She felt faintly embarrassed for him, for doing the fussing.
His head was lowered, tracking the progress of his hand, but she couldn’t watch. She looked away, down the hall. She wondered what the monthly rent was on this apartment. She wondered why she was so bad at this when, in fact, she liked sex. She liked it a lot. If they could skip to the bit where it was dark, and they were under the covers with him buried inside her. The grunting, frantic part—that was the bit she liked.
The tricky thing was how to get there from here.
Kiss me, she thought. Kiss me.
He kissed her neck and stroked her stomach. He kissed her jaw.
She exhaled, and it came out jerky and wrong.
Ben lifted his head.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“No, something is. You’re not into this.”
“I am. I’m just …”
The internal censor piped in to ask, Just what, May? A freak?
But damn it, this wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Ben’s, either. It just was. She didn’t have to beat herself up over it.
“I’m nervous,” she admitted.
“Is it too soon?” He removed his hand. “I heard you talking to your sister.”
When he eased away, the air changed without his skin in it. She felt it as a loss, her whole body pleading for his return.
Huh. Maybe she hadn’t been as not-into-it as she’d thought. A rapid scan told her that her nipples ached, and she was damp between her legs. It was only her head that needed to get with the program. Her head was the freak.
And Ben was getting away, his eyes gone cool and cautious because he’d heard about Dan being in Michigan. Damn it.
“It’s too soon,” he confirmed. “I shouldn’t have …” He lifted one arm and raked his hand up the back of his head, exposing the dark hair under his arm. His shoulder and bicep muscles bunched, and her lower abdomen filled with heavy, liquid heat.
God, he looked really good without any clothes on. Taut and powerful, all that golden skin and the trail of hair leading down his stomach, where he—
“This is too much for you,” he said.
But she’d be willing to bet it was exactly the right size.
She wondered what would happen if she whipped off his towel and took him in her hand. How different life would be if she were the kind of person who could do that. Drop to her knees, suck him off in the hallway. Redirect his attention from her body to his own, until all he could think about was what he needed, and all he could do was take it.
Ben sighed. Because she’d gone mute, no doubt, while she stared at his crotch. But the sigh made him seem mildly irritated, and she wondered if this was all a performance. If he was only being nice.
Yeah, May. In Manhattan, all good hosts tell their guests they want to go down on them.
“I’m going to get dressed.” He started toward the bedroom.
For two steps, she watched him go. Three. Her heart squeezed hard, her inner asshole chastising her, Stupid, stupid, and then it happened all at once. A bright flash of anger—at herself, at every movie and TV show and magazine, every insidious cultural message that had ever told her that her body sucked.
It was all a bunch of lies, and she knew that. She knew it. But here she was, letting it ruin everything.
Stop being an idiot and fix this.
Get out of your own goddamn way.
She got indignant in a bright, hot rush, and she moved all at once, with too much force, so that by the time Ben reached the bedroom door she was pushing him, bumping up against him, colliding with his body until he tumbled onto the bed and she fell on top of him.
“Ow!”
“Sorry.”
“Jesus, May!”
“I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t mean to—”
He flipped over and rose to his elbows. His mouth was scowling, his eyebrows dark and drawn together, just the way he’d looked when she met him. Not the kind of guy a woman wants to pin her hopes and dreams on, she remembered thinking, and now she had him pinned down beneath her bare thighs. Right where she wanted him.
“Is this supposed to be foreplay?”
“I want you,” she blurted. “I suck at this, but I want you. I’m sorry. It’s not too soon.”
He didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows relaxed when she reached behind her to unhook her bra. Her fingers stalled.
“Really,” she added.
He was staring at her breasts, which, yeah, she could see why. They were trying to fall out of the bra. It was a good bra, the priciest she’d ever bought, and she could appreciate what the view must look like to Ben.
Also, there were other clues. His hands made fists in the comforter. His jaw couldn’t have been more sharply defined if it had been carved from a slab of granite.