Chapter 16 Ben
BEN
It’s quiet in the room when I open my eyes. There’s a draft in the vicinity of my lower regions.
I look down and am surprised to find myself naked. The blankets are all tangled at the foot of the bed. An unfamiliar set of feet.
Oh, crap.
Everything comes flooding back. Elias, me, this bed, him making me come, me moaning, loudly, then … what? Did I fall asleep?
I turn my head on the pillow and find him lying close to me despite the fact this is a king-size bed. I know he’s tall, but he could have fit on the other side. Why is he lying with his face squashed between two sets of pillows? That doesn’t look comfortable.
When I slide my legs off the bed, I cringe at the wet spot and have to suppress a groan of embarrassment.
Was I drunk last night? No way, I only had a couple of sips of champagne.
If I wasn’t drunk, how could I have been so … loose? The things I let Elias do to me. The way I reacted.
I cover my face. What must he think of me?
I tiptoe as quietly as I can to my bathroom, closing the door softly behind me and pressing my back to it.
I wish I could have a shower without waking him up.
If he wakes up, I’ll have to face him, and I don’t think I’m ready to do that yet.
Maybe I can put on a robe and pad to the end of the corridor and wash the sweat and …
other bodily fluids off under that big waterfall shower?
It would feel so good to get clean right now.
I put the robe from the back of the door on and pad back into the bedroom—start mentally planning my great escape.
“Ben?”
I stop dead on my way to the door. Consider ignoring the voice for a second before changing my mind.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you going?”
Why does he have to sound all sexy and gravelly in the morning? Oh god, did he hear me snore last night? Did I talk in my sleep? What on earth did I say?
“To shower?”
He sits up. It’s dark enough to blur his features, but there’s no missing that incredible physique. My mouth waters.
“Come back to bed. You don’t need to take a shower.”
“But I’m all … sticky.”
He laughs, running a hand over his face. The sandpaper scratch of his stubble makes goosebumps stand up on my arms. Suddenly I’m aware of why certain parts of my skin feel tender.
“Ben,” he says, his voice softer this time, almost a whisper. “Come back to bed.”
I do as he says, keeping the robe on, dodging the wet patch as I climb into bed and Elias pulls the sheet up over us.
I get a waft of sweat and sink into the mattress with shame.
“You’re freaking out.”
“I’m not,” I lie.
“Don’t freak out.”
“Oh, okay, I won’t then.”
He chuckles. “Shh.” A heavy arm drapes itself over me. I go stiff before giving into it.
“Elias, I—”
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I fell asleep.”
“Most men do.”
“But I didn’t….”
“Say it, Ben. It won’t kill you.”
“I didn’t make you …” I whisper-shout, “Make you come.”
He pats my chest. “I’m proud of you.”
“What for?”
“Saying it.”
I sink into the bed with a groan. “I knew I’d be terrible at this. You must have had an awful time.”
I’m not prepared for him to sit up and look down at me. I avert my gaze and try to hide my face in the pillow. He speaks to me anyway.
“I did not. Hey, look at me.”
He rubs soothing circles on my chest until I look at him. “It was … surprising, in a good way.”
“Surprising?”
“Yes. I didn’t think I’d enjoy … teaching someone as much as I did.”
“I didn’t exactly do anything. Just flopped around like a fish having an orgasm.”
He laughs so loudly I worry he’ll wake my parents up. When did they go to bed? God, I hope they didn’t hear anything.
“I don’t think fish have orgasms.”
“Don’t they? Well, you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
He lays his head back in that squashed bit between the pillows with a sigh. Maybe he likes sleeping between pillows? His arm is still draped across my chest.
“You didn’t flop around. You were … great, actually. Really great.”
“Even though I didn’t make you….” He stays silent, making me say it. “Make you come.”
“Yes, even though you didn’t make me come. If you must know, after you fell asleep, I had a wank in your bathroom, thinking about how hot it was.”
My face flushes for some reason. “Oh.”
“Do you feel better now?”
“Not really. I still didn’t do anything.”
“Oh, trust me. You did.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I lay there blinking up at the dark ceiling while Elias settles in beside me.
He must fall asleep, but I don’t. I watch the sun rise through the gaps in the drapes until he starts to stir again. This time, I don’t give him a chance to pull me back to bed to reassure me. I lock the door to my bathroom and take a nice, long shower.
ELIAS
I’m quick in the shower, trying not to linger on Ben’s shampoo and body wash.
When I pop the top, his smell floats out and makes my cock twitch.
I think about what he said, about him not making me come and how I hadn’t even really thought about it.
It hadn’t been an issue. It had felt so good making him ‘flop around like a fish having an orgasm’ that I wasn’t thinking about coming.
I don’t expect Ben to be waiting for me when I get out of the shower. He’s sitting on his bed, looking clean enough for church. Damp hair neatly combed, face freshly shaven and a nice shirt and chinos already covering his athletic body.
I’d like to climb into his lap and mess him up again, but I can see he’s stripped the bed and I’m sure he doesn’t want stains on that nice mattress.
A thought hits me—does he do his own laundry at college? Is he so used to having a maid that he doesn’t know how to look after himself? I refuse to believe that.
“Elias?”
“Yes?”
“Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“The good news is, my mom will be pretty hungover today, so no one to grill us over breakfast.”
I nod, looking for my clothes, feeling Ben’s eyes on me as I walk around in my towel.
“Your clean clothes are downstairs.”
“Oh, Schei?e, I forgot about that.”
He offers me a shy smile. “You can wear something of mine, if you like. The … pants might be a bit short.”
Why does the thought of wearing Ben’s clothes excite me? I’ve never dated anyone as close to my height as Ben is before. I usually go for smaller guys who can wear my t-shirts as dresses.
“Maybe I’ll just throw on a t-shirt and a pair of joggers to go downstairs in.”
“Sure, I’ll get you some sweatpants. I’m sure I have a pair that are a little too long.”
I watch his back as he searches his drawer for the sweatpants. Suddenly desperate to take him away from this stuffy house.
“Why don’t we go out for breakfast?”
He turns with a pair of grey sweatpants in his hand. They could be dangerous if he does anything to turn me on in public. I take them with a grateful smile anyway. It might be fun to watch him blush.
I let the towel drop, refrain from laughing when Ben freezes and averts his eyes.
“You know you saw my cock last night.”
“Oh gosh.”
A chuckle escapes.
“You’re so cute.”
He turns his back. “I know I’m being ridiculous right now, it’s just….”
I decide to be generous and let him off the hook. “So … breakfast?”
It takes a while to leave the mansions behind and hit the road. I keep forgetting how far apart everything is in America. How … huge it is.
I try not to watch Ben’s long fingers gripping the steering wheel.
Try to push out the smell of his cologne floating around the car as he drives.
I focus on the view from the window instead.
The grey sky giving the roadside trees a slightly haunting look.
The closer we get to town, the less grand everything is.
The quainter and almost seaside-like it becomes.
“This is a cute town.”
Ben smiles. “This part doesn’t look like much, compared to the houses on the outskirts, but it’s really lovely."
"Did you grow up here?”
“Yes and no. I spent some time away at boarding school, in Switzerland.”
“Switzerland? Why can’t you speak German?”
“It was the French-speaking part—Lausanne. German was an optional language.”
“You speak French?”
“Swiss French, and I haven’t practiced for a long time. I’ve probably forgotten most of it by now.”
Something flips in my stomach. Why am I so impressed that he maybe can, maybe can’t speak French? Big deal. I guess it’s the knowledge that he has lived an entire life before this moment—a life it would take me years to learn about. Years I don’t have with him.
Before I can think too hard on it, Ben pulls up outside a shack-like building and stops the engine.
“Before you say anything, I know it doesn’t look like it, but this place has the best eggs in town.”
“Better than those scrambled eggs Anna makes?”
“Yes, but don’t tell her I said that, okay?”
“Deal.”
We’re greeted by a friendly waitress who shows us to an empty table. The place isn’t too full, but I suppose we’ve missed the big breakfast rush. I start studying the menu, already knowing I need to get these amazing eggs.
The control freak in me wants to order something else, just because Ben told me I have to get the eggs, but when the waitress comes back, I surprise myself by asking Ben to order for me.
He looks dazed for a second. I watch him, trying to push down the building admiration, while he orders scrambled eggs with sausage, Canadian maple bacon and hashbrowns.
“I wonder what Coach Sanchez would think about this breakfast.”
Ben grins. “We need to keep our strength up.” He blushes furiously. “I mean … for our match tomorrow.”
I chuckle into my coffee cup. “And other things,” I mumble over it.
Ben bites his lip.
When breakfast arrives, it may be the best thing I have ever tasted in my life. And of course it’s huge. I can barely move by the time we wobble outside to the car.
“Hey, do you want a tour of the town? We could drive around for a while before we go back to the house.”
I catch the pleading tone in his voice and agree. I don’t particularly want to rush back to that house either.