Ben: Bye, Sera.
He was right of course, I was smiling. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. I finished my glass of wine and climbed out the bath. I walked onto my patio with my towel wrapped around me. It was beautiful and warm here and I still had two hours before I needed to be up there for drinks. I set my alarm clock and lay on the lounger outside and closed my eyes. Only the sounds of nature filled the air. No hooting horns or cars or downstairs neighbors getting into arguments. Just crickets and birds and the distant call of a baboon.
For the second time that day I was being woken up by the sound of Ben’s voice. I vaguely opened my eyes and realized it was now dark and I was still wrapped in my towel and lying outside on the patio lounger.
“Come, let’s get you into bed.” Suddenly I felt weightless as Ben lifted me up and carried me inside all the way to the bed.
“I need to get ready for dinner,” I whispered in a half-asleep way. I was in that strange state where you teeter somewhere between sleep and consciousness and feeling like you’re not entirely tuned into reality and the world around you.
“That was hours ago.” Ben lowered me to the bed.
“Really?” I clutched my pillow and curled up my legs. “I think I pressed the snooze button.” I grabbed another pillow and pulled it towards me, feeling something loosen around me. A cold breeze caught the side of my body and I realized that my towel must have opened.
“This is damp, you can’t sleep in it.”
And then I realized that it wasn’t magically coming off by itself, Ben was pulling it off me and replacing it with the fluffy duvet as he went. He reached over me and pushed some of the scatter cushions away. For a moment his whole body leaned over mine and I’m not really sure what I was thinking, I don’t think I was thinking in the state I was currently in, but I rolled onto my back and pulled his face down towards mine.
I laced my fingers through his hair and held his face mere millimeters from mine. My eyes were closed, and I took a deep breath, savoring his smell and closeness and then pulled him in closer and kissed him.
“Fuck, Sera,” he whispered against my mouth as I pulled him even more. He had nowhere else to go but climb onto the bed and kneel over me. I continued to kiss him; it was warm and soft and slow. It was the perfect combination of a million different things that had blended together in my strange, dreamlike state. And I didn’t want it to ever end.
I finally untangled my lips from the kiss and pulled away ever so slightly, not because I wanted to stop kissing him, but because I wanted to look at him. The room was dark but a small beam of moonlight was rushing through the window, and in this position, the silver light clipped the side of his face, illuminating him just enough to make out the sexy, ghostly curve of his features. I took him all in, God he was beautiful.
“It should be illegal to look like you do,” I whispered.
“I could say the same about you.”
I shook my head.
“You’re so wrong about that,” he said emphatically, “trust me.”
Even though I wasn’t entirely sure I believed him, it still felt good to hear. I pulled his face down again for another kiss. This time it was a short one. I stopped and rolled back over onto my side and pulled the blanket and pillow towards me.
“Goodnight, Ben.” I closed my eyes and fell back into a deep sleep with a smile on my face.
33. Dreamy Blue Eyes, Big Thighs
I sat up in bed the next morning with a fright as the phone next to me rang. I grabbed it and answered in a sleepy voice, “Hello.”
It was an automated wakeup call which caused me to shoot up onto my feet. It took me a moment to recall the night before; the bath, the sleeping outside the . . .Ben!Ben was definitely part of that recollection and so was kissing him! I had kissed him. Shit! What the hell had I been thinking?
I grabbed some clothes and put them on, rushing out to the reception area where I’d seen the breakfast tables set up the day before. I couldn’t believe I’d missed dinner last night, what was everyone going to think of me? I was mortified, I’d have to tell them that I’d slept through it. I raced down the little wooden walkways that connected the rooms and jumped in fright, as a monkey flew past me.
“Shit!”
And then another one shot across the walkway, running clumsily as it held a candy bar in its hand. Someone must have left their window open, I thought as I stopped and looked to see if any others were coming. But the path was clear and I raced back up the creaky wooden slats to the breakfast area.
When I got to the table everyone was there, including Ben. The model was not, she was probably staying away from solids. I looked around quickly trying to determine where to sit, but all the seats were taken.
“Hey, how do you feel?” Becks turned and asked me.
“Um . . .?”
“I told them about the plane sickness,” Ben jumped in. He stood up and pulled a chair from a nearby table and placed it next to his. It was a tight squeeze.
“Plane sickness?” I asked.
“Like car sickness, but with planes,” he replied, gesturing for me to sit.
