Jill Shalvis - The Street Where She Lives

“Oh, Rach, I’ve missed this body, I’ve missed you.” With those stunning words, he lowered his head, splayed his hands wide across her bare back, urging her closer, and opened his mouth on a breast.

Shocked at the immediate clutching of her body to his, at how she felt as if she was burning up from the inside out, she could only hold on. She hadn’t felt this flash of heat and need and desperation in thirteen long years, an eternity. Far in the back of her mind, she heard the horrifyingly hungry whimpers she let out as he nibbled at her, but couldn’t help herself-she was on fire, shaking, and completely incapable of doing anything but letting him have his way with her. Have his way, he did, teasing a nipple with his teeth, tormenting between her thighs with his fingers, until she would have slid to a heap on the floor if he hadn’t caught her up in his arms. Setting her on the bed, he held her gaze while he tossed her robe over his shoulders.

For the briefest moment, self-consciousness again began to clear the sexual haze he’d spun around her, but then he began to undress, and my, oh my, he was magnificent. Rough, sinewy arms, broad chest, powerful thighs…and between them, he was hard and heavy. For her.

Tossing his pants aside, he caught her looking, and must have mistaken her wide-eyed look of wonder for misgivings or horror because he let out a rough laugh. “Hey, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“It’s…been a long time.”

“Yeah.” He put a knee on the bed, leaned over her. “But it’s just me.”

Just him. The only man to ever make her feel as if she would die if he didn’t kiss her, touch her. “Ben…”

“No regrets,” he murmured, and bent close enough to glide his lips over hers. “No recriminations, no dwelling, no thinking.” He ran his hands down her arms, linked their fingers on either side of her head as he settled himself between her thighs, which opened for him of their own accord. There was no mistaking his erection nudging at her already wet center, no way she wanted to. Pulling her fingers free, she wrapped her arms around his neck and breathed his name.

“Yeah, that’s it, you’re remembering now.” His hips arched, just a little, enough to make her head swim, and a helpless hum of pleasure escaped her when he dipped his head to run hot, wet, openmouthed kisses down her neck. His hands were everywhere, then finally…right where she wanted them the most.

“Now,” she gasped, trying to pull him inside her.

“Not yet.” He sank two fingers inside her, groaned when she cried out. She couldn’t help it, couldn’t keep still. “Shh,” he murmured when she cried out again, then covered her mouth with his, eating up her wordless demands, his fingers stroking her insides, her body already halfway to heaven.

“Inside me,” she begged.

His touch deepened, and she caught her breath, feeling suspended… Caught it again when he removed his hand. But then he put on a condom, braced himself and entered her.

Their twin moans floated on the air. Rachel couldn’t put together coherent words to save her life, but she wanted, she needed… “Ben…please.”

“I know, babe.” He flexed his hips, just once. “I know.”

“Oh, my…”

“More?”

“Yes.”

“You feel it, don’t you, Rach?”

Another slow thrust made response impossible.

“Do you?”

She thrust her hips against his. “Yes!”

With another low, slow thrust, he added a knowing, purposeful glide of his thumb, right where they were joined.

She jerked.

“There, Rach?”

She opened her mouth to answer but he made another pass of that thumb, the one that had become the center of her universe, and she exploded on impact. She flew high and hard, remembering now what it felt like to be so filled, so heated, so high, and she might have said so if she wasn’t struck blind, deaf and dumb by the fireworks going off in her head, in her body. And until the ripples within her eased, she didn’t realize Ben was breathing every bit as harshly as she, his muscles quaking as he held himself on his elbows so that he didn’t crush her with his weight.

Still buried deep within her, he lifted his head. Smiled slowly. “Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey.”

He ran his thumb over her sensitive lower lip. “So.”

In spite of her uncertainty, she had to smile. “So.”

“Did you feel the need to fake anything?”

She blinked. “What?”

“The orgasm. Real or Memorex?”

A laugh shuddered out of her.

“You think that’s funny.” He slid his hands to her hips and rolled to his back, pulling her over the top of him. “I’m going to take that as a good thing.”

“You could.”

“Real good?”

“Yes, real good,” she said softly, suddenly feeling shy about it, which was ridiculous given that she lay sprawled, naked, over the top of him.

He cupped her face. “You’re so beautiful, Rachel. You are,” he insisted when she made a doubtful little sound. “Why haven’t you shared this with anyone in all this time?”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about other people.”

“We weren’t going to talk about other women,” he corrected. “But this is about you.”

“Ben-”

He rolled them over again, and she found herself very carefully pinned beneath him. “I see your cuts and bruises healing,” he murmured. “I see your body healing, but there’s still so much hurt inside you. Where does it come from, Rach? Why won’t you share it? If not with anyone else, at least why not with me?”

She struggled to free herself, but he held her effortlessly. “Talk to me.”

“Why?” She swallowed hard but the sudden lump in her throat didn’t budge. “You’re leaving.”

He went utterly still, then let her wriggle out from beneath him while he flopped to his back and stared at the ceiling. “Always comes back to that, doesn’t it?” Then, without another word, he rolled out of the bed and went into her bathroom.

Rachel pulled the covers up to her chin and tried to concentrate on the good. There was her body for one, still humming with sexual pleasure. And the warmth of his body, which still lingered in her bed.

Damn it, she’d known going in this was temporary, and she refused to agonize or anticipate.

It was done.

But a moment later he came out, walking toward her in all his nude glory. Not cocky, not strutting, just utterly comfortable with himself. At the side of the bed, he stopped. “You want me to go?”

Yes, her mind demanded. Go.

But it was her body in control at the moment, not her brain, and because of that, she scooted over and lifted the edge of the covers.

He climbed in, turned on his side and held out his arms.

With a sigh, she scooted right into them, entwining their legs. Pressing her face into his neck, which smelled so inherently Ben, she let out another little sigh.

“Okay?” He stroked a hand down her back.

“For now.”

“For now is all that matters,” he breathed, and hugged her close.

And if that statement wasn’t a sum of all their differences, she didn’t know what was, but she didn’t care.

She would live in the moment, and enjoy it.

And worry about future moments in…well, a future moment.

BEN AWOKE to the sun in his eyes and his arms empty. No big surprise, he’d always awoken alone. Different bed, of course, different continent and time zone, but always with the same vague feeling that he was missing something.

Now he knew exactly what that something was. Or who.

Rachel.

Last night had been nothing short of earth-shattering. The way she’d given herself, the way he’d responded. He hoped to hell she didn’t hate him for it, because he was afraid he’d just fallen in love with her all over again.

He might as well have jumped off a three-hundred-foot cliff because it wouldn’t change anything. He still wasn’t meant for this kind of life. He still didn’t want the same address and same view from the same porch every morning. In light of that, it was past time to get the hell out of this bed with the fluffy white pillows and thick comforter. He rolled from his belly to his back, then nearly had heart failure. His daughter was sitting at his hip, grinning at him.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he sat up and had enough wits about him to be grateful for the sheet at his waist since he was still quite naked. “Uh…hi.”

She just kept grinning.

He checked the sheet to make sure it was still covering the essentials, not wanting to be the one to educate this girl in the ways of male morning anatomy. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re in Mom’s bed.”

True. And he had no idea how to explain this. He wasn’t in the habit of sleeping with a woman all night long, not when by morning he’d always been overcome by claustrophobia. Actually, that claustrophobia was overcoming him now. “About that-”

“She’s downstairs drinking her coffee and pretending you’re not in here. In case you were wondering.”

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“Well, I came up to borrow a sweatshirt. And found you instead.” She hopped off the bed and twirled. “Think I’ll go mention to Mom I found you here. And that you’re awake.”

“No!” He forced a smile to soften his tone. “Um…maybe you’d just let her keep on pretending? You know, that I’m not here?”

She cocked her head thoughtfully. “If that would help your cause.”

Oh, now he was a cause. “Em-”

Bouncing closer, she tossed her arms around him and gave him a bear hug. The feel of her, thin and sweet, so goddamned sweet his throat tightened, had him wanting to hold her forever.

“I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to work,” she whispered against his throat. “Getting you to come here.”

Ah, hell. He put his hands on her arms and pulled back enough to look into her face. “Emily, I know you think you planned this little reunion, but I’ve got to tell you-”