With each word, each confession, her heart had begun to ache a little bit more as it finally dawned on her what the real reason had been for Ben to leave. It hadn’t been because he didn’t love her or want her enough, or that he’d been afraid of commitment. He had left for her, because he’d been afraid of keeping her from living her dreams.
“You silly, stupid man,” she scolded, pushing her chair back in order to climb aboard his lap, her arms twining about his neck. “Don’t you realize, Blue Eyes, that you were my dream? Or that by leaving me the way you did, my life was already ruined? Nothing has ever been the same for me since that summer, you know. I’ve never come close to being as happy as I was during those ten days. They were the best days of my life, too.”
He cuddled her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she rested her head on his shoulder. “Leaving you was the biggest regret of my life,” he told her solemnly. “There wasn’t a single day that went by when I didn’t wish I had made a different decision. Though I still don’t know what I could have done differently.”
Lauren gave him a playful punch on the arm, grinning when he winced. “For starters, you ass, you could have tried talking to me. Could have been honest. We would have figured something out.”
“Can you really say that, though?” he questioned. “If I had stayed with you, maybe followed you back to L.A. for a year while you finished college, taken some job just to get by for a year – what would have happened then? If you had won the photo contest and the job at National Geographic Travel – would you have still taken it if I was around? I’m guessing you would have turned it down so that you wouldn’t have had to leave me behind. And that was exactly why I left you – so that you’d be able to have those sort of opportunities.”
She shook her head emphatically. “As much as I love my job, Ben, I loved you more. We would have found a way to deal with things. Even if it meant being away from each other for a couple of weeks at a time. I would have always come back to you, you know.”
“I know you, Lauren,” he told her lovingly. “You wouldn’t have taken this job in the first place, in spite of what you say now. You would have sacrificed your dreams in order to stay with me. And I would have wound up hating myself because of it.”
“No.” She stubbornly denied his declaration. “It wouldn’t have happened that way. I wouldn’t have let it. We would have come up with some solution. And at least we would have been together. Instead, you broke my heart, you stubborn, pigheaded idiot, and made me hate you at times – even while I still loved you more than my own life. You should have trusted me, Ben. Should have talked to me.”
He sighed, then gave a reluctant nod. “I realize that now. But you have to understand that I wasn’t used to having someone to confide in. For so many years I’d been forced to look out for myself, make my own decisions. And in spite of how tough you were, how capable you seemed, you were still so damned young. I was terrified that I was just a summer fling for you, and that when push came to shove you’d choose your career over me. And that would have broken my heart into a million pieces.”
“We’ve wasted so much time,” she fretted. “Years we could have been together – should have been together. And then, when we finally met up again, somehow found each other, you were – with her. With Elle. And you broke my heart all over again.”
“Hush.” He caressed her cheek. “That’s all over now. Should never have happened in the first place. Elle was a good friend, a nice person, but that’s really as far as it went for me. She knew there had been someone else, someone I was still in love with, and I think it drove her a little crazy to think about it. Especially since I always made it clear that I didn’t love her that way. She’d fly into these jealous rages simply if another woman said hello to me. And she was always suspicious of you, accused me more than once of having an affair with you.”
“Me, too. It was at the holiday party last year, the night you and I danced together. Guess maybe we got a little carried away with the whole staring into each other’s eyes bit for her liking. Enough that she actually threatened to go to Daddy’s friend the big boss and have me fired if I didn’t leave you alone.”
“What?” Ben stared at her in slack-jawed disbelief. “You’ve got to be joking. I never imagined her paranoia would go to that sort of extreme. Is that why you seemed more distant than usual towards me after the party?”
Lauren gave a little shrug. “Maybe. Mostly, though, it just seemed sort of hopeless at that point. And you know what? I really don’t want to talk about Elle anymore right now. I’ve just had two of the worst days of my life, only to have all of that forgotten the second I saw you waiting for me at the airport. So I’d really rather just focus on that instead. Okay?”
“Totally okay,” Ben whispered, pulling her head down to his for a long, searching kiss. His hands drifted to the belt of her robe, spreading the sides apart and pushing it off her body. Almost reverently, he traced a finger around one taut pink nipple. “And these are still the most sensational tits I’ve ever seen.”
“They’d better be,” she gasped as he lifted one breast to his lips and tugged the nipple between his teeth.
Ben rose up from the chair in one fluid motion, picking her up as he did so. He practically tossed her on the bed before quickly pulling off his clothes and joining her.
“And nothing, nothing,” he whispered in her ear as his hands roved greedily over her body, “has ever felt as good, as right, as this. And every time I’d remember how good it was between us, what I’d walked away from, I died a little bit more on the inside.”
Lauren clutched his head to her breasts, stroking his hair soothingly. “It was the same for me,” she murmured. “It’s like I was half alive for six years. So, come on, Blue Eyes. It’s way past time for us to be whole again.”
He kissed a path down between her breasts to her belly, his hands stroking over her hips, thighs, ass, as he did so. “Let me, sweetheart,” he urged, spreading her legs apart. “I’m dying to taste you after all this time.”
At the first lick of his tongue against her clit, her hips bucked up off the mattress as she clutched handfuls of the sheets. “Mmm, ohh, that’s sooo good,” she panted, as his fingers began a slow steady rhythm, pumping in and out of her slick, tight pussy. At the same time his tongue fluttered delicately against the inner folds of her labia before his lips closed over her clit, sucking hard. That was really all it took for her to climax, her lower body thrashing wildly to and fro as he kept at her, refusing to give her a respite from his unselfish attentions.
But as she was finally coming back down to earth, his finger began to trace over a spot on the tender flesh of her inner thigh.
“I, ah, think I’ve found one of those mysterious additional tattoos of yours,” he chuckled. “And now I know why that gigolo Franco thought my own ink looked so familiar. You had him make a duplicate.”
“Yes,” she confessed. “It was my own personal little reminder of you. One that only I would recognize. A way to keep a tiny part of you with me forever.”
As his tongue traced around the tiny mark, she flinched a bit. “That tickles,” she giggled.
Ben lifted his head and gave her a wry smile. “I’m just guessing it didn’t exactly tickle when that bastard inked you, though.”
She nodded. “You’d be right. Even with the numbing it still hurt like fuck.”