CHAPTER 44
THEN: Freshman Year, November
Paloma
Bennett carries me through the house and up the stairs, sitting me down on the dark marble countertop of the master bathroom. He turns on the shower and steam from the warm water starts to fill the entire space.
I grab for his shirt when he walks past me to get a few towels, pulling him in for a devouring kiss. He smiles into my mouth and pulls back.
“I smell like a bonfire.” His hand strokes my cheek, fingertips in my hair.
“Mmm.” I pull him in between my legs, kissing his neck. “I don’t care. I want you.”
He laughs and the sound makes my soul feel lighter.
“You have me,” he vows. “Always.”
I let him go so he can fiddle with everything until it’s exactly as he likes it.
“You can get in,” he finally says before turning to face the wall so I can undress.
He follows in behind me, both of us naked, though neither of us looking. I stare toward the tiled wall, letting his warmth and size cover my back entirely as he steps into the steaming shower.
“I want to take you here, under the water,” Bennett rasps into my ear, his hands slowly moving through my hair, washing it. “Where you feel safe and warm.”
My eyes close, heart clenching, pliantly relaxing in his strong hold beneath the hot spray.
“But I can’t be slow. And, selfishly, I want our first time to be in a bed.” He nips at my ear, and I shiver. “But… next time?”
I peek over my shoulder at him to find a boyish gleaming grin blooming that I’ve never seen on him. He’s so handsome it makes my chest ache. He turns me toward him, my chest to his. His fingers grip my chin lightly, tilting it up so that he can rinse the suds from my hair.
And I can’t stop looking at him. The words spill, flowing easily from my lips.
“I need you to know that you are the first person I’ve chosen for myself.
That this is the first time that I’ve… that I’ve wanted this,” I confess. Maybe it’s not true. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember what happened, to know it wasn’t my fault. That even though I didn’t fight outright, I didn’t want that.
He hurt you, I try to tell myself, but the voice that’s darker, more sinister, screams back, You asked for it.
My stomach swirls again, the heat of the shower making me feel dizzy. But I hold on to Bennett. His jaw is clenched tight, eyes swirling blue fire, but he doesn’t interrupt. Every line of his body feels sharper, and I feel calmer, safer, at the change.
Having him here, with me, is enough to silence my mind into tranquil calm.
“I’ve never wanted anything more than this,” I say, reaching up to press my lips to his hungrily, distracting him as best I can from the deep confession I’ve uttered in the safety of the water and his arms.
The water is still warm as he cuts o the shower, grabbing a towel and covering my shoulders, never once looking down. Even though I wish he would. He wraps one around his own waist before looking back up at me, helping wring out my hair and pulling me close, hugging me in my towel to keep me warm.
“I’ll give you a minute,” he says before exiting the bathroom into the darkened bedroom and closing the door behind him.
I don’t take a full minute; my heart thunders because I can’t wait any longer for him.
He’s there, using another towel to rub the water from his curls meticulously, but the sound of the door opening makes him pause. He tilts his chin over one massive shoulder, eyes dark and intense.
We stare at each other for a long moment, my heartbeat rushing in my ears like the ocean waves just outside the room.
He steps toward me, tentative. The floor-to-ceiling windows bathe his body in liquid moonlight.
Bennett is larger than most, but he’s almost always hunched. Now, besides the slight curve of his shoulders, his body is fully extended. He takes up so much space, shoulders broad and back wide. His skin is glistening from the shower, muscular but not cut. Thicker and softer in his size.
The blue towel around his waist is only held by his hand now, mimicking my pose across from him.
I let go of mine first, revealing my body to him all at once. In the shower, he was careful to only stand at my back. I’ve never stood and faced him in my nakedness, bare and vulnerable.
Blue eyes to match the ocean outside scan slowly over me, intentional and careful. The way he looks at me doesn’t feel dirty. It feels intense. Passionate, like the feeling of his eyes on me is feeding me power instead of taking it away.
He rewards my strength with his own, dropping the towel from his waist and stepping toward me.
My eyes move over his hips, the coarse hairs that lead down to the massive length of him, heavy against his abdomen. I knew he was big—he’s too large of a person not to be—but the sight has my breath hitching.
We step toward each other, meeting in the middle. I sit on the end of the bed, inching back slowly as he follows me, not crowding or rushing me as he crawls over me up, up, up the bed. My head rests on the white silk pillowcase, curls messy and damp. His skin is warm against my goose-bump-covered
body.
“Slow?”
“Slow,” he says, his hand hovering over my hip. “Tell me if you want to
stop.”
“I won’t want to.”
“P,” he says, his mouth soft, hovering over me carefully. Honeyed brown curls hang over his forehead. “Promise you’ll tell me if you want to stop.”
“I will.” I nod as I say it. “And you have to tell me if you don’t like something.”
“I will.” He nods back. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Please.” The word is half whine, but no embarrassment surfaces. “Touch me.”
Eyes wide, I watch his touch caress over my hips and up toward my breasts.
His fingers play across my body, sure and firm, as if he decided what he’d do and how before this. He’s planned and thought this through more than I have—and it’s only then I realize I’m slightly frozen beneath him. I am, for the first time, the one overthinking things.
“P?”
I’ve done this before. It’s just sex.
The back of his massive hand trails over my collarbone, feather light up the length of my neck, reaching to tuck a few hairs behind my ear.
“Paloma?” he calls again, pushing his body up o me. The loss of him is like ice over my skin. I shiver, eyes watery as I look up at him.
“I’m sorry—I don’t know what to do.”
His eyes soften before a gentle kiss lands on my brow.
“Kiss me.”
The command makes something loosen in my chest. I push up, reaching to pull him to me, lips pressing hard against his. Desperate and seeking.
He settles himself in the cradle of my thighs, spreading me wide with the broadness of his body. He soothes the stretch with his left hand, massaging lightly at the inside of my right thigh, while his other palm is pressed into the mattress by the side of my head—the only thing preventing him from crushing me with his weight.
Bennett disconnects from my mouth, kissing over my throat and down to my chest. His lips press over the hardened peak of one nipple before switching to the other as his fingers circle over the damp skin.
“Show me how you like it,” he says as he releases the nipple he’s been tormenting with slow smooth strokes. “I want to make you feel good. I need you to show me.”
“They’re kind of sensitive. Just some pressure—not too much.” I swirl my fingers closed around and around, shivering from the shots of pleasure driving down my body.
“Okay.” He presses a quick kiss to my mouth and ducks his head down, knocking my fingers away.
It’s perfect immediately, enough that my hips arch up involuntarily.
“Feel good?”
“Yes.” I buckle beneath him.
“Do you want more?”
“I want you to… to fuck me.”
The language feels strange, like it’s somehow wrong and right at the same time. Insecurity has me shrinking slightly under him, while trying to desperately grasp him to me in some feeble attempt at self-soothing.
“Not yet,” he says into my neck, letting me pull him to cover my body. I kiss my fear and anxiety into the skin of his neck, lips almost vibrating with my worry. “I want to do everything with you. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this, and I want to take my time with you.”
He pulls away again and my chest lurches, but I let him go. He smiles, hovering so big above me, and smooths his thumb over my cheekbone in soft,
soothing strokes.
“Let me take care of you. Okay?”
I nod before biting my lip and reaching for him.
He laughs, the sound pumping through my veins like a drug, and settles back over me only lower.
Brown curls tickle my stomach as he stops and hovers just above my belly button.
His mouth is hot against my skin, my cheeks flushing because no one’s ever done this before. He kisses and nibbles and licks at the most sensitive part of me. Bennett Reiner might be a virgin, but he’s made an art of getting to know my body, taking his time learning where his touch unravels me the most. I come fast and hard, overly sensitive, back bowing o the bed. He reaches a hand to my low stomach to push me down. To steady me.
Always keeping me steady.
It’s only after, when I sink back into the sheets to watch him carefully put on a condom, that his body raises to meet mine, settling between my thighs.
“Do you trust me?” he asks. I nod, eyes on his—always.
“Hold on to me,” he says. The repetition of the words from earlier winds through me, relaxing my muscles and my mind in equal measure. He pushes into me in one strong thrust.
My back arches at the sheer size of him. I can feel him everywhere, as if he’s inside every part of my body permanently. Deeply.
A cry bursts from my lips, hands grasping his meaty shoulders, nails digging in, and he stops fully. His brow dips, sweat and water from his damp curls dripping down smooth cheekbones, slipping over his swollen lips.
He watches me carefully. “Is it… too much?”
I laugh, my entire body relaxing around him so he can slide in farther.
Only Bennett would casually ask that, unaware of the sexual undertone of the question—he means it genuinely.
“I just need a moment,” I say, and he nods before dipping closer to me, using a hand beneath my neck to pull my body up toward him like an oering, pressing soft kisses along the tender skin of my throat.
His ministrations work like magic touches, relaxing my body to the intrusion of him. I’m not a virgin, but it’s been over a year since I last had sex.
And I’ve had no self-love intimacy, too scared to try anything. So, beyond Bennett’s hands and mouth—and now the massive cock between his legs— nothing has touched me there in a long time.
And somehow where I thought I’d feel terror-struck and overwhelmed, I don’t. I feel safer with him here, in his embrace, with him inside me, than I’ve
ever felt.
“Okay. I’m ready. Please.”
He moves and it’s like electric shocks across my body. He’s everywhere, no part of my body untouched by him—his fingers, his soul, his words.
It’s slow, careful; despite how large and intensely intimidating he is, he’s always been this with me. Careful. Gentle. His body is stretched over mine, so close that my nipples press against the sparse hair of his chest. His hands grasp
the curves of my waist. Everything about him is manly, seeming older than his eighteen years—even his soul.
I want to be here, intertwined with him, forever.
The pace at which he makes love to me feels like he’s searing himself into my marrow, unescapable and permanent. I’ve never been touched like this, taken care of like this, loved like this—if that’s what it is. Maybe what it could be.
“Bennett,” I breathe, eyes fluttering as an orgasm sneaks up over me—not so intense, but prolonged and filled with light.
“Oh god, Paloma—” he stutters out. “I can feel you squeezing me—fuck.”
My entire body only tightens further around him, my orgasm rolling into a second one because he’s panting and thrusting and losing his careful control.
He curses so rarely; it works like a shot to my adrenals to hear it now. To know I make him feel that way.
I think I could get o on his reactions to me alone.
“Please, Bennett—”
“You feel so perfect,” he breathes.
“Are you going to come?” The question is half stuttered, half moan.
“Yes,” he breathes. “Can I? Can I come inside you?” A growl bursts from his lips against my ear. “I need to come inside you, love.”
I know he’s wearing a condom, but the words are intense and heady. I nod, fingers gripping the muscles of his shoulders, feeling the softness of his stomach against mine as his hips stutter before his abs contract and his mouth turns from my neck.
“You’re the only thing I’ve ever cared about,” I whisper, a broken confession spilling unwanted from my lips. I blink back tears, and he slows
down. “Ever.”
He bites into my shoulder.
It makes me come again, fingers fluttering to the back of his head like I can hold him there. Like I can keep the mark of him on me forever.
We lie across rumpled sheets under the glow of moonlight, his body stretched out beneath me. His music plays softly from the speaker on the sill, Iron and Wine soothing and lulling filtering through my ears, competing with the thump of his heartbeat. Yet I feel energized while he looks sleepy and sated, beautiful. So handsome and so far above me, there’s a piece of me forever shocked that he’s here, underneath my fingers.
“How old were you? When you had your first kiss?”
He blushes at the question, despite being naked and entangled in my arms.
“Sixteen. It was a girl who had a crush on my best friend. I think she was trying to get him to notice her or make him jealous.”
I smirk, shaking my head and tracing my fingers over his brow.
“Impossible. You’re perfect. And way better than him.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
“I don’t care,” I whisper into his mouth. “I only want you.”
I feel almost high on him. My heart pushes at my ribs, beating like it might reach from my chest and into his.
There’s a giddy feeling in my chest, like butterflies. It like something from a fairy tale, and not the usual anxious sickness I’m more used to in the aftermath of sex.
“What about you?” he asks, hand brushing my hair back from my face softly as I nuzzle into his biceps where his arm is wrapped around me.
“What about me?”
“I want to know everything.” He punctuates the word with a heady kiss.
“When was your first kiss? Have you ever fallen in love with someone? How old were you when you first made love to someone?”
My stomach hollows, anxiety ripping through me like a whip. I jerk away from him, scrambling back slightly. He sits up, following me like he wants to grab for me, keep me close, but is fighting the impulse.
“Why—why would you ask me that?”
Stop. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.
It doesn’t matter. I can’t stop myself from snapping, “You’re ruining this.
You’re ruining everything.”
His face shutters like I’ve slapped him, but he doesn’t move away. Instead, he looms closer.
“Wait,” he commands, even with his voice soft as a whisper. He grasps my wrist in his hand, his other settling on my cheek, his pinky firm against the soft skin beneath my jaw, his thumb slowly caressing the swell of my bottom lip. “Paloma—”
“You don’t want to know that.” I try to shake my head, try to force myself to jolt away. But I can’t. I don’t want to, body pliant in the steadying strength of his hands.
“There is nothing you could say that would make me go, P,” he says firmly.
“Tell me.”
A tear works its way down my cheek, falling softly over his fingertips.
“I was ten when someone kissed me for the first time,” I say, throat full with a trapped cry. That little version of myself shouts in my head, hands over her ears—Stop, stop, stop!—as if she knows I shouldn’t say this. He’ll leave.
Good. He’s better without this.
“He was… one of my mom’s friends.”
I see the words hit him. The implication.
A hu of his breath through his nose. He nods. “What else?”
My brow dips. “You—that’s not—”
“Someone hurt you,” he says, brow furrowing. He doesn’t ask. He just says it, as if he can see everything I’m desperate to hide. “Tell me, Paloma. Let me be there for you. Trust me, please.”
His words are a plea. The sob I’d tried to smother wrings free, pathetic and
needy.
“What else?” he asks again.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Paloma—”
“Stop,” I cry, my voice louder than I mean for it to be. I move back away from him again. “Please, Bennett. I don’t—I can’t talk about this yet. Just… please.”
“Okay,” he says, hands up in a placating gesture that’s meant to be as calming as his tone.
We sit quietly in the ruinous aftermath of the mess of my own making. You ruined this. Like you ruined him. Like you ruin everything.
Bennett stands slowly, naked but not desperate to cover himself in the way I am—the sheet drawn up over my body.
“You didn’t eat,” he says, eyes focused on his feet. “I know you’re hungry.
I’m going to make you food, okay?”
I nod, too afraid to ask him the questions burning in my throat—Are you angry? Do you hate me? Do you regret it all?
I reach out for his hand, but my stomach swoops and I pull back. It feels wrong to be allowed to touch him after I yelled at him.
“Can I… can I sit by the water again?”
“Of course you can,” he says, voice exasperated. He leans in, hands in my hair, cupping my head in the massive stretch of his palms. “You can have anything you want, P.”
His words feel intense, blanketing me in safety and warmth. Guilt and anxiety war in equal measure. I’ve never felt safer than I do with him. And yet, the terrifying thought of losing that is enough to drive me almost mad with wanting to keep it.
“Just wear something warm, okay?” He kisses my forehead long and hard, as if he can tattoo the feel of his lips on my skin.
It doesn’t stop the pain from the physical loss of him and the safety of his arms.
