Page 3 of All My Love
3
Elizabeth
I’m sittingon the bench overlooking the river, and I should be more upset than I am. Two hours in a new city - thebestcity - and already I’ve screwed up. My phone beeps and I look down to see a text fromBen.
I’ll be there in just a minute, Liz. Sittight.
I hear the rustling from some trees and look to my right, and that’s when I see Ben striding towardme.
He always has this funny way of making me lose my breath, lose my train of thought, lose myself, and it’s always taken me a little while to recover. The last time I saw him it was a bittersweet goodbye: I was moving back to school, he was moving to a different school half-way around the globe, and when he left I only allowed a few tears to squeeze out of the corners of my eyes when I was falling asleep thatnight.
I stand up as he gets closer to me. He’s wearing slim-fitting grey slacks, a white button-down and a dark gray windbreaker jacket. And as he gets closer, I can see the details a little better, too. His hair, always dark and wavy, is a little longer now, and his cut jaw is peppered with a five-o-clock shadow. His piercing blue eyes are trained on me, and for a moment I feel my knees waver. I bring my purse up higher on my shoulder to try to distract my thoughts of my fingers cruising through his darkhair.
“Liz,” he says with a half-smile, bending toward me to give me a kiss on the cheek and a palm on the small of my back, “you changed yourhair.”
My once-long and loose waves have been cropped to a bob. I did it for this trip. A new haircut for a new continent. I brush it behind my ears and smile up athim.
“Thanks.”
“I wish you’d told me earlier that you’d behere.”
He’s right. I should have told him. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Fate has forced myhand.
His scent brings me right back to that day, that last time I saw him. He smells dark and a little mysterious, and the scent travels from my nostrils right into my belly. I don’t know why he does this to me, but here weare.
“I know, I should have called you,” I reply with a little smile. The smile on his face grows, showing off his thick, sexy lips, the dimples that I can still see through the slight scruff of his beard. I’ve almost forgotten what he’s doing here, and for a moment think he’s just run into me byaccident.
“Okay, first things first,” he says, guiding me to sit down on the bench. “You’re gonna want to call your credit card company, put a freeze on the card. Where was the last place you remember havingit?”
“I think at this cafe where I got my lunch,” I say, holding up the bagged croissant. “Do you think I should call themfirst?”
“Good idea,” he tells me. He checks the bag for the name of the cafe and looks up the contact information on his phone, calls them up to ask if anyone’s found a credit card. I watch his lips pull into a line and that’s when I know they don’t haveit.
“No luck,” he tells me. “It’s okay, let’s call up the credit card companynext.”
He sits with me while I call them, providing me with a source of quiet comfort. Just having him around is reassuring in the way having an old friend around and just sitting together at a cafe drinking coffee and not even talking can be one of the most fun and intimate things in theworld.
“Now that we have that settled,” I say as I turn to him, “the bank said if I brought ID with me to the local branch they could let me withdraw some cash from my account without mycard.”
“You’re going to need a credit card on file for the hotel,” he remindsme.
“Oh.” I feel myself deflate. “I could check into one of those hostel things. Those are safe, aren’tthey?”
Ben chuckles beside me. “Yes, but I don’t want you doing that, and there’s no need. Come home withme.”
The words flow over me like smooth caramel, warm and decadent, and the mere suggestion of staying in Ben’s house sends my panties dampening. I know being in the same room with him, alone, is a dangerous game, and one that I don’t think I’m equipped to play. He’s way out of my league in every way, and I don’t know what he would do to me if he knew about the feelings I have forhim.
“No, I couldn’t impose,” I reply, shaking my head. My hair shimmies against my shoulders, everything a little bit heightened since Ben suggested I stay withhim.
“It’s not an imposition,” he says, “and I insist. You would be more than welcome to stay with me. Hell, you’d be doing me a favor if you stayed with me. I have an extra bedroom and no one’s ever slept in it. It’sdepressing.”
“Well,” I chew my bottom lip as he stands up and puts his hand out for me. I put my hand into his and his fingers wrap softy around mine, sending a flare of warmth through me. If he only knew what he did to me, he might not be sonice.
“Come on,” he nudges me further, “let’s go. You’re going to make me late for my next class. I’ll give you my keys and you’ll go to my place and keep it warm for me. Soundgood?”
“Okay,” I reply with a nod of my head. “Soundsgood.”
Sounds better than good, infact.
