Chapter Six
I lay sprawled on Ben's body, which had burned like a fireplace all night. I was sore all over. My hair a wild tangle on his broad chest. And as I blinked from sleep in the cramped confines of Ben's boyhood bed, I was blinded by dazzling morning light filtering in through the frosted window…
Morning?
Sunlight?
Shit!
In a panic, I tried to untangle myself from his arms, but they were like dead weights. "Ben," I whispered, but he didn't stir. And while I might've taken some satisfaction in the fact that I'd worn him out, I really needed him to wake up. "Ben!"
He groaned happily as if in pleasure to feel me there next to him, rolling over so that I was even more tightly trapped against his body.
"Ben, wake up!"
"Am I dreaming?" he croaked, without opening his eyes. "Because if so, it's an awesome dream."
"It's morning!" I hissed.
Ben wiped sleep from his eyes and stretched. "It's also a holiday. Everybody's sleeping in."
But I could hear the strains of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer floating up the stairs and the scent of bold, rich, coffee filled the air. "Crap! Ben, you have to sneak me out of the house."
Ben laughed. "What are you going to do, climb out my window?"
"That's a great idea!"
"Or, we could just go downstairs and have breakfast."
That'd be nice. Normal. But nothing about last night had been normal. "Your mom—"
"We can all be adults about this."
"No we can't," I said, crawling out of his arms to grope the floor for my panties. And bra. And dress. And, what had happened to the thigh high stockings?
From the rumpled bed, Ben sighed. "I was wondering when the panic was going to set back in…"
I shot him a look over my shoulder. "I'm not panicking."
"So, you're totally okay with us being a thing," he said, pointing between the two of us, oblivious to the santa hat that was currently covering his naughtiest parts.
I hopped on one foot, getting into my panties. "I said I was, didn't I?"
"Then why don't you want my mom to know?"
"Because…" I trailed off, trying to find an explanation. "Because it's embarrassing."
He rolled up out of bed, reaching for his boxers. "Embarrassing that you spent the night or that you spent the night with me."
I started to tell him to get over himself. That we were past that. But I heard my mother's voice from downstairs and realized that maybe we weren't. "O.M.G. My mother's downstairs having coffee with your mom. And you want to, what? March down there and let them think that we…that we…"
"Had sex?" Ben asked, pulling on his tee-shirt. "What, are you worried you're going to get a reputation?"
He meant it to tease me, since I'd always had a reputation in this town, but it suddenly mattered in a way that it hadn't ever mattered before. "I don't want your mom to think—"
"She's pretty sure that I have sex, Becca."
"But not in her house. And not with me!"