Page 83 of Collision
Ben shakes his head, his brow knitting together as he looks at me. “You don’t need to do that, Mik. I like it when you leave it natural too. It wasn’t me telling you to change.”
My stomach lurches a little. He’s right. I was offering to do it because he liked it, not because I felt that it would benefit me in any way. Was that who I had allowed myself to become? The girl who would change becausehewanted me to?
“Oh.” I get to my feet and move around the chair, perching against the bookshelf behind him as I try to sort through my thoughts. “Okay.”
Ben watches me carefully as he swivels in my chair.
“Talk,” he demands simply.
“What?”
“You’re being weird, talk to me.”
My chest aches. How can he know me so well in such a stupidly short time? I plaster on a smile and shake my head.
“I’m okay, I just had an early wake up call,” I tease.
Ben chuckles and reaches for the coffee placed on my desk, handing it to me with a soft smile.
“I’m not sorry about that,” he jokes and I grin.
“Me neither.”
Ben’s eyes drift to my bag and I take a sip from the cup. Smooth and silky, it warms me instantly and I sigh happily.
“What’s with the bag?” He looks up at me with a soft smile that tells me it’s okay and, for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I have to hide my plans.
“I’m going to Max’s after work. He has gossip and a sister I’m dying to meet.” I grin when Ben smiles warmly at me. “We’re going to eat our body weight in pasta and talk a whole lot of shit. You know, the usual stuff: hair, fashion,boys.”
He raises his eyebrows and I sip on my coffee again.
“Boys, huh?” Ben’s tone is playfully possessive and my stomach flips. “And what exactly are you telling him about boys?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I cross my legs as Ben’s eyes trace over the dress again. “I could tell him I’m painfully single.” A flash of annoyance darkens his eyes and the flipping turns into a full somersault. “Or I could tell him I’m seeing a mystery man. Someone stupidly good looking and suave.”
“Stupidly good looking?” Ben smirks and I stand up, brushing down the skirt of my dress in a deliberate display of preening. “Is that all there is to this guy?”
“Oh no.” I lean around him, pressing my hip against his arm as my fingers swipe over the keys of the computer and fire up the screen for the day. “He’s also protective and infuriatingly charming. And then there’s his soft side. Now that’s something really special.”
I feel his fingers skim the hem of my dress as I reach past him to the mouse.
“Soft? That doesn’t sound right.” His voice is husky and as I glance to his crotch it occurs to me that right now very little of Ben is soft.
“You know.” I glance up to his eyes and am met with a molten ocean of blue. “You have a very dirty mind, Mr Haston.”
Ben grins as he grips my waist and pulls me towards him.
“Is that another trait of this mystery man? A dirty mind?”
He pulls me into his lap again and I wiggle against him, pulling a groan from his lips as he presses a heated kiss into my shoulder.
“Oh definitely. It’s intoxicating.” I twist my head to the side, searching for his lips, and am rewarded with a tender kiss as his fingers splay over my stomach.
“You know,” Ben chuckles, “I think this mystery man is stupidly lucky.”
The laugh that breaks through the space around us sends my heart into my throat and I jump to my feet, knocking Ben slightly, making him cry out in a grunt of pain.
“I don’t think he’s much of a mystery,” Max cackles and my face floods with heat.