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JULIA
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* * *
“You’re thinking too hard,” Bennett said. We were spooned in his bed, his arms wrapped around me. One hand cupped my breast and I felt every hard inch of him along my back.
He felt good. Solid. Comforting. Real.
My mind couldn’t settle, continuously returning to Cash. What we’d done. What he’d said. Two words slayed me.
You’re right, he’d said.
Cash had fucked me, hadn’t liked it, even agreed with me when I asked if I’d been bad at it, then left.
Only this morning I’d had the blanket tossed over my head. Hiding. Protecting myself from what I figured they’d do when they discovered I had a botched wax job. Laugh.
God, that would have been something to recover from, but not this. This was worse. They hadn’t laughed at me. The opposite, in fact. They’d seemed to be into it. I mean, they’d written on me. Claimed me. The possessiveness I’d seen on their faces had me forgetting I was a bad lay. That I had no idea what I was doing. That I was frigid.
Just like the phone sex, I’d just… given over. And it had been amazing. I’d come. Several times and I was not frigid. Still, Cash hadn’t liked it. He’d gotten a taste—literally—and was done. An asshole move, perhaps even worse than Frank.
But Frank had at least been honest in his assholery. Cash destroyed me. He’d been into it. I knew it. I felt it. Saw it in his eyes while he’d been deep inside me.
The connection had been instant. Sure, I’d thought they were strippers, but I’d been able to talk with them. Flirt, just… be.
It made me crazy, and because of it, I was destroyed by Cash’s actions. His words.
“He didn’t mean it,” Bennett said for the fiftieth time. After Cash left, Bennett had taken me home. I’d insisted on being alone, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong. He was right there with me, the feelings I had for Cash I also had for Bennett. But Cash had wounded me. Deep. In a way that had nothing to do with what I felt for Bennett. I didn’t care for them only as a duo, like they were bookends that had to be purchased together.
Still, while Bennett had wanted to stay with me, I’d wanted to be alone. To nurse what turned out to be a broken heart. I wasn’t just upset Cash had found me lacking, but I thought there had been something there. Something real. Deep. Love, even. I’d fallen hard and ridiculously fast and that was what hurt now.
Bennett had given me—after we argued on my front porch—some time alone to lie in bed and cry, but he’d shown up on my doorstep an hour ago, all but dragged me to his house to be with him. It wasn’t his fault what Cash had done. I had intense feelings for Bennett, and holing up in my house wasn’t fair to him. He knew I wasn’t happy, that I’d been hurt. He was mad at Cash because of it. His protective instincts had kicked in and he wanted me close. I… liked that. I knew from watching my brothers that he wanted to take care of me. Needed to, and I fell even harder for him.
His hugs and attention were just what I needed. His hold soothed me.
I should be drinking a bottle of wine and eating a gallon of ice cream with Ava, watching a horror movie on TV, but I wanted Bennett. I barely knew him and yet… I did. This was the first time in bed together and yet we weren’t having sex. He’d helped me undress, standing completely bare before him as he slipped one of his t-shirts over my head. He climbed naked in bed with me and I felt his hard on against my lower back, but he did nothing about it. Just kissed the top of my head, pulled me closer.
This was where I wanted to be. I just wished Cash were here, too.
“He didn’t,” Bennett repeated. The room was dark, only the soft glow from the moon filtered in through the windows. His bed was big, the sheets soft and they smelled like him.
“He said I wasn’t any good,” I replied. “At sex, I mean. He gave it a try, but he didn’t like it.”
Bennett shifted so I was on my back and he was looming over me. His arm snaked out and he turned on the bedside lamp. I blinked up at him. His pale eyes were serious. I felt the heat from his body pressed along the side of mine.
“That’s what you think, that he fucked and fled?”
I shrugged, looked down at his chin, saw his blond stubble. “It hurts, but I understand.”
He frowned. “Understand what?”
I bit my lip, thought of Frank.
“Some guy said you were a bad lay?” When I didn’t answer, he continued. “That’s what you were talking about last night when you said dildos don’t complain when they fuck you.”
I cringed at his tone.
He sighed. “Angel, the guy was wrong. He should be shot for how he hurt you.” Bennett stroked my hair as he spoke. “There is nothing wrong with you. Every inch of you is perfect.”
