I open and shut my mouth without coming up with a response.

“You’re one of the lucky ones—don’t you get it? You have us. We’re here for you.”

He takes a step closer.

I breathe in, willing myself not to cry. “I know that.”

“Do you? Do you really know that no matter what, we love you?’

“I do.” My voice is a small squeak. So much for fierce.

“Then the next time you’re in a bad situation, I want you to tell me.” He looks around the room before continuing.

“Are we getting to the elephant in the room now?” I stand up straight and face him head-on.

His expression grows darker and truth be told, I feel a little scared. Not of him, of course, rather of him judging me. But I believe in Ben and I’m ready to take the first step. You have to crawl before you can walk, right? And Xander is going to be easier to open up to about Ben than River. So I take another deep breath. “Can we sit down? I have some things to tell you, and the first one is something I should have cleared up a long time ago.”

We’ve never spoken about the baby since the day I gave birth. But something inside me feels ready to open up to my brother in a way I’ve never felt I could before. So I tell Xander that I actually never talked to Ben, that my attempts to contact him and tell him I was pregnant were really not attempts at all. I tell him about this summer and then meeting back up with Ben a couple of months ago. I tell him that I want to see where the relationship will go. I stay strong. I tell my brother how I feel. And surprisingly he handles it okay. He isn’t thrilled, but he isn’t disappointed in me either.

When I finish, his look is unreadable.

Then he reaches across the sofa to squeeze my shoulder. “You know all I really care about is that you’re happy?”

I nod.

“And you know if you ever need me, no matter what the circumstances, I’ll be there for you in a heartbeat?”

I nod again. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Now I’m going to get out of here.” He grins at me.

I fly across the couch and hug him. “I don’t say this often, but you’re the best brother—ever.”

“I won’t tell River you said that,” he jokes.

“Oh, I tell him the same thing.” I laugh.

He just shakes his head at me in amusement.

After Xander leaves I hop in the shower. Then I decide a quick cleanup and a mood enhancer are just what we need for the night. Twenty minutes later there’s a knock at my door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Ben.”

“Ben who?”

“S’belle.” He sounds a little annoyed.

I’m sure he’s worried about what Xander had to say, so I cut him some slack. “Come in.”

He opens the door carrying bags of delicious-smelling Italian food. He looks around. I’ve really outdone myself. Soft music is playing in the background, candles are lit around the room, and my green bikini is lying over the back of the sofa. He raises an eyebrow. “Déjà vu.”

I’m in the kitchen slicing lemons with two glasses of sparkling water in front of me. I drop them in the glass and smile at him. “You didn’t have to knock.”

“I wasn’t sure if your brother was still here.”

“Nope, he’s gone.”

He takes the bags and walks back out to close the door.

Did he forget something? There’s another knock on the door. Now I’m curious. I walk over and open the door just a smidge. “Yes?”

He raises the bags. “Delivery, ma’am.” He grins.

My smile grows wide and I throw open the door. “Come in. You can set the bags on the counter, but I’m not sure I have any money to pay you.”

“Ma’am, I don’t take cash anyway.”

“Oh, good, because after we eat I know just how to pay you back.”

“After?” he questions.

“Yes, sorry, but I’m starving.”

He laughs. “Me too.” He crosses to the kitchen and deposits the bags on the table.

I can’t restrain myself and I throw my arms his neck.

He pushes my wet hair to the side and kisses my neck while I press the weight of my body against him. “You smell so good,” he says.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come back.”

He takes my face in his hands as he reassures me, “Nothing would keep me away from you, even your brother camped outside the door.”

I lick the lemon juice from my fingers while giggling. “He wasn’t that bad.”

He takes my hand and sucks one of my fingers still sticky with lemon juice. “No, he wasn’t,” he agrees, moving to the next one. “If I was looking to get my balls served on a platter, he’d be just the guy I’d go to.”

The laughter is uncontrollable and I start hiccupping from the hysteria. Once I’ve calmed I tell him, “I called everyone else while you were gone, so we should be visitor free.”

“By everyone else I assume you mean your other brother, the one who isn’t going to be even a fraction as unimpressed as his older brother.”

“What did you get us to eat?” I ask, pressing against him in an attempt to change the otherwise awkward subject. And then before he can answer I lift my arms and snake them around his head. “Kiss me.”

He finds my mouth and kisses me deeply before pulling away and walking over to the table, where he set the bags. He takes a round container out. “Spaghetti and meatballs.” He takes out another. “Chicken Parmesan.” And then another. “Rigatoni.”

“Yum, but are you feeding an army?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were well fed.”

I look up and catch his glance. His face looks perfectly content and I feel the same way.

CHAPTER 31

Start of Something

Ben

I have been with many women over the past three years, but I have never spent any real length of time in their places—enough time to f**k and move on and that’s been all. So to say lying on the couch with S’belle and flipping through television channels after we’ve both stuffed ourselves with pasta, garlic knots, and salad feels unfamiliar would be telling the truth. But in a sense there is something familiar about it, in terms of the only relationship I’ve really ever had in my life, the one with Dahlia.

It isn’t that I don’t know how to be in a relationship, because obviously I do. I had been in one, the same one, for ten years. And I think for the majority of those years we were both happy together. But after that I have never wanted to seek out another relationship. It takes a lot of giving, and I think I have already proven to myself I am a taker. So why when I look at S’belle lying in front of me do I feel that at last I have something to give?

The sound of the rain outside is calming even though my thoughts are swirling around my mind. I reach for the book on the coffee table, noticing that the bookmark is gone but the book itself still has a place on the table.

“Did you finish this?” I ask her.

She turns around. “I did.”

“What did you think?”

She smirks. “That I’ll stick to romance novels.”

I gently bump the book on her head. “No, really, what did you think?”

Now she giggles.

My heart pounds a little faster whenever I hear that sound.

She sits up, waving her hand in front of her face until she settles. “Sorry, sometimes I’m just so witty.”

I withhold my own smirk at how f**king cute she is.

“Okay, okay, so . . .” She takes a deep breath. “Here goes. At first I kept resisting the context, which made me dislike the book.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I did mention this is my favorite book. Didn’t I?”

She pouts her lips. “Let me finish.”

I blink at her. “I just had a vision of you as a teacher.”

She bends down and kisses me. Running her tongue along the inside of my lip and then catching it with her teeth. “I can be your teacher—later.”

I’m sure my eyes widen in delight.

“Now let me finish.”

Excitement starts to build within me because she’s turning me on. “Please do.”

“Okay, so once I surrendered myself to the time frame and fictional virtuosities, the story finally captured my heart. I could picture a circus of events as everything came to life in my mind.”

I raise my hand like the good student I never was.

She squares her shoulders. “Yes, Ben, you have a question.”

I bite my lip to keep from laughing. She really would be a good teacher if I ever gave her that control. “Can you explain what you mean by fictional virtuosities?”

The corners of her lips tilt up. “I can tell you’re surprised. Believe it or not, I paid attention in school.”

My laughter rasps. “I believe it.”

She continues. “A variety of personalities are portrayed in the text, including children who are smart, women who are full of grit, strong old ladies, men with confidence, fools, drunks. The book is just a cornucopia of complex characters.”

To be honest I am rightfully impressed, but I continue to play along with our little charade. “So you enjoyed it?”

“Students’ hands should always be raised.”

I pull her to me to say, “I thought we were doing this later, but if you’re ready, I think we should take it to the bedroom, where I can show you just the kind of student I am.”

She nods, breathing heavy, and then pulls the strings of the sweatshirt I’m wearing and yanks me up toward her. “You found your sweatshirt.”

“I thought it looked familiar. Was it your choice of contraband sweatshirts back then?”

She pushes me to the couch cushion and tries to hold my arms down, but fast as lightning I flip her on her back and pin her wrists above her head. “Are we moving from student/teacher to submissive/dominant? Because I’m up for that too,” I growl. A rush of arousal floods me at the thought of tying her down.

Her eyes burn into mine, lust looming in their depths. “Are you staying tonight?” Pressing my raging hard-on into her belly, I return her stare. “I didn’t realize there was a question as to whether I would.”

“Kiss me,” she purrs, and ignores my statement.

“You understand I’m the dominant, right? That means I take control, not you.”

“Kiss me, please,” she repeats.

And I do that and so much more.

• • •

I stare at her for the longest time, trying not to breathe so as not to wake her. She stirs and flips around. Fuck me, my c**k lies pressed against her ass and I don’t know if she’s awake and doing it on purpose or if she’s sleeping.

I kiss her head and slide my leg off the bed. Obviously not on purpose since she doesn’t stir.

“Where are you going?” she asks. So—maybe on purpose.

Before leaving the room, I bend down and kiss her head. “I’m going to go get us some coffee.”

“Oh God, I love you,” she says sleepily.

I freeze on the spot, but she doesn’t say another word as she settles her head into the pillow and falls back asleep.

I pass her comment off as what it was, gratitude for much-needed coffee, but I can’t keep her words from echoing in my head the whole drive to Starbucks and back. Love is the last thing I’m looking for right now. I just got myself together and I’m not looking for overly serious.

When I walk back into her apartment, I check my thoughts at the door the minute I see the green bikini still lying on the back of the sofa. I pick it up and with my tray of coffees I head into the bedroom, but she’s not in the bed. I hear the shower and walk into the bathroom.