Page 74 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
Dinner at Hótel Búðir is easily the best meal I have in Iceland. We dine on rib eyes with mushroom sauce and truffle fries, a bottle of white wine, and raspberry crème brûlée for dessert. By the time we finish, I’m warm and full and tipsy, and Ben insists on paying for dinner instead of charging it to theAround the Globecredit card since it’s our first date.
The things this man does to me, it’s as if hewantsme to jump him here in the middle of the restaurant.
After we finish with dinner, Ben runs upstairs to grab his gray wool coat and my teal one, then we take a long drive without anyparticular destination in mind, pulling over into an empty gravel lot when we spot some trails leading down to the rugged coastline. Ben doesn’t bring his camera along, and I squeeze his hand a little tighter in mine, knowing that for both of us, tonight is about living in the moment with each other.
We walk slow since I’m in a dress and heels, but that doesn’t matter, I want to soak in every second of this time. We come to a stop when the matted grass beneath our feet turns into golden sand, my heeled boots unable to go any farther.
“What do you think your family will say when they find out about us?” Ben wraps his arms around my shoulders as we stare out at the edge of the horizon, the sun dipping low over the choppy gray ocean.
I consider his question for a moment. The truth is, I have no idea how they’ll react to the news of Ben and me together. “Well, I’ve never brought a guy home before, so I’m not entirely sure.”
“Never?”
I shake my head. “Nope. But I think that has more to do with my family than with the men I’ve dated.”
“What do you mean?”
I lean back against the warmth of Ben’s chest as I think of the best way to phrase what I’m thinking. “You know how my family is. How my brothers are. Chaotic. Wild. Loud. I’m more of a background character, you know? They are the stars, not me. Between Marcus and Mason and my dad, there’s not a lot of room left to shine. And that’s okay.” I pause for another beat. “But I don’t really need that put on display for someone I’m interested in. If that makes sense.”
Turning me to face him, Ben slides his arms into the front ofmy coat, forearms snaking around my waist. “I never knew you felt that way.”
The thing I love most about Ben in this moment is that he doesn’t try to offer a different perspective or talk me out of my feelings. He was best friends with my brothers for our entire childhood, but he doesn’t mention a single word in regard to them. Instead, he presses his forehead to mine, and simply says, “I’m sorry.”
Suddenly, I don’t want to waste another second talking about my family or work or anything really. These are my last hours in Iceland with him, and I don’t want to talk, I want tofeel.
I rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him urgently, twining my fingers in the soft hair above his nape and pulling him backward with me as I part my lips.
“Let me take you back to the hotel,” he whispers against my mouth as we stumble over uneven ground.
“No. Too far away.”
Footing regained, Ben pulls back and searches my eyes, but I’m too aroused for debate. I step forward and kiss up the column of his throat, bite his earlobe between my teeth, slide my hand over his erection. He drops his forehead onto my shoulder. “Someone could see us out here.”
“I don’t care,” I answer like the depraved woman he turns me into.
He lifts his head, searching for a solution while I suck on his neck and work my palm over him. “Here…” He walks me backward, hands gripping my waist. “At least…”
When I briefly pull my mouth off him, I see we’re shielded from view of the trails by a grassy sand dune. Not absoluteprotection, but with it quickly getting darker out, it should suffice. Grasping my hips, Ben maneuvers me up against the sandy hill. Then he drops to his knees and pushes my dress up my thighs.
“You’ll get your pants dirty,” I say in ragged breaths, but he peers up at me with brows knitted together as if asking,Really?
His fingers inch underneath my hemline, and the cool air hits all myplacesas he slides my underwear down my legs. I step out of them, and Ben tucks the silky garment into his coat pocket. He kisses up my inner thigh, and when the warmth of his mouth settles over me, all my weight sinks against the damp, salty earth at my back. The piercing breeze and the heat of Ben’s tongue working between my legs makes for an arousing, delicious contrast, and I can’t get enough.
It’s a goddamn shame having a gorgeous man go down on me up against a sand dune on the Icelandic coast won’t make the article. That’d be the realcan’t missfor our readership.
Another crisp breeze blows across my cheek, and I shiver. “So good,” I say, twisting his hair between my fingers. Ben responds by groaning his want, the vibrations between my legs casting me closer to the precipice. He wraps a hand around my calf and settles my leg over his shoulder.
And fuck…
That angle…
This view…
I fall apart in seconds, biting my lips together to muffle any sounds that threaten to escape. Ben eases into featherlight strokes of his tongue as he brings me through the aftershocks of my orgasm, fading to open-mouth kisses before he rises to his feet.
“That was…” Breathless and mind-numbingly satisfied, I don’t finish my own sentence.
Ben slides my dress back down my hips before taking my hand. “I’m taking you back to the hotel. Now.”
