No, this is new.
As in after I left him.
I look up into his eyes that are staring down at me, a smile pulling at his lips. “See something you like?”
“Is that…I mean…” I take a step back, my heart, body, and mind all on the same page that I needed space before I try to mount him in this hallway. “They say it’s bad luck to tattoo your lover’s name on you.”
He looks down, and I think he realizes that I’m not just ogling his body. “I take it this is the first time you’ve seen this?” he asks and I nod, the words failing me as I take in my initials written over his heart with the words ‘forever and ever’ written in neat script underneath it. But not just any script.
My script.
Whenever I’d write Bennett a note or a card, I’d always sign it, forever and ever.
He’d tattooed the words in my handwriting. Over his heart.
“Bennett…”
“Well…” he lets out a breath, “if this is the first time you’re seeing it, then…it can’t really mean bad luck. Certainly not worse luck than getting a divorce.” He raises an eyebrow at me.
“How…I…when?” I put a hand over my head, remembering that Bennett would have no recollection of that. “Never mind.”
“I was shocked to see it too.” He smiles. “And all this.” He points at his arm. “Never thought I’d be one for all this ink.”
I nod, remembering how he only had a few when we started dating, but they slowly started to accumulate, and after his father died, tattoos were one of his ways to cope.
“You started getting a lot of them when Senior died.” My lip trembles because my father-in-law was truly one of the best men I knew. I don’t know how he put up with Caroline some days. But like Wren said, she’d gotten more insufferable after he died.
“About five years now?” he asks and when I turn my gaze back to him he’s looking off somewhere behind me.
“Yeah.”
He clears his throat, nodding, and I can see him closing off that part of himself. I’m not going to push it. Bennett and I had talked about his father in great detail, and he’d told me countless times that I was single-handedly what got him through the hardest time of his life. We’d dropped off the face of the earth together, gone to a Bed and Breakfast in Virginia, and holed up for weeks, ignoring everyone in the outside world with the exception of Caroline, who’d also jetted off to the Bahamas with her girlfriends.
We’d made love for days on end, only resurfacing to eat and sleep. We’d gone hiking in the Blueridge Mountains—which I told him was a one-time deal, and horseback riding which he told me was a one-time deal—and fell deeper in love over those few weeks despite the tragedy that had brought us there.
But that was just it; our love had gotten Bennett through that. Having to open that wound without me to shield that pain wasn’t going to be easy and I could tell he wasn’t prepared to do it.
As if he remembers what brought on this interaction, he speaks. “What are you doing sneaking around at 7 AM? Aren’t you hungover?”
“I needed some Advil and some water.”
“And to spy on me…” He leans against the door jamb.
“No, no, definitely not!” I exclaim and immediately my mind thinks, the lady doth protest too much.
“It’s okay, I’ve got nothing to hide.” He smirks and I let my gaze slowly move down his body again. Before I can stare too long, he has me boxed against the wall, his eyes raking over my skin and only now do I remember I’m only wearing a tiny tank top and a pair of silk shorts. I look down and note that my nipples are hard and poking through the low cut cotton tank. “Last night, you were drunk and vulnerable and I wasn’t going to take advantage…” he leans down, his voice low and washing over me, “but don’t fucking tempt me, Olivia. You’re still my wife and I still very much desire you, and what I know to be the best pussy of my life.” He licks his lips as his green eyes look down my shirt slightly before backing up. “Put some clothes on and don’t listen to me jack off.” He moves back into his room and prepares to shut the door. “Unless you’re planning to help.” He winks before closing the door.
A week later, I’m sitting at the island with my headphones in, a cup of coffee permanently glued to my hand as I sit on the most pointless conference call. My boss has been going on for the past twenty minutes about marketing strategies that I could have explained in a three line email. Bennett walks out completely dressed, his hair still wet from the shower and gives me a smile. I mute the call, pulling a headphone from my ear and look up at him as he slides up next to me, leaning down on the bar.
“Why are you up and dressed so early?”
“Because we’re going out.”
Both of my eyebrows raise in question. “Are we?” We had been getting along pretty well the past week, moving around like two polite roommates, and thankfully there hadn’t been any instances fueled by alcohol. The sexual tension is still there, lurking in almost every interaction, but I’m doing everything I can to ignore it.
Bennett is not.
“Yeah, come on, we can’t stay cooped up in the house all day. You need fresh air.”