Page 67 of Long for Me
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rebecca
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my GAWD.
There was something seriously wrong with me. And that wrongness had nothing to do with my rapidly beating heart, pounding against my ribs so harshly I could have been having a heart attack. No, the wrongness in me was deep.
It’d been buried there long ago, when my dad walked in from work after another day at the car dealership where he hadn’t sold a darn thing, asked my mom what was for dinner and when he didn’t like her answer—leftovers—backhanded her across her cheek so hard she flew to the floor.
The wrongness in me was that it didn’t matter how infuriated I was with Bennett, or how much he’d hurt me. He walked into my house, all scowls and bossiness and demands and I’d listened to every single one, and freaking loved his hand landing on my ass, punishing me like I’d stolen cookies after dinner when I already hadn’t been allowed dessert.
But fuck, it wasn’t just his demands, either. It was the guttural tone in his voice, the way he truly sounded sincere when he’d been worried sick about me. How he’d promised we’d talk.
How when he kissed me, it didn’t feel wrong at all.
It felt better than perfect.
It wasright. Like home and safety and damn it, how did he manage to twist me up so much? And how could I go from being so angry to so filled with the need to come I could burst, and then tease him, refill my sass and jaunt away from him like what we’d just done had all been so perfectly natural and easy and not only that, but precious.
I needed wine. Loads of it, and I never wanted to drink to where I couldn’t remember my name. I was more of a stress-eater than stress-drinker, but good grief.
Bennett seemed to bring out all the worst of me.
“The best parts, too,” I muttered, glancing at myself in the mirror after I washed up. It was the devil and the angel on my shoulder, only I didn’t know which was which anymore.
Cheeks flushed, hair wild, eyes glazed, was it a good thing I looked this manic after he spanked me and made me orgasm?
Undoing my hair, I fluffed it and combed through the still-wet curls with my fingers, smoothing out the ends. I splashed cold water on my face and stood up.
He wanted to talk. We’d talk. Then, I’d take a night or a weekend and figure out if this was truly what I wanted. Perhaps my mind had turned to mush after so many orgasms in only a few days. I was just too unused to all the endorphins and oxytocin flooding my system.
But a night of alcohol and conversation and then space would help.
Determined to figure out why I succumbed to him so easily, I opened the bathroom door and hurried to the kitchen where I’d left Bennett. When I walked in, I stopped.
He was at the kitchen table, a fresh glass of wine sitting next to his hand. Both hands braced on either side of the Jakobs file, which was flung open. His shoulders were bunched and his head was bowed as he skewered the papers with a harsh glare.
I made a surprised noise and his head snapped up, that skewering glare landing on me. “What in the fuck is this?”
He punctuated every word, each syllable a bomb preparing to detonate. Standing to his full height, he took the glass and brought it to his lips, taking a large swallow without blinking or removing that steely gaze from me.
“I don’t actually know,” I said, walking into the kitchen but smart enough to walk around the table to get to my discarded wine glass. “I haven’t looked at it yet.”
He stared at me like I’d grown a second head. Perhaps I had. One was sane and controlled. My new one was wild and well, insane! I poured more wine into my glass and sipped it, ignoring how my hand trembled.
“You’re telling me you went to a meeting today, a meeting I sent you to with Jakobs, I might add, and you came home with this folder from him and you have no idea what’s in it?”
I forced my eyes to stay on his and not glance at the folder. I was curious, yeah. I was really, really curious about the contents. Still, I shrugged. “I know it’s a job offer. I just haven’t looked at it yet.”
“Why not?” he clipped.
“Because I told him I needed time to consider it.”
His brows jumped in shock. “You need time? You’re actually considering this?”
Physical pain hit him. It rolled off him and lashed across his features. He dropped his head, scrubbed the back of his neck with one hand while murmuring something I couldn’t hear.
The sudden urge to go to him, comfort him, assailed me but I dug my heels into the carpet and kept my distance.
