Page 118 of Collision

Chapter twenty-nine

Ben

Sex with Mikaela will never grow old. Hearing her little high-pitch moan as I hold her close to me, feeling her wrapped around me - tightening around me - it’s everything.

I lay kisses down her neck, sucking and nipping as we move together. Her arms wrap around my shoulders as she rolls her hips, sinking over me again, and I pull my face back to look at her. Like this, face to face, her chest pressed against mine and our eyes locked, is the happiest I have been in a long time. Holding her, watching as her eyes cloud with bliss and she bites down on her lip, I move my hand to where we were connected and brush the pad of my thumb against that little spot that I know will detonate her. Enthralled, I watch as a warm blush spreads over her cheeks.

“Fuck,” she moans loudly, her head rolling back, her eyes closed.

“Look at me.” I sound desperate, strained, but I want to see it happen. I need to see her come undone for me.

Her smile is completely peaceful and her eyes are dancing forests of pleasure. I cup her face with my free hand as she moves slowly, lost in our connection, and my heart splinters.

I love her.

In this moment, in every moment I have ever shared with Mikaela Wilcox, there is one thing I can be sure of: my heart was, is, and always will be, irrevocably hers.

And I don’t care that she hasn’t said it back. I don’t care that when I said it she stammered through an awkward thank you until I put my hand over her mouth and rolled my eyes.

I love her.So fucking much.

I pull her towards me, my chest burning with the weight of it all, and I kiss her softly. I kiss her with adoration and worship and the undying need to hold her close, and as she kisses me she tightens around me and whimpers into my mouth. She comes undone with the words dancing at the tip of my tongue, and then it happens.

By the time we hear the keys it’s too late.

Mikaela rips away from me, pulling the throw from the couch up over herself just as he drops his bag to the floor. I grab my sweats from where they’ve been thrown, yanking them up and on without even thinking about what’s already been seen and step in front of her.

His eyes are glued to her - not me, not us,her- and his jaw is tight.

I’ve seen Jamie like this before - pain and anger rolling off of him - and a year later I know why. I know why heat poured from him at the same terrifying pace as icy pain. Why he ran from the bar and drove three hours out of state.Why she came home six months ago and ended up working for her brother a few months later. Why our paths crossed again.

Mik had called him.

For the first time in three years her number had lit up his phone screen and he bolted right to her side. I’d pieced together enough information to know it was when she had the accident, but the rage he’d held in that moment went unexplained for so long.

Except now I have an idea. And now that pain and anger isn’tforher, it’s directed at her, and I don’t know what to do.

“Jamie, it isn’t -”

“It isn’t what it looks like?” He spits his words at me, cutting me off as he glares past me to where Mikaela’s sitting, frozen like ice. “Really? Because it looks like you’refuckingmy little sister.”

I take a step forwards just as Mik reaches for me, her hand skimming along the base of my spine as I move out of her reach.

“Ben,” she whispers, almost as if warning me not to say anything.

“Jamie. I know what you’re thinking, I know what you think I’m like with girls, but it’s not like that. Okay? I’m not like that.” I keep my voice calm and measured and when his eyes snap to me, all that burning fire now aimed at me, I feel the pressure in my chest ease. “Mik and I, we’re-”

“Mik and I?” Jamie grunts taking another step back. The laugh that follows is acidic. “How long?”

“Jamie.” Her voice is small and afraid, and I feel sick.

“How fucking long, Ben?” Jamie shouts, his whole body lurching forwards. “How long has my best friend been screwing my little sister behind my back? Fucking hell.She’sthe girl? Fuck you, Ben.”

He shoves at my chest and I stumble slightly.

“Jamie, stop.” Mikaela’s standing now, the blanket wrapped tightly around her as she comes up behind me. “It’s not like that.” Her fingers wrap around mine as she pulls closer to me and Jamie watches us with incredulous eyes. “He - we - Jamie, I love him.”

My whole body is on fire. Those three little words slipped so quietly from her I’m not sure I heard her correctly.

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