The Stillness Of You (4 page)

And promptly
came into contact with something warm and hard and very male.

My first
thought was, holy shit Ben Lancaster felt great.

My second
thought was that he smelled amazing, like mint and pine rolled
together.

My third
thought was that I hoped he was wearing something more than the
boxers I’d seen him in earlier. Because I was pretty sure that Ben
and me and his boxers wasn’t exactly what my brother had in mind
when he’d left an hour ago.

“Sorry.” His
breath was warm at my neck and, wait, was that his hand on my hip?
“I didn’t mean to crowd you.”

I was
willing to bet he wasn’t sorry at all and I was fine with
that.

He had
morning voice—that husky tone somewhere between sleep and awake. It
had been a long time since I’d been anywhere near morning voice. It
had been a long time since I’d been anywhere near a warm body, and
I closed my eyes, willing time to stop for just a few moments. The
sensation was that freaking amazing.

But then
reality hit. I thought of Matt and gave myself a mental smack down.
He’d only been gone for just over an hour and already I was
fantasizing about how awesome his hockey player felt pressed up
against my butt.

I needed to
shut that shit down right away.

I
sidestepped and took a peek. Track pants. Okay, this was
good.

“You just back
in from a run?”

“
Yep.” I
tossed the empty carton into the garbage under the sink and turned
around so that I could see him properly.

Holy
fuck. Ben Lancaster was something to behold in the morning. The
shadows on his jaw and chin were much more pronounced than the
evening before. I liked that. I liked stubble on a guy. His hair
waved crazily and his hooded eyes were sexy as a slow grin spread
across his mouth.

He was
bare-chested, but then again, if I was a guy and I looked like that
I wouldn’t be covering up either. And he was cut, but not overly
beefed up like some of the guys I’d seen and the tattoo on his left
bicep was yummy. I had a weakness for long hair and tattoos and it
wasn’t fair to find all of that right here in my
kitchen.

Not when it
belonged to someone I’d been warned away from.

I was grateful
he still wore boxers, because his track pants hung way too low on
his hips and if not for the boxers I was sure I’d be staring at
more than I should be staring at.

I exhaled and
looked down.

His feet
were bare. Shit. There was something about a guy in bare feet that
I adored. I don’t have a fetish or anything but still, I found it
hot. Could I not find something crappy about him? A wart? An extra
appendage like a finger or a toe? A third nipple?

His eyes were
as dark as melted chocolate and at the moment they were focused on
me with an intensity that told me a few things.

It told
me he was interested. It told me that Ben wasn’t afraid of my
brother and his warnings and the over protective posturing he’d
pulled the night before.

Perversely, I liked that. It meant he wasn’t a wimp. It
meant that he was the kind of guy who took what he wanted and if I
was reading the signals correctly, at this exact moment in time he
wanted me.

Except he
didn’t know the real me. The one who existed behind the medication.
Behind the diagnosis.

The one
who was bipolar. The slut. The train wreck. The one who was damaged
goods.

I took a
step back. I was pretty sure if he knew all my dirty little secrets
he’d run the other way. Not that I would blame him, hell, it’s what
I would do. Life was complicated enough without adding someone like
me into the mix.

His eyes
slowly moved from mine, downward. I knew my T-shirt was damp and I
knew that it clung to my breasts. I also knew that my nipples were
now pebbled and hard and that they were the reason his grin widened
ever so slightly.

“
Lancaster,” I said clearly. “Above the chest,
okay?”

He took his
time, but eventually honored my request.

“I’m going to
take a shower and then we’ll have a look at the properties on your
list. If we can, we’ll get to all of them today.”

“Sounds good,”
he answered.

I moved away
and was halfway down the hall when he said, so softly that I nearly
missed it, “Let me know if you need help in there.”

“
I’m a
big girl, Ben. I can handle it.”

He just
laughed, but his laughter followed me all the way into the shower
and not even the hot spray could wipe away his morning voice. Or
his sexy eyes.

Or those damn
boxers.

Ben

Georgia
King was different from any girl I had ever met.
We’d spent most of the day together and I
still couldn’t figure out what it was that made her special, and
after I while I stopped thinking about it. What was the
point?

She just
was.

She was
smart and she made me laugh. She liked the San Francisco Giants,
hated American Idol (though she admitted to a weird crush on Simon
and was glad he’d left for X-factor), and was a big fan of Georges
St. Pierre the UFC fighter. Most girls I knew had no idea who that
guy was and I was impressed.

And she
was gorgeous. The eyes, the long hair, the petite and graceful
body. Hell, she stood beside me in line waiting for an ice-cream
and I felt like a fucking giant.

I kinda liked
that.

Somewhere
between the property we just looked at, and the last one on our
list, we stopped for ice cream at a little hole-in-the-wall kind of
place just off the road. A hole-in-the-wall yes, but it was
obviously well known. The lineup was impressive, but Georgia wanted
a chocolate-chunk-peanut butter cone and I wasn’t about to deny her
the pleasure.

Besides,
what was sexier than a girl with an ice-cream cone between her
lips?

“
So, do
you go to college?” I was curious and thought of her paintings. “Do
you study art?” I wanted to know more than just her likes and
dislikes. I wanted to know what made her tick. I wanted to know why
the faces hidden in her abstract paintings were sad. Actually, they
were kind of creepy with their abnormally large eyes and mouths
that hung open as if they were frozen in a perpetual
scream.

I knew it was
art, but still…

I wanted
to know why she was living with her brother when clearly, it was a
new thing. Was it a bad break up? Had some guy broken her heart? Or
had she done the honors?

She
deflected with a question of her own and it wasn’t until we were
back in my rental that I realized she’d never answered me. She
cranked the tunes as we headed to our last drive-by, a place in
Haddonfield, New Jersey and I wasn’t able to ask her anything
more.

The house
wasn’t as rural as I was hoping for but it was on nearly four acres
of land and the listing said at 1.5 million it was a bargain. Built
in the 1930’s it had been empty for a year or so and the property
needed some work.

As soon
as I saw it, I knew it was for me.

Set back among
a stand of trees, it was Colonial brick with a detached four car
garage and even though it had a general look of abandonment, I saw
the potential.

Slowly I
drove up the long, meandering driveway and parked the truck, my
eyes on the house, already taking stock of what needed to be done.
The roof and windows needed to be replaced immediately, that was a
no brainer and as Georgia and I walked up the pathway that led to
the front door, I realized the landscaping was going to be a major
undertaking as well.

“
Shit,” I
murmured, already half in love. My palms itched and I couldn’t wipe
the grin off my face as I stood back and surveyed the large house.
I glanced at the listing in my hands. Six bedrooms, four
fireplaces, five bathrooms, and two kitchens. It was a family home.
A place to set down roots and I wanted it.

I was
twenty-four, single and loaded. I’m sure a lot of my buddies
expected me to look for a place similar to Matt’s, but that wasn’t
what I wanted. It wasn’t me. In Los Angeles I’d shared an apartment
with one of the other rookies for year and had spent my last two in
a condo near the beach. The view was cool, but I hated being cooped
up with no room to roam.

I guess
it was because at heart I was my father’s boy. I’d grown up on a
farm outside of Toronto. I was used to space and I was used to
physical labor. I wasn’t bred for a life of clubs and getting my
workout in a gym. When I wasn’t playing hockey on the pond out
behind our barn, or playing the game indoors at the local arena, I
was helping out with chores around our farm.

One of the best
summers of my life had been spent helping my dad restore an old
cottage on our property. We’d finished it for his mom—my
grandmother—so she could come and live with us after my
grandfather’s death.

We worked
every day to get it finished in time and I learned a hell of a lot
about carpentry. About drywall and tiling and using a
hammer.

I liked to fix
things.

“Wow,” Georgia
said softly and I glanced down at her.

I liked her
.

“
Yeah,” I
answered, grabbing her hand.
“Let’s take a look out back.”

The feel
of her small hand in mine kinda twisted my gut strangely. She was
soft and pliant and totally feminine. She looked like winter but
smelled like rain.

Okay, I knew I
needed to stop with that poet fucking shit, but I couldn’t help
it.

Where had this
girl come from?

The
property out back was just as bad as the front, but again, the
potential was amazing. There was an interlocking patio that ran the
length of the home but with weeds sprouting everywhere I was
thinking the entire thing would have to be replaced. A long
abandoned pool sat empty and it was old—concrete—and would have to
be replaced. The pool house was hardly visible by the bushes that
surrounded it. A black iron fence enclosed the space and beyond,
overgrown grass that would have to be re-sodded, stretched for
several hundred feet. The perimeter was lined with birch from the
looks of it and oak, maybe?

“Look.” Georgia
nodded toward an overgrown path that cut through the mess out back
and disappeared between the trees.

We picked our
way through the tall grass and though she’d taken her hand from
mine, I swear I still felt the heat of her on my skin.

She was
wearing a soft blue tank top and the thin pink straps underneath
kept drawing my eyes. Cut off jean shorts showed off trim, runner’s
legs, and even though they were respectable—at least an inch or two
below her butt—on Georgia, they looked sexy as hell.

On her
feet were plain blue flip flops but she could be wearing a big ass
pair of high tops for all it mattered. Her ankles were incredibly
feminine, delicate even, and I found myself wondering what it would
feel like to run my fingers along the indents working my way up her
calves and then….

I exhaled
a shaky breath because once again, just thinking about the girl’s
fucking ankles had me horny as hell, and that in and of itself was
weird because I was an ass man through and through. What the hell
was up with that?

“Oh, Ben,
look.”

I
was
looking. I was
looking at her.

She’d
undone her hair from the loose knot thing at the back of her neck,
and it spilled over her shoulders like wet ink. Her skin was creamy
white, and unlike most of the girls I knew, it hadn’t been sprayed
with that fake shit that half the time looked orange. She turned
back to me and the smile on her face was nearly too
much.

It was pure. It
was sweet.

And at the
moment it was all for me.

She was
unlike anything I’d experienced before. And that wasn’t because I’d
never been around pure and sweet before. Heck, my first serious
girlfriend, Joanna, a figure skater, was sweet and it took nearly
six months before I made it to second base.

I never
did make it to third and that wasn’t for lack of trying. At the
time I thought I was in love with her and that she’d wait for me
and as soon as I made it to the big leagues I’d marry
her.

Of course
that never happened. I moved away to play Junior A hockey and then
went to University in Ohio on a hockey scholarship, while she
finally let the local Pastor’s son make it all the way to home
plate. Last I heard they got married right out of high school and
she was happily pumping out a pack of kids.

Joanna had been
pure and she had been sweet, but she hadn’t been for me.

But this one
here, this girl with the exotic eyes, she was something special and
the fact that she had no idea made her even hotter.

“Isn’t it
awesome?”

“
Yeah,” I
answered, my feet suddenly blocks of concrete as I came to a full
stop and just took a moment to take all of her in. The sun was
starting to set in the distance and standing there in a beam of
light, she was on fire. My blood was boiling and the need to touch
her again was something fierce.

“What?” she
said slowly, a slight frown between her eyebrows.

I found
my feet again and took the last few steps that brought me to within
a couple inches of her. That summer scent, the one that lived in
her hair and on her skin, was in the air