“Watching me?”
“For about three months.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the first time I saw you was when my brother was performing.” He gave a tiny smile as he looked like he was remembering, “You were with JJ and Bruce and the three of you didn’t stop laughing the whole night. I think you guys were actually meant to be ‘in disguise.’” He gestured inverted commas with a smile. “But who wears oversized shades in a nightclub, right? You guys stuck out like sore thumbs.” He laughed at the memory. “And I thought, I’d really like to get to know that girl. The girl with the amazing smile and contagious laughter that had me captivated all night.”
Okay. Pause.Were we still role-playing here? Had I told him about the night we’d gone out to spy on his brother? I wasn’t sure.
“Tell me more,” I prodded.
Ben moved in closer, bringing his lips all the way up to mine. He didn’t kiss me, though; instead, he gently and very softly moved them over mine.
“Then, two weeks later, I saw you at another party. Seems we’re both on the same gay club circuit.” He shot me a knowing look and I smiled back at him. “You looked so damn sexy that night, and I wanted to speak to you so badly, but I was too nervous. So I just sat in the corner and watched you.” He smiled his devastating smile at me. “God, you looked so confident and happy, and did I mention sexy? Fuck, you looked beautiful that night.”
I bit my lip a little trying to remember the night he was referring to. “Do you remember what I was wearing?”
“Perfectly. That tight, black pencil skirt that drives me mad and your little corporate white-collar shirt that makes you look like a schoolteacher. And then JJ pulled your shirt out and tied it in that knot in your waist.”
“I remember that.” JJ hated it when I went out in my work clothes.
“And then he pulled out your ponytail, ruffled your hair and in that exact moment all my school-boy/ librarian fantasies came true. I tried to come over and talk to you but . . . so I basically went to bed fantasizing about what it would be like to be with you and kicking myself for not having spoken to you.”
My heart started beating faster and faster as it was quickly becoming clear that he was no longer role-playing. This was real.
“Why didn’t I see you?”
“I told you, I sat in the back . . . and then I asked someone who you were. And of course everyone knows JJ and Bruce. That’s how I knew your name.”
Ben kissed me. “Sera,” he said, then pulled away and looked me in the eyes before going in for another small kiss. “Sera,” he said again, then went in for a deeper kiss. A long, deep kiss. God, he tasted so good, I wanted to eat him.
“Did you see me again?” I asked, reeling from the kiss he’d just given me.
He nodded. “Seems you and the guys like to go dancing.” His hand crept onto my thigh and he kissed me behind my ear. “It was the most ridiculous dancing I’d ever seen.”
An image flashed through my mind and I knew which night he was referring to. “We were doing our Gangnam Style impersonation,” I said, but the words came out breathy. Ben had slipped his hand in between my thighs and pushed them open.
“You looked so happy, but then . . .” He stopped half way through the sentence and I knew why. I remembered what had happened next.
“You took out your phone and your whole face changed. Suddenly you looked like the saddest girl in the entire world and I wanted to know why. And I wanted to run across the room and hold you. In that moment, it felt like you were showing me this other side of yourself, this vulnerable, private side. A side that you didn’t show people, that you keep safely tucked away, like me. But I’d seen it. And I felt like I knew you. I can’t explain it any other way, but from that moment I just knew I wanted you.”
My breath caught in my throat. That was just one of the many nights that my sister had phoned me. I didn’t remember the specifics, but it was something to the effect of dad, gambling, money, stealing, maybe even a hooker.
“That night I decided that, if I saw you again, I was going to talk to you, and ask you out.”
“Wow.” It was true, everything he’d said. And finally it explained the way he’d looked at me in the car that night, as if he’d known me. It also explained why he’d been so persistent, so early on. Ben had been watching me from the dark shadows of the nightclub. He’d been fantasizing about me. It was just about the fucking sexiest thing that anyone had ever said to me in my entire life—slightly pervy . . . very sexy.
I pushed Ben down on the bed and climbed on top of him, suddenly driven by overwhelming lust. The idea that I’d been watched and fantasized about made me feel so sexy and uninhibited. I pulled my top off over my head and threw it across the room next to Ben’s shirt. My bra soon followed.
“Ben,” I said as I leaned down, our naked chests pressing into each other, “Are you going to keep your promise now?”
“And what promise would that be?”
I kissed his neck and breathed into his ear, “That you’re going to make love to me all fucking night.”
62. The Cunning Hand Of Fate . . .
Ben smiled at me. Languid. Slow. Sexy, and all for me. “I always keep my promises,” he said. “But not like this.”
