Page 11 of Sugar Baby Mine

I turn toward the man,Ben, and can’t help but stare. There wasn’t a thought in my mind to Google him prior to this. I’m sure I could have found something on him, pictures of him, his fucking model portrait, a porn site,something.

He has a short, dark beard, but I can still make out the chiseled shape of his jaw. There’s the barest hint of silver scattered through the waves of hair pushed back off his forehead. Faint creases are etched in the skin around his eyes, which are a rich dark brown and currently gliding down my body and back up again.

It makes me stand just a little straighter.

But he’s insanely attractive. Why didn’t Cora tell me that? All she said was that he was a DILF. The same could be said of my friend Tabitha’s dad, but I wouldn’t think about him like I do the man in front of me.

Like I want his head between my thighs.

My heart rate kicks into a whole other gear when Ben stands. He’s half a head taller than me, even in my heels. I love a good height difference.

“Emme.” He reaches out a hand toward me, and I scramble to take and shake it. “Thanks for meeting me tonight.”

He pulls me in closer, just a step, with his grasp firm and comforting. I’m close enough to smell a hint of cologne on his skin, like balmy cedar and citrus. There’s a waft of cinnamon on his breath that makes my mouth water.

His voice drops lower. “Or would you prefer I call you Emmeline?”

I blink up at him, my lips parting as I find myself a little breathless. “No”—why is my tongue so fucking dry?—“Emme is just fine. People usually only use my full name when I’m in trouble.”

Ben’s lips turn up in the corner and he releases my hand with his fingers skimming my wrist, surely feeling my pulse jump beneath his fingers.

“Noted.”

My skin tingles, and I just stand there like an idiot as he gestures to my chair before pulling it out for me. I remember I’m supposed to sit. In the chair. Like a human being.

“Sorry,” I say at the same time as he says, “Please, sit.”

My cheeks burn. I’m not sure anyone has ever pulled a seat out for me before. Normally it takes a lot for me to blush, but this one little thing is doing it for me right now.

Somehow I manage to pull it together enough to step forwardand sit as he pushes my chair forward. I thank him as he returns to his seat, slinging my purse over the back of the chair.

When he settles back down, he picks up the menu and gestures to mine laying in front of me. “Have you ever been here before?” he asks.

“No,” I say as I glance over the delicate paper pages that look freshly printed on the daily. “Can’t say I have.”

“Cora mentioned you don’t go out much.”

“Oh, did she?” My palms begin to sweat. Even if not entirely untrue, it makes me uncertain of his perception of me. This relationship would be a certain percentage ofgoing out.

Ben shrugs like it’s nothing. “She drags Fred all over town. Every time I talk to him outside of work, they’re going somewhere or doing something.” He turns a page, sliding his index finger slowly down the page before dragging his gaze up to look at me. “I enjoy a night out, but I like to stay in, too.”

I blink.

He stares.

His mouth dips down into a frown, and no, no I don’t like that very much at all.

“Are you uncomfortable being here?”With me?is the part he’s left out.

My eyebrows raise, but I realize my hands are clenched tight into fists, nails cutting into my palms. I didn’t evenfeelit past the raised scars from doing it so often in the past. My throat’s closing in on the word vomit that I fucking hate—

“Areyouuncomfortable? Cora said you’ve never done this before either. Yet you’re sitting over there, oh so calm and collected, looking like sin in a suit—which, gray is, like, really working for you, by the way.” His eyebrows raise into the scattered strands of silver as I motion up and down his body. “But I’ve been freaking out about this meeting for the last three days.”

His gaze is even more intense now, fixed on me like I might bolt if he does so much as blink. He might be right.

“Do you want to leave?” he asks. My heart nearly leaps into my throat.

“With you?”

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