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Ben pulls me closer, until I’m staring at his lapel instead of into his eyes. His familiar scent overwhelms me, makes me want to melt into his arms, but the tension in his body tells me I wouldn’t find the comfort Icrave.
He has to know this isn’t fake. That everything between us has been leading up to this moment, that this is our chance for something bigger. Deeper.Lasting.
I’m not about to dump what happened with Vane at his feet or use it to garnersympathy.
I’ve already laid my heart at his feet. It’s hismove.
He clears his throat and anticipation wells inside me. “I live my life taking risks.” His breath is light against my ear, the rumble of his voice reverberating through me in the places our bodies touch. “And I know going in that some of those bets, I’m going to lose. The way I survive it is being able to cut my losses. To deal with thefallout.”
His hand tightens on mine, and I want to squeeze back, hold him as though I’ll never letgo.
“I can’t deal with the fallout from you. You’re not a deal I’ll get over after a few shots of tequila and a week of being an asshole in meetings.” The raw edge in his words twists the knifedeeper.
I pull back enough to look him in theeye.
“So what?” I challenge, my voice riding just over the music. “We go back to being friends and pretend none of this ever happened? Because that’s a lietoo.”
I want us, I want toadd.
I want to be there for his strength and his weakness, his pride and his uncertainty, the moments he wins and the ones heloses.
But he doesn’t want that.I can read it plainly on his face, and that knowledge rips my heart intwo.
I always thought my heart was mine, but now I know I’ve been giving away pieces to him—every week or month or year—because he’s pulling away from me, even though I’m here in his arms, and part of me is going withhim.
I look past his shoulder toward his mom and Tris, his businesspartners.
He pulls me closer. “Are theywatching?”
His words are an aching reminder of the first time this happened in a club a monthago.
I turn into him, his lips an inch from mine. “Yes.”
The feel of his warm touch at my back through my dress makes me want the world to fall away until it’s just him and me and everything else isgone.
He claims mymouth.
It’s not like the first time he kissed me, or any of the countless times since. This is anger, need, regret,resentment.
My fingers curl around his collar, holding him againstme.
Every slide of his mouth says,fuck these people. Fuck thisplace.
It’s punishing and earnest at once, as if he can erase the last twenty minutes by making mehurt.
I take it all. I’ll take anything he has to give me rightnow.
I pull back first, both of our breathing coming shallowly. “Don’t tell your mom we broke up yet. Wait a week. Let her havetonight.”
Ben’s throat works, and his hand comes up to caress my jaw in the way he said meant he was holding me here withhim.
Except this time, he’snot.
This time, he’s pushing meaway.
27
Pretending can bethe easiest thing one second and fucking perverse thenext.
