In Love Again (17 page)

“I do. So much.” Claire sat up from her reclining position and got to her knees on the bed in front of him. It wasn’t nearly as terrifying as she’d imagined—all this naked business.

She reached her hands to Ben’s waist and dipped her fingers between the elastic and his quivering hot skin. “May I?” She looked up at him and began to tug down his underwear. She stretched the elastic so it didn’t scrape against the shining tip of him, then she let the boxers fall to his ankles.

“Step out,” she whispered. He was staring at the ceiling, breathing hard, still holding the condom in one hand. He lifted one foot and then the other so they were both finally and completely naked. Claire leaned down and kissed the crown of his cock, then wrapped her slim fingers around the base and took him into her mouth.

“Oh, Claire!” His hand was in her hair and pulling hard within seconds. “No—” He choked on the word, but he didn’t pull her away exactly. She released her mouth and stared up at him, her lips wet and eyes smiling. She relished the frustration and control he had to exercise when she looked at him like that. Good. Make him feel what she felt. The crazy wanting.

“I wanted to taste you too…”

A few seconds later, he’d torn open the condom and pulled it on, pushed her back onto the bed, and the two of them were smiling and touching and scrambling to get as much of their bodies in contact with one another as possible. Claire’s legs were tangled around his. Ben’s lips and fingers were caressing Claire’s neck. Her hips were tilting and rising to meet him.

Ben paused and held Claire still, gripping her upper arm with one hand and the turn of her hip with the other. “Yes?”

She whimpered. It sounded preposterous, but there was nothing for it. She nodded and whispered, “So much yes.”

Claire put her palm up to his cheek as he guided himself into her. She marveled at the pale tone of her skin against the dark beauty of his. She wanted to tell him that she loved him just then, but she held it back; it felt juvenile or injudicious. But she
felt
it, and she loved that she loved him, expressed or not. Her eyes must have gone moist at the realization, because he mistook her joy for sad tears.

“Are you okay?” He was entering her slowly, taking his time to go inch by heavenly inch.

She lifted her head to kiss her answer. “Yes. I am just so very happy. I keep thinking
finally…finally…
”

Ben pounded into her on that second
finally
and whispered, gruff and raw, into her ear, “Finally.”

Claire and Ben spent the rest of that night in a restless joining. Sleeping intermittently. One or both of them waking up enough to touch or kiss the other, and the whole wonderful cascade of pleasure firing up between them all over again. By ten on Saturday morning, Claire was nearly drunk on the happiness of it. She started laughing, tucked into the hold of Ben’s strong arm, her lips dragging across the turn of his biceps. She kept thinking how perfect he was.
Perfect for her
, she amended. Strong and lean and reliable. And he wanted her.

He tightened his arm around her back. “What’s so funny?”

“I think I might be punch-drunk or something. I keep closing my eyes and dozing and then I smell you or touch you and this little voice inside me squeals,
He’s real! He’s real!
and I need to—I get to—reach out and kiss you and touch you and it’s just all so…lovely.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Exactly.”

She continued her travels across his upper arm then kissed his neck. She leaned up on her elbows and her face took on a pragmatic cast. “So. What shall we do today? I want to see you outdoors. I want to see you in shops. On streets. In the city. I want to see you in the country.”

“I want to see you in bed. Naked.” He grabbed her bottom and squeezed.

“Well, that too.” She smiled and kissed his chest. “But seriously, I want to be with you out in the world. I want to be all hand-holding and strolling and all that.”

He smiled at her. “Okay. Do you want to stay in the city or should we head out to Litchfield? I’m not playing with the band tomorrow night and I don’t have appointments on Monday, so we could stay in the country for a couple of days…if you think Boppy was serious about you taking off Monday.”

Claire closed her eyes and relaxed her cheek against Ben’s chest. Just that. His thinking about her plans. Her job. That was probably sexier or more alluring than all the other mischievous attention he’d paid to her body in the past twelve hours. He was mindful in a way that Freddy had never been. Or really, that anyone in her life had ever been. Maybe even herself.

It was probably her fault as much as anyone else’s. She had uttered the phrase, “Don’t mind me” with such regularity, it was almost a tick.
Perhaps
, Claire thought,
if you tell people to ignore you often enough, they start to obey.

“Yes,” Claire said. “Let’s go to Litchfield. I’d love that.”

They showered together, and Claire got dressed and packed a small overnight bag.

“Oh, drat. I totally forgot my sister-in-law invited me out to brunch.” Claire looked up at Ben, all scrubbed and gorgeous, his shirt from last night perfectly rumpled. He would be quite the day-after door prize at brunch with Bronte. No. Way.

“We can do that if you want,” he offered.

She shook her head. “I don’t think I’m ready to share you just yet.”

Ben smiled and turned to pull on his coat while Claire made a quick call letting Bronte know she wasn’t going to be able to make it after all. Ben could probably overhear Bronte shrieking across town, a loud patter she kept up until Claire was finally forced to say, “Okaaaaayyyy. Byyyeee.” She turned off the phone and pretended to ignore the fact that the person on the other end of the line had still been talking. “All set,” she said as she turned off the phone all the way, ignoring a bunch of voice mail notifications from London—probably her solicitor and a bunch of other tripe she had no interest in thinking about just then—and slipping the device into her purse.

After a quick stop at Ben’s apartment, they were on the road. Ben’s car was small and fast.

“Is this a divorce car?” Claire asked.

Ben laughed. “Is it that obvious?”

She nodded and looked out the window. She wanted to hold his hand, but it was a stick shift (of course) and he didn’t have a free hand to offer. “You should have chosen an automatic.”

“Why? I like the power and control of the stick.”

“The hand-holding.” Claire pouted in mock consternation.

He smiled, slipped the car into fifth gear, and switched into the middle lane of the highway. “For a few minutes, I can maintain this speed and hold hands.” He reached out his right hand for her to take it. Claire felt tingles all along the palm of her hand as she took his and kissed it.

“Thanks,” she whispered, holding his strong hand like a treasure.

They turned onto Route 7 a little while later, the curves and speed variations making him pull his hand away. “Sorry,” he said.

They made it to the farmhouse in two hours flat.

After they got out of the car, Ben opened the front door of the house and stood aside for Claire to go in before him. “You remember this door, right? The one I slammed in your face?”

She looked down at the craft paper over the front hall floors then up into his penitent green eyes. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I remember. You’ll have to thank my other sister-in-law, Sarah James, for explaining how that might have been a sign of your…er…ardor, rather than mere cruelty.”

Ben dropped his duffle bag and pulled Claire into his arms. “When will I get to meet all of these fairy god-sisters to thank them personally for all of their good works on my behalf?”

Claire tilted her face to his, a little startled. “Oh, anytime, I guess.” She shrugged. “Do you want to meet them? Meet my family?”

He loosened his hold on her, mistaking her hesitance for a desire to keep him separate from her family, as he’d always suspected she’d been trying to do all those years ago. “First things first, I guess.” He let go of her and picked up both of their bags. “C’mon. Let me show you everything I did last weekend to punish myself for treating you so abominably.”

They spent the late afternoon walking through the forest that ran back and away from the property line behind the house. He showed her his pathetic attempt at rebuilding the stone wall, and she made a note in her project to-do list on her phone to call the local stonemasons and get them out here to remedy his…enthusiasm.

Ben’s cell phone rang a couple of times while they were walking. He glanced at the names and then slid his thumb across the screen to silence the calls.

When they were back in the house, cheeks red and cool from their walk, they talked about what they wanted to do for dinner. His phone rang while they were talking; he looked at the screen and held up one finger.

“This one I have to take. Sorry.” He stood up from the makeshift kitchen table and looked out the window behind where Claire was sitting.

“Hey, beautiful! How’s it going?”

Claire was momentarily tormented and put her face in her hands, until she felt Ben’s hand rub her back and his hot breath whisper in her ear. “It’s my niece, at boarding school a few towns over.”

Claire made a mental note to avoid being jealous of sixteen-year-old girls and looked up into his face with a smile. He kept rubbing her neck absently while he dove into the conversation.

“Sure, but I’ll need to check with my friend, Claire.” He smiled at his niece’s reply. “Yes, she’s a girl.” He smiled again. “Yes, I like her like that.” His smile was really wide. “Yes, she heard me say that. She’s sitting right here…okay, let me ask her.”

He held the phone against his shoulder and said, “Nicolette Hayek-Milton requests the pleasure of your company for dinner tonight and-or lunch tomorrow. What that really means is she’s going stir-crazy in her dorm, and she wants us to swoop in and take her off campus. Are you up for it?”

Claire nodded enthusiastically. She had been totally remiss with her own daughter lately and she saw this as a chance to do a good deed. Ever since she’d arrived in New York, Claire had decided no news was good news as far as her wayward Lydia was concerned. The girl was going through what was euphemistically known as “a bad patch,” and Claire was perfectly happy to leave the twenty-year-old troublemaker to her own devices for a few weeks at a stretch.

“I’d love that. Let’s go get her now and have supper together.”

“Yes,” Ben said over a laugh. “Yes, she said yes…she has a daughter, that’s why…she probably knows that you won’t stop bothering us until you get what you want. We’ll see you in an hour. Bye, Nicki.”

A few minutes later, the sports car was taking the tight turns of the northern Connecticut roads with gripping confidence.

“You’re a great driver,” Claire said.

“Thanks.” Ben turned to look at her profile in the glow of the dashboard. The late autumn evening had come on quickly, and it was already dark at half past six. “What’re you thinking about?”

She turned back to face him. “Oh. Nothing, I guess. It’s beautiful here, but I think I’m missing Scotland a bit. Everything feels a little on top of each other here.” Claire turned back to look out at the small town they were passing through.

“Why don’t we plan a trip?” Ben offered.

Claire’s head swung around. “To Scotland? With you?”

Ben tried to fob off the slight with a shrug. What was it with this woman being the most giving creature in bed and the most uptight, withholding woman in other areas of her life? “Yes, Claire. To Scotland. With me.” He shook his head, unable to conceal his frustration this time, and stared straight ahead.

After a few seconds, Claire said, “Wow. I would love that.”

“What?” he asked in astonishment.

“I said I would love that. Before when you asked when you had to meet my sisters-in-law, I figured you wouldn’t want anything to do with my snooty family. I figured the longer we could postpone it, the better it would be for you. I mean—”

“Claire. This is ridiculous. I
want
to meet your family. I
want
to meet everyone who matters to you, just like I want you to meet everyone who matters to me. We’re not seventeen anymore.” His eyes skimmed suggestively down to her long legs in their snug blue jeans. “Even though you might still look like it to me.”

She smiled up at him and pushed his upper arm. “You don’t have to say that.”

“What? It’s true. You’re gorgeous. Whatever, I’m not going to waste time trying to convince you. I have all night in bed to do that.”

“Ben!” Claire cried.

“You know I’m right. Anyway, all I was saying about when we were teenagers is that it was all that love-in-a-vacuum stuff. You know what I mean?”

Claire nodded. “Totally.”

“But now we’re grown-ups. And I have to confess, I love being a grown-up. No one can make my decisions for me. I mean, sometimes that sucks, when I do something stupid like stay married to the wrong woman for nine years, but you know, even that, it was mine. You know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean. I think that’s part of my whole midlife…I hate the word crisis, but…as they’d say in Wick, part of my going mental.”

“I like that. We are both going mental.”

Claire reached out and rested her hand on his strong thigh. “Going mental together, I like it too.”

He paused for a few seconds. “So, go on about what you were saying about your family, because I think I’m pretty screwed up about the whole thing.”

“What whole thing?”

“Oh, you know. Your mother probably hated me and that was why you never said good-bye that summer and why you never wanted to see me again. Touch of the tar brush and all that.”

“God, that’s such an awful expression.”

“Well? It’s not like it never came up. It’s bad enough that I wasn’t even British. Much less some working-class American. To top it all off, your mother probably thought I was some Middle Eastern parvenu come to take you to my harem.”

Claire burst out laughing. “Harem?”