Chapter 19
Iwake with a start when someone clamps a hand over my mouth. There’s another hand on my chest and, as my awareness expands, I can tell that the same person has knees on either side of my hips. They’re on top of me as I lay on my back in bed.
My first instinct is to scream, and I try, but the sound is muffled almost completely by the hand over my mouth. I try to thrash, but the heavy weight on top of me keeps me on my back, completely immobile.
“Shhh.” A deep, low voice growls in my ear. “This is only a dream.”
Ben.
Of course.
My heart leaps in my chest, and I smile behind the hand clamped tightly over my mouth. The adrenaline is still pumping, but I’m over the shock of being woken up like this.
Now I’m ready to play.
Oh, wait.
No, I’m not.
Damn period!
I should have told him the truth about why I stayed in my own bed earlier, but now it’s too late. He’s holding me down forcefully with his hand on my mouth, hips pinned, as he struggles with one hand to get my shorts down.
I buckle at the core and scream once more. In the moonlight from my open window, I can just make out a smile streak across Ben’s face at my reaction.
I may have found the perfect man.
Why, oh, why does it have to be like this? Why can’t this be someone I can keep forever?
I manage to buck enough to stop him from getting the shorts over my butt, curling at my core and thrashing. His hand moves up to the soft tank I put on to sleep in, probably deciding it’s an easier place to start.
And I want this. So bad. When we watched that movie with everyone earlier, I definitely thought about what a great game it would make—the phantom of a deceased serial killer coming through my dreams to accost me in the night.
And now it’s happening. If I just relax a bit, he’ll get me stripped naked and?—
Nope.
It’s much too soon in this whole honeymoon phase for him to find what’s waiting in my shorts tonight.
I shake off the sadness that erupts at the thought that we’ll never get to the place where I can comfortably talk about this kind of thing. We’ll never get out of this honeymoon phase at all.
I don”t have time to wallow right now. I need to stop this.
As he pulls my shirt higher, freeing my breasts to the cool night air, I see my chance. He’s going to have to release my mouth for at least a second to get the garment over my head and when he does…
“Bentley!”
The word echoes out too loud in the otherwise silent house.
Ben freezes for a long moment, his hand still gripping my shirt which is halfway over my head, his other hand holding down one of my wild arms.
And then he retreats. It happens so fast I almost don’t know what’s going on. One second, he was a heavy weight on top of me, the next he’s got his feet on the floor, backing away a few steps.
I struggle to catch my breath, aching with the sudden loss of his touch.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry, I thought that would be fun.” Ben speaks gently but I can hear the concern in his voice. He doesn’t come close enough to touch me.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I’m sorry. I just…” I trail off, curling to my side to face him where he stands motionless a foot from my bed. I don’t know what to say. I feel like a total fool.
“You don’t have to explain yourself, Victoria. It’s okay. That’s why we have a safeword, so you can use it if you need to stop. I shouldn’t have assumed…I just thought…”
He’s scared now, scared that he’s crossed some kind of line with his behavior. I could let him think that and protect my little secret, but that’s the last thing I want to do.
I’m not a complete monster after all.
“I’m on my period.” Silence falls after my statement and I sit up, straining to make out his face in the dark. “It just started, I feel like crap, and I didn’t have the stuff I needed, so I have some stuff that’s not the best, and I just didn’t want you to...you know…”
Another beat of silence and then Ben laughs. It’s soft at first but gains strength as the moment stretches on. Pretty soon, I find myself laughing along with him. It’s a madness that overtakes me, seeping in through my mouth and spreading through my body. I laugh until I have tears running down my cheeks.
I reach for Ben’s legs and pull his body to mine. He drops to his knees and rests his arms on my knees as I sit with my legs hanging off the bed.
“I should have just told you. It was stupid, but I didn’t think…I mean…” I can’t think of a single excuse for my behavior other than being completely ridiculous, so I trail off.
“You know,” Ben starts, looking up at me from where his head rests on my knees. “I was married for years. I pulled my child from my wife’s vagina. I’m intimately familiar with the workings of the female reproductive system.”
“Gross.” It’s all I can think of, and just the word alone, spoken aloud, gets us both started laughing again.
After a moment, Ben climbs back to his feet and pulls me up to stand with him, holding me close in an embrace. “Why don’t you let me draw you a bath. It’ll make you feel better. I have some painkillers if you need them. And my bed is bigger, and it’s cooler in there, so you’ll sleep better.”
It’s the middle of the night and I’m exhausted, but I nod against his chest. What’s one more night of lost sleep when I’m not sure how many I have left with this man?
“That sounds nice.”
He leaves me there to run the bath and I sneak into my own bathroom, changing my tampon and doing my best to get myself looking presentable. When I sneak through his dim room toward the glowing door of his bathroom, I can hear the water running.
I pause in the doorway and watch him quietly for a moment. He’s kneeling at the side of the large clawfoot tub, adding Epsom salts and essential oils to the hot water like a goddamn saint.
When I take a step into the room, he turns and smiles up at me. “Water’s ready.”