Page 99 of Lacey's Fight

“I knew in the hospital that I felt something more than attraction for you. It terrified me. I’d almost lost you once, how could I let you in knowing next time I might not find you? That I might lose you too? But as scared as I was, I also felt … hope for the first time in years. The first thing I did when I got home was go to the house Jemima and I had shared. I never lived in it again after her death. I didn’t want to go back there but it was the only way.”

“The only way to what?” she whispered.

“To have you in my life. So, I went there, I found a way to make peace with what happened so I could move forward. Then I went and apologized to my family and my team. They put up with a lot from me these last few years. After that I came here.”

“To me?”

“To you,” he confirmed. Lifting his hand he cupped her cheek, caressing her soft skin. “To my bright, bubbly sunflower, who shined the light back into my life.”

Her gaze dropped to her lap. “Ben, I … I can’t … I’m not … I don’t want to be just a light in the dark to you. I’ve done a lot of soul-searching these last few days and I … I have a problem with pretending everything is okay when it’s not. Pretending I’m okay when I’m not. Of smiling even when I don’t feel like it so nobody knows I’m struggling. I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to keep painting bright colors over the black on my soul, I want to get rid of the black so the colors feel real. I don’t want to shut people out because I feel dirty and unworthy.”

Resting his forehead against hers, Ben tightened his hold on her. “I’m not with you because I want you to be my light. I came because I want you. All of you. The good and the bad. The dirty little secrets as well as the cheerfulness you share with everyone. I don’t want to hide myself from you and I don’t want you to hide from me. When I touch you, I feel peace. When I kiss you, I feel happiness. When I make love to you, I feel complete. I’m here because I care, because I want to be, because I want a future with you. I’m not offering a marriage proposal. We don’t know each other well enough for that yet, but I want to get to know you. I want to date, take you out, show you off, and learn everything there is to know about you. I want to build a future with you. Is … is that what you want?” Never before had he felt as vulnerable and as raw as he did asking that question.

Instead of giving the answer he longed for—or the answer he dreaded—Lacey blurted out something that felt incredibly random.

“I don’t let men take charge when we have sex like you did in England.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

August 21st

3:40 P.M.

The look on Ben’s face would have been comical if she hadn’t felt utterly mortified.

When his expression morphed from confused to crestfallen, Lacey shoved aside her embarrassment and forged on. She’d come this far, she could make her final confession.

“What I meant is, I need control during sex. After what The Master—Merv—did to me, making me come even though I didn’t want to, I need to know that everything that happens is because it’s what I want and not what someone else wants.”

“I’m sorry. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have taken over.”

“I know.” Because she wanted him to truly understand what she was trying to tell him, Lacey shifted, swinging a leg over his thighs and moving so she was straddling them.

“What are you—?”

“Ben, I liked it. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t let men take charge in the bedroom, I don’t want them submissive, but I want us to be equal partners, equal participants. I don’t put my hands on the wall and leave them there while a man touches me because it makes me feel like sex is being done to me rather than with me. I didn’t feel that way with you because you’re different.”

A smile slowly curled up the corners of his mouth and his hands moved to cup her backside, kneading. “Different, huh? I’m thinking that’s a good thing.”

“A very good thing,” she corrected. Framing his face, Lacey feathered her fingertips across his forehead. “I trust you, Ben. In a way I haven’t with any other man. When you turned me down, I told myself it was no big deal but it was. I can’t explain it, I just knew from the moment we met that you were special somehow. I shouldn’t have offered you no-strings sex because even though I did it all the time, if I wasn’t lying to myself I would already have known I couldn’t do it with you.”

Lacey paused, she didn’t want to make Ben feel bad. After all he’d faced his demons for her, come to apologize and ask her for a chance, and helped save her life. But he had been open and honest, and she had made a promise to herself that there would be no more hiding.

So she forged on. “In the bathroom after you found me in the basement, when you turned me down, I needed sex to feel in control again. The Master messed with my head all over again even after I’d told myself I was done with him controlling me. I thought I needed to orgasm of my own free will to feel better.”

A pained groan rumbled through him. “I’m sorry, sunflower, I should have said yes. I thought it would be taking advantage and I was already developing feelings. I didn’t want to be that guy to you. If I’d known why you needed it, I would have said yes.”

Leaning forward she touched her forehead to his like he’d done earlier. “You were right. It would have been taking advantage. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I would have been using you. I’m glad we don’t have that between us. At every turn you’ve given me what I didn’t even know I needed. These last few days I kept wondering why you didn’t come if you’d already come to California for me. But I needed this time to get my head on straight, to begin sorting out what I need and what I want. To be ready for this,” she said, brushing her lips across his.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” The last few nights she had ached for his touch, and each time he didn’t come, didn’t call or text, she doubted everything she’d been told about Ben and how he’d acted while she was missing.

If he wanted her, why didn’t he come?

But now he was here, and they’d talked, and there was nothing standing between them anymore.

They weren’t standing in their own way anymore.

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