Page 54 of Home to Me

She reached Ben's door and raised her hand to knock but was stopped momentarily by a roiling feeling in her gut. Damn. Why was her stomach so unsettled? Was it something she’d eaten? Could it be...butterflies? Nerves? Not possible. She didn't get them.

She shook her head. She wasn't going to stand here on the steps of his trailer door and analyze her feelings. She was doing this. If she puked on his shoes while she was doing it, well...he kind of deserved it. All the better.

Lauren knocked purposefully on the door. Ouch, she thought. Maybe that was a bit loud...

But she didn't even have time to stop and consider that, because mere seconds after she knocked, the door flew open, revealing Ben, standing in front of her, obviously having just gotten out of the shower. His chest gleamed with condensation, his hair mesmerizingly dripped small beads of water onto his shoulders, and he wore nothing at all except for a pair of black boxer briefs that looked like they’d been made just for his gorgeous body.

Lauren stood there, stunned, momentarily speechless by what she saw in front of her and the rush of hormones that it set off.

Ben smirked, a spark of lust glinting in his eye as well. “Enjoying the view?” he asked with an acerbic little smile.

This barb brought Lauren back to reality. Her anger flared again, and she roughly pushed her way past him into the trailer.

“You know what?” she said angrily, further infuriated by the blasé manner he adopted as he casually leaned against the counter with his arms crossed, while she stepped inside the trailer and shut the door behind her. “I don't appreciate being treated like a second-class citizen, like dirt on your shoe, like an irritation you have to deal with. I at least deserve to be treated with respect.”

His languidly cavalier smile as he watched her rant caused her stomach to drop. Damn it. She'd shown her hand by revealing her roiling emotions. Now he knew he held the power position. She never would’ve done this in a professional negotiation. Why was she losing her touch?

“Respect, huh?” he said sardonically. “I think I am treating you with respect.”

Lauren shook her head insistently. Just because he was now negotiating from a stronger position, it was no reason to abandon hers altogether.

“You are doing no such thing,” she said in a much more even tone. “And I would appreciate it if you would start.”

A slow smile crept across his face as he looked into her eyes and held her gaze.

“Well, sweetheart, if you only knew what I wanted to be doing right now and the restraint I'm showing because of the respect I have for you, you'd be impressed with the levels of both my respect and my willpower.”

Lauren was beginning to take particular note of the closeness of the trailer and the bareness of his skin. The combination of these two factors, when added to her already-raised ire, was causing the blood to pump through her veins hot and fast.

She stepped up to him, her cheeks flushed with both challenge and arousal. Honestly, she was having a hard time separating the two at this point.

“Is that supposed to be some sort of threat?” she asked in a low, steely voice.

He abandoned his casual pose leaning against the counter to take a step towards her as well, putting them mere millimeters apart. “Not a threat,” he murmured, “Just a fact.”

Lauren felt the complicated mix of anger and arousal that was flooding her system surge even further, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh, please,” she said with iron control. “If you've been treating me with kid gloves, take them off. I can handle whatever you dish out.”

Ben responded in a rasping growl, “I don't think so.”

Lauren smiled at him, feeling the upper hand returning. “I know so.”

The intensity of their connection was so overwhelming at that moment that Lauren found herself having a hard time holding on to consciousness.

“You sure about that?” he asked, and all of his insolence was gone. It was a sincere question.

She half-whispered, half-groaned, “Ye—”

Before the word even fully passed her lips, Ben crushed his mouth against hers, kissing her with desperation, as if he feared that he would never get another chance.

The urgency that was communicated between them ripped a cry from Lauren's throat, and she dug her fingernails into his back. She felt like she could barely breathe while, at the same time, feeling more alive, more suffused with life-giving air, than she could ever remember.

She couldn't believe that this kind of passion, this kind of reckless abandon, existed within her. She was controlled; many people had accused her of being cold. But in truth, she was just a type A, highly rational, highly organized, highly on-top-of-things individual.

Except when she was around Ben.

Then, it seemed, all bets were off.

She’d never experienced passion so powerful, so all-consuming, that she abandoned the idea of being in control, caring about what others would think of her, or considering what the consequences of her actions would be.

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