“Can you do that?” he asks. “What about the lawyers?”
“Technically, my company can’t communicate with the family except through their lawyers, but I’m not personally named in anything that I’ve seen yet. As far as I know, it’s a loophole. I need to know, Benny. I need to know why they want out and what I can do to make this happen.”
Benny lowers his brows and reaches past me for another sip of champagne. “What if you can’t change their minds?” he asks. “Holy fuck, Willow. I’m just getting it now. You’ll leave, won’t you? You’ll have no reason to stay in Star Falls.”
“I do have many reasons to stay in Star Falls,” I say. “I just need to work out why this is happening. I need to understand so I can make a good decision about what I want to do next.”
His face darkens, and he rolls onto his side to face me. “What does that mean?” he asks. “What you want to do next. That means where you’ll go next. What city, what project. You’re leaving me.”
He looks so sad, so broken. And my own heart cracks open just a bit at the realization. It’s one thing to know that I might leave. It’s another to face that it’s happening right now.
“I have some ideas,” I say. “But I can’t make any decisions until I have the work stuff sorted out.” I reach for his face, smooth his damp hair back. “Benny, I’ve never been a relationship person. I’m a short-timer. One year here, another there.” I meet his dark eyes. “But you’ve made me rethink what kind of person I really am. What kind of person I could be.”
I pull my hand away from him, a sudden flush of vulnerability making me feel very, very exposed.
“I’m afraid to admit how much I think I want this,” I whisper. “You make me want to experience new adventures. The kind I can have by staying in one place. By staying with one person. But I’m scared.”
He scoots closer to me and rests his head on my thigh. I lean back against the pillow and stroke his hair, and we’re quietfor a minute. The candles flicker and burn, filling the room with the light fragrances of vanilla and something heavier, like sandalwood.
“I did something terrifying today,” he says. “I told Mags she could help me with more work at the restaurant. I need help, and I fucking admitted it.”
His damp hair feels soft between my fingers, and I lightly scratch his scalp as I touch him. “And?” I ask. “Was that the right decision? How do you feel now?”
He absently runs a hand along my thigh and closes his eyes under my soft touch. He sighs. “I still feel terrified. But something’s got to give, and I’ll never know if I don’t try.”
He stops suddenly, his fingers tracing along the leg of my pajamas. “Wait a second,” he says. “What’s this?”
I grin. He’s felt the seam of the thigh-highs I’m wearing under my pajamas. “This is my attempt at admitting the truth, no matter how scary it is.”
We rearrange ourselves on the bed. Benny sits with his back against the pillows, and I straddle his lap. His eyes immediately go to the bright red fabric on my toes. Before I even touch him, before I even take off a single stitch of clothing, I see his dick start to tent the front of his pajamas.
“We’re very different, Benny,” I tell him, slowly unbuttoning the front of my pajama shirt. “In some ways. But in other ways, we’re so very much alike.”
I watch his face as he stares at my fingers as the first button opens.
“I’ve never been in love. Not really. Never had a family. I have, of course, but not really. I’ve never had a home—not a permanent one. But being with you makes me want all those things. It’s terrifying. It’s stressful. It’s confusing.” I unbutton the rest of the buttons and let the soft gray pajama top fall open. “But I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to do all of that with.”
“What else do you want to do with me?” he asks, his voice thick and raw. His eyes follow my movements as I wiggle out of my top. And then, he asks, “What is all this?”
“A little goodbye present,” I say. “I’m going to be gone at least a week, and I wanted to make sure you had something to remember me by.”
“Take off those pants,” he growls. “I want to burn the image of all of you in all of that onto my brain forever.”
I climb off the bed and let the pajama pants fall to the floor, then I turn around and give him a view of the outfit I bought today. A sheer black bustier encases my breasts in lace, delicate red roses embroidered over my nipples. A matching thong and garters barely cover my lower half, and since the tiny Star Falls mall was sold out of black thigh-high hose, I’m wearing bright-red fishnets.
“It’s the best I could do on short notice,” I tell him, spinning in a circle to show off the backside and the front.
“For fuck’s sake, Willow.” Benny practically lunges out of bed and pounces on me. His mouth, hot and breathless, immediately clamps down on my hip. “I want to taste every inch of you in this getup.”
His fingers trail over the teeny-tiny fabric of the thong. Then his hands are everywhere, stroking my thighs, touching the fishnets, kissing and nibbling, grazing and licking until my knees go weak and I have to lie down on the bed.
“Ass to me,” he demands.
He doesn’t have to ask twice. I lift my ass in the air, and he reaches around my waist to tug the thong off. “We don’t need this. Everything else is fucking perfect.”
Somehow, after a lot of maneuvering and laughter, he gets the thong past the garters, and I’m bare to him, kneeling with my ass in the air while he licks my pussy from behind. He licks me in long, slow strokes, sucking my lips lightly into his mouth.My arms go weak, and my eyes flutter shut as I give in to the pleasure, the all-consuming bliss that is his mouth on my most sensitive parts.
But I don’t want this to end too soon, so I turn around and motion for him to lose the pajama pants. He does and then sits back on the bed, his back to the pillows. I kneel with my legs wide open over his ankles and slowly inch my way up his body. I sit in his lap, carefully positioning his massive hard-on between us but far away from my needy pussy. I want to ride him, want him deep inside me. But not yet.
