‘I can’t,’ I whisper. Not because it wouldn’t be right but because of where it might lead.This is Melody’s little brother, my mind intones. Yep, absolutely. Melody’s little brother justhanging outin my kitchen.
‘ ’Course you can. We’re both adults. And clearly, you like to watch.’ Heat blooms in my cheeks, and I find myself biting my lip. ‘You do like to watch, don’t you, Nell?’ he coaxes softly. I swallow and shake my head, not trusting myself to speak. ‘What if I told you I like being watched?’ That bloom of heat in my cheeks spreads quite suddenly to every corner of me as my heart begins beating wildly in my chest. ‘Turn around, Nell,’ he taunts softly. ‘Don’t run away.’
It’s not his childish provocation that prompts me to turn slowly, but the way he uses my name. No one has ever called me Nell before. I’m not even sure I’m keen on the shortening, but I do know that I like how he uses it. Like it’s a secret between us, this endearment. Like I can be someone else to him.
But still, it seems I can’t quite find the stirrups to help me down from my high horse. ‘You can’t do that, Ben. You can’t stay here and expect me to put up with your teasing, like... like we’re kids again.’
My delivery is half-hearted as I concentrate on keeping my eyes on his and nothing else of his. And while concentration is all well and good, it’s not a foolproof plan. My gaze dips, drawn by the rise and fall of his broad chest.Dear Lord, the front is as gorgeous as the rear view. Deltoids, biceps, pectoral muscles—every single golden one of them I want to touch. I imagine myself trailing my hands down their smooth expanse, over the ridges of his stomach, farther to the downy hair that disappears beneath the chequered kitchen towel he appears to have grabbed. It takes me several moments to determine whether I’m disappointed or relieved when I find he’s covered himself. Either way, I realise my mouth has been open the whole time. Please don’t let me be drooling.
‘Only, we’re not kids anymore, are we?’ The husky tone of his voice sends shivers shimmering across my skin, turning my nipples to hard points beneath the worn cotton of my scrubs.
‘Stop, Ben. Just . . . just don’t do that.’
‘You’ll have to be more specific.’ With his sharp diction, it almost sounds like a command.
‘Don’t get cocky with me,’ I retort.
‘There was a Freudian slip if I ever heard one.’
I suddenly want to lick that smirk off his face. Yeah, lick, not smack. Lick it slowly, backward and forward, like a delicious lolly.
‘You can’t keep doing this. What happened to nice Ben? Where did he go?’
‘I can be nice, Nell. Like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘You’ve barely been here a week, and already, you’re affecting my blood pressure as it is.’ God, I sound like a scold. And old, dried-up scold.
‘You affect more than my blood pressure,’ I think he says to the ceiling. As he lowers his head, he looks resigned. ‘I was doing laundry, and that’s it. You were the one perving.’
‘I’d been grocery shopping,’ I answer, drawing the words out as though I’m speaking to an imbecile. Why do I sound like I’m twelve?
‘You definitely got more than you bargained for,’ he replies with a smirk.
‘I sure did.’ My retort is very uncomplimentary. And disingenuous because,hello, hottie alert!
‘You didn’t clear your throat or make a fuss. You were as quiet as a mouse as you watched.’ I open my mouth to protest, to tell him he’s wrong, but I can’t. Because he’s not wrong at all. ‘Admit it, Nell. I saw your reflection in the window.’
‘I... I. ..’ Want the floor to open and swallow me whole.Busted. So busted. I was staring, and it was wrong. Yes, it was also wrong for him to expect privacy in a kitchen—the heart of any home—but more the careless kind of wrong, not the moral kind. Like stumbling in on someone getting undress without announcing your presence.Oh my God. I’m perverted.
‘Good job I like being watched.’
Out of the thousand things I would ordinarily say, a thousand responses more typical of me, I find myself taking a chance. Treading a different path. A path that’s sure to leave me a little bruised and broken but one I can’t resist.
Chapter 8
BEN
‘W-what else do you like?’
Not in a month of Sundays could I have anticipated her answer. But as Granny Catherine used to say, you may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
‘I like it... rough.’ A jolt of something pure and exhilarating sweeps through my insides as, from the other side of the kitchen, Nell’s gaze flares.
‘What kind of rough?’ she asks, her voice a little ragged around the edges.
I swallow deeply, trying to keep my mind on this moment and away from the familiar images in my head.Where she’s under me. Where her nails are scoring the skin of my back, my mouth on her breast.She asked, so I’ll tell her, even if I only imagine her doing those things.
‘I like to be bitten. Scratched. I’d like to hold you down.’ Tease and torture you until your throat is hoarse from calling my name. My eyes travel over her face and down the elegant column of her neck.I bet her skin would taste so sweet there.I can feel myself stiffening under the tea-towel I’d pressed haphazardly to my groin in deference to her modesty, and there’s fuck all I can do about it. Truthfully, I want her to see. I’d shock her onto her knees if I could.
