he’d walked in her front door, she’d been holding herself tense, and it hurt. She wanted to be alone, to let go. The only way to do that was to appease him for now. “The place is a renovated firehouse. It came with the elevator. I didn’t add it.”
“You sound a little defensive.”
She ground her back teeth into powder. Hell, yes, she was defensive. She was always defensive. She’d learned young to shut herself down, happily existing in an emotional vacuum. Until Ben had come along, that is. Without a dime to his name, he’d done what no one else ever had—showed her all the things so missing from her own world…passion, emotion. Life. He’d wanted her, not just physically, and had never failed to show her so.
The force of what he’d felt back then, crashing into her cold, impersonal world, had terrified her. With good reason. Their fundamental differences had turned out to be a bridge impossible to cross.
Yet, you’d crossed it, came the unwelcome thought. For six months you crossed it and thrived on it.
Ben pushed her into the elevator. They waited in agitated silence for the doors to slide shut, and once they did, Rachel wished they hadn’t.
The space was small and lined with mirrors, which meant she could see herself, reduced and weak and defenseless in the damn chair. Worse, she could see him standing tall and strong behind her. “This is ridiculous.”
“My being here?” Ben locked his eyes on hers in the reflection of the mirrors. “Get used to it.”
That got a rough laugh from her, and a sharp pain shot through her ribs for the effort. It robbed her of breath, of all thought, and she squeezed her eyes shut, tensing up with a small cry.
Big hands settled on her thighs, surprisingly gentle for their size, as was his low, urgent voice. “Relax. Let it go. Breathe, Rachel.”
No, she wasn’t going to breathe, that would hurt worse. She was never going to breathe or move again. “Go…away.”
“Breathe,” he repeated, running his fingers lightly over her thighs. “Come on, slow and easy. In and out.”
She did and, shockingly enough, it helped. So did his voice, talking to her softly, over and over, reminding her to relax, breathe. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see him kneeling in front of her. “That…was your fault.”
“Undoubtedly. Everything is my fault. Keep breathing now. Slow and easy.”
“I know how to breathe.”
He surged to his feet as the elevator door opened and turned away from her. “What I’m surprised at,” he noted casually, pushing her off the elevator, “is that you still know how to laugh.”
She sucked in a gulp of air and tried to pretend that comment didn’t hurt worse than her ribs. Oh, yes, she knew how to laugh—he’d taught her. Had he forgotten? Forgotten everything they’d once meant to each other?
She was silent as he wheeled her down the hallway lined with collages of photos from the years past, starting with Emily’s birth. One shot of Emmie—small and red, wrinkled and furious, howling as she told the world how she felt about being born. Another of Rachel holding her bundle of joy, smiling with wet eyes at the now quiet baby, who stared right back at her. The two of them. Even then, it had been just the two of them against the world.
Later photos of Emily learning to walk, sitting on Rachel’s lap while Rachel drew a Gracie comic strip on her easel, another of Emily putting candles in a homemade cake for her mother’s birthday.
There was a shot of Melanie on one of her visits from Santa Barbara, puckering up for Emily’s four-foot teddy bear. A picture of the firehouse when they’d first purchased it, before renovations. And then subsequent pictures of Rachel and Emily and Melanie, covered in paint as they worked on the place. There was a picture of her neighbor Garrett with Emily riding on his shoulders. A picture of Gwen, Rachel’s agent, her arms around both Rachel and Emily, who held Rachel’s first impressive royalty check.
Behind her, Ben said nothing, and she wondered if he was even looking at the pictures, looking and feeling odd for not being in a single one. Did he feel left out?
Strange, but she didn’t want him to. Despite everything, she didn’t want that. She had Emily, her greatest gift, her greatest joy, because of him. She owed him for that, which was why, whenever he’d asked, she’d sent Emily to him via Melanie.
Bottom line was, she had this house and Emily. This was her world—stable, safe and secure. It meant everything.
In comparison, Ben had a duffel bag and a few cameras to his name. That was it as far as she knew. He liked it that way, or he had.
That they’d made it together for even six months so long ago seemed amazing now.
“Rach?” As if she were the finest, most fragile piece of china, Ben set a light, careful hand on her shoulder. “You okay? You’ve gone quiet and pale on me.”
His fingers brushed her collarbone like a feather, and a shiver raced down her spine. Not signifying cold, but something far more devastating. “I’m…fine.”
Another brush of those fingers, a testing one this time, while his eyes held hers. “Rachel,” he murmured. “It’s still there. Can you feel it?”
“I—” No, she wanted to say, but lying was ridiculous when surely he could feel the blood pounding through her body at just a single touch. Again, he squatted in front of her.
“You still have those eyes,” he murmured. “The ones that make me melt.”
She let out a nervous smile.
He smiled back.
“I have no idea why I’m smiling at you.”
His fingers traveled up, up, cupped her face. “I don’t care. Just keep doing it.”
She stopped breathing. His gaze was locked on hers as he slowly let his thumbs stroke her jaw. Her body responded, giving her a jolt of pleasure instead of pain for once, as if it recognized that this man, and only this man, had given her such incredible pleasure.
Ben let out a rough, disbelieving sound, then cupped the back of her head, gently holding her still as he shifted his mouth toward hers.
Move, Rachel told herself, and she did—closer, matching up their lips. It was unfathomable, unthinkable. He had no business touching her, and she had no business wanting him to, but she did. Oh, how she did.
The first light touch of lip to lip dissolved her bones, and all the pain with it. Needing the balance, she put out her right hand, gripping his chest. Beneath his shirt, his heart thumped steadily. A bit dazed now, she simply stared up at him.
With a soft murmur of her name, he changed the angle of her head and connected again. His mouth was warm, firm, giving, so beautifully giving that her eyes drifted shut and she lost her ability to put words together, to do anything but feel.
His tongue lightly stroked her lips. Struck by a familiarity and strangeness all at once, she moaned, then again when a slow, deep thrust of his tongue liquefied her. She fisted her fingers in his shirt, holding him close, making him groan deep in his throat.
The sound was raw, staggeringly sensual, but then he was pulling back, letting out a slow breath.
She did the same, but it didn’t change the fact she could still taste him and wanted, needed, more.
But that had never been their problem, the wanting.
“Your bedroom,” he said a little roughly.
“The next room down.”
He moved behind her, gripped her chair. Once inside, he stopped. There was a picture hanging on the wall, an eight-by-ten from two years before, of Emily wearing a sundress, beaming from ear to ear, holding up her elementary school diploma. Her eyes sparkled with such joy, such life, it hurt to even look at her, but Rachel looked anyway,