Uncommon Passion Page 13

  Steam lifted over the top of the shower door. Ben reached for the knob and dialed the temperature back toward the cool side, then unzipped her jeans. She stood still, her back to the wall, and let him undress her. His touch was somehow both devastatingly intimate and impersonal at the same time.

  Exactly.

  He braced himself with his forearm beside her head, then his hand slid up her arm to cup her nape, just under the intricately coiled bun she wore. One pin dropped to the floor, then another before she said, “Leave it up.” Her eyes were still closed because his fingers were stroking that sensitive spot on her neck, sending shivers racing across the top layer of her skin.

  He bent to kiss her, his bare chest skimming her breasts with each irregular breath. His mouth left her cheekbone for her earlobe, then stopped at the sensitive hollow behind her jaw. Without thinking, she put her hands to his waist. She felt warm skin, hard muscle and hipbone, the combination of belt and uniform pants, all under her hands as she unbuckled, unbuttoned, unzipped. Taking what she needed.

  His hard shaft thrust out thick and heavy as he reached for her wrist. When she didn’t open her hand, he simply ran her knuckles up and down the underside.

  “You want that?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He used hands and hips and shoulders to shift her into the shower. He stepped in beside her and shut the door, and suddenly the damp air clogged her throat, stung her eyes.

  I am not dirty. This is not wrong. I am not a bad person. I am a person, a human being, with a body, with emotions. I am not dirty.

  The water seemed to whisper this refrain to her as droplets pelted his shoulders, then streamed down his chest and abdomen in rivulets that quickly soaked the thick thatch of dark hair around his jutting shaft. The water plastered his hair forward on his head, emphasizing his hard features. Without a smile he looked almost brutish, and when he moved, all shifting planes and hard muscles, lightning struck between her thighs. A day’s worth of stubble framed his mouth, which was soft, yet somehow exuding sexual purpose, and his eyes had gone storm blue and heavy lidded. A blood flush stood high on his cheekbones, throwing his face into a purely masculine relief.

  Her breathing quickened from the weight, the heat, the humid, water-laden air, the way he crowded her against the wall. Eyes narrowed, brows lowered he pinned her with his body and slid one hand between her legs. She shuddered once, then again when he circled her clit with his fingertip. Using teeth and tongue, lips and fingertip he drew her under the surface of desire, into the hot depths. Water streamed over his shoulders, running between her breasts and down her hips as heat seared fast and hard between her thighs. In a matter of moments he flung her over the edge.

  “More,” she gasped. Pushed to the edge emotionally, she added, “Fuck me.”

  It felt right, so right. That’s what she wanted. She wanted Ben Harris to fuck her, and she wasn’t ashamed to demand it, either.

  A low growl rumbled under the water pounding in the enclosed space. He reached for the condom he’d set on the ledge, leaning into her to keep her pinned as he smoothed it on. “Say it again,” he demanded.

  She gave a skittering little laugh. “Fuck me.”

  He lathered up his hands, then transferred the bubbles to her back. He stepped into her body and slid one arm under her hips to lift her. With her hands on his shoulders for balance, her skin slid easily against the shower stall, up to position his erection, then a pause.

  “Again. Use my name.”

  Somehow, like this, male prerogative rubbed her exactly the right way. She looked right into his eyes and said, “Fuck me, Ben.”

  And down. His shaft slid into her, nerve endings popping and firing as the hard length stretched her, opened her. Not sure what to do, how to help, she reached out, grabbing first at his shoulders, then the top edge of the shower stall, trying to find something to help him support her weight.

  He tipped his head back and looked into her eyes. “Just hold on,” he said brusquely.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, and suddenly it all worked. All she had to do was open to him, cling to him, and let him take her, slowly at first, teasingly gliding in and out until she locked her ankles behind his back to better open herself to him.

  “Harder,” she said.

  His next thrust impacted with enough force to send her a couple of inches up the wall. He adjusted his grip, bracing his forearm beside her head, fingers curled around the top of the stall so the next thrust sent her into his elbow. It was hard and rough and absolutely inescapable. In response she sank her fingernails into his shoulders. He just laughed. The sound, combined with another hard stroke, sent fire pulsing out from her core, curling her toes, tightening tendons and muscles until she cried out with need.

  He was pounding into her now, using her defenseless position backed to the wall, entirely dependent on him to stay upright, showing her exactly how hot this could get. Each driving stroke shoved her a little deeper into the blackness, until the hot fist low in her belly flung open. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed through her, and as if from a distance she heard her desperate cries. As if her release triggered his, Ben thrust in once, twice, then held himself hard and deep inside her.

  Water coursed over them, between them as he straightened, set her on her feet, and disengaged their bodies. Tremors raced along her nerves and her knees weren’t quite steady, a problem he also seemed to face, because while his arm slipped from under her bottom, he leaned his weight on the forearm still braced on the wall. His free hand scudded up her wet arm to cup her jaw, and he bent his head to rest his forehead on hers.

  A fresh wave of intimacy flowed through her. This one had nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with the way he leaned into her, his breathing slowly evening out, his fingers trembling ever so slightly. She got the sense he didn’t do this often, lean on someone else for any reason at all, much less lean on a woman after sex. She waited for a long, sweet moment. When he didn’t move, she gently stroked his nape. Bristly buzzed hair gave way to hot skin, each caress slow enough to be stealthy. To avoid spooking him.

  Every sense was alive, the emotions tamped down to cooling embers.

  He breathed deep and stepped back. Without meeting her gaze he opened the shower door and stepped out to deal with the condom. Cool air flooded the stall. When Ben rejoined her he turned her so she stood under the spray. He adjusted the showerhead so water rained over her back and shoulders, and only the spatter from the droplets misted in her hair as they shared the soap and water. Her brain was entirely empty, except for a line from Genesis that floated up into her consciousness.

  And your desire shall be for your husband . . .

  Desire she had in spades. The husband she did not have, did not want. But oh Lord, she wanted Ben.

  “All set?” he asked.

  She nodded, and turned off the water. They bumped knees and elbows and hips as they dried off. When Ben went into the bedroom she heard drawers opening, then fabric against skin. Rachel wiggled back into her jeans and T-shirt, clothes she’d been forbidden to wear. Farm work was so much easier in jeans and a lightweight shirt. Safer than a long skirt around heavy machinery, too. She’d removed most of her hairpins when Ben, now dressed in the same clothes he’d worn the night of the auction, leaned against the vanity and watched the heavy mass tumble around her shoulders; she gave it a quick towel dry, then smoothed it back and coiled it up again.

  She would smell like him when she went back to the farm. Jess would know where she’d been, what she’d done. How out of character it was for her in the first place.

  “What brought that on?”

  “The pastor from Elysian Fields showed up at the farm. Now everyone there knows where I came from. How different I am.”

  He watched her comb her hair from ends up to the root
s before he spoke. “What happened to make you leave?”

  “Most girls in our community are married by twenty, twenty-one at the latest. I wasn’t. I was looking after my father and his house. He managed the animal side of the farm’s operation, and I helped him there, so it was good for the farm. I kept records for the vet who tended our animals, and after a few years, I knew more than the men. When I offered suggestions or input or new ideas, I was behaving in an unwomanly fashion. Stepping out of my place in the world, and once I did that, I had to step back into it. Except I couldn’t. I withdrew fifteen years of minimum-wage earnings from our joint bank account, took my mother’s watch and my birth certificate, and told my accountability partner I was going to the Christian bookstore. Instead I went to the shelter.”

  “You didn’t tell them you were leaving? You just disappeared?”

  She paused in the middle of combing from roots to ends. Something about this upset him. Everyone else complimented her on her bravery and daring, but Ben’s blue eyes were as hard and flat as paint chips. “I called from the shelter the next day,” she said mildly.

  A muscle popped in his jaw. “Rob Strong didn’t ask for references when he hired you?”

  She shrugged. “He likes to teach people about farming, so he’s used to hiring people with no experience, but after ten minutes of conversation he could tell I knew more about goats than he did. No one else asked, and I didn’t tell them.”

  “Why not?”

  Working slowly, she started a loose French braid at the back of her skull. “I spent two months living in a shelter before I found the job at Silent Circle Farm. There I was a victim. I needed a social security number, and a driver’s license. I have a certificate of graduation from a homeschool institute, not even a GED, so I had a hard time finding a job other than fast food. I know what I want. It isn’t much,” she said with a laugh. “I want to work as a veterinary technician and have an apartment of my own. I’m tired of being a combination of a tragic figure, the oppressed refugee from a fundamentalist community, and a circus side show. Now everyone knows.”

  Ben just stared at her. That violation of her privacy was impossible to explain to someone who’d never known what it was like to have nothing for yourself. Not your body or your heart or your emotions. Reverend Bayles exposed her to everyone on the farm.

  Intending to finish the discussion, she said, “They said they were there to take me back home. I told them I was never going back. I think they got the message.”

  In an instant Ben grew bigger, broader, as if some of her anger transferred from her to him. “Take you back? Kidnapping?”

  She remembered how they arrayed themselves in front of her, how convinced of their moral superiority and rightness they were. “Their tactics involved guilt and shame,” she said. “Not kidnapping.”

  “File a restraining order.”

  “It’s not necessary,” she said. “They hinted I’d stolen money from my father when I left, but my name was on the account and I’d earned that money. I didn’t even take half of it.”

  “How much money?”

  She got the sense the question was automatic, a cop reflex. “Enough to buy a date with you,” she said lightly. When he didn’t respond, she added, “I have enough to get me through vet tech school. I need to work to pay my living expenses, books, that kind of thing. It’s not much, but it’s enough.”

  She looked up at Ben. Clearly he thought with family back at Elysian Fields, they’d stop at nothing to get her back. Perhaps he thought she was wavering. “I’m never going back. I know that already. I just underestimated how long it would take them to let me go. Frankly, I didn’t think they’d find me worth coming after.”

  “Some families don’t let people leave without a fight.”

  “I didn’t leave him,” she said simply. “I write him every week. If he would write me back, even open my letters rather than returning them immediately, I’d go see him. Until then I’m not going back. This fight is over,” she said.

  He looked at his watch. “I won’t keep you,” she said, and went to grab her purse from beside the door.

  “What would you have done if I wasn’t home?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Gone back to the farm and gone for a walk, probably.”

  “You should swing by No Limits. Hottest pickup bar in town, and the best place to blow off steam.”

  “I can’t see myself at a nightclub,” she said. “But I’d love to do something else with you.”

  The words hung in the air, never to be retrieved, before she remembered he worked there. He wasn’t inviting her on a date. She opened her mouth to take back what she said.

  “Like what?” he said.

  His neutral tone didn’t give her much hope. “There’s a coffee shop and bookstore on the Strand called Artistary. They have concerts, book discussion groups, conversation nights, and open-mike nights on Tuesdays for poets and local musicians. They have sandwiches and salads, if you want to get something to eat.”

  It sounded dumb as soon as she said it. Ben wouldn’t want to eat a salad, drink tea, and watch people read poetry or sing songs. Think of it as another lesson, she told herself. You’re learning to ask a man out. You’re going to get rejected.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.” The blade of a smile flashed. “I can handle anything for a few hours. I’ll pick you up, but I can’t guarantee what time. I’ll text when I leave town.”

  “You don’t have to pick me up,” she said. “It’s two extra hours of driving for you.” Half an hour out, half an hour back, repeat after the show. Or the sex. Whichever took longer.

  “It’s a date,” he said. “I do know how dates are supposed to work.”

  She hesitated, then nodded because arguing with him seemed pointless and he had somewhere to be. “I’m glad you’re coming with me. See you Tuesday.”

  She let herself out, down to the parking lot, an odd mix of emotions tumbling inside her. Bright flashes of desire mingled with that disquieting emotion she couldn’t name, tenderness, perhaps, or affection. Simple happiness that he wanted to do something else with her. Anticipation for Tuesday.

  Something new. It took her a minute to identify confidence. Today she’d stood up to the Elysian Fields leadership and initiated sex with Ben. More important, she’d reminded herself of how far she’d come, and how far she had yet to go. She closed her car door, pulled her cell phone from her purse and opened her Drafts folder in her email. The carefully written email with her application to the local vet tech school, admissions essay, and scanned transcripts sat in the folder.

  She opened it, and touched Send.

  Done. All she could do now was wait, and pray, and mull over another pressing question.

  What on earth was she going to wear for a proper date with Ben Harris?

  Chapter Twelve

  Three a.m. Even after a shower and a night sweating in Galveston’s humid spring air Ben could still smell Rachel’s unique scent, rain and risk and an increasing element of longing. Steve seemed to have an ongoing thing with Juliette’s friend Marta, but Ben drove not to Juliette’s for a party but to his brother’s house.

  Fidelity to Rachel had nothing to do with it. He just couldn’t see anything at one of Juliette’s things topping what happened a few hours earlier.

  He waited until Sam finished the cut on a sheet of drywall, turned off the saw, and tossed the safety glasses on the workbench. He’d expected silence but instead music filled the air. “Shine” by Collective Soul, but an a cappella version. As he watched his brother sing along, a big hand reached into Ben’s chest and squeezed everything tight. Heart, lungs, stomach, gut.

  Sam had such a great voice, textured, raspy, a channel for everything he felt. He’d won the lead in the school musical his freshma
n year, the same year Ben started at linebacker. They’d grown apart those first two years of high school, Ben following the easy road through sports and girls to popularity while Sam struggled with his identity. Or rather, how much of his identity to show in a rural Texas high school that lived and breathed football.

  He watched Sam sing and felt the hair lift on his nape.

  To shake it off he looked around the half-finished garage. Drywall covered two of the three walls. Loose wiring hung between the beams of the unfinished wall, just one more hurdle to jump to get Jonathan.

  It was unlikely to happen. Ben knew it, and Sam did, too, even if he wouldn’t admit it. That didn’t stop Sam. Nothing had, when Sam made a decision.

  Sam caught sight of Ben out of the corner of his eye and spun into a crouch. “Jesus Christ!” he said as he straightened.

  “Common spelling?” Ben said wryly.

  Sam blinked. “What?”

  He’d told Rachel that story, not his brother, the person he used to tell everything. “Never mind. Sorry I didn’t knock.”

  Sam sat back against the workbench. “Two visits in less than a month. It’s a miracle.”

  “A miracle would be Sunday brunch,” Ben said.

  “The answer to my prayers,” Sam agreed. He opened the fridge and tossed Ben a beer. “How you been?”

  Good question. In the couple of weeks he’d gotten verbal reprimands from two different superior officers, thoroughly debauched a formerly virgin refugee from a fundamentalist cult, then agreed to go to an open-mike night with her. He wasn’t sure what was worse, expecting her to suck his cock like she was a No Limits veteran, or taking her out on a date. He settled on, “Fine.”