took no delight in the other man’s anger or pain, but knowing he felt anything at all boded well for Alex. “Oh, Ben … you were never any good at hiding your emotions.”
“I’ve changed. You’d know that if you hadn’t run off to Kent with your blushing bride.”
“Ben—”
“What did you expect?” Ben snapped. “That I would have spent the past three years sobbing into my brandy and wishing to have back what was lost?”
“Of course not.”
“Then you hoped to be welcomed back into my life as if you didn’t betray me?”
“That isn’t it, either.”
Ben had begun advancing on him throughout their exchange, and Alex soon found himself hauled forward by his waistcoat. Longing heated his belly as he was snatched closer to Ben … so close Alex could smell the cold night air and light hint of the sweat glistening on his neck. The scents tangled with his signature Bay Rum and the clean whiff of starched linen. Slumbering desires roared to life within Alex in a powerful surge.
“I knew you wouldn’t have forgiven me,” Alex managed, fighting a losing battle against the urges melting his resolve. “But I had hoped we might talk. You don’t even have to listen to me. You can berate me and call me every horrible name you can think of, and I will sit and listen. I just … when I had settled my affairs in Kent, I found myself wandering around this cold, empty house, and … I had to come. Even knowing you hate me, even realizing I have no right to intrude on your life.”
Ben’s fist tightened around his waistcoat as he closed his eyes and issued a harsh sigh. Were it any other person manhandling Alex this way, he would have fought back, perhaps berating the offending party for ruining the starched perfection of such fine silk. However, this wasn’t just anyone; this was Ben, and he could do anything to Alex he wanted if only to bestow the touch of his hand—whether harsh or gentle.
“Say it,” Ben demanded, yanking Alex closer until they were nearly nose-to-nose. “Tell me why you’ve come.”
Alex gripped Ben’s hand, holding it tighter against his chest, desperate for closeness of any sort. His heart lodged itself within his throat as he held Ben’s gaze, feeling as if he stood on the edge of a steep precipice. One false move and he would fall to a slow and agonizing death, mourning what never was.
He could bear it no longer. Ben was here before him, whole and warm and real—not just some figment of his imagination, haunting his dreams and waking him in a feverish sweat.
Their lips brushed, and Alex trembled, suspended somewhere between the past and the present, and yearning as he never had. “I came for you,” he whispered just before he pressed his lips against Ben’s, tentative and questioning.
Alex was sent reeling when Ben slammed both palms against his chest, his lower back meeting the edge of the heavy, oak desk. Bracing his hands on the thick wood, he waited for Ben to make the next move—to either cast him out bodily or … or, what? Ben had no reason to let Alex kiss him, no reason to trust him after what he’d done. Alex’s heart sank with the realization that he had gone too far, as Ben swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. It was too soon for such intimacies, with broken promises and shattered dreams scattered at their feet like shards of glass.
But then, Ben was on him faster than Alex could blink, pushing him tighter against the desk and caging him with powerful arms. His kiss was harsh and punishing, unrelenting and forceful. Alex’s skin erupted with sensation, his entire body enlivened by the nearness and taste of Ben. Pure joy swept through him, as the past converged on the present moment. A tortured groan echoed in the cavern of Ben’s chest, vibrating through Alex from the outside in. A night’s worth of stubble abraded Alex’s skin, bringing so many memories flooding through his mind. He used to tease Ben about his facial hair and how hopeless it was for him to shave when a dark blond shadow always made an appearance by the end of the day. His gut clenched at the memory of what that stubble felt like against his neck, his chest, his thigh.
Cupping Ben’s jaw, Alex returned the fiery kiss with years’ worth of suppressed desire, dipping his tongue between parted lips. The taste