“Isthatwhy you’re keeping both eyes on it, NeNe?”
“Funny,” she deadpanned, but instead of leaving him to rest, like she should, she crawled into bed next to him.
She wanted to hold him.Pinch herself again, maybe him too, just to check.He was here.Alive.And all hers.
“I want a cuddle,” she demanded as her head went to his chest.
Benny slipped back down the headboard, taking them both with him.Readjusting until they were lying flat and his arm held her tight.
“I’m okay,” he reassured her for the millionth time.“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“I don’t need your apology; I just need you to promise me that you’ll never die.Or you won’t die until you’re like a hundred or something, and only after I’ve died.Okay?Promise?”
Benny’s husky chuckle was quiet, but his body still shook.“Is that all?”
“Benny.”
“Okay, baby.I promise.No dying until I’m a hundred.”
Burying further into his chest, she let her fingers brush the dusting of dark hair over muscle.
They fell into a comfortable quiet.Benny’s hold loosening just enough to trail his fingers up and down the side of her crop top.Lingering longer on the exposed flesh that was now covered in goosebumps.
“I thought I was going to lose you again,” Bethany admitted to Benny’s pectoral muscles while the man himself dotted soft kisses into her hair.“I don’t think I’d survive it.”
Way to make someone else’s near death experience about yourself, Bethany.
She really wished her head would shut the fuck up.She was having a moment.It needed to chill.
Where’s your chill?
“I’m not going anywhere, NeNe.You’re stuck with me.”
“You promise?”
More kisses covered the top of her head.“I promise.”
“I love you, Benny.”She felt him suck in a breath but hurried on before she lost her nerve.“I don’t think I ever stopped loving you.And the more I think about it, the more I realize that you were right...that’s why I couldn’t marry Doug.”The tears she thought she’d left at the hospital were back with a vengeance, but she was going to power through.“Because my heart belonged to someone else.It belonged to you.I gave it to you willingly at fourteen and you never gave it back.”
Benny rolled them over until she was on her back looking up at his darkening eyes.“Are you kidding me right now?”
“What?”She sniffed.Surely, he couldn’t be mad at her for declaring her love?
“You can’t tell me you love me.Tell me I own your heart.Make me feel like the air’s been punched out of me.And then expect me not to take you.Show you just how much I fucking love you, too.And how my heart has only ever and will always be yours.”
Goddamnit.She wanted that, too.She was beginning to wish she’d waited a bit longer to declare her love.
Nope.You waited too frigging long as it is.
To stop herself rubbing against him like a cat in heat, she decided to lighten the mood.A smile tugging at her lips as she widened her eyes with feigned innocence.“Oops.”
“Oops.Seriously?”That mischievous smile was back.“You’ve got one week, baby.Then this ass is getting reddened.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Benjamin Tucker.”
Then he kissed her.And just like that, everything in the world felt right again.
