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His gravelly voice has the knots in my stomachtightening.
Ben clearly wishes my twin had stayed. I get why, but the hurt lingersanyway.
“It’s dangerous to deal in alternative worlds, Ben. It would also be a world in which we didn’t go through the things that made us who we aretoday.”
When I first met Ben, I knew several of our friends came from money, and I’d heard Ben had a sizeable trust fund. Eventually, I learned his dad had taken most of his family’s money, that he’d pressured his mom into keeping a trust for him so that he could investit.
While most of the students in our class were complaining about course loads or relationship drama, Ben was quietly finding small, high-risk, high-reward investments with the right potential to pay off, immersing himself in business training after his engineering course load, and building back up what his father had taken from them to ensure his mother and brother would always haveenough.
Now, he’s one of the most successful investors in NewYork.
Only a handful of people knowwhy.
He crosses to another set of paintings, and I follow. “We should answer the questions on that list so we’re prepared if someone asks us.” He lifts my phone and reads off the screen. “‘What does the other person do that turns youon?’”
I try for nonchalance. “Sometimes you stoptalking.”
He laughs. “Comeon.”
I frown at the strap on my handbag. “You do this thing with your hair. It’s too long, and you kind of twist it in your fingers before you shove it out of the way. At least that’s what I would say if we were dating,” I add. “What aboutyou?”
Ben casts a look around the room before his warm gaze finally lands back on me. “When you watch other people, I watch you. I like how your mind works. Sometimes, you cross and uncross your legs, and it makes me wonder how long it would take for me to get your attention if I slipped a hand under yourskirt.”
Everything in the room grinds to ahalt.
The paintings are a blur ofcolors.
The other patrons in the room are unmovingblobs.
Because it takes every inch of my brain to process the words Ben dropped on me as casually as if he was sharing theweather.
Heat chases down my spine, settles into a dull, throbbing ache between mythighs.
“…That’s what I would say if we were dating,” he goes on pleasantly before turning on his heel and heading toward the door. “Let’s keep moving. We have ten minutes,” he tosses over his shoulder, leaving me wondering if he came up with that on the spot or if he’s actually thought about putting his hand up myskirt.
As we start into the next room and I'm still recovering from his words, he asks a new question. “How do you like tofuck?”
“If that’s on the list, I’m killing the Vane interview right now.” I snatch my phone back fromhim.
“It’s not, but if we’re dating, it’s something I’dknow.”
I tuck the phone away and find myself trapped in Ben’s intense, curiousgaze.
There are a couple people on the far side of the room, a mother and a kid. It feels as if I’m overexposed, standing here thinking about how to describe the kind of sex I like to my bestfriend.
“Slow,” I say atlast.
“It doesn’t have to have onespeed.”
“No. But most men tend toward one.” We continue through the galleries. “What about you?” I ask after amoment.
“I like to be incharge.”
“Like, ‘blindfolds and whips’ incharge?"
His frame looms large, close enough his woodsy scent that has no place in Manhattan floods my senses. His smirk is entirely sexy, and I’ve never seen it directed at me before. “It’s still early days. You haven’t found outyet.”
I twist my bracelet, reminding myself this is make-believe. “We have to decide what to tell our friends when they ask why we got together now after all thistime.”
