Security for Sleeping Beauty - Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Ellie must have still been in the coma. This kiss couldn’t be real because she’d never felt anything like it. Her body vibrated with excitement and desire. She’d never felt so alive—so wanted.
Ben wasn’t holding back anymore. He was kissing her passionately, his lips moving over hers before he deepened the kiss. His hands cupped her face, holding it gently, as he made love to her mouth. But then he pulled back, gasping for breath and murmuring, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” she said, and she reached up to slide her hand around his nape and pull his head back down to hers. She kissed him back with all the passion he’d ignited in her. Kissing wasn’t enough, though, not with as much as she wanted him. Needed him...
She reached for his shirt, fumbling to free the buttons. But he pulled back again, his face flushed with desire. “I can’t do this,” he said.
She brazenly touched his fly, where his obvious erection tested the strength of the zipper. “I think you can.”
He chuckled gruffly. “I can, but I shouldn’t. You just woke up from a coma. You have a head injury.”
“I know my own mind,” she promised him and enough of her memories to know she’d never felt like this before and that she would forever regret not exploring these feelings when he returned to River City.
“You don’t know me,” he said.
She summarized everything she had learned about him, “I know you used to be a cop and that you’re a damn good bodyguard. And that people close to you have hurt you and you’ve hurt them.”
He gasped. “Not purposely,” he said. “I didn’t hurt them purposely. I just couldn’t live up to their expectations for me. I didn’t want to be a doctor like my dad. Or a banker like my stepfather.” He chuckled in self-deprecation. “With my ADHD, I’m lucky I stuck it out with law enforcement.”
“Wow,” she murmured. “Sitting beside my hospital bed for weeks must have been worse than watching paint dry. It must have been torture for you.”
He shook his head and skimmed his fingertips along her jaw. “It was hard because I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t bring you back.”
“You should have kissed me,” she said with a smile.
Instead of smiling back, his mouth pulled into a frown. “I’m no Prince Charming,” he warned her. “I’m not what you’re looking for.”
He was, but maybe because of all those other people he felt he’d let down, he wasn’t able to believe that. So she said, “You’re the one I want.”
“Ellie...”
She pressed her finger over his lips to stem his rejection. “Even if it’s just tonight. I have been a corpse for so long. Tonight I just want to feel alive.”
He stopped fighting her then and started loving her, with kisses, with touches...until he brought her such pleasure that tears of joy leaked from her eyes. She knew it wouldn’t last, though. Either Ben would find out whoever was after her and leave. Or whoever was after her would finally succeed.