His head tips lazily against the mirror, lashes half-lowered, eyes dragging over me to the point I shift. Then he gives a subtle shake of his head.
"Humph." Not my problem. He can go to hell.
I turn back, faking normal while the elevator seals us shut, and watch the floor numbers climb.
Will I apologize? No. That ship sailed. I'm pissed, and he deserves to know it.
The mirror catches my attention and I glance up just as Ben takes a step forward toward me. Only one, but it's enough.
Suddenly, he's behind me, and my bones forget how to hold me upright, every vertebra wanting to tip back into him.
Instead, I force myself to stand still, focusing on my beautiful shoes.Forget he's here. Forget him.
Ben takes another step, his heat right at my back, and my eyes flick up to his reflection, instantly widening at what I see.
His head is dropping to the bare line of my neck, his breath skimming me before his jaw brushes my skin, from my shoulder to my ear—slowly, deliberately.
I close my eyes and wonder if he's going to bite me again.
Crazy as I am, I wouldn't stop him. I'm even subtly tilting my head to give him access.
Instead, his fingers sift into my hair, and the brooch bites at my skin when he catches the clasp. A low tut escapes him.
"Your hair's too pretty to hide," he says, and snaps it loose.
My hair spills down, a silken waterfall brushing over my shoulders.
Ben exhales, eyes closing like he's inhaling some drug he's been dying to taste again, and his voice comes out low enough to shiver along my skin. "You always smell like strawberries."
Then he smiles wolfishly. "Bet you taste like them too."
"Stop it," I manage, my breath shredded, but my body is locked.
"You think telling me to stop makes me want to?" He runs his hand through my hair, then pauses, searching my face. "Say you don't feel it, and I will."
His thumb presses at the front of my tensed throat, making me swallow and my chest starts heaving.
"It doesn't matter if I feel it," I mutter.
"It does to me. That's the problem," he says. "I can't switch it off like you can. Not after our kiss. It's still in my head. Every night. Every morning. Mid-stitching patients. And I know it's in yours too."
His hand trails down my throat, my chest, my navel, before those two long fingers land on my thigh and start tapping, tap, tap, tap, each touch landing closer to my center.
"Ben..." I barely breathe, shivers running all over my body. "What are you doing?"
Oh god.His fingertips graze the lace of my underwear, brushing where I'm already throbbing for him, and he breathes in my ear: "What did you call us?"
"What?" I can't think. Can't breathe. Not when he's teasing me so close to the place I swore I'd never let him near again.
His eyes lock on mine in the mirror, clearly daring me:You can have more. Earn it.
I catch the glint of his watch as if it's permitting me to do something reckless.
No, Emma... Don't complicate your life. Don't let him steer it.
But what do you do when someone makes you feel alive? When your lungs inhale life again because their breath grazes your neck like it owns you?
Sometimes I wonder if I tore myself open, would the wound glow with all the nights I spent wanting him?
