Fade In (34 page)

“I like this.”

“And?”

“And,” I sigh, trying to calm my nerves enough to speak the truth, “I'm nervous.”

Ben's puts his lips on my neck and talks with his mouth on my skin. “I think we just play it by ear. Tomorrow we go back to real life, but you'll be you. I'll still be me. We can still be us.” I pray that the hope in his voice is right.

“What about your job? I can't pay you to do things for me. It doesn't feel right. It would feel like I'm paying you to be with me.”

This time, he thinks a little longer to answer. “You don't have to pay me.” What a simple solution.

“I have to pay you. It's your job.”

“I don't need the money and I like helping you. Call it pro bono.”

“Ben,” I cry, even too whiny for my own liking. “I'm serious. This is a big deal. Should I start looking for another PA?” My voice rises right along with my anxiety.

“Hey, cool out. This is what we can do. Everything stays the same. I'll keep working. You can pay me or not pay me. I don't care. See how it goes. If it gets weird, we'll deal with it then. Then, after your brother's wedding, I'll help you find a new assistant. How about that? We won't borrow trouble.” He pets my hair and runs his hands up and down my arms.

“Okay. We won't borrow trouble. I like that. I'm paying you. Just tell me if it gets weird for you, too. Okay?” Really, I just don't want him feeling obligated.

The thought alone of that make me cringe.

Minutes go by, and I think we're both in deep thought. I roll around to face him, needing to look at his face, when he quietly confesses, “I need you too, Tatum.”

Those are the magic words. I don't know if I'll be able to make him happy, but I have to try. I know he's being honest.

“Thank you, Benny.”

How long can the vacation blues last? I know I'm being a big baby, but I miss our time on the trip. Being with him constantly for that amount of time only made it so hard to let him go home when we returned.

We arrived in the city on a late flight, and instead of Ben going home, he stayed at my place. He was tired and so was I. I knew that, no matter what I said, he was going to see me home and help me upstairs with my luggage anyway.

We fell into my bed at about three in the morning and slept on top of the covers with all of our clothes on, four jeans-covered legs knotting into a pathetic pile of flesh and denim on my welcoming mattress. Still not sure how we were going to find our footing in all of this, I fell asleep believing I would wake up and everything would be the same.

For the most part, it is.

The days when Ben worked for me gradually returned to almost normal. But since I wasn't working, he sort of just helped me as opposed to doing everything for me. We ran my errands together, did my shopping, and rescheduled all of the appointments and obligations I’d missed on our impromptu getaway.

Cooper was already out of town at a conference when we returned and Winnie left a few days later to Los Angeles to shoot a small part she had in an indie film written by one of our friends. Normally, I would have tagged along with her, visiting with old coworkers who had been sucked into California. Winnie took Tilly instead, which worked out great for her. Tilly is much more helpful than I could ever pretend to be.

It is awkward, as first, wearing our relationship around people who know Ben as my assistant. We ran into Wes at lunch one day and he just laughed, kissing me on the cheek when he left, saying, “You never fucking listen to me.” Then, turning to Ben, he shook his hand and warned him, “Watch out for her. She's special.”

Ben’s only reply was that he wouldn't take his eyes off me. Then he squeezed my hand. Ben must have had the vacation blues, too.

Most days he spends hanging out with me, reading while I edit or write the few projects I'm committed to. He seems more and more distracted though.

The night I work up enough courage to ask him if this is working all right for him, I find him in my bed, naked, reading, and wearing thick, black lens-less frames.

“What have we here?” I say, loving his timing. “My boyfriend will be furious if he knows you've tried to seduce me.”

“I'm sure he will be,” he answers nonchalantly, slowly licking his page-flipping finger and turning the ivory paper. Sexy bastard.

“I'll never leave him for you.”

To this, he raises his questioning eyes above the dark frames to meet my gaze. “Never?”

“I don't expect so. He's too good in bed.” I try to keep the joke out of my voice, and for the most part succeed, choosing to cough instead of laugh.

“What if I'm better? How would you know unless we...” he trails off, laying the vintage hardback parted across his chest and running his hand down to his already hard cock.

He's fighting dirty.

I'm barely fighting at all.

He grips himself and tugs a little more forcefully than I would, the pressure of his thumb across the top of his shaft drawing the skin taut and towards the tip. My wittiness escapes me and I stare.

My legs squeeze together and I feel a familiar buzz amplifying and spreading over me. To be a participant or a bystander? It's is so conflicting. I both want to touch him and stay away, to see how far he'll take this bad boy scenario.

“You need to know all of your options, and lucky for me, I'm one of them. How about you come here?” He nods for me to move closer with a sinful lick of his lips.

My slow steps quicken as I watch his serious face break into a quick smile and a wink, like he's telling me to play along. Then it resumes into the obnoxious lover-man façade.

“I'll come over there, but I assure you—you'll be no Ben Harris.” Instantly, his face drops and he flinches. He's a good little actor. I'm still playing reluctant, but I buy his mock hurt and cushion my jab with, “But he's not here, so you'll do.”

I climb over to him, walking on my knees across the white comforter, and stop before reaching him. Ready for him to do his worst in the name of persuasion.

He's quickly up on his own bent legs, jostling me and tipping my balance on the ultra plush surface of my king-sized bed. Ben should have studied drama. His features are so determined that it's hard to not feel the powerful force of his steely appraisal.

While we’re facing one another, one massive hand wraps around my neck and crushes my lips to his, his glasses crooking when our faces collide. His other hand latches on to my ass, palming my cheek and shaking it. He's never been like this with me.

“Tatum,” he growls. “I'm going to fuck that name right out of your pretty little head.”

My spine stiffens. Where is gentle Ben? Ha. Gentle Ben. I just thought of that. I doesn't matter though, because he isn't in my bed with me right now. I adore his usual playful worship of my body, but there is something in his tone that sinks into the marrow of my bones.

Fisting a handful of my hair, he resolutely tilts my head back far enough that I'm looking upside down at our image in the mirror behind us. He nips, licks, and bites his way around my neck and ears.

“I want you so fucking bad,” he rages.

I can't tell if we were playing anymore, but he's acting so unlike himself that I just go with the notion that we are in a scene of sorts. “I want Ben Harris,” I protest, finding just how wrapped up I, too, am in this game.

“God dammit, Tatum. Stop saying that.” He keeps telling me to stop, but when I don't, he assaults my flesh with his mouth more vigorously.

I love it.

I'm helpless to end it and fuel the fire by insisting that I only want Ben Harris.

He's possessed. He rips at my shirt and robs me of my clothes, head strong and determined. I stay rooted to the spot on my bed, still on my knees before him.

I wink. He doesn't break character.

Confusion flashed through me. Did we stop playing?

“Benny?” I question in a whimper. I see a softening in his eyes after a long second, but he eyes stay in a trance that I thought was fabricated by our game.

Sometimes you just have to fuck about it when there is nothing to say. Something inside of him is trying to claw out and I'd be his willing vehicle to unleash his fiery turmoil. I want to be this for him.

There is only one small tipoff that he's hesitant to proceed after I broke the moment, but I know he still wants it like this.

“Fuck me.” The swear doesn’t sound as confident as it should have, but I get my message across. “I want it. Fast and hard, Benny.”

He moves his warm hand from under my ass to behind me knee, bringing it to wrap around his hip. Lifting me up so that my weight is on his leg, he leaves the other to dangle over the bed. He guides it to slide between his legs, aligning my wetness with his groin.

My hands clutch each other around his neck, and his stern warning of, “Hold on to me,” isn't to be taken lightly. As he slides into me in a rush—fast and hard—I realize this angle comes with a promise him deeper within me than he's been before. He plunges as far inside as possible, the position stretching my limits and bordering two famous friends, pleasure and pain.

I gasped from the sudden fullness.

“Can you take it, baby?” he asks as he stays fully immersed inside me, rocking forward only a little testing my tolerance.

I don't know if I can, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to try. “I want all of it. Give me more,” leaves my lips. I hope my mouth didn't just sign a check that my body can't cash.

His embrace gathers my weight in his arms, withdrawing from me just shy of entirely and coming back at me with a force I've never received. He pounds into me a steady cadence and rhythmically drives my desire higher until I'm grinding my clitoris against his pelvic bone, the friction alerting every nerve in my being.

Every time I get close, he holds us still, teasing my persistent orgasm, ordering me to wait. “Don't worry, baby. You're going to come. Just not yet.” Massaging my soaked core with his cock, he continues to roll his hips with punishing pressure, sending fire through my veins.

“I trust you, but I'm so close. Please,” I beg. Losing all pride and shame, I give him all my control with the guarantee that he will deliver what I am so desperate for. “I'm yours. Please.”

“Relax, baby. Do you feel this?” He rocks harder against me. “This is me. You're feeling
me
, Tatum. You can forget my name as long as you remember this. Remember how this love feels.”

Love.

Without the strength to dissect his words, I focus only on the lust-fueled noise in my head. My need for release and our pleasure furiously readies every cell in my body to explode upon reaching zero on this backwards-ticking clock.

I pant my slow response. “Yes. I feel you. I feel you. Please.” I hear my own desperation thick in my voice.

Keeping our bodies joined as they are, he lowers my back to the bed. He leans forward with me, straddling my leg and sinking to that deepest spot once again.

His index finger finds my clit and applies fast bursts of pressure until my head rolls side to side as my orgasm fights its way out.

I can't make a sound.

My mouth hangs open.

My eyes screw shut and I hold my breath.

I freeze as pure, unadulterated pleasure rockets through my whole body in waves. I hear Ben roar his release into the bed just seconds after mine blooms and feel him push into me like he's trying to climb inside.

He breaks apart from me rather too soon and lies spread out on my bed beside me, sweaty and panting.

“That was intense,” I finally say to break the ice.

He rolls to me, looking me over, gauging my condition. “Oh my God. Tatum, are you okay? I didn't mean to be so rough. I sort of lost myself there for a minute.” If his concern alone could prevent the soreness that my vagina is guaranteed to feel tomorrow, then I would have mounted him again right here.

“I'm okay, but the lady bits may think otherwise come tomorrow,” I chuckle and turn to face him too. “Are you okay?” I have to know. I'm cool with role-playing and whatever, but I have a nagging feeling that there was a little bit of truth hidden in his performance. I just don't know what part.

He props his flushed face up on one hand to give me his full attention. “Yeah, why?”

“You just seemed angry or something. You're not angry though, are you? That was all just part of the whole fantasy. Wasn't it?” My inner voice screams to stop it at that.

“I'm not angry with you. Don't think that.” He pulls me close and breathes a ragged breath in my hair. “I just have some things that I have to work out and they were on my mind. Baby, I won't ever be rough with you because I'm angry.” He further wraps me up, drawing my legs in close. “I was in the moment and I got carried away.”

I peek into his neck. “I believe you. It's just there's something inside me says that you're not telling me everything.” I kiss him, hoping my honest words don’t sting. “I'm here for you, Ben. You say you want all of me, but I want all of you too.”

He waits an eternity to answer, which basically solidifies my theory that there is something. I don't know if it even has anything to do with us. I just don't know.

I find his hand and bring it between us up to my lips, raining kisses on it. Then I hug it close to my heart.