Truly (New York Trilogy #1) (27 page)

It was difficult to avoid listening in. The apartment was small, and she was talking about him.

“His last name is Hausman,” she said. “No.” Pause. “No.” Long pause. “
No!
Jeez, Allie, how dumb do you think I am?” Pause. “Yes.” Pause. “Well, yes, but it’s not—”

And then she stopped for a second, broke into a huge grin, and threw her head back and laughed.

He had to look at something else. The sight of May laughing gave him wood, and it didn’t help that he had a strong suspicion she was talking to her sister about having sex with him.

He’d heard her
Please
all the way home. The throaty, sexy sound of her voice when she was turned on. How soft her skin was. Her breasts, holy fuck.

Stop
, he told himself, but it was useless.

“No,” she said, “it
is
like that, but I’m fine.” Pause. “No, I haven’t.” Pause. “Not yet.”

She wriggled out of her sweater. She crossed her foot over her knee and leaned down to tug off her boot—a position that pulled down the scooped neckline of her T-shirt and gave him an eyeful of the breasts he’d been trying not to think about. His empty hands curled into fists, and he stood staring until she looked up, raised her eyebrows, and laughed again. “Yep. That’s exactly what I meant.” Pause. “Duly noted.” Pause. “Nope. I’ve got this under control.”

She was definitely talking about having sex with him. She peeled off her socks and flexed her bare toes.

Ben walked into the bedroom, where he threw some dirty clothes in the hamper. Were the sheets clean? He tried to remember, but he couldn’t think, because she kept bending over in his head, and he wanted to peel her shirt off more than he wanted to draw breath.

He turned down the covers instead and remembered that May had slept in the bed last night, and these were the sheets he’d put on for her. They were fine.

Leave the covers folded over, or smooth them flat? What would look least presumptuous?

Why was he being such a tool?

Her voice carried down the hall. “How am I supposed to know? Don’t you think if I had any idea what to say to Mom, I would have called her myself?”

Pause.

“Well, I guess if you have to tell her something, tell her whatever seems easiest, and I’ll sort it out after I get home.”

Longer pause.

“Right. So are you guys having fun? How’s Matty?” Pause. “What do you mean, Dan’s there?”

He was halfway to the living room when he realized what he was doing and stopped short.

Leave it alone, Ben. None of your business
.

May glanced at him. He grimaced and then, for lack of any better ideas, opened the fridge.

He needed to cook something.

He didn’t have any groceries.

Run. He’d go for a run. Five miles would beat some of this restlessness from him, give him his discipline back, and May could finish her phone call and deal with whatever implications arose as a result of fucking Thor having flown to fucking Michigan in pursuit of her.

And that fucking pisses you off
.

But she wasn’t his to get pissed off about. He’d give her space. Run for an hour or so. Then he’d end up sweaty, and he’d have to take a shower, and what if May got sick of waiting around?

Skip the run. Just shower. Sunny day, lots of walking, he probably smelled ripe. Though if he got in the shower and started thinking about her again …

How bad would it be to beat off in the shower?

It would take the edge off. That would be good, because the edge was
sharp
. This conversation with her sister might shift where May was mentally. She could change her mind about the whole thing. And if she didn’t—if she was still up for it—then he could last longer if he took care of this first. Make it better for her.

Decision made, Ben ducked into the bathroom. May laughed from the other side of the closed door. He turned on the water. When he unzipped his jeans, his hand rubbed against his dick, and he groaned.

Definitely better to get the situation under control.

Ben stepped under the spray, closed his hand into a fist, and started to stroke.

* * *

The shower was still running when she got off the phone with Allie.

May gulped half a glass of water and lay down on the couch, propping two pillows behind her head.

Her stomach was too full from the endless German gorge-fest, her feet hurt like crazy, and she’d never been so tired in her life. But her skin was all abuzz, her mind racing fast fast fast. She’d just told her sister she was going to sleep with Ben, so now she had to do it.

Not that she wouldn’t have if Allie hadn’t called. Or like Allie knowing really tied her hands.
Tied
was the opposite of what she felt.

She felt as though she’d cut a tether and drifted loose from the ground, and now she was high and scared, but giddy with it.

Are you sure this is a good idea?
Allie had asked, and May had admitted the truth.

No
.

No, she wasn’t sure. For a hundred different reasons, she wasn’t sure.

For one reason in particular.

Dan was at the cabin. That was why he hadn’t called. She’d said she would be there, and he’d gone straight after her.

She’d allowed herself to think that what Dan did wasn’t her affair anymore. When he hadn’t called, she’d thought maybe her note had come as a relief to him. That she hadn’t broken his heart when she walked out.

But if he was in Michigan, he had to be risking the displeasure of his coaches, not to mention the general manager. He wouldn’t do that lightly. He’d only do it because he wanted her back badly enough to risk the thing that mattered most to him.

Allie said he was planning to head home in the morning. He had a game on Thursday—the season kickoff game in New Jersey, where the Jets, as last year’s Super Bowl champions, had the pleasure of hosting the Packers. But he’d promised Matt he would be back in Wisconsin on Saturday for the wedding.

Allie said to expect him to call, because she’d caved and given him Ben’s cell number.

May knew she should probably call him first. But she couldn’t do it now. He didn’t have cell service. And tomorrow she’d be traveling, and so would he.

When she got home, then. She’d call him as soon as she got home. Tomorrow night, if it wasn’t too late. Or Wednesday morning.

No, not Wednesday. He had a game Thursday. She didn’t want him to be upset before the game.

Tomorrow night, or else after the game on Thursday. Friday morning at the latest. She’d explain and apologize, but make it clear that her mind was made up.

And then she made a disgusted face at the plasterwork ceiling, because she’d just rationalized her way into deciding not to call Dan for four more days.

You suck, May-o
.

The truth was, Dan felt like something that had happened to her a thousand years ago, in another life, and no amount of guilt would keep her from having sex with Ben when this was her chance. Their night. The whole day had been a form of foreplay. Sex was a foregone conclusion.

What really troubled her was that she liked him too much. She
felt
too much, and that couldn’t be a good idea, going into this.

But she had made up her mind: more messy reality, less unattainable perfection. That was how she planned to approach the future. Fantasizing and daydreaming hadn’t made her happy. She’d take beauty now where she found it. She wanted Ben, even if she feared that whatever pleasure he gave her would be brittle.

Even if it cut her.

The shower stopped.

He would be naked in there. He would come out with a towel draped over his hips, and she would see him.

She wanted that. She wanted him poised above her on the bed she’d slept in. Wanted him naked and worked up, panting and rough. Crazy with it.

And if that meant she had to be naked, too—okay. It was, she’d admit, a considerably less appealing thought, especially since it wasn’t fully dark yet. It had been a long time since she undressed for a man in the light.

She looked at the ceiling and waited for that thought to get less awkward.

It didn’t.

Ah, well. She could be brave or she could be a coward. In twenty years, she’d probably kill for the body she had now.

Use it or lose it
.

She rose. Her fingers pinched her shirtsleeve. With a deep breath, she withdrew her shoulder, pulling her arm through the hole.

Then the other arm, and she took the shirt off. Folded it. Laid it on the couch.

Jeans next. As she lowered the zipper, her pulse sped up. Something banged in the bathroom—Ben opening a cupboard or closing it.

She pictured his wet hair and wet skin, which helped considerably in the easing of her jeans from her legs. Balancing against the couch, she pulled them off. She folded them and stacked them on top of her shirt. Then she changed her mind, picked up the jeans, and put them down so she could stack the shirt on top.

Oh, she was a dope. A nervous dope with her stomach all unsettled, her heart going too fast, her eyes probably as big as a doe’s in the woods.

She heard the bathroom door open, and she walked toward him, her bare feet sticking slightly to the wood floor.

He came out, saw her, and stopped.

She didn’t know what to look at first, there was so much of him on display. The slate-colored towel low around his hips, tucked in place, and drops of water gleaming on his bare shoulders. The dark hair on his pecs arrowed down toward his waist, unsettlingly masculine.

“You have chest hair,” she said, waving her hand stupidly. Because she hadn’t imagined him with chest hair. Dan was Nordic, his body virtually hairless.

“Give me ten minutes, I can shave it off.”

She had to look at his face to decide if he was kidding. Yes, according to his lips. No, according to his eyes.

His eyes promised he’d give her anything she wanted.

“Tell me something,” he said.

She gave a little nod.

“You weren’t headed for the shower, right?”

“Right.”

“You were headed for me?”

Another nod.

“That’s good.”

He stepped closer.

“Really good,” he murmured.

She backed up, but he was coming now, and one hand reached to trace over her almost-bare shoulder, catching at the strap of her bra.

Ben toyed with it. He kept inching closer, and she’d been inching away until she bumped into the wall. Now she had nowhere to inch to. The moist heat of his skin surrounded her, a physical sensation like stepping outside on a too hot, too humid afternoon.

“I should take a shower.” She didn’t even know where the statement came from. It bubbled up in her nervousness and flew from her lips, one more manifestation of her deep-seated sense of physical inadequacy.

She was supposed to smell like flowers and spring rain, but she didn’t. She didn’t at all.

He lowered his head and licked her collarbone. His wet hair brushed her chin, and for some reason that was the thing that made her nipples stiffen. Not his tongue on her body, damp and unfamiliar, but the light, cold tease of his hair. He could brush her whole body with it, and she’d die happy.

Go ahead and ask him to. “Let’s go in the bedroom, and you can feather your hair over me.” I’m sure that will go over big
.

Her hands curled ineffectually at her sides. She wasn’t cut out for this. She was
embarrassing herself, and they’d barely even started.

“You don’t need a shower.” He slid one finger under her bra strap and pushed it to the side, and then he kissed her shoulder, right there. “I think you taste good the way you are.” His mouth moved higher, to her neck. Behind her ear. “I’d like to taste a lot more of you.”

She stiffened.

“Right here, for instance,” he said, with another kiss. His hands moved down her shoulders, over her arms, to her wrists. They found her waist. They cupped her breasts. “Here.”

One hand slid to her hip. Along the outside of her leg. It skated across the top to the inside and coaxed her thighs apart. Her mouth opened when his fingers pressed against her through her panties, an invasion she’d fully expected but somehow hadn’t anticipated. “Here.”

“You can’t,” she croaked.

“Can’t I?” The thought didn’t seem to faze him. His hand lingered for a moment, then passed upward to her stomach. Somehow more intimate than having his hand between her legs, because he would feel—

“So soft.”

That. Exactly that. Her soft, imperfect stomach.
Should have had salad for dinner
, her asshole inner critic whispered.

This was harder than she’d expected. She wished he would kiss her so she could get swept up in it and stop worrying. It was awesome that Ben could walk around in a towel and be totally comfortable with himself, but she wasn’t built that way. She felt rigid as cardboard, her utilitarian body highly functional but not worth fussing over.

She felt faintly embarrassed for him, for doing the fussing.

His head was lowered, tracking the progress of his hand, but she couldn’t watch. She looked away, down the hall. She wondered what the monthly rent was on this apartment. She wondered why she was so bad at this when, in fact, she liked sex. She liked it a
lot
. If they could skip to the bit where it was dark, and they were under the covers with him buried inside her. The grunting, frantic part—that was the bit she liked.

The tricky thing was how to get there from here.

Kiss me
, she thought.
Kiss me
.

He kissed her neck and stroked her stomach. He kissed her jaw.

She exhaled, and it came out jerky and wrong.

Ben lifted his head.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“No, something is. You’re not into this.”

“I am. I’m just …”

The internal censor piped in to ask,
Just what, May? A freak?

But damn it, this wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Ben’s, either. It just
was
. She didn’t have to beat herself up over it.

“I’m nervous,” she admitted.

“Is it too soon?” He removed his hand. “I heard you talking to your sister.”