‘I’d have to leave – for good. I can’t …’Can’t fight her anymore? Can’t deprive myself?He didn’t know what to say, so only repeated, ‘I can’t.’
Mav released a long-winded sigh. ‘As much as it weirds me out, I’m also surprised you lasted this long. She’s always had a thing for you …’
Benji didn’t play coy. Sierra had been hounding him for longer than was appropriate given that he was five years older than her. And God knew he’d resisted her every step of the way. And it had been hard, ferociously so.
‘I don’t need to warn you with all those clichés about breaking her heart, right?’ Mav continued.
‘No,’ Benji affirmed. ‘I’ll be careful with her, Mav. I won’t ever hurt her.’ And because he meant it, Benji promised himself right then and there that he would become the type of man that Sierra Hunt would be proud to have. One day, she’d look at him and she wouldn’t see the white trash kid she’d grown up with. She’d see a man who’d made something of himself – for her.
‘Okay.’ Mav sighed. ‘I guess I should be grateful I don’t have to get up at four a.m. tomorrow.’
Benji exhaled deeply. ‘Yeah, I’ve got it. I’ve got her.’
And Mav replied, ‘I know you do. For what it’s worth, I’m glad it’s you. Oh, and Benji?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I appreciate you calling and letting me know, but you probably shouldn’t tell Sierra that part.’
‘Yeah,’ Benji sighed. ‘Probably not.’
To Sierra’s extreme frustration, Benji barely spoke during the forty-five-minute drive from the ranch to Santa Barbara Airport. As the sun began rising, casting blue light over the fields and hills, he sat in patient silence, listening to her ramble about school at NYU, her friends, and her course load for the semester. He nodded occasionally, asked a question from time to time, but otherwise kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the road, so that by the time they took their exit, she was confused and – worse – angry.
Yesterday, when he’d told her he’d be driving her, Sierra had let herself think he might be close to breaking point, and she’d been so excited. How many times had she shamelessly flirted with him, trying to get a reaction out of him? How many times had she deliberately pissed him off, hoping that he’d do something –anything– in a rage that he wouldn’t do in that perpetually cool, calm mood he walked around in. How many times had she dressed with him in mind, choosing clothes she didn’t even like all that much just so that he’d look her way?
Countless.
Sierra didn’t see herself as desperate or manipulative. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and who was prepared to work through trial and error for it. And she wanted Benjamin Matthews. She had for a long time.
She knew, in that way that women did, that he wanted her too. Hadn’t she felt that long, lazy gaze on hersomany times, typically when he thought she wasn’t paying attention? Hadn’t she seen the heat lash through that very same gaze each time she pushed him a little too far?
But now, as they pulled into the airport parking lot, she began to doubt herself, just as she had yesterday. Maybe she’d been wrong? Maybe after the kiss, he’d only wanted to drive her to tell her he wasn’t interested. That would be just like Benji.
Mortified by the thought, she reached for the door handle. ‘You could have dropped me in the front,’ she said, hating that her anger leached into her tone when she’d wanted to sound cool and unaffected.
‘Sierra—’
She was out of the truck before he could explain, heaving her huge suitcase from the truck bed before he’d even opened his door. But while she slung her backpack over her shoulder and whipped her suitcase handle out from its recessed position, Benji calmly, slowly, walked around the vehicle to her. And while she would have stormed past him without a word, he stepped into her path, stopping her.
‘You don’t have to say it,’ she said, angling her face away so that he wouldn’t see her sadness and the glisten of frustrated, self-pitying tears.
‘Say what?’
‘It’s not you, it’s me.’
Irritatingly, he only countered with, ‘I wasn’t planning on it.’
She snuck a glance at him then. He stood a full three feet away, his hands on his hips, his green eyes searching her face. That slow pull of need rolled through her, but this time it didn’t excite her. It made her angry. It irritated her. ‘What doyou want, Benji?’
He raised one hand to rub at the scruff covering his face. She hadn’t been expecting an honest reply, so when he said, ‘I think it’s pretty obvious I want you, Si,’ she could only stare. ‘You’re beautiful and smart and funny. Wanting you isn’t just easy,’ he continued. ‘It’s unavoidable.’
Her heart softened. ‘So? What the hell is the problem?’
Benji took a step towards her then. Reaching out, he pried her cold hand off the suitcase handle. He gently kissed each of her fingers before tugging her forward and into the warmth of his open jacket. He sighed deeply, as if just having her close was enough. ‘I will always want you. But you’reeighteen fucking years old. You need to go back to school. You need to have fun, date, go to parties without someone back home weighing you down. Just be young and foolish for a while. Because when you come home, that’s it.’ He exhaled a huge breath. ‘Do you understand what I’m telling you?’
She closed her eyes as her mind and body warred. Even though his rejection stung, and her pride made her want to pull away, she was so safe and warm, so thrilled by the promise he’d finally given her. And she couldn’t bear to let him go just yet. Instead, she inhaled his scent and slid her hands beneath his T-shirt, touching his bare skin as an adult for the first time. He was hard with muscle, his skin hot beneath her fingers.
Benji became very still, and hoping to distract him enough so that he didn’t pull away, Sierra said, ‘I hate that you’re rejecting me.’
