Beautiful Bitch (10 page)

“Hmmm. Well, be careful with her,” Dad said, glaring at Bennett from across the table. “My hygienist’s boyfriend is in the mob, and I doubt anyone would miss you.”

“Dad!”

He looked at me, eyes wide and innocent. “What?”

“Mark’s boyfriend is not in the mob.”

“Of course he is. He’s Italian.”

“That doesn’t mean anything!”

“Trust me. I’ve met him. Drives a black car with very dark windows. Mark called him Fat Don at the office party.”

“His name is Glen, Dad, and he’s studying to be a CPA. He’s
not
in the mob.”

“I don’t know why you have to be so damn argumentative all the time, Chloe. God only knows where you get it.”

At that point Bennett started laughing so hard he had to excuse himself from the table.

Later, after Bennett won my father over by letting Dad beat him at Monopoly—how anyone would believe Bennett Ryan lost a game involving money, I’ll never know—he snuck in from the guest room and climbed into my bed.

“You’re going to get us busted,” I said, already climbing on top of him.

“Not if you’re quiet.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. Can’t tell you how many times my dad busted me for sneaking out when I was in high school, and I was
very
quiet.”

“Can we not talk about your dad right now? It’s seriously distracting me from how hot it’s going to be to fuck you in your teenage bed. And Jesus, Chloe. Are these even considered underwear?” he said, twisting his hands in the tiny straps of my panties and pulling. Hard.

“Oh my God!” I whisper-shouted. “Those were new and
—”

“You loved it,” he finished, grinning. “Just doing my part to uphold tradition.”

I wanted to argue but 1) he was right and 2) I was distracted as Bennett slid the torn fabric to the side and slipped a finger inside of me. He took my hip in his other hand, encouraging me to move over him.

“Like that,” he said, lips parted and eyes trained between my legs. “Fuck—take your shirt off.”

Ripped panties forgotten, I nodded, lifting my T-shirt over my head and tossing it behind us. He slipped in a second finger and I sped up, the bed frame squeaking softly beneath us.

Bennett sat, whispering “Shh,” against my mouth. “Sit up a little.”

I shifted onto my knees and watched as he pushed his pajama bottoms down his hips.

“Are we really doing this here?” I whispered. The bed was too small, the room too hot and too quiet—and my dad was just two doors down. It was stupid and inconvenient and I couldn’t remember wanting something more.

I switched on the small lamp so I could see him better. His lips were swollen, his hair a mess, and his grin was totally ridiculous when he said, “I fucking love you, you filthy fucking girl. You want me to watch?”

“Yeah.”

“Touch yourself,” he whispered.

I did, way too slowly to get me anywhere, but the perfect speed to make his eyes grow to the size of saucers before he stretched to kiss me. He mumbled something against my lips, his tongue moving lazily against mine. He was all soft noises and hands everywhere, his cock sliding over my clit before finally pressing slowly into me.

It was a blur then, the feeling of being so full, of warm breath and warmer skin. Bennett sucked on my nipple, teeth dragging while I slid over him. I was so lost to everything else that I didn’t even notice the familiar squeak of the hinge on my bedroom door.

“Oh for the love of Pete!” my dad yelled, and suddenly it was legs and arms and blankets being tossed everywhere. I heard the distant flailing of my father as he rushed back down the hall, muttering about his little girl and sex in his house and telltale signs of a heart attack.

Let’s just say that neither Bennett nor I had ever been so grateful for anything as we were for the NDSU football player who needed an emergency root canal the next morning and whose coach, an old friend of my father’s, insisted that only Dad could handle it. Dad was at the office, waiting on their arrival from Fargo before the sun was even up.

No, vacations never really seemed to work out for us.

Guilt ate away at me the rest of the morning. I shouldn’t have been so hasty to tell Bennett it was impossible. Here he was, trying to be flexible, and I was the one telling him to consider work. What the hell was wrong with me? I tried to catch him between meetings. I tried to meet up with him for lunch. The closest I got was passing him in the hall, a group of executives babbling around him like fanboys around a celebrity.

“I need to talk to you,” I mouthed.

“Bat signal?” I
think
he said back.

I shook my head. “Dinner?”

He nodded, blew me a kiss behind everyone’s back, and was off, herded down the hall and into the elevator.

“So how are things?”

Sara shrugged, dragging another fry through ketchup before popping it into her mouth, but definitely not looking at me. “Things are fine.”

I glared at her. Things were always
fine
with Sara.

“I’m serious!” she insisted, leaning back in her chair. “There’s so much noise about it all. I’m just trying to figure out what is truth, and what isn’t.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said.

“I’ve known him for so long it’s just hard to reconcile it all. But, honestly, I’m doing fine.”

“Sara, pardon the intrusion, because I suppose technically
it’s none of my business, but that is the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard.”

“What?”

“You heard me! This thing with Andy is a huge deal! Bennett wants us to go to France and besides the obvious twelve hundred fifty-four reasons why I shouldn’t go, near the top of that list is you!”

“What?”
she repeated, though a bit louder this time. “Bennett wants you to go to France! Oh my God that’s amazing! And wait, what do you mean ‘me’?”

“Yeah, he wants us to have some time away to reconnect before the craziness of New York is upon us all,” I said, before balling up my napkin and throwing it at her. “And I hesitate to leave for three weeks because I’m worried about you!”

Sara laughed, standing to walk around the table and hug me. “That is the sweetest, most idiotic thing anyone has ever said to me. I love you, Chloe.”

“But I’m moving,” I added, squeezing her tightly. “These were going to be our last three weeks together.”

Sara took the seat next to me. “I’m a big girl, and there are planes. I love—
love—
that you wanted to stay here and take care of me. But . . . I think Bennett might be right,” she said, wincing a little. “You guys need this, and if you can make it work, well, you should throw some skimpy clothes in a bag and drag that man to France.”

I laughed, leaning on her shoulder. “God, it would complicate things so much. I’d have to find someone to do interviews, sit in on all my meetings—”

“But would it be worth it?”

I smiled, remembering how excited Bennett had been when he’d told me about the trip, and how his face had fallen when I hadn’t shared his enthusiasm. “Yeah, it would.”

I rolled over, grabbing my phone from the bedside table and muting the alarm with a swipe of my thumb. I was exhausted, having fallen asleep only two hours before. I’d worked until almost two and then tried to slip into bed without waking Chloe, but she’d stirred and climbed on top of me before I could say anything.

As if I would have stopped her.

I couldn’t really complain that it meant another hour of sleep lost, but now, when her hand reached blindly beneath the blankets, sweeping down my stomach to curl around my cock, I knew I had to stop her. I had a flight to catch, alone.

She
was
coming to France, but she was leaving a day after me, insisting with a stubbornness all her own that she needed the rest of Friday to get the last few things sorted. I would have waited for her, but because the flights were all last minute there weren’t any direct flights, nor were there any seats together anyway. Deciding to keep my flight, I figured I’d get there early and get us situated at Max’s place.

“I don’t think we have time,” I mumbled into her hair.

“Not buying it,” she said, voice croaky with sleep. “This guy,” she said, squeezing my erection in her grip, “thinks we have plenty of time.”

“The car is picking me up in fifteen minutes, and thanks to your appetite last night, I need another shower.”

“There was that one time you only needed two minutes to come. You’re telling me you don’t have two minutes?”

“Morning sex is never only two minutes,” I reminded her. “Not when you’re all sleepy and rumpled and warm.” I rolled out of bed and walked into my bathroom to the sound of her groan muffled by my stolen pillow.

When I emerged, clean and dressed, she sat up in bed, still hugging my pillow and sort-of-pretending she wasn’t upset that we had to fly separately to France.

“Don’t pout,” I murmured, bending to kiss the corner of her mouth. “You’ll just confirm what I’ve always suspected: you can’t function without me.”

I expected her to roll her eyes or pinch me playfully but she blinked down to my tie and reached to needlessly adjust it. “I
can
function without you. But I don’t like being away from you. It feels like you take my home with you when you go.”

Well, fuck.

I laid my garment bag across the bed and took her face in my hands until she looked up, and could see the effect
her words had on me. She smiled, tongue slipping out to wet her lips.

With one final kiss, I whispered, “I’ll see you in France.”

I would lose a day in transit, arriving on Saturday. Chloe’s flight was only twelve hours after mine, but because she couldn’t go direct she had to red-eye it to New York and then leave for Paris the following day, getting into Marseille on Monday. It would give me time to prepare for her arrival, but, knowing Max, the house would be spotless and stocked with food and drink and I would have nothing to do.

An idle Bennett . . . and all that.

I settled into the first class cabin, declining the champagne, and pulled out my phone to text Chloe.

Boarded. See you across the pond.

My phone buzzed several seconds later.
Rethinking this whole trip. There’s a shoe sale at Dillons this weekend.

I laughed, choosing to ignore this one and slipping my phone back into my jacket pocket. Closing my eyes as the other passengers filed in past me, I remembered our past trips. We’d only traveled together a handful of times, but nothing ever went according to plan. Had I incurred some sort of vacation voodoo I wasn’t aware of? It seemed we were destined to be plagued by trips that went terribly off
course, were taken separately, were colored by miserable arguments . . . or were canceled altogether.

My stomach turned when I remembered our attempt at a vacation last Thanksgiving. On impulse one weekend we’d purchased tickets to St. Bart’s and rented a house on the water. It was meant to be perfect but instead it led to the first time Chloe stopped speaking to me since our reconciliation.