his face and pull him back from my lips. “I don’t want you to slip.” If he gets hurt doing this, I won’t forgive myself.
“I won’t,” he says, but then he curses and sets me on my feet. “I didn’t grab a condom.”
He reaches for the shower door. I don’t want to wait, don’t want him to leave me even for half a minute.
I grab his arm and before I can think it through, blurt out, “Maybe we don’t need one, just this once. I don’t have any STIs, but I’m not on birth control. Maybe you can pull out in time.”
Benji cups my cheek, his eyes soft. “I’ve been tested regularly and I’m negative, too. But we need to be careful for now.”
He's right, of course. I kiss his hand. “Maybe sex can wait until after the shower.”
Benji gently turns me so my back presses against his front. He tucks his chin into my neck, one of his hands dropping to stroke between my legs. “What if I fuck these gorgeous thighs? I should be able to reach your clit. Should we try?”
I nod. He grips my hips and slips his cock between my legs. The head rubs over my clit perfectly and I make a happy little noise.
“Cross your legs. How does that feel?”
I do, and it pushes his erection tighter against my pussy.
“Good,” I say with a little moan as he picks up the pace.
And it is. He’s so slick between my legs.
He keeps one hand low on my stomach, holding me in place, while he pinches and rolls my nipple with the other one.
Looking down my body, watching his cockhead push through my thighs over and over again, feeling every thrust against the whole of my pussy, gets me close in no time.
His labored breathing, so close to my ear, tells me he’s barely hanging on.
“Need to kiss you,” he grits out. He abruptly spins me around to face him, his cock goes back between my legs, and his lips close over mine.
I squeeze my thighs around his length, my hips rocking, seeking friction with the base of his dick.
I can’t kiss him when I can barely breathe, but I stare into his gorgeous eyes, inches from my own, as I hold his shoulders and come apart.
When I’m done, he grips the backs of my thighs, rests his head on my shoulder, and comes with a full-body jolt.
He doesn’t take any time to soak in the bliss of his release. He backs me against the wall, drops to his knees, lifts one of my legs over his shoulder, and puts his mouth on me.
By the time I come again, we’ve used up all the hot water, and Benji’s hard again.
“Bedroom,” he whispers, shivering as he gets to his feet and turns the water off.
I nod and reach for a towel, intending to wrap it around him, but he plucks it from my fingers, shakes it out, and wraps it around me instead.
“Your lips are blue,” he says, kissing warmth back into them.
“Worth it,” I murmur. My cabin doesn’t have A/C, and we’ll be sweating again in five minutes, so I’ll enjoy the goosebumps and shivers while they last.
Benji stops kissing me to towel himself off quickly. “Bedroom,” he says again in a low voice as he opens the door, the towel in front of him as he steps through.
A sharp knock on the door makes him jump and yell. It startles a gasp out of me.
“Diana!” Benji says in loud surprise, closing the door on me.