Page 39 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
These suites open directly to the parking lot, and dressed in only a thin T-shirt and loose pajama shorts, the frigid night air isa refreshing shock to my clammy skin, despite my full-body shivers.
“Come on. Let’s get inside.” Ben walks me backward into my room while I refuse to let go, sticking to him like a refrigerator magnet. He takes my phone from my hand and lights the way as he closes the door and maneuvers us farther into the room until we reach my bed. Then he tosses the phone onto the comforter with the beam shining toward the ceiling, providing us a small circle of low light. “See? You’re okay.” His hands spread wide over the middle of my back, holding me close. “The power outage probably won’t last long.”
I pull back enough to look up at him. “Thank you for coming.”
The corner of his mouth lifts, his eyes soft. “Of course.”
His grip loosens as he likely expects me to let go of him now, but I don’t. Instead, I give in to the overwhelming urge to rest my forehead in the space where his neck meets his shoulder. As soon as I do, his forearms are around me again, squeezing me tight. We stand that way for a long moment, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest soothing me better than any lullaby.
Awareness creeps in as my fear slowly abates, and I distinctly feel where every soft curve of my body presses against the taut muscles of Ben’s abs and chest. Adrenaline surges through my bloodstream, but for an entirely different reason now. My pulse throbs in places it shouldn’t.
“This is embarrassing,” I say, but my voice doesn’t sound embarrassed at all. It sounds breathy and aroused. “I think this day was designed by the gods to showcase every fear and weakness I have.”
“Don’t be embarrassed.” Ben’s fingertips sink into my achymuscles, applying a delicious pressure as they slip lower down my back. “You witnessed my fear on the flight over.”
“Yeah, but that was one thing. This entire trip is kicking my ass.” Maybe it’s because it’s the middle of the night, in the dark, in a moment that feels more dream than reality. Or maybe it’s because I’m in Ben’s arms with my face hidden against his T-shirt. Whatever the reason, it’s all too easy to drop my guard and let the words flow. “I had a panic attack on top of a glacier. I cried literal tears because I thought you might fall into a ravine and be swept over a waterfall.” At this, his hands, now hovering on my hips, give a gentle squeeze. “And now, I’ve narrowly avoided my second panic attack of the day because I’m afraid of the goddamn dark.”
“Okay, so you had a panic attack,” Ben says, unfazed, hands on the move again as he trails the tips of his fingers up my rib cage. A slow shiver rolls from my shoulders to the base of my spine. I don’t know what game we’re playing here in the dark, but I do know that our words and our bodies are having two entirely different conversations. “But how many people get to say they had a panic attack on top of a glacier on top of a volcano?”
A soft burst of laughter takes me by surprise, slipping past my lips and getting absorbed into Ben’s shirt. I unclasp my hands at the base of his neck, allowing my fingers to slip into the soft hair above his nape and gently tug. Now it’s his turn to shiver.
“The important thing is that you aren’t letting your fears control you.” His breaths are labored, and I watch the movements of his throat as he swallows hard. “You’re out here doing it anyway. Do you know how brave you are for that?”
“I don’t feel brave,” I whisper, sliding the hand that isn’t buriedin his hair slowly down his chest and over his abs, reveling in the way each muscle contracts under my touch. He doesn’t stop me; I only stop myself when I reach the waistband of his sweatpants. “I feel like an impostor.”
“I think everyone feels like an impostor sometimes.”
Fingertips trail down the sides of my hips and my breath hitches.
All those years ago when things first started between us, it didn’t take long for me to discover that Ben Carter loves physical touch. Innocent touches like holding hands under the blanket, sitting close enough on the dock that our elbows grazed, or running my fingers through his hair when he’d lie with his head in my lap. Then later, not so innocent touches when he’d sneak between my sheets, those hands I loved so much on a mission to learn every part of me.
Now we’re two touch-starved adults on the verge of losing control. I’m pretty sure we already blew past the line where tomorrow we can pretend this was all just friendly, platonic behavior. And that thought is officially confirmed when his hands squeeze the back of my bare thighs,deliciously hard, and I can’t disguise the sharp inhale I pull through my clenched teeth.
“Too rough?” he whispers, lips grazing the shell of my ear in the only verbal acknowledgment of our physical actions.
I shake my head against his collarbone. “No, just give me a second.” Then I count five full Mississippis to get my breaths under control before I continue with our ruse of a conversation. “I’m not like you, Ben. You have this incredible gift, but I’m just ordinary.”
“Ems, you’ve never beenjust ordinaryto me.”
His words aren’t loud or emphatic. They’re simple. They’re honest. And they steal any remaining thoughts I had as I let them pour into me. Let them swirl through my chest and make my heart dance. Let them flow down into my belly and send my already-worked-up butterflies into a frenzy. Let them seep into me, bone-deep, because I know Ben Carter always means what he says.
“Ben.” His name comes out as a whisper, a plea. I lift my head away from his shoulder, our gazes finally colliding. His eyes—pools of colorless intensity in the dim light—pour over my face. He reaches up and cups my cheeks, his palms rough and warm and everything good.
He leans forward.
In that moment, I forget all the heartache he caused me. I forget my seventeen-year-old self crying on the bathroom floor while the shower drowned out the sound of my sobs. I forget that I was unable to eat or sleep for weeks. I forget the all-consuming worry of wondering if I’d ever see or hear from him again; the realization after days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months that the answer was an emphatic no.
The only memory I seem to recall as Ben tilts my head to the side, edging closer, is how he used to kiss me. How he always tasted of cinnamon, and how he held my face in his hands, just like he does now, gentle and reverent, like I’m a precious jewel he’s scared of breaking. How his lips were soft but confident, his mouth capable of transforming my body with a want I didn’t fully understand back then.
I wonder if kissing Ben now would be as good as it was then.
I’m terrified it might be better.
My eyes flicker to his mouth before falling closed, my heartbeat pulsing in my throat.
But instead of feeling the press of his lips against mine, there’s a low-pitched hum, and Ben’s hands promptly fall from my face. When I open my eyes, the room is softly illuminated by the bathroom light once again, the power outage over.
“Christ, Ems, I’m sorry.” Ben steps away from me and paces in front of the bed, burying his hands in the disheveled hair I twisted between my fingers moments ago. “I’m so sorry.”
