She suddenly couldn’t breathe, so she pulled in air and pulled it in again, and made the same sort of noise she’d been making before except now it came from a different place, this involuntary place that also made her sigh and moan and forget everything except Ben and how he was making her feel.
She held a man in her hand for the first time, exploring him, feeling him slide beneath her fingers, just touching and exploring, delighted with what she found. Ben was patient till he couldn’t be patient any more. Her inexperience worried him, not for himself but for her—she was far too trusting and naïve—so he handed her the condom, which was something she should know how to do. But he ended up guiding her clumsy fingers as she rolled it down his length but, too eager, too nervous, she ripped it.
‘We’ve only got one more!’ she cried, embarrassed with her clumsiness. She wished he’d just do it for her, but Ben was insistent.
‘I’ll go to the petrol station if I have to and get some more if you rip this one,’ he growled. God, he hoped he didn’t have to! Practice may not make perfect, but a patient teacher helped and Celeste heard his moan of pleasure as she slipped it on slowly. Terrified of her nails, she unfurled it with her palms and then she was holding him lovingly for a moment, proud of her handiwork, as his fingers slipped deeper into her slippery warmth.
‘I don’t want to hurt you...’ he gasped. He was suddenly right there at her entrance and she was tight with expectancy and fear. But then he was in just a little bit, two hands holding her hips and just gently stretching her till fear abated and she relaxed, willing him in further. But he was so supremely gentle, so strong and sure that there was pure bliss in there being no rush.
Always, in her vast repertoire of twice, there had been an ‘is that it?’ moment. Is that what the world raves about? Is that all there is to it?
No, this was all there was to it.
All she wanted and all she wanted to be...
He was pushing her onto her back now, his huge frame moving over her, and it felt sublime...till she lost her rhythm and Ben dealt easily with that.
‘Stay still.’ His words were a low whisper in her ear.
‘Still?’ Wasn’t she supposed to be writhing around? Surely lying still...
‘Stay still,’ he said again, so she did. She just lay and felt the blissful feel of him within her, the scent of him, of them, and she really did try to stay still, except her hips kept lifting, her body kept arching to his.
‘Stay still...’ he repeated, and she tried harder, except she couldn’t, and suddenly she was lifting to him, moving with him, just locked in their own rhythm and Ben wasn’t telling her any more because with that pause, she’d got it. Without trying hard, suddenly it was easy.
The skin of his chest was against her lips and she licked it, sucking his salty flesh, her legs around his, ankles trying to grip except he was so broad she could barely manage it. Then she felt the shift in him, something she’d never anticipated in the guarded, reticent Ben, because he was locked into this magical place too. There was no way she could define it, nothing specific with which to gauge it, except suddenly he was moaning her name and forgetting, deliciously forgetting to be gentle. Celeste was urging him on, not with words but with deep kisses on his chest and hands that slid over his buttocks and pushed him in harder. He was all over her, and so into her it made her dizzy, this full focus of him on her, until she was coming, a deep, deep orgasm that pleaded for him join her. And he did, giving in and just diving forward, shuddering his release and tipping Celeste to a place where there was no sound or silence or thought or want—just them and the beat of their bodies matching and minds colliding. She’d glimpsed pure magic and she never wanted to come down or go back or move from this place again.
He kissed her out of it, back to the world and then Ben rolled away from her and Celeste was suddenly scared, scared of losing whatever it was they had just found, scared of this place receding. Then it was her kissing him. On top of him, she kissed him hard, her hand threading into his hair, a silent plea for him not to leave her, for him not to retreat again inside himself because she had seen him now, seen them perhaps, glimpsed a marvellous possibility of them together, and she didn’t want it to disappear.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘BEN RICHARDSON.’
She hadn’t heard the phone ringing, just Ben’s voice as he answered it. ‘Belinda Hamilton is on call this weekend. No, I’ve seen her, she was there earlier tonight.’ She felt the sheets move, Ben climb out, the shower taps on before the conversation was even over, and then two minutes later Ben, still dripping wet, was beside her, pulling on jeans. ‘I’ve got to go into hospital for a bit.’
‘Problem?’
‘A bit—Belinda’s not answering her pager.’ He kissed her and it soothed her, but almost on cue, the moment he had gone, her three hours of sleep were up anyway, because Willow woke up. Celeste padded downstairs and prepared her a bottle, then brought her into bed to feed her. It was the easiest night feed Willow had ever taken, so blissfully easy. The bottle was gone in a few minutes and Willow was back asleep. She deserved a cuddle for being such a good girl, Celeste thought, and moved the pillows, cuddled her daughter in and determinedly ignored her mother’s voice in her head that told her she shouldn’t have the baby in bed with her.
And that was the scene Ben came home to.
Having dealt with the issue at work, he’d stopped at the petrol station, had bought lots of supplies and was ready to fall into bed. On the drive home it had all seemed straightforward, and Ben had felt so sure.
Then he’d called at Belinda’s. Sure she was home, he had hammered on her door and felt this flicker of fear, the same fear he had when he’d come home to find Jen.
This silent house and the appalling feeling that something was wrong.
‘Belinda!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll call the police if you don’t open up.’
‘I’m sorry!’ The door pulled open and he saw her eyes were swollen from crying. ‘I just can’t go in.’
‘What’s happened?’ he asked, appalled.
‘Can you just cover for me?’ she whispered.
‘Sure.’
‘Can you ring the switchboard and tell them to page you if there’s a problem?’
‘I’ll do it now,’ Ben said, stopping the door as she went to close it. ‘Belinda, what’s going on?’
‘Gastric flu...’
‘Don’t give me that!’ he exclaimed.
‘Please, Ben.’
It was none of his business. So long as she was okay, that was all that mattered, but his heart was still racing as he let himself into his home, the metallic taste of fear on his tongue and he downed a glass of water and then another before heading upstairs.
And then he’d seen them both on the bed, curled up like two kittens, sleeping, so sweet and perfect and innocent. But he’d glimpsed the past tonight, tasted fear again as he’d knocked at Belinda’s door—and maybe that, Ben decided, was the sign he’d craved from Jen.
Maybe that was his warning.
Celeste stirred and half awoke, could see Ben sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘How was it?’
‘Busy enough, I just had to sort out some backlog, as they couldn’t get hold of Belinda.’
‘That’s not like her,’ Celeste frowned. ‘Do you think she’s okay?’
‘She’s fine,’ Ben said. ‘Well, not fine, as I stopped by her flat on the way back. She says she’d got gastric flu but my guess is...’ He didn’t finish. Belinda’s personal life was her own and shouldn’t really be gossiped about. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Celeste knew she’d just been relegated, knew, though it was almost indefinable, that what she had feared—losing what she’d just found—had already taken place.
‘I’ll put Willow back in her pram.’ She thought Ben might take the baby from her, but he didn’t, so Celeste slipped out of bed and down to the guest room where she tucked her daughter into the pram. Then, as Willow woke up and started grumbling, she wheeled the stroller back to Ben’s room and parked the baby in the corner as he undressed and climbed into bed.
It took a few moments to settle Willow and by the time she returned to his bed, Ben was asleep.
Or pretending to be.
She stared at his keys and the phone and the little paper bag from the garage, knowing what it contained and realising they wouldn’t be needed.
Wondering what, in that short space of time, had changed things so much. She told herself she was imagining it—overreacting.
Maybe he was asleep after all and not just pretending.
The view from the bed was magical and it should have soothed her as she got into bed and lay next to him—only it didn’t.