Chapter Twenty-One

Hannah

We kiss for a while on the couch until I’m straddling his lap and his hands are under my shirt again. It’s like when we were in his car in Cleveland— Except we’re not in a car. And we’re alone.

Ben kisses under my jaw and down my neck. “Do you…” He clears his throat and his words vibrate across the sensitive skin of my neck. “Do you want to move to the bedroom?”

My stomach clenches with a combination of nerves and anticipation. Mostly anticipation. I slide back off his lap and take his hand, smiling at him. His dark eyes are half closed, and he smiles back at me, then kisses my fingertips. For all the intense making out and grinding, the feather-light kisses on the pads of my fingers make me melt.

When he stands, he curls his free hand around the back of my neck and kisses me again, a long, slow exploration of my mouth that catches fire. I dig my fingers into his hair, holding him tight to me, and he wraps an arm around my back before pulling me up onto the tips of my toes. God, I love how tall he is. When we’re together like this, it’s like he enfolds me.

We stumble toward his room, Ben walking backward, unable to stop kissing long enough to get there properly. He backs into a table, nearly sending his laptop to the floor, but he catches it, and then we laugh, all the nerves and excitement making us a little giddy.

After saving his laptop, Ben keeps backing into his room, tugging me by my hands, but not kissing this time, so we don’t run into anything else. Which works until he trips over a pile of laundry on the floor just inside his room.

Ben’s room is a mess. Not in a gross way, but he doesn’t put his clothes away in the closet or the dresser. There are piles on the floor, some clean, some dirty, and he sorts it out that way. The bed is perpetually unmade. There are books piled everywhere. I keep one book on my nightstand— Ben has nine, and another pile on the floor next to the bed. His bookshelf is stacked two-deep, and more sit on the floor in front of it. But aside from that, he doesn’t own much. Despite his family’s money, there isn’t a fancy stereo or electronic gadget. Just whatever he needs to live and books.

“Maybe we should sit.” I skirt around him and the clothes, shrugging out of his hoodie as I go, and perch onto the edge of his bed. His eyes take me in, sitting here, waiting for him, and the look on his face— I flush hot and cold all over.

“Come here,” I whisper.

Ben sits and angles into me, one hand braced on the bed behind me, the other dragging a knuckle along my jaw.

“Hey,” he murmurs.

I trace his lips with my fingertip. “Hey, yourself.”

“We don’t have to—”

I press my finger against his lips. “I want to.”

I take his glasses off and lean past him to set them onto the stack of books beside the bed. When I straighten up, his eyes are different—darker and intense—and his lips are slightly parted.

He takes my face in his hands and pulls me into his kiss. No gentleness this time. This kiss is hungry, hot, and a little desperate. He nips at my bottom lip and I moan. Then he leans into me, pressing me back onto the bed. He rolls, and I’m under him, his knee between my thighs, and I ache as I press against him. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want Ben right now.

I’m lost—in kisses that last forever and his hands tracing my face, my neck, and shoulder, waist, and hip. I’m lost in the weight of his body pressing me into the mattress, his leg tight against me, winding me up to greater and greater heights. I’m lost in the sounds we’re making, the deep labored breaths, quiet sighs, and tiny moans every time one of us touches someplace new.

“Hannah…” He kisses the side of my neck, his lips pulling on my skin and making me weak in the knees. I fist the back of his T-shirt, and his hand shifts to my waist, under my shirt where his fingers spread over my ribcage.

“Are you sure?” he mutters into my skin.

I pull back enough to look at him, and I hold his face, so he looks at me. “Shut up and stop worrying.”

He grins and kisses me again. The air shifts around us as this moves from a serious make out session to real foreplay. This time when I fist my hand in his hair, his hips flex into mine, and his hardness presses against me, making me moan.

Slowly, he works my shirt up until he can’t get it higher without breaking our kiss. He leans back and looks into my face, his dark eyes full of emotion as he watches me. His Adam’s apple bobs and he’s still hesitating, still afraid of rushing me, which is sweet but unnecessary. I grab the hem of my shirt and strip it over my head. His eyes fall immediately to my bra. I never thought my breasts were all that much to shout about, but Ben’s looking at them like he wants to worship at their altar. It makes me feel sexy and brave, so I arch my back and unhook the clasp of my bra.

His eyes flash briefly to mine, and I smile, so he draws the straps slowly down my arms. When I’m naked from the waist up, he just looks at me again, and not just at my breasts. His gaze skates over my face, my arms, my chest, and then his hand follows the same path, cupping my cheek, tracing a line down the side of my neck, over my shoulder until his palm lands on my breast.

He drags in a shaky breath. I’ve stopped breathing altogether.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers and kisses me again. I melt as he kisses and touches me. Then he dips his head and draws my nipple into his mouth. I gasp and try desperately to hold still under him, but it feels incredible. I’m on fire, all tingling nerves and tense muscles. His soft hair brushes against my chest, a different sensation than his mouth, but no less powerful. He runs his hands along the length of me, from my knee, to my thigh, over my hip, along my rib cage, and up to cup my breast, holding it still as his mouth works its magic.

I need so much more than this. Tugging at his shirt, I make him pause long enough to strip it off, and then we’re bare chest to bare chest. His skin is so smooth, so warm, and he slides one hand between my shoulder blades. He holds me like I’m precious. Like he’ll never let go.

I slip my hand between us to unbutton his jeans. He drops his head into the crook of my neck, breathing heavily as I drag the zipper down, brushing against him as I do.

“I’ll die if you touch me right now,” he mutters.

“Should I stop?” I tease, arching an eyebrow when he lifts his head to look at me. His hair is a tousled mess, and he’s grinning adorably.

“Maybe just wait until I can touch you, too.”

Then he rears off me, stands by the bed, grasps my jeans at the hem, and tugs them off. There’s no way it’s not awkward, even with both of us working together, but despite the laughter, he frees me from my jeans. His go next and they’re a lot easier. Then he’s standing by the bed in just his boxers, his hand on my knee, his eyes on mine. With the soft light from his bedside lamp illuminating his body, long, lean, and lightly muscled, he’s beautiful.

When he lowers himself back down on top of me, all traces of humor are gone. He looks serious, almost reverent. I lift my knees, allowing him to settle between my legs, and we kiss—long, slow, deep kisses, rocking into each other as we do. There’s just my underwear and his boxers between us, and they’re not doing anything to keep his hard ridge from pressing against me. Each shift of our bodies creates an addictive friction. Everything is warm and heavy.

This is already the best sex I’ve ever had, and we’re not even having it yet. Except it feels like we are, like this is more than just a collection of body parts slotting together. It feels so much bigger because I love him.

He brushes my hair out of my face as he presses slow, soft kisses to my lips, my cheeks, my chin. “I love you, Hannah,” he whispers, and my heart feels like it’s expanding, too full of emotion. My eyes water. I pull his face back to mine and pour everything I’m feeling into my kiss.

“I love you, too.”

Ben’s hand moves to my thigh and slowly strokes up and down. His fingers curl around the back of my knee to pull it up. He settles more firmly against me and moans quietly. When his fingers come back up and brush against the edge of my underwear, he looks me in the eye and raises his eyebrows in question. I nod, and he hooks his finger onto the side of my underwear and tugs them down. I take over, getting them all the way off while he deals with his boxers. He leans away to the bedside table to grab a condom.

When he comes back to me, he runs his hand down my face again, tracing my lips and down over my chin to my neck.

“I do love you,” he says. “So much. No matter what happens.” He kisses me again as his body settles over mine. I lace my fingers behind his neck and pull him down until our lips are brushing together.

“I love you, too,” I whisper, the repeated words like an incantation, more real every time we say them.

He pushes into me and gasps my name. The pressure of him filling me takes me by surprise— He’s bigger than I expected. But it feels good, overwhelmingly good, and I sigh as he pushes deep inside. When he moves, the rhythm shocks me— I don’t remember it ever feeling like this. The handful of other times, it was like following instructions in a kit—step one, step two—just to get to the finished product, which never really happened for me anyway. But with Ben, it’s entirely different. Every move we make together feels instinctual. Every time he touches me, I respond on some elemental level. It’s like my body isn’t even my own anymore.

He kisses my shoulder, his lips pressing against my sweaty skin. He’s breathing heavily as he whispers, “God, you feel so…”

“I know.” I fist one hand into his hair and wrap my other arm around his back. “You, too.”

I cling to his shoulders and bury my face in his neck, kissing his skin, tasting the salt of his sweat on my lips. I’m overwhelmed with sensation, with the building tension. Just when I can’t bear it anymore, Ben shifts and something ignites deep inside of me, a slow-motion detonation that ends in a blinding flash of pleasure. He kisses me, swallowing my cries as I fall apart in his arms, and his pace increases. He’s holding me so tight. I’m wrapped in the cocoon of his body. Then Ben gasps and buries his face in my neck as he comes.

Neither of us makes any effort to move. I couldn’t if I tried. I don’t want to. I want to lie here under Ben, in his arms, for the rest of my life. Sublime happiness like I’ve never known burns under my skin. I drag one hand up and down his back while I run the fingers of my other hand through his hair. Ben groans and presses a kiss to my shoulder, and we float together a while longer.

After he cleans up and lies beside me again, he pulls me into his side, my head on his shoulder, his arm around me. Our free hands are joined, fingers tightly intertwined on his chest.

“This was…” He pauses, searching for the right words. “I’ve never felt like this.”

I smile and bury my face in his shoulder. “Me, neither.”

“Thank you for loving me. Please don’t stop.”

I love Ben and he loves me. But he also needs me. It sets off something warm and protective in me. No one’s ever needed me like this before. This is more than infatuation or physical chemistry. This is alchemy, which I didn’t think was real until tonight. Chemistry is predictable. If you understand the elements, you know how they’ll combine and what they’ll produce. Alchemy implies magic, the elements combining to become something more than the sum of their parts, lead transforming into gold. And I didn’t think magic existed in the real world, but maybe it does—a certain kind of magic. Because this is what it feels like when your life changes, when base metal becomes gold.