The Promise(90)

His arms around me got tight.

I closed my eyes, and apparently the miracle of Benny (not to mention two orgasms) was enough to quiet all the shit in my head clamoring to be heard that I was scared to face. My body relaxed and I started to drift to sleep.

I stopped when Ben’s arms gave me a squeeze and he murmured, “Fuckin’ thrilled you healed the breach, baby.”

So Benny to give me that, straight-up honest.

“I hope you stay that way,” I murmured back.

“Eyes on the prize, Frankie,” he whispered.

The prize.

Having Benny.

The best prize there was.

“Right, Ben,” I whispered back. “Eyes on the prize.”

He shifted me closer, tangled a heavy leg in mine, and slid a hand up to play with the ends of my hair.

I settled in, took a deep breath, let his fingers moving in my hair relax me, and it didn’t take long before I found sleep.

* * * * *

The alarm on my phone sounded, and directly after, Ben sounded.

“Fuck,” he groaned, rolling and taking me with him. I felt him reach and he must have grabbed my phone and touched a thumb to it to turn off the alarm because it stopped.

I was blinking but saw the light of my phone and knew Benny must have been looking at it too when he muttered, “Christ, is it six already?”

With probably four hours of sleep, my first thoughts should have been about how I was going to get through an important day of meetings and communing with one of my reps, who’d made it clear the day before he wasn’t all that hot about working under me.

But those were not my thoughts.

My thoughts were how good it felt to wake up to Benny in nothing but boxers, me with no panties, after two orgasms, and making the whacked decision to come back to him.

I came back into the room mentally when I heard the phone clatter back on the nightstand, then I was on my back, Ben mostly on me because he rolled us into that position.

“You gotta get up?” he asked.

“It takes me an hour and a half to get ready and I have an eight o’clock breakfast meeting with my rep,” I answered.

“So that’s a yeah.”

“That’s a yeah,” I confirmed, sounding as disappointed as I felt.

I felt a whole lot less disappointed when Ben shifted to bury his face in my neck, where he said, “Right, you get ready. I’m gonna snooze.”

I rounded him with my arms and offered, “You can snooze all you want. I’ll do the checkout thing, arrange a wakeup call so you have plenty of time to get up and on your way, and I’ll put out the ‘do not disturb’ sign so they don’t bother you in the meantime.”

He pulled his face out of my neck to look into my eyes through the dark and say, “That’s a plan.”

I grinned at him, also through the dark.

Then I said, “I gotta hit it, honey.”

I reached up to touch my mouth to his but left it at that because I knew I wouldn’t be getting up at all if I went for more. But as I began to pull from his arms, they tightened around me.

I looked back toward his face.

“Gotta say this,” he muttered, and I felt my stomach tighten because he didn’t sound like he wanted to say whatever it was he had to say. “I laid it out last night,” he went on. “But need to make it clear, will only make it clear this once, ’cause by tonight, I’ll know and it’ll be done.”

My stomach didn’t loosen as I asked, “What’ll be done?”

He gathered me closer when he answered, “You burned me once, baby. I didn’t like it. Not at all. If it wasn’t you doin’ it, there would be no second chance. Since it’s you, I’m givin’ you a second chance. You don’t show tonight, it’ll be done. And we’re talking done, cara. I will not answer the phone. I will not come callin’ when you’re in town for business. You come to Man’s wedding, you won’t exist for me. That kind of done. You don’t show at my place tonight, you commit to that future ’cause there’s no goin’ back.”

I was deep breathing in order to hold back the panic and, focused on that, I didn’t respond.

So Benny prompted, “You understand that, baby?”

“I understand,” I forced out.

“All right,” he murmured, sliding a hand up into my hair, cupping the back of head, and pulling me to him.

His kiss was not a lip touch. It was harder, closed mouthed, and a whole lot nicer.

But he was Benny and all the awesomeness that entailed. He knew I had responsibilities.

So he broke the kiss but touched his lips to mine once more before he whispered, “Now haul your ass outta this bed. I got sleep to catch up on.”

“Okay, Ben.”