Twisted Love (Modern Romance #3) - Piper Lawson Page 0,56
get us drinks, and he waves me into one of the conference rooms.
I take a breath. Keeping up the cover story isn’t hard.
But alone with Ben’s senior partner?
I can do this, I decide.
“My wife was quite charmed by you,” Xavier begins.
“I enjoyed our dinner. And it was nice to work off the calories beforehand.”
He laughs. “I heard you took Ben away for the weekend.”
“We were at Martha’s Vineyard for a client of mine.”
“Ahh. Relaxing surroundings, excellent company. You know, I’ve been impressed by his commitment to you.”
The hairs on my neck lift. It’s an occupational hazard that I read too much subtext where there is none, but suddenly, I’m on guard.
“Ben’s always pursued what he wants with relentless focus,” I say carefully. “He won’t let anything get in his way.”
I trail off as Xavier’s attention shifts to the hall behind me. Ben fills the doorway, dress pants covering his strong legs and a dark blue sweater clinging to every muscle of his torso. The slightest bit of scruff follows his cut jaw, lighter than the dark hair falling across his forehead.
Bottomless eyes crinkle at the corners as Ben looks between us. “This is a surprise.”
“She came to visit you at work. You’re a lucky man.”
I follow Ben to his office. Once we’re inside, he says, “You’re gunning for extra credit, by having coffee with Xavier.”
“I was coming to see you. He found me first.”
Ben sits on the corner of his desk. “I thought you were busy today. Not that I’m not glad to see you, but I have to be on a conference call soon. If you’d given me a heads-up, we could’ve made plans.”
“This won’t take long.”
He gestures to the guest seat across from his desk. That feels too formal, so I cross to the windows that look out over the skyline.
“You got a text message with a photo of us from the Vineyard," I say.
"Yes."
“Lil sent it. There wasn’t an agenda behind it, or if there was, it wasn’t mine.”
Ben shifts off the desk and rounds to his chair, sinking into it with grace and confidence. “What would that agenda be?”
“She thinks we should be together.”
We study each other, the seconds ticking by with the dull thudding of my heart.
He doesn’t flinch.
“I don’t need a photo to tell me you’re beautiful,” he says at last. “That when you look at me as if I’m a god, I feel like one. But I liked it anyway.”
He has a conviction that wasn’t present on our way back from the Vineyard, and it sends a shot of adrenaline and desire through me.
“Sunday morning, you seemed as if you had reservations about what happened between us.”
“I had to get my head on straight about something,” he admits. “And now it is.”
Of course it is. My friend never languishes in indecision for long.
“I want you,” Ben says. “I've been arguing with the fact that I want you. I hate arguing with the inevitable. I’m done. We said we’d pretend for the month. Let’s go all in.”
“All in,” I echo.
“We’re already acting like we can’t keep our hands off each other. Seems the joke’s on us.”
“You want sex.” I need to clarify, because it sounds as if he’s talking about something bigger than I expected, something I hadn’t let myself hope for.
“I want you. Yes, I want to fuck you.” A shiver runs through me, all the way to my toes. His wolfish smile tells me he knows it. “All I do is draw borders around things in my life. It’s always been easy, but when it comes to you… it’s harder than I imagined.”
But he’s still trying to draw boundaries around it, even after admitting he can’t.
I know it, even if he doesn’t, because I know him.
“At my lunch meeting,” he goes on, “the only thing I could think about was getting out of there so I could jerk off. While I signed the bill, I was picturing you on your knees.”
Every muscle in me liquefies.
His words are thrilling, not least because he’s saying them to me. Not Vi, not some other woman.
If he can put boundaries on this, maybe I can too. Not stop myself for caring for him—I wouldn’t want to if I could—but keep myself from being ruled by my feelings.
My relationship with Ben has always meant a lot to me, and the possibility it could change, deepen into real intimacy, makes me ache.
I cross to Ben, perching on the corner of the desk spot he vacated.