CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
Ben
I press my palm against the warmth of her cheek, looking down into her emotion-heavy eyes. It looks like she might start crying, but she holds it all back.
“For life?” she whispers, as though she thinks she’s misheard me.
Dozens of memories attack me, all of them featuring Alex. Sparring in the ring, the opening of our first gym, long runs through the hilly terrain on the outskirts of the city. Then, laughing as he popped the champagne, the day I won the heavyweight championship.
My friend, my best friend, but I can’t fight this hunger anymore.
I need his sister. Forever.
“Yes,” I say firmly, knowing I can’t hide anymore. “It was the first time I saw you in the garden, Becca. I know I’d seen you before that. But you were just a kid, braces on your teeth, invisible to me. When you walked into the garden, it was then, with your beautiful smile and mouth-watering body and… And really, Becca bee, it wasn’t any of that. Not just that.”
We move closer together as though we can’t help it.
It’s like before she returned to England when circumstances kept bringing us together, metal to a magnet.
Wrapping my arms around her, I hug her close, kissing the top of her head and inhaling her sweet scent. She wraps her arms around my middle and hugs me closer, pushing her cheek against my chest.
“What was it, then?” she whispers.
There’s a shiver in her voice, a faltering note, as though she thinks I’m going to reveal this is all some twisted joke. It’s like she can’t believe what I’m saying.
I know how she feels. I can hardly believe it either.
“It was an aura,” I say, then laugh gruffly.
I extend my arms, holding her in my embrace and looking at her at the same time. She stares back with wide eyes, almost shell-shocked, as though she’s struggling to accept this.
And so am I.
“Aura,” I repeat, laughing again. “I know how that sounds. I’ve been having a lot of crazy thoughts since we met. Or met again. I can’t explain what drew me to you, except I knew I had to have you. It was the second I saw you. There was no delay.”
“And life kept throwing us together,” Becca whispers, making my heart glow as I hear the agreement in her voice. “For a while there, it was like you were anywhere I went. It was like….”
“Say it,” I whisper passionately.
Her eyes get even wider as she stares bravely up at me. “It was like fate or destiny or something was throwing us together.”
I lean down, unable to fight it anymore, finding her lips and pushing mine down firmly. She makes that adorably shocked whimpering noise, the same one she made before…but I’ll never get tired of it, no matter how many times I hear it, no matter how many times she gifts it to me.
Our mouths open, and our tongues excitedly search for each other, the nerves buzzing between us. She whimpers, muffled through the kiss as I press down on her lower back, driving her body closer to mine.
“I still can’t believe it,” she says. “You thought all of that the second you saw me?”
“It was more,” I snarl. “I started thinking about our future, about our children. About all the happiness we’re going to share. I started thinking about taking you someplace private the first chance I got and just…unleashing myself on you, Becca. This was before I knew who you were.”
I want to snatch the last sentence back the moment I say it. It’s the way Becca’s face drops, the frown replacing her smile.
“Before you knew I was Alex’s sister,” she mutters.
There’s no running from this now. I nod shortly.
“Yeah, exactly,” I say.
Her hand tightens on my chest, her fingernails digging in.