Chapter 15
Are you okay?
Ben
I’m on uneven ground, and I don’t like it. Everything around me is shaky, including my nerves, and that’s practically unheard of. The thoughts in my head are frenzied, and the words coming out of my mouth aren’t rational.
The second the words “I don’t want you here” came out of my mouth, I wanted to punch myself in the face. Of course I want her here. I want here everywhere I am.
“Oh. Sorry, I’ll just go…”
“No. That’s not what I meant.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Watch her stuff,” I tell Parker as I grab Annie’s hand and pull her off the stool.
She holds on tight and doesn’t ask where I’m taking her.
I’m getting several questioning looks as I weave her through the bar.
I pause at the office door, and decide it’s not private enough, so I continue on to the back alley so we can be completely alone.
The door slamming shut behind me wakes me up, like a hypnotist clapping their hands and pulling me out of a five-year-long trance.
I’m suddenly alive again, and the way Annie’s looking at me, I know she feels the same.
She’s standing in front of me in a pair of tight jeans and a simple black tee that hugs her body enough to drive a man insane.
A foot away isn’t close enough, and I push her until her back is flush with the door.
I rest a forearm above her head, and my free hand goes to her waist as I lean into her so she can’t feel what she’s doing to me.
Her eyes get big, and when I slide my fingers up to her neck, her pulse pounds against my palm.
It beats nearly as fast as my own. Her cheeks get pinker by the second, and her lips are parted as she peers up at me.
I study her gorgeous face and watch her eyes take me in as well.
Rubbing my thumb over her bottom lip, satisfaction roars through me as she touches the tip of her tongue to it.
“Jesus.” What I’m feeling is unexpected and undeniable.
It hits me fast. The connection we used to have is still here, but it’s stronger, different, better.
And I have to make her see that. “I don’t want you here because I can’t stand behind that bar all night and watch every man in that place fuck you with their eyes.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“It already has.” My lips are centimeters away from hers. “But only because they don’t know yet.”
“Know what?”
I dip my head, my nose gliding down hers. “That you were right all this time.”
“About what?”
“That you’re mine.”
“I am?” she whispers like she can’t believe what she just heard.
“Yeah, Annie. That’s what you want, right?”
She answers firmly without hesitation, “Yes.”
“That’s what I want, too.” I sweep a kiss against the apple of her cheek, and she trembles when my lips linger.
“Does that mean you’re mine, too?”
“Fuck yeah.”
“Good.” Her breath lingers with mine.
I run my finger down her arm, her hip, then squeeze her thigh, and don’t even have to pull her leg around my waist because she’s already doing it on her own.
She pants when I give her more of my weight, and lust rolls through me when I feel her heat through our jeans.
“Thought about what it would be like when I saw you again. Lots of different scenarios played out, but this? I wasn’t expecting this.
” I brush my lips across hers and keep them there when I say. “Better than I ever imagined.”
And then I kiss her. God, that’s it, so sweet, but I need more.
The second my tongue touches hers, she makes a noise in her throat and rolls her hips.
I tilt my head and deepen the kiss, my tongue stroking hers.
She’s tentative at first, but when I pull back and nip her lip, she clenches her fist in my hair and loses the control she’d been holding on to.
Yeah. She loses it. She drinks from my mouth, desperate, faster, harder. Fucking perfect.
She sucks in air and then seals her lips over mine, sealing my fate, but then she screams and falls backward as the door opens. I have a firm grip on her already, so I right myself easily and haul her back to me at the same time.
“Don’t move.” Her ass molds against me, and I wrap my arms around her, crossing my forearms over her breasts to hide her nipples poking through her shirt. Under any other circumstance, I’d pull her behind me, but my dick is still hard, so I need a motherfucking second.
Parker’s right there, and I do not like the look on his face. “Sorry to interrupt, but you’ve got a problem, bro.”
“It better be a really big fucking problem.”
“Where is he?” I hear Tara before I see her. She’s standing just inside the bar, staring out at us in the alley. Unfortunately, she notices me at the same time, but she’s not looking at me. She’s shooting daggers at Annie.
Fuck.
“Who the hell are you? What’s going on, Ben? Who is she?” She starts rushing toward us.
I pull Annie behind me, and Parker hooks Tara around the waist and drags her back a few feet.
“Let me go!” she shrieks. “Ben!”
“Stop yelling, woman,” my brother snarls. “Shit.”
Tara realizes she’s acting like a lunatic and smooths down her shoulder-length auburn hair, pulls her shoulders back, and heaves in a breath. “I just want to talk to him.” She points her finger my way. “And ask him to his face why he’s cheating on me.”
I feel Annie trembling behind me, and if I wasn’t already fuming, the reminder that I had her quivering in my arms a minute ago for a very different reason did the trick.
“Tara, enough.” I’m exhausted from trying to reason with someone I can’t even call an ex, but who somehow has delusions that she can control me.
Tara tries to come at me again, but in the process, she rams her head into Parker’s jaw. He readjusts his grip on her and clenches his teeth. “Chill out, Tara. Fuck.”
“I just want to talk to him.” She points at me. “You said we could sit down and talk.”
“No, what I said, as I’ve said a hundred times before, was if you could ever be rational, I’d hear you out one more time.”
“Fine. I’ll calm down. Please, Ben. I just want to talk to you,” she begs.
A few people are gathered at the mouth of the hallway by the bar, watching the chaos unfold, while several mingle in the alley to watch the drama. I need to get Annie out of here and put an end to this shit once and for all. “Take Tara to the office, then grab Annie’s purse for me.”
He ushers her away, and I turn to Annie to explain, to reassure her that Tara means nothing to me. She looks shocked, confused, and a little scared. I cup her face and lower my head toward hers. “It was a long time ago, and she has difficulty accepting that I don’t want more.”
“I’m sorry. That has to be really…irksome for you.”
I can’t believe it, but I smile. “It is very irksome.”
She squeezes my forearm, leans in, and asks quietly, “Are you okay?”
Why does that mean so much? People ask me that question all the damn time, and it never sounds like it does coming from her. Like if I say no, she won’t be all right either.
“You’re here, so yeah. I’m good. Granted, I’m not happy at all that kiss ended like it did.”
She raises an eyebrow. “How did you want it to end?”
Voices are filtering through the alley, but all I can hear is the smile in hers. I inch closer, slide my lips across her cheek, then speak as if I’m telling her a secret. “You’ll find out later.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” she whispers.
And in front of the audience that’s gathered, I kiss Annie again, hard and quick, but with tongue, because I want there to be no question about who she is to me.
A throat clears, and I look over Annie’s shoulder to see Kit grinning at me with Annie’s purse in her hand.
“Ugh.” I pull away. “I’ve gotta deal with this, but Kit’s gonna walk you home, and we’ll talk soon, okay?”
“She doesn’t have to do that. I’ll be fine.”
“Kit’s taking you home,” I insist.
“But then she has to walk back alone.”
I forget Annie doesn’t know everyone yet.
And that’s my fault, too. By wanting to give her space, I haven’t given her the opportunity to get to know the new life I forced her into.
“Her dad was an MMA fighter, she trained with him, she teaches self-defense classes, and honestly? The woman can probably take down 90 percent of the male population.”
“Oh. Well, okay then. If you think she needs to.” She rubs her arms, and I realize there’s more to her apprehension.
“It’s not that I don’t think it’s safe here, but I won’t take any chances with you.”
“You’re not my bodyguard anymore, Benny.”
I narrow my eyes. “Doesn’t matter, Blue. I’ll always protect you like I am.”