Of course he didn’t, because I wasn’t making sense. But that was okay, because I was going to. I took a long, slow breath, then said what I’d been too afraid to let past my lips.
“I love you.”
There it was. Just three words. So simple, yet they carried so much. The journey we’d had so far, the journey we would have again. Hopes and dreams and fears all wrapped up in one succinct passage. Sometimes, a monologue wasn’t needed.
Sometimes the truth was enough.
I reached up to caress Ben’s face, intending to tell him that he didn’t have to say it back if he wasn’t ready, but my fingers barely touched his cheek when he answered.
“I love you, too.”
And I believed him.
Our confessions hung in the air, bold and unfettered, finally free to be exactly what they were. And then we kissed.
It was like all our other kisses and yet so much more at the same time. There was heat. There was desire. But there was also an openness that was entirely new. We’d overcome so much to be healthy enough to have something so beautiful, and I knew in the deepest parts of my soul that I would never let it go.
“I fucking love you,” Ben nearly growled when we broke the kiss to give my heart time to catch up with what was happening. And somehow, it sounded even better the second time around.
“I fucking love you too. And I always will.”
A rumble issued from his chest louder than I’d ever heard before, and suddenly we were standing up. Well,hewas standing up, and I was being carried in his arms like I weighed nothing. Which I supposed I did to him. I let out a happy little yelp. Ben shot me a grin that looked like he wanted to eat me.
Actually, that statement was probably more accurate than I realized.
Ben carried me to the bedroom, setting me on the giant, fancy bed. It reminded me so much of the first time we slept together, especially when he knelt between my legs.
Before dinner, I’d changed into a loose pair of pajama shorts and an oversized shirt I’d stolen from Ben—as was a girlfriend’s right—and Ben’s hands were already pulling my bottoms down.
“I need you,” he murmured before kissing me again.
I whimpered against his lips as I gripped him with all I had. Ilovedwhen Ben got possessive or borderline feral. It always felt like he was trusting me with something he shared with so few. “I need younow.”
“You’ve got me,” I practically chanted. “Now and forever, I’m right here and I always will be.”
The groan that escaped him went right down to my pussy. I was already soaking wet, but that wouldn’t be enough for Ben. No matter how much of a rush I was in, he always made sure I was warmed up enough to take him.
I was getting better at being able to handle his girth, but it still wasn’t exactlyeasy.Thank God, my brain was distinctly wired to like the pleasure-pain of being stretchedalmostpast capacity. Just another way we fit perfectly together, like two puzzle pieces that had taken an extra bit of time to find each other.
Ben claimed my lips again, his hands moving onto my underwear. Once I was free of that, his fingers slid against me, and he physically shivered at what he found there.
“Do you know how crazy it made me, smelling how much you wanted me, but holding off?” he rumbled in what I’d learned was his alpha-voice. While it didn’t have the same effect on me that it would on a shifter, my body still responded to it, and a wave of intense desire washed over me.
“Do you know how crazy it made me to want you this much?” I shot back, surprised at my own eloquence. More often than not, once I got to a certain threshold of turned-on, my brain got a bit too floaty and overwhelmed to form coherent sentences.
He chuckled, a dark and wanton sound, then pressed my legs wider, exposing me to him. A blush crept up my cheeks, but I didn’t close them. I wanted him to see exactly how much my body needed him, craved him, and Idefinitelywanted him to do something about it.
Which he did. Oh, he absolutely did. With one last kiss to my lips, he moved down my body, pulling the shirt over my head and tossing it to the side as he blazed a feather-light trail of affection down my chest, to my stomach, and then to my thighs.
His hands stroked up and down as he did, his fingers digging in occasionally to switch things up enough to keep everything fresh.
There was no acclimating him, no ever getting used to his ministrations.
I gripped his hair, but he caught my wrists and pinned them to the bed at either side of me. I shouldn’t have been so thrilled by being constrained like that, but I was long past denying that I had some deeper kinks that needed exploring, so I let myself enjoy the spike of excitement.
“Be good now,” he said, giving me a look that probably would have made me melt if I got any hotter. Thankfully, the cabin had air conditioning. “Lean back onto your elbows, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. It had started as a tease, nothing serious, but it had become a bit of a habit. I liked that it was playful enough to be cheeky, but also let Ben know that I was completely okay with him taking charge.
