Poppy giggled. Her teeth chattered. ‘It’s really cold, Sisi,’ she said, and turned those Hunt eyes on her aunt.
Sierra scooped the muddy five-year-old up immediately. ‘Okay. Let’s go get warm.’
Benji stayed. He started at his booted feet, hosing the caked mud off. He was so focused on his task that it took him a few seconds for him to register when Sierra called out to him.
He looked up.
She stood on the porch steps, Poppy in her arms. Even soaking wet, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And seeing her with Poppy – how natural she was – always hurt. It made him remember why he had wanted babies with her. ‘Yeah?’
‘Why don’t you use my shower?’
‘Thanks, Si.’ Benji tried to bank his smile. It was, after all, a completely reasonable suggestion, one she would have made to anyone covered in mud and standing in the cold outside. But to Benji, who had once lived in the ranch house with her, it was so much more. It was an invitation back inside, and maybe he shouldn’t read more into it than that – but he desperately wanted to.
He finished hosing off and climbed upstairs, making sure to stay on the path of towels someone had already laid down. He opened Sierra’s bedroom door tentatively, bracing himself for the memories, only … There were none.
She had taken their pictures down. The only one that remained was a framed photograph of Ava and James Hunt, which sat on her nightstand. The body pillow was there, but other than that, there were no reminders of them, of everything they had been through – including all the good times.
The room, with its white bed set, beige carpet, and eggshell curtains, was sterile. So unlike Sierra, who had always chosen dark, bold colours – deep reds and hunter greens and navy blues.
Benji wondered over it as he walked into her bathroom, turned on the shower, took off his clothes, and stepped under the scalding water.
He supposed, to an extent, he had done the same – eradicated any memories of that future they had prepared for and then never lived. But where he had boxed up Sierra’s pregnancy photos for fear of upsetting her, she had boxed up him.Them. Changing the verycoloursof her bedroom was another reminder of her runaway grief. Instead of facing it, instead of dealing with it, she had just painted over it, sterilized it. And not for the first time, Benji worried that she was a storm waiting to strike, and he hoped that he was strong enough to weather her.
He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear her come in. He jumped a little when her first shoe hit the floor with a wet slap. His heart lurched in his chest, but when Sierra started stripping her wet clothes, it broke into a full gallop.
‘Nina came in to help Poppy anyway,’ Sierra said distractedly as she lifted off her soaked sweatshirt with a loud squelch to reveal the black lacy bra from the night before. Her cold nipples were visible points beneath the muddy lace, and Benji’s mouth watered with the urge to lather them with his tongue until they were peaked with need instead. ‘It’s amazing watching them bond,’ she added, completely oblivious to his fevered lust.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed without taking his eyes off her. ‘It’s been great,’ he added distractedly.
He used his hand to swipe at the fog on the glass so that he could keep watching her. His body hardened with every piece of clothing that she removed, and by the time she opened the door and climbed in with him, not even her mud-streaked face or the quick slap of air she let into the shower was enough to cool his raging need.
Sierra shivered. ‘Holy crap, I’m freezing.’
Benji stepped out of the hot spray and pulled her under it instead. He nestled her back against his chest as he reached up to adjust the shower head so that the water covered her completely. Sierra hurriedly rinsed off, but with every movement, she squirmed against his erection, and when she angled her head over her shoulder to give him a saucy look, he dropped his lips to hers and kissed her gently.
Benji sank into the kiss. He brought his hands to her breasts and cupped them, skilfully but gently teasing her sensitive nipples until Sierra was making a humming sound in the back of her throat.
She ground her ass against him in small circles, whimpered his name, one long, ‘Benji,’ and it was that, his name on his woman’s lips, that had the thin rein he had on his control tugging tight – always.
He kept his left hand on her breast even as his right stroked down her side to her hip, and then to her slick heat. He slid his middle finger through her seam, groaned when he felt how hot, how ready, she was. ‘Fuck, Si. You’re so wet.’
Sierra purred her approval and pressed herself against his hand.
Benji didn’t ask what she wanted this time. He knew. He slid two fingers into her, and when she began to move her hips in small thrusts, he increased his pace, pumping in and out of her until she was panting loudly.
The hot water lashed at them, heating them though neither of them felt the cold anymore. Steam fogged the glass doors, enveloping them so that they may as well have been the only two people in the world.
Benji curled his fingers inside of her as his other hand cupped her breast, his fingers gently rolling over her nipple. ‘You’re so goddamn sexy, Sierra.’
‘Hmmm,’ she replied.
‘Watching you makes me so hard.’
She moaned at that.
‘Feeling how wet you are makes me want to eat you out.’
‘Benji. Oh, God.’
