Ben (The Sherwood)

Her eyes were so sad when they gazed at me. “Ben, she’s my cousin. Yesterday, when I saw you I just wanted to talk. Then you told me that Jasmine was gone and left Asia behind.” She hesitated like she wasn’t sure that she should be telling me this, but she did anyway. “I thought, I’m not letting Ben get away again.”

“Then don’t,” I told her rubbing Disa’s thumb with my own. “Let’s be more than friends. Let’s see what this can be between us.” Suddenly I was desperate to not lose her again. The words kept tumbling out of my mouth, coming straight from my heart. “I’m not right without you, Disa. I need you.”

She stepped forward. The toes of our shoes were touching. Her chin was turned down, her eyes not looking at me, because she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to see the love I felt for her in my face. I was open and honest this time. I was willing to show her everything that I was feeling.

I touched her chin and tilted her face up. “Give us a chance?” I begged her.

She stood on tiptoe and her eyes closed while mine remained wide open watching her. Her lips hovered near mine but hadn’t touched mine yet. My hands went to her waist to steady her. “Disa,” I whispered her name. “Kiss me already,” I begged her.

She chuckled at me. Then she pressed her lips to mine in such a soft, sweet kiss that she stole my breath away. I teased her lips with my tongue and she parted to let me in. Her breath was sweet like candy but minty like peppermint too.

I moaned at the touch of our tongues. She tightened her grasp around my neck and kissed me harder, with much more passion. I pulled away. My breathing was heavy and my need obvious. “We have to stop,” I told her. “I want you and I haven’t been with anyone since Asia was conceived.”

“Seriously,” she said surprised by my revelation. She tilted her head to the side. Her brow was wrinkled in that way that said she didn’t believe me.

I nodded.

“Color me shocked. I am in awe of your restraint,” Disa teased me.

“I’m glad I could amuse you,” I deadpanned. I released her but kept hold of her hand. “Let’s walk,” I suggested.

“Why?”

“Why do I want to walk?” I asked surprised by her question. Disa rolled her eyes towards the heavens.

“Why did you change?” She asked. “You’ve been celibate for a long time, Ben. A really, long time. You’ve had this bad boy reputation of being a womanizer since high school even though you weren’t sleeping with women then. Were you?”

I wasn’t. Disa was right. I didn’t physically have sex until I was out of high school, but I had a lot of damn fun playing around. Oral sex was a pleasure both giving and receiving so I wasn’t completely innocent up to that point that I finally did the deed.

Then I tried explaining to Disa that at first, I was scared. Never had I ever had unprotected sex before. The next morning felt like a mistake. Like I was trying to substitute one woman for another. I took her home and told I would see her. It was wrong. I should have never taken her out in the first place. “The connection between the two of you was too close. That wasn’t fair.”

“No, it wasn’t but we can’t change the past, so we just move forward, right?”

I nodded. We were trying which was making me a happy man until I saw Rachel at brunch tomorrow morning. All bets might be off after that.

Chapter 11

I asked Disa to come to Sunday brunch at Rachel’s house. She wasn’t sure how good of an idea that was, and I wasn’t sure that she wasn’t right once I arrived at my mother’s house where my father was now living most of the time. I didn’t know how the parents were going to take the idea of Disa and I dating.

I went early so I could see Mom first. If I had any chance of winning her over it had to be alone. She was up at the crack of dawn every day of the week and today would be no different. Danni and Walker wouldn’t arrive until nine-thirty, so I arrived with Asia at nine. I tried to get there earlier but getting a baby ready when I was a newbie wasn’t always the easiest thing for me. I thought for some insane reason a half hour would suffice when I arrived at Mom’s house.

I was wrong.

As I entered the kitchen, Rachel looked at me and sat her cup down. She was still in her bathrobe which was unusual for her. By this time of the morning she was dressed and ready to start cooking or head out to church whichever she did. Apparently, this morning she wasn’t ready for anything. “What’s wrong?”

“I need to talk to you,” I sat Asia on the floor beside me. Thankfully, she was sleeping still. Although, that didn’t stop Mom from getting her out of the car seat. I wanted her to be focused on me not Asia. “Mom, I really needed to talk to you.”

She frowned at me. “I can hold my granddaughter and talk to you.”

“This is important.”

“So is my granddaughter.” She fussed with the blanket that Asia was wrapped in. “You have her bundled in here so tightly, Ben,” Mom grumbled.

“I didn’t want her to get cold.” I was getting frustrated with Rachel. She was lost in the grand mommy haze of lust that came over her whenever her grandchildren came around her.

I reached out and touched her thigh. “Mom, focus.”

“What, Ben?” She scowled at me.