Ben took the whiskey bottle from his hand. “Come on in. I think I need to talk more than ever now.”
Chapter Four
Ben sat down opposite Smoke at the little table on the balcony and took a slug of the whiskey he’d just poured.
“Dare I ask what’s going on with you tonight?”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Ask away. Maybe you can help me figure out the answer.”
“Okay. What the hell is going on with you tonight? I came down to the restaurant earlier thinking we could hang out for a while before you finished work and came to drink whiskey with me. Instead of finding you working your ass off like you usually are, lo and behold you’re sitting having a cozy dinner with Angel, and holding her hand no less.”
Ben shook his head rapidly. “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a cozy dinner, it was a working dinner.”
“And you weren’t holding her hand?”
He sighed. “She was holding my hand, and I was so surprised that I didn’t stop her.”
Smoke pursed his lips and nodded. “Okay, so—even if I buy that—I decide to sit out on the deck and listen to the band, thinking you’ve forgotten all about me and I’ll catch you later, and what do I see, but you bringing her back here.”
“To give her some keys. That was all.”
Smoke raised an eyebrow.
“Okay. That was all I wanted to do.”
“But that wasn’t all that happened?”
Ben nodded. “She asked if I wanted to get into something casual with her while I wait for Charlotte.”
Smoke frowned.
“And … she kissed me.”
Smoke laughed. “She kissed you? Like you couldn’t fend her off? Couldn’t stop her?”
Ben sighed. “She took me by surprise and I … I …”
“You what?”
Ben closed his eyes, remembering the way his arms had closed around her and pulled her to him, remembering the way she’d felt pushed up against him. “I held her. And I liked it! And then I kicked her out!”
“Wow.” Smoke sat back and took a drink.
“Say something more than wow! Tell me what you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s what you think that’s important. How do you feel about it now?”
Ben shrugged. “Confused as hell? I think my body reacted out of, I don’t know, like muscle memory or something. When a woman steps into your arms, you close them around her, right?”
Smoke looked skeptical.
“Don’t look at me like that. You do. Any man would, before his brain had chance to kick in, right?”
Smoke set his glass down on the table. “I don’t know about that, Ben. See, if you like a woman, then you react that way, but if you don’t …”
“No! It’s not about liking her or being interested in her. It’s just instinctive reaction. You’d do the same. I bet you would.”
Smoke pursed his lips and shook his head. “No. I was put in a similar situation.” His face clouded over. “By Laura’s friend Leanne. I almost knocked her over trying to get away from her. I didn’t want her anywhere near me.” He met Ben’s gaze. “I didn’t want her near me, because I knew—one hundred percent without a doubt knew—that I was in love with Laura and never wanted another woman again.”
