The second the words hit my brain, I felt Ben eye me warily. I slid him a glance out of the corner of my eye. You did not just say that.
He sighed. “Unfortunately, I did. Are you now going to lecture me again about how you can take care of yourself?”
I laughed. “No. Oh, don’t get me wrong—I haven’t changed into a wimpy woman who can’t deal with her own problems, but even if I had the Vikingahärta, I am going to need help with Loki. And since you already said you would help me take care of him, there’s nothing for me to be upset about, now, is there?”
“No, nothing at all,” he said with a wry twist of his lips. “You have changed, though. Not into a feeble woman, but the Fran of five years ago would have fought me for weeks before she allowed me to help. I prefer you this way.”
Oh, how I remembered the arguments we had in the past about Ben’s insistence that he take care of my troubles for me. “Something Imogen told me right before I left stuck with me. She asked me if I had really wanted you to change into something you weren’t. It took me a while to understand what she meant. You are who you are, and nothing I can do will change that. Not that I want you to be different. I never did,” I added with a little quickening of my breath and pinkening of my cheeks. “I like you the way you are. And despite the fact that I’m far from helpless, I’m aware that you feel the need to protect me, and I appreciate that, so long as you don’t go overboard.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Who are you, and what have you done with my Beloved?”
I laughed. “I abused you terribly, didn’t I?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say abused, but you didn’t seem to understand how I felt.”
“No, I don’t suppose I did,” I said thoughtfully, remembering how overpowering Ben’s protective instincts used to feel.
He grimaced and took my hand, stroking his fingers over mine. “That was my fault. You seemed so adult, I lost sight of the fact that emotionally you weren’t ready for what I wanted from you.”
“Ben . . .” I bit my lip, wanting badly to ask him something, but not sure how to phrase it without sounding like a total idiot.
“You can ask me anything you want.” He leaned forward to kiss me, just a little kiss, but one that held such heat, I felt a blush of arousal start at my chest and wash upward.
“What have you been doing for the past five years?” The words blurted out of my mouth just as if I was still a gauche seventeen-year-old, leaving me flinching at both the bluntness and the fact that Ben knew exactly what it was I was asking.
He was silent for as long as it took me to count to twenty. “I have existed.”
I put my hand on his chest, feeling again the blackness that dwelled within, a dense, unfathomable midnight that would have sent me screaming into madness had I borne it. But despite that, I knew there were tiny little pinpricks of light. I had felt one of them, the hope that I would return to him, that light now shining steadily in a corner of his soul. I smiled at it, smiled at him, and nipped his lower lip as I fed the hope until it shimmered like a star against the velvety black sky.
With a groan that started deep in his chest, his hands swept down my back, pulling my hips closer to him. “Fran, I will not be able to think if you do that again.”
“Thinking is overrated. I’ve done enough of that for the last five years. Let’s move past it, shall we?” I sucked in my breath when he pressed kisses to that sensitive spot behind my ear. With a moan, I slid my hands up his back, my fingers tracing out the swell of his muscles, my entire body tingling with anticipation.
“When I saw you again, it was as if the last five years had never been. I want you, Francesca. I want you in my life. I want you in my bed. I want to wake up knowing that no other man will touch you.”
“That is seriously possessive. I don’t know why it doesn’t irritate me. Maybe it’s because I know what you mean. It’s like time just kind of stopped, although things between us have changed. It’s as if now it’s something . . . bigger.”
He chuckled and pulled my hips against his. I assure you it has not changed.
Thank you for the obligatory smutty comment, you man, you. You know what I mean—our relationship feels bigger. More epic. Like . . . oh, I don’t know, somehow grandiose and frightening at the same time. What if it’s just our chemistry after all, Ben? What if everything we feel is out of our control?
“That is how life is. I think you are worrying unduly,” he murmured in between kisses pressed to my neck. “We have both changed during the last few years. Can you not accept that? I have.”