Page 56 of Home to Me

Lauren smiled. “You're prepared this time. Someone was confident.”

Ben laughed hoarsely. “Hopeful,” he corrected her.

With that, he thrust inside of her, holding himself still as he reached the apex of penetration, stroking her hair, kissing her, and Lauren felt her arousal stoking to ever-new heights.

When she thought that she could take it no longer, he began to move slowly, his pace and intensity escalating along with her, his arms strong behind her back, supporting her. She felt cherished, protected, taken care of—all of the things she had only felt with Ben and all of the things that she was finding out were, despite their innocent-seeming exteriors, some of the hottest aphrodisiacs in the world.

Lauren felt herself building towards a climax as Ben continued to increase the pace of his movements. Her cries and moans became louder and more insistent, and it didn't even enter her mind that they were in a thin-walled trailer in a compound full of their coworkers—she was too transported, too out of her head with ecstasy.

But, here again, Ben had her covered.

As her once gentle moans and whimpers of pleasure turned into cries of ecstasy, he covered her mouth with his, his kisses giving her the freedom to scream her heart out without being overheard.

Lauren’s insides quaked as she came, the most convulsively, powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced. She felt Ben's muscles tensing under her arms and the vibrations as he groaned in satisfaction at the same time, although he never took his mouth away from her own.

After the climax of their passion spent itself, the air cooled the sweat from their skin, and their fervor calmed into tranquil affection and gentle caresses, Ben started to move away from her.

Lauren looked at him and then extended her arms up to pull him back against her.

“Wait,” she whispered, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

She opened her mouth a few times before she was able to say what she wanted, because expressing need for or dependence on another person was very difficult for her to do.

Finally, summoning up all of the courage inside of her, she said in a soft, tremulous voice, “I'm not ready to feel you leave me yet.”

She could hear the smile in his voice as he wrapped his arms tighter around her and replied, “Baby, you'll never have to be.”

18

Ben noticed that Lauren was quiet on the drive back to Hope Falls, pensively watching the scenery unfold outside their window. He watched her beautiful face for the slightest sign that there might be trouble brewing below the placid exterior, but no. She just seemed lost in thought.

He’d learned by now that if Lauren was pissed off at him but pretending not to be, what he got was an elaborate production of her pretending to work. This was quite different from that.

He liked the fact that he was getting to know her so well. He wanted to know everything about her—her history, her likes and dislikes, her facial expressions, her moods, her quirks, her...everything.

He was all in.

Ben didn't know what the etiquette was for letting someone know that you had reached the emotional place in a relationship where you’re ready to take it to the next level—he’d never been there before. He assumed there was some kind of process to go through, some sort of standard method of indicating to the person that they were the only one that you wanted to spend time with, the only partner you were interested in having.

He’d heard people talk about the ‘DTR,’ the talk you have with the person you're dating where you ‘define the relationship’—thus the name. In the past, when Ben had thought about having the talk with anyone, it always made him shudder, and not with pleasure. No, the shudder it inspired in him was one of pure dread.

When he thought about sitting down on a couch or at a table with a woman he was dating and coming up with definitive descriptions of exactly what they meant to each other, exactly what their relationship consisted of, where their relationship was headed, and what the future held for them—well, it made him practically break out in hives.

The thought of a ‘relationship,’ in his mind, had signified the idea of being held down, like the phrase—‘the old ball and chain.’ Why would anyone voluntarily tie themselves down? The very idea of it spoke of a loss of freedom, a loss of privacy, a loss of...basically everything he valued in his personal life.

What no one ever explained to him was everything you gained when you committed yourself to a relationship with someone you felt so strongly about.

No one ever told him how the right woman could make you feel like you were able to conquer the world. No one ever told him how the right woman could make you feel like there were endless possibilities open and available to you. No one ever told him it wasn't a matter of tying yourself down because with the right woman, there was only one place in the world you’d ever want to be and only one person in the world you’d want to be there with.

The right woman.

That was the key.

He'd never met the right woman before. He used to laugh when his mother would gaze at him oh so wisely and say, “Oh, Benny. Don't you worry about trying to settle down. When you meet the right one, you won't have to try to want to settle down with her. It'll be all you can think about. You'll be racing her to the altar.”

He had honestly thought that she was crazy.

Until he met Lauren Harrison and everything he thought was true about the world, relationships, and his own heart was flipped on its head.

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