This Love Page 5

  “Yeah, but you live there, so it's sort of yours.” She fans her face. It’s the first time I’ve noticed the sweltering heat because I’ve been too busy staring at her. “Are you hot?”

  “Melting.”

  “You know, your mother always says your penthouse has the best view in Manhattan.” She wanders over to the window AC next to the recliner. She twists a few knobs and the unit kicks on. “My mom agreed.”

  Monica is wrong. Her mom was wrong. I have the best view in this city. Dressed in cutoff shorts and an Ellerby’s Music tee shirt. Fingers twisting through the ends of the blonde hair cascading over her shoulder. I drink in the sight of her, wanting. Needing. Never having.

  “It’s probably cooler in my room.” She stops fussing with her hair to run her palms down the front of her shorts. It draws me in to every curve, every glimpse of creamy skin. I swallow my groan as she heads toward the hallway.

  “Are you coming?” she calls behind her.

  For fuck’s sake, I wish.

  Her bedroom is, thankfully, cooler than the rest of the apartment due to the box fan on her computer desk. It’s adjusted to its highest setting. She stands in front of it, planting her hands on either side of her desk. Her hair blows around her cheeks to fill the room with her scent.

  “I’m trying to decide if this is a bad idea,” she murmurs after a moment.

  “Probably. I’m usually full of them. Like getting kicked out of Duke.”

  “When did that happen?” she asks with a tilt of her head.

  “After spring semester. I missed too many days and then I’d already gone before the ethics board for doing … other stuff.”

  "Other stuff?" She releases a soft groan. “Racing cars?”

  Sometimes, I think this girl could write the book on me. That’s why it’s so hard to believe she hasn’t grasped how deep my need for her runs. “I like the adrenaline,” I explain with a half-shrug.

  “Then take up surfing or mountain biking. Not something that will get you…” She breaks eye contact and motions to the bed. Unlike mine, it’s made with not a wrinkle in sight and all four corners neatly tucked between the mattress and box spring. “You can sit there if you want.”

  I choose to stand, striding over to her bookshelf. I race my finger along the spines of the middle row and grin. “You remember that ski trip from a few years ago?” She nods, so I continue, “I asked for a tissue and you said you didn’t have one. You stared at me like I had a shitstache when I bet twenty bucks your bag was full of books.”

  “A shitstache,” she repeats. “Really, Bennett?”

  “I won because I was right.” I motion to the brown purse strap on her shoulder. “I bet that’s all you’ve got in there now.”

  “You wanted to pick me up from work to talk about books?” She tugs off her bag, bending to stuff it in the bottom drawer of her desk. “Guess I got worked up and terrified over nothing. So … what happens now that you’re not going back to Duke.”

  “I go to Harvard in the spring.” Like every other fucking Delaney. “And no, I didn’t pick you up to talk about books. That trip was the first time I realized how badly I wanted you.”

  She stills. Inhales and exhales. Unsteadily, she closes the drawer and stands, rubbing at her earlobe. She always does when she’s nervous. “Don’t say that."

  “Why not? It’s the truth. What you wanted to hear last week.”

  “That’s the problem. Telling me what I want to hear because I said too much.” She spreads her fingers over her chest and lets out a breath through her nose. “All I can think about is what you said about lying to Monica—how you needed to, so she’d be all right. That’s just the thing: I’m fine, Bennett, you don’t have to tell me anything.”

  That’s what this is about. She’s doubting me because of what I said to my mother while she was fucked up on painkillers and Scotch and threatening to screw her way through my friends—or worse. I push my shoulders back and motion Veronica to me. “Come here.”

  She starts to shake her head like she’ll say no. Then she takes a tentative step. Then a couple more. She stops inches in front of me and presses the heel of her hand on the bookshelf. I slide mine closer to her, so our fingertips touch. “You didn’t have to hit Judson.”

  The mere thought of what he said flares my nostrils. “You’re changing the subject, but yes, I did. He was treating you like shit.” I can’t tell her the worst part: how I didn’t want to stop once I started. If I tell her that, she’ll look at me like I’m a monster and that’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted from Veronica.

  “He’s treated half the girls we know like that,” she points out.

  “They’re not you.” She’s different. Fresh and special and everything that’s good. When I was a kid, when my parents were ignoring me for vacations and business meetings, I looked forward to her smile. She’s younger than me but she never forgot my birthday. Never failed to quote me some relevant line from whatever she was reading when I was in a shit mood. She was the first girl I kissed, too. I was ten and she was nine, and Cain bet me to do it for a pudding cup.

  I won the pudding—and the blushing girl.

  “You are … perfection.” Her gray eyes pop wide like she’s shocked I’ve noticed she’s gorgeous enough to stop traffic. “Besides, I don’t want any of those other girls.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Veronica, stop arguing. Do you know how hard it was to walk away when you were in my bed last week?”

  “No.” She starts to take a step away from me. A gasp wheezes from her lips when I catch her wrists in my hands to stop her. She’s smells good enough to eat. That scent—a simple fucking lotion sold at every drugstore in this city—will invade and conquer my senses long after I’ve left her apartment. Her gaze slants up to mine, silently pleading. “I thought you were telling me no.”

  “You were drunk, and I was angry. At Liz for being a worrisome bitch. At every other guy that had the nerve to even glimpse your way. At Judson for getting to be inside you before I ever had a chance to—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” The pulse points in her wrists race beneath my thumbs. “Judson being inside of what, exactly?”

  “Your pussy, beautiful. It should have been me that—” She starts laughing then, her slim shoulders trembling, and I release a curse that jerks her body to attention. “What’s so funny?”

  “Judson’s never touched me. Ever.” She licks her lips. “Did he tell you that?”

  The bastard. I tell her what he said, which causes her to laugh harder. “You think this is funny?” She shakes her head and opens her mouth to speak. Then she closes her eyes and shakes her head again. Now, she’s piqued my curiosity. “Tell me.”

  Heat blooms on her cheeks. She sucks in a deep breath then blows it out, fanning my face with the scent of chewing gum. “I don’t screw guys from Birchwood. I haven’t done that with anyone.”

  “You don’t have to lie to me.”

  She edges closer to me. “Why would I lie?” I can’t stop myself from trapping her hands behind her back. She curls her fingers, brushing mine with soft skin. “Bennett, I’m still a virgin.”

  “A virgin,” I repeat, and her breath hitches. She’s got to be bullshitting. Telling me this because she doesn’t want me to think she fucks around like Judson claimed. But then, he said she screwed Zeke, too, and he vehemently denied it when I confronted him. Blinked at me like I had dicks for lips for suggesting it, even though he admitted a couple years ago how sexy she is.

  She slants her blonde head to the floor. “I just … never got around to it,” she mumbles.

  This perfect, beautiful creature is untouched.

  That alone should make her more off-limits than ever before but all it does is tease my cock.

  A long silence lingers between us until she says, “I’m a fool for telling you, aren’t I? For waiting because I hoped that you’d…” Her chest rises and falls harshly before she opens her eyes
. “You know, I always hoped you’d notice. That you’d see me as anything but just Vero.”

  She’d saved herself. For me. A wave of possessiveness grips my gut. I lean over. I lick the center of her lips. I fall for the sound of her strangled cry.

  “You still don’t get it. You are just Vero. To me that’s everything.”

  She splays her hands on my chest to support herself the second I let go of her wrists. “You’re killing me,” she whimpers.

  “Good.”

  “What do we do now?” she wonders aloud, gasping when I roam my hand to her ass. Even buried beneath shorts, it’s as delectable as I always imagined it would be. Squeezable. “Do we pretend this never happened, or—"

  I graze my hand around to the front of her body and slip it between her legs. Pretend this never happened? Fuck no, not in a million years. I circle my fingers. She startles at my touch, her cheeks burning brightly as she clamps her thighs around me. “Do you really want to pretend it never happened?” I demand. “Or do you want me inside you?”

  Her mouth drops open, but she shudders against me. She moans loudly when I sink my other hand into her hair and draw her head back to meet my stare.

  “Yes,” she whispers, pumping her head. “Yes, I do want you inside of me. More than anything.”

  That's like music to my ears—and cock. “Eventually. But first…”

  “Eventually?” Her gaze clouds. “First?”

  “This.” I drown out her next question with my lips and tongue.

  CHAPTER 6

  VERONICA

  For years, I’ve imagined kissing Bennett. Really kissing him, not that peck he gave me when I was a little girl. I’ve wondered about the weight of his lips on mine and the taste of his tongue. I always figured it would be vanilla, like the pudding he used to devour. But the thing is, none of those fantasies ever prepared me for the reality. Of his hands on my neck, and his urgent fingertips crushing into my skin to massage small circles in that sliver of space between my hair and ear. Or the way he would rasp my name.

  “Vero. God, Veronica…”

  It’s intoxicating. The way he moves his lips over mine takes away my balance and sends the room tumbling to its side to pitch and whirl around us. I kiss him back, shyly at first because this is all new—so new. Then the hunger sets in. I thread my fingers through his messy golden hair, drawing him into me.

  I’m desperate for more. Everything he can give. When I tell him that between hot kisses and low moans, he spins us around and backs me up against the wall. My wrists are in his hands, pinned by my ears. My heart is in my throat. And the air in my lungs is so heavy, it splinters. Even then, I can’t get enough of tasting him for the first time.

  “Kiss me again, Bennett,” I whisper.

  He draws back suddenly, a primitive gleam in his eyes. “I’ve fucking died.” My toes curl in my shoes at his words. He drops my wrists to frame my face with one hand and hook my beltloop with the other. “I have died, V.”

  Me too, I want to respond, but he heaves me to him by my shorts and answers my previous request by slanting his mouth over mine. Teeth, lips, tongue, teeth, tongue, lips. It all becomes a haze that settles a deep pressure in my center.

  “Veronica.” He unhooks the button of my shorts. Drags the zipper down a little at a time. He starts to dip his fingers into the denim and inside my panties but hesitates. “Veronica?” He curves a dark eyebrow.

  “Yes,” I say, head bobbing to give him permission.

  He coasts his hand lower, a broken gasp punching out as he skims the neatly trimmed curls between my thighs. Panic seizes me. I think about girls like Liz and her friends, the ones who openly talk about their waxing appointments like it’s buying a new blouse from Lord & Taylor. I clench my thighs, but he stops me, rotating his hand to rest three fingers against the heat of my sex.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demands.

  I flush all over. “I … I didn’t shave.”

  He stares at me, eyes unblinking, beautiful lips quaking at the corners and that dimple—that damn dimple—teasing me mercilessly. Then he laughs. It’s this rumbling, sexy hum that shoots goosebumps up my arms.

  “I can see that, but thanks for the heads up.” He folds his ring finger, leaving two fingers at my entrance. Stroking them in a slow circle that tears a gasp from my lungs, he pushes his mouth to the curve of my ear. “Don’t change anything. You’re perfect.”

  "Nobody’s perfect.”

  “For such a smart girl, you’re wrong way too often. This?” He eases one finger halfway inside of me. A tremor vibrates through my body. I dig my hands into the soft sleeves of his blue tee shirt, and his muscles flex beneath them. “This is perfect.”

  My eyelids flutter over my eyes, and I arch into him, flattening my breasts to his hard chest. “Bennet, I want—”

  “Veronica?” I startle at the sound of my name being called, giving Bennett a mouthful of platinum hair and bucking against his finger when I swivel my head toward my door.

  “It’s my dad,” I hiss. Bennett responds with a half-shrug—and by pushing a second finger into my pussy, stopping at the curve of his knuckle. I squeeze my eyes tight and flop the back of my head against the wall. “Please tell me you’re not going to make me come while he’s—”

  Crooking the two fingers he’s got buried inside my body, he soaks up my moan with his mouth. He waits until my sounds have died down to airy wisps to ease away from me, tugging my bottom lip between his teeth as he does. “Say that again and I promise to behave.”

  I didn’t realize that word, behave, was an active part of his vocabulary.

  “Veronica?” Dad yells out again. “Are you home?”

  “Yes. I’m getting dressed!” Bennett gives me a lopsided smirk and mouths, “More like getting undressed.” I bite down on my lower lip because he’s rocking his hand against me, fingers pumping slowly inside me and palm grinding my clit.

  “Say what?” I half-hiss, half-moan. “Make me come?”

  His cocky smirk stretches into a full grin. “You’ve got no clue how sexy it is when you say shit like that, V.” As promised, he draws his fingers from me, pumping my clit between them on the way up. He adjusts my cotton panties and rebuttons my shorts. As soon as he’s finished, he raises his fingers to his lips, touching them to the center. My core tightens at the sight of his tongue darting out. “You taste like I thought you would.”

  “How’s that?” Whose voice am I hearing? Not mine—surely, not mine. My voice isn’t husky like that. Doesn’t tease like that. “How do I taste?”

  “Like heaven.” He backs away, his stride self-assured—the walk of a prince—as he makes his way across my room without once breaking eye contact. He stops by the window to the fire escape and shakes his head as he unhooks the lock. “No, like something you’d fall from heaven for.”

  Like heaven. Or something you’d fall from it for.

  Three days have passed since Bennett exited my bedroom using the fire escape, but the words he left behind still preoccupy my thoughts as much as they did Monday night. They’re pinging around my brain on Thursday, when the front bell at Ellerby’s jingles, notifying me of a guest.

  Since I’m working through lunch, I have a book at the register, but I peek up from it to greet my customer. Shit. Of all the people to make the trip from the Upper East Side to Brooklyn, why did it have to be her?

  As always, she’s dressed to kill—inky black hair in a high ponytail with not a single strand out of place, a strapless black dress that hugs her curvy body, and matching kitten heeled sandals.

  “Welcome to Ellerby’s. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  She glances to me behind the register, allows a cat-like smirk to sneak across her face for the briefest moment, then feigns surprise, dropping her mouth open. The bell at the door rattles again, but I only see her as she waves at me like we’re old friends. We’re not since I had drunkenly embarrassed her not even a week ago.

  So why
is Liz here?

  “Do you have The Red Violin soundtrack?” I avert my attention to my new customer, who steps in front of the counter. I hold back a frown when I realize it’s the guy in the suit again. The one that bought the tequila keychain earlier this week.

  “The Red Violin?”

  “My wife seems to have fallen in love with the film,” he explains with a sheepish smile. “If I buy the CD, it might save me from watching it again.”

  “Yeah … I’ll”—I spot Liz scrutinizing the New and Trending section then jerk my focus back to the suit—“Let me grab it for you.”

  After I return, he pays but doesn’t leave. He studies me, his head tilted to one side, and it lasts for so long the hairs on the back of my neck stand at full attention. I clear my throat. “Is there something else I can help you with?”

  “I promise I’m not being weird,” he rushes to assure me. Because that’s exactly what a creep would say, and I’ve dealt with a couple of them since starting at Ellerby’s. “Have you ever considered modeling?”

  I fiddle with the neckline of my tee shirt and tighten my features. “Isn’t that what someone weird would ask a girl before murdering her in a back alley and making a coat out of her skin?” It comes out before I can stop myself, and I’m grateful Mr. Ellerby’s nowhere in sight.

  After several blinks, he dissolves into laughter.

  I wasn’t joking.

  “Possibly.” He reaches into his wallet and withdraws a business card printed on glossy black stock. I accept it, hiking an eyebrow while I examine what it says. Brad Strauss, Vice President of New Talent Acquisition, Bamberger Model Management. “I promise the address on there isn’t a back alley. We'd love for you to stop by sometime with a headshot. For someone like you, it can be a very lucrative career.”

  I slip the card into my book and tap my fingers on the cover. “Is it expensive?” He sends me a questioning look, so I explain, “Getting into modeling, I mean.”

  He chuckles again, and I don’t know whether to be irritated that he’s amused by my naivety or pleased with his answer. Good thing I didn't ask him if yearbook photos worked for headshots. “It’s free. No good agency will ever charge you anything but commission for jobs they've booked for you—and if they do, run.”