16
BENJAMIN
“‘Operation ‘Transfer Sleeping Cub’ was a success,” I said, raising my arms victoriously as I strode into the kitchen.
I did feel victorious. I just managed to transplant my sleeping niece from the living room couch, where she had drifted off watching a movie about princesses and talking candlesticks, all the way down the hall and to her bed without waking her up. That was no small feat, especially considering the obstacle course of discarded toys scattered over her bedroom floor.
“Well done, Mr. Mom,” Lia said, glancing up at me as she dropped a stack of dirty plates into the overflowing kitchen sink, topping off the tower of stainless steel pots and pans that were already stacked precariously in a bath of apple dish soap-scented bubbles.
“You’re really good with her, you know. You’re a natural.”
She smiled but she looked conflicted. Like she was still trying to figure me out. Like she was struggling to reconcile how this bad boy could turn into a hero. How the billionaire hotel heir could turn into a doting father figure for his niece. How this potentially savage beast could be so gentle with the little cub. And as much as it pained me, I knew she had a right to wonder.
Lia turned on the tap and reached for the dishrag but I stopped her, wrapping my hands around her waist from behind and pressing my body against hers.
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered into her hair, taking in a deep breath of Lia. She smelled like pastel petals and springtime and the kitchen smelled like homemade spaghetti sauce mixed with the burning lavender soy candle that Lia lit next to the sink, and altogether it smelled like home.
If someone had told me a month ago that my pristine apartment would be littered with dolls and dirty dishes and Disney movies, I would have laughed out loud. Or that the highlight of my week would have been cooking homemade pasta with my niece and her preschool teacher. But now I couldn’t imagine it any other way, now that I had seen so much life fill the walls of my apartment, I couldn’t imagine going back to the cold, silent sterility. My bear couldn’t either. The closer we got to Lia, the more he wanted to claim her. To make her ours forever.
“These dishes aren’t going to wash themselves.”
“Don’t worry about the dishes,” I said, turning off the tap and sliding my hand back around her waist.
She didn’t melt into my arms. She didn’t press her body closer to mine. She resisted, she kept her back firm and rigid.
“What are you thinking?” I asked, loosening my grip on her waist.
“Nothing,” she said dismissively, planting her hands on the edge of the countertop.
“Tell me,” I insisted.
“I’ve just got a lot on my mind,” she bluffed. “Work stuff. I really shouldn’t be here, and I don’t want the headmaster to find out.”
“Don’t lie to me, Lia.”
She twisted around in my grasp, angling her body so that she was facing me with her chest pressed against mine and her hands were gripping onto my arms, pulling them tighter around her. She was grinding her jaw and I could tell she wanted to say something, but she was holding back.
I felt the hesitation lull in her throat, and could see the conflicted look flash across her eyes. I had a pretty good idea of exactly what was on her mind. She had been flirting with the edge all night; keeping her distance, then allowing herself to get a bit closer, only to pull away again.
“Why did you tell me that I should be afraid of you?” she asked me. Her voice was tiny, but her eyes are intense as they dig deep into mine, looking for an answer.
“I told you that’s a stupid question,” I said softly, reminding her of the answer I gave the last time she asked me.
“You want me to be brave and ask for what I want,” she said, wrinkling her brow into a frown. “Well, I want you to answer that question, whether you think it’s stupid or not. Why should I be afraid of you?”
Her eyes were digging holes into mine and our faces were so close that I could taste the wine on her breath. She was holding my arms around her, locking us together and holding her body close to mine, but somehow she was still resisting, still holding back.
“Why do you think, Lia?” I asked, my voice a low whisper. I swallowed heavily, because I did not want to ruin this moment with the truth; I did not want to shatter what we had by talking about things we both already knew.
“I think that you’ve spent so much time reading the tabloid headlines that you’ve actually started to believe all of the awful things they write about you,” she said. “I think you’ve convinced yourself that you need to play a part, that you need to be this character that they’ve created.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“Everyone,” she exhaled. “The press, the tabloids, the women who leach onto you for their fifteen minutes of fame.”
I felt my heart pounding in my chest, vibrating, creating white noise that wrapped around my head and rang through my ears. Why was she making me feel like this? Why were her words cutting through me? Why did I feel like she could see straight inside of me?
“I’m not playing a part, Lia,” I said, my heart pounding through my voice. “This is just who I am.”
“No, Benjamin, it’s not.”
“I’m selfish.”
“I’ve seen you be selfless,” she whispered back, her face inching closer to mine.
“I don’t know how to love.”
“I’ve seen you love.”
“I’ve hurt people, Lia,” I insisted. My voice was a husky whisper, and our lips are close enough to touch. She tasted the ugliness of my words, but somehow her face didn’t darken in disgust.
“You didn’t hurt me,” she whispered.
“I could.”
“But you haven’t,” she said. She looped her arms tighter around my waist, melting into my chest as the percussion of her heartbeat hammered in sync with mine. Now I was the one struggling to resist as her warmth swelled against me, sending an electric current through my veins and electrifying every nerve in my body.
“You said this wasn’t meaningless.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m good for you.”
She tilted her head up, brushing her warm lips against mine.
“It means that we’re in this together,” she said. “It means that I could hurt you, too.”
My heart was throbbing through my body, dying to feel her, dying to sink into the curves of her body.
“Ask me what I want,” she whispered, her lips brushing mine again, filling my mouth with the warmth of her breath.
“Tell me, Lia,” I breathed. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you.”
“Lia...” I tried to resist, but the way her hands felt as they tightened around me makes it impossible.
“I want you to be in control,” she whispered. “I want to trust you. I want to surrender. I want you to claim me.”
My bear and I couldn’t resist her anymore. I fought off her grip, twisting her back around and pressed her chest against the glossy stone countertop. I pulled her hands behind her back, gripping her wrists together with one hand. I snaked my free hand beneath her hips, plunging down the front of her pants.
My fingers slipped through the slick, sticky warmth that was dripping from her pussy and I pried her lips apart with my fingertips, finding her engorged clit. I pinched the hood and tugged, and she gasped, struggling to free her hands from my grip, but I kept them locked together and pinned down firmly in the small of her back.
“Is this what you want?” I hissed into the back of her neck. She squirmed under my weight, but her body responded. She spread her legs further apart, letting my hand slip deeper between her silky lips. She pressed her ass against me, grinding against my throbbing cock.
I slid my hand deeper into her soaking wet panties, digging my fingers through her folds until I found her entrance. The tight skin stretched around my finger and she gasped again. Her hands struggle to break free and I tighten my grip around her wrists.
“Trust me,” I said, realizing that the words were a command and a concession all at once. I was demanding her obedience, and I was promising her that I could be trusted. Promising that I would not hurt her, that I was not going anywhere, that this was everything but meaningless. That my bear would claim her. She was my mate, my forever. And as soon as the words came out of my mouth, as soon as Lia’s body went still, I realized that I was relinquishing every bit of control to Lia. Just like she had relinquished control to me.
I released my grip on her wrists.
“Take off your pants,” I demanded.
She obeyed, and then I hurriedly stripped off my pants and kicked them aside on the kitchen floor.
Lia leaned forward on the countertop, propping herself up on her elbows with her back to me, then she spread her legs apart. Without warning she lowered herself onto my bare thigh and I felt the wetness and warmth of her folds press onto my skin, like velvet dripping with hot honey. She rolled her hips, grinding her sex up my thigh until her ass catches the shaft of my cock between her cheeks.
There was no more time to waste. I needed to get inside of her.
I gripped onto her hips, pulling her up onto her tiptoes. Then I spread her pussy apart, revealing her glistening hole, and I thrusted forward until I was all the way inside her.
I reached a hand under her t-shirt and gripped onto her breast through the thin fabric of her bra, squeezing as I plunged my cock in and out.
My other hand shot between her legs, twisting and pinching her clit, responding to the chorus of husky pants and restrained moans coming from her parted lips.
I felt her knees buckle and her walls start contract, tightening around my cock. I pressed us both forward, wedging my arm between her chest and the countertop to support her as her legs give out. Then I spanked her ass with my open palm. The sting sent her over the edge, and she fell forward, her body ripping apart with an orgasm. She dug her teeth into my arm, biting to hold back the cry of ecstasy.
Feeling her body react to mine trigged my own climax. My balls clenched and the muscles in my thighs burned, and then I came, shooting my hot load between her legs filling her.