I looked Ben square in the eyes, even though my heart was pounding; even though the vivid blue of them, framed by his long lashes, was distracting. “I’m really,reallysorry for sleeping with Connor. Especially right before your final. It was the ultimate dick move, and I’ve regretted it ever since.”
To my surprise, Ben leaned forward and mussed my hair. “Thanks, Stoner. Really.” He settled on his back and snuggled beneath the covers.
I blew the hair out of my face. “Really? That’s it? I hand you this big, emotional apology and you rub my head like I’m a kid on your Little League team?”
Ben shrugged, closing his eyes. “You want me to make you grovel?”
I rolled on my other side, turning my back on him. “I don’t know,” I muttered. “Somethingto mark the milestone might be nice. Maybe a certificate that says ‘Lee Stone is officially forgiven and off the hook. And no longer, by any definition, a practitioner of messy bullshit.’”
A noise from behind had me glancing furtively over my shoulder. Ben’s eyes were still closed, but he waslaughing.
The nerve.
“Good night, Stoner,” he said, still laughing.
I stared evilly at the distant wall, listening to his breathing slow. After a few minutes, it became a steady, soothing sound.In, and out. In, and out.Ben at peace. I closed my eyes and started to drift.
Then it hit me, and I jerked awake.
Ben was only supposed to warm up under the covers for a minute. I turned—and sure enough, he was sleeping. In the same bed as me. Only inches away. Surely this violated every code in the Geneva convention.
I panicked and rolled to him. “Uh, Ben?” I placed a hand on his shoulder, shaking gently. “Benjamin?”
He mumbled something incoherent and tugged my arm.
“Ben,wake up,” I insisted. But he was sleepy and persistent, and suddenly, like it was a routine gesture, his fingers slid under my shirt, skimming my stomach, and he tugged me flush against his chest. With his arm encircling me, I was trapped, unless I wanted to yell in his ear to wake him, then banish him back to the cold couch.
Our bodies fit like a lock and key. I could feel the blood pumping under his skin, a delicate warmth, his heartbeat against my chest a slow but steady rhythm. This close to the source, his smell suffused the air, and I breathed deep. Woodsmoke and salt and a clean note from Ely’s soap. Underneath, the barest hint of Ben himself: his skin, and hair, and the musk from under his arms.
I went still, but it didn’t stop what was unfolding inside me. My heart beat faster, pumping blood to the tender place between my legs, to the surface of my skin, so it flushed and tingled, suddenly achingly sensitive to every centimeter where Ben and I touched. I pressed my legs together, but still, the feeling scythed through me.
All right. It had come to this. I would admit it. I wanted to fuck Ben Laderman.
I wanted him so much I felt like I would burst into flames in the middle of this bed, my ashes a sorry relic for Ely to clean up. I wanted him so bad that every inch of my body pressed against his felt like it was crackling with electricity, all the nerve endings sparking, almost painfully alive with the potential of what I could do if I just leaned closer and woke him.
I wanted his large, rough hand on my stomach to slide down, cupping me between my legs. I wanted to turn around and rotate my hips against him until I could feel him push, hard, with a soft groan, against the small of my back. I wanted to kiss him awake, arch against him until he ran his hot mouth, his stubbled jaw, down my neck. I wanted to bite his shoulders, feel the muscles flex under my teeth as he picked me up and straddled me across his hips. I wanted him to lean in close and whisper, voice hoarse,I tried but I couldn’t keep my hands off you. I’m going to make you beg for it, make you come so hard you forget the last five years ever happened.
I could do it. We were lying so close. The air was thick, charged with possibilities.
But—and this was the bucket of ice water to the face—I knew exactly why I wanted to do these things. It was because I wasn’t supposed to. Because Ben was my ex-boyfriend, my competition, and he wanted nothing to do with me, romantically speaking. He was in every way forbidden.
I had to ignore these feelings and stick to my original plan of simply besting Ben at work, putting a nice and tidy bow on the story of us, and going on my merry way, unbothered by his presence in the world. I needed to extricate myself from his arms or, at the very least, remain utterly still for the next eight hours. Force my eyes closed until I fell asleep. Then say nothing tomorrow, act like it didn’t happen, so as not to embarrass him.
I swallowed as Ben shifted and his thigh nudged my legs apart.
Come on, Stoner.Character growth.
14
A Rising Star
Governor Mane sat in his leather wingback chair and lifted Sunday’s edition of theAustin American-Statesman, giving it a vigorous shake. “Fucking brilliant, Lee. Go to Wayne’s best friend, the man he respects most, and get him to publicly call on the senator to endorse. It’s the perfect tactic for those old cowboys. Activate their honor and loyalty and all that shit. No surprise, Wayne ate it up.” The governor pointed at Ben. “We just came from a meeting. We’ve got his vote.”
“Excellent.” Dakota, seated on the governor’s antique couch, beamed at me. “Lee’s a political genius.”
I was practically soaring. In fact, I was close to needing to tether myself to the armchair I was sitting in to make sure I didn’t float right out the open window. It was surreal enough to be sitting in the Governor’s Mansion—when I got the call from Wendy that the governor had invited us here, I’d asked her twenty times if she was sure—but to be here, celebrating mywin? It was exactly like one of those daydreams I used to have in the middle of boring sales meetings.
Ely Gunther had been true to his word. He’d written a sparse but direct editorial urging his compatriots in Corsicare County to support a greener Texas, and then he’d directed a special plea to Senator Wayne, “the tireless champion of grand, old Texas,” to embrace the new and vote yes on the bill. My heart had swelled upon reading it. I’d actually gone out and found a physical copy of the newspaper, cut out the piece and stuck it to my refrigerator like I was a five-year-old with an A on a spelling test.
