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Jewell touched his arm. "You sound like you're not going to be here."
"I'm taking the room across the hall. No one else will come down this far. These are the smaller, less used rooms."
Jewell shook her head and took his hand in a firm grip. "No, Benjamin. Don't."
"Don't what?"
Jewell slipped between him and the edge of the bed. She laid her hands on his arms and looked up at him. The softness of her eyes warmed him and he wanted to wrap her in his arms to forget the entire night.
"Don't sleep in the other room. Stay with me."
He tried to read her eyes, but what Benjamin saw confused him. Was it concern or pity? Since when did he want either one? Certainly not pity. In his entire life, he neither sought nor received affection or consolation from another person, with the exclusion of his sister. Even then, while he would willingly and happily accept her love, he refused any attempt by her to comfort him. When did he become so weak and needy?
Benjamin stepped back and stalked across the room to the french doors that opened onto a balcony outside. He raked his fingers roughly through his hair and turned back to face her.
"Don't coddle me, Jewell. I've never been coddled and I don't intend to let it happen now."
She crossed her arms over her body and took a step towards him. The slight shake of her head tossed her hair gently around her shoulders. "Benjamin, coddling and caring are two different things. I care. Very much. I don't want to be alone tonight any more than you do."
He stared at her and wondered what this beautiful woman was doing here with him. What made her give a damn about him? Could two people be any more opposite? Jewell moved to him and took his hands. The dim light from the lamp lit her hair like a halo. She looked like an angel.
"Sleep here. With me. I won't be able to rest at all if you don't."
He grinned. "Do you think you'd rest if I stayed?"
Jewell smiled and wagged a scolding finger against his chest. "Yes, I do. We are both very tired and I think that once our heads hit those pillows, we are going to be out until morning."
Benjamin nodded and conceded with a smile. He knew she was right. Sleep already pulled at his eyelids and weighed down his limbs. A deep sigh filled his lungs and pushed Benjamin's shoulders down with its release.
"Stay with me, Benjamin," she said again.
He touched his fingertips to her cheek, and she turned slightly into his touch. "Can I deny you anything?"
She smiled and stepped into him, her hands sliding along his sides to his back. "We'll have to test that theory sometime.”
When Benjamin kissed her, he half expected every sensation of need and desire he'd shoved aside hours before to slam into him, but Jewell was right. Yes, his nerves sparked and his skin warmed at the kiss, but the exhaustion that dragged at his limbs and made his head weigh twenty pounds smothered any desire he might have mustered. Her mouth hummed against his as she drew her body away from him first, then her hands, and finally her lips. She smiled at him as she picked up her travel bag and disappeared into the bathroom, shutting the door.
Benjamin sighed and set his hands at his waist, dropping his head back to look at the ceiling. As soon as she left him, Ben felt the loss. When had he become dependent on her? When had she become so integral to his life that he—could he admit it?—needed her.
With each moment, the exhaustion sat heavier on his shoulders. He raised his arms and gripped the collar of his shirt behind his neck to pull it over his head. Tossing it aside, he toed off his sneakers and dropped his jeans in a pile on top of them. In just his boxers, Benjamin slid into the bed as Jewell came out of the bathroom dressed in flannel shorts covered with images of Jessica Rabbit and a black ribbed tank top.
Benjamin reclined on the stack of pillows at the head of the bed, folding one arm behind his head. He smirked as he looked her up and down. Jewell shrugged, deep color creeping up her throat to her face.
"I packed quickly,” she explained after setting her luggage against the wall.
"I'm not complaining."
Benjamin never maintained a relationship with a woman that allowed for the intimacy of a bedtime ritual. Women came, they enjoyed themselves, and then they went home. Or, he went home. Whatever the case may be. He had never reclined in a bed and watched a woman perform a bedtime regime, and realized as he watched Jewell, that it was both fascinating and appealing. Jewell crouched beside her bag and removed a hairbrush, running it through her thick waves several times until they fell across her shoulders and back. She disappeared into the bathroom again for just a couple of seconds, running her hands over her bare arms when she came out as she rubbed lotion into her skin. Her skin glowed like she'd scrubbed her face clean, all signs of makeup gone.
As she climbed into the bed, pulling the blankets over her bare legs, the scent of citrus and spicy floral from the lotion wafted around him. Benjamin watched every movement through heavy eyelids, sleep slipping over him even though he wanted to watch her. She shifted to the space beside him, leaning up on her elbow to look down at him. Her hair fell forward from behind her shoulder, the curled ends brushing his chest.
"Thank you."
"For what?" he asked.
"For staying." She kissed his cheek, flipped over to turn off the light, and in the dark rolled back to curl against him, her cheek on his chest.
Benjamin shifted further into the bed and drew her closer to him. Sleep hit him almost immediately, and he slipped into the darkness with the scent of citrus and spice around him and the feel of a woman's warm body in his arms.
