Reason to Believe (White Lace) (15 page)

“You’re shaking,” he whispered into my hair. “What happened?”

I shook my head, almost as fast as the terrified quiver inside my bones. “Later.” Talking wasn’t what I needed right now.

Right now I needed Ben, in the only way he knew how to give himself.

I smashed my lips against his, the softness and warmth of his hands on my body exactly what I had been craving. Exactly what was going to make me forget all about the encounter, all about my past.

The next thing I knew we were upstairs and kissing furiously on our way into his bedroom. My lower back banged up against something when I stumbled over the threshold. I groaned, pulling my mouth away, then cursed.

“You all right?” Ben pressed his hand to my spine, massaging his fingers on the exact spot that throbbed.

My nod was all he needed to keep going, resuming the utter annihilation of my lips.

He slid my coat over my shoulders and I ripped my arms through the fabric, slamming it onto the carpet. My hands reached for his cheeks, pulling him down so I could press my lips to his again. My heart thundered in my chest. I couldn’t get enough, close enough, hard enough, intimate enough.

He went to work on the rest of my clothes and ripped open my blouse, the buttons snapping and popping on the floor and furniture. But when I looked up, he was already hiding himself, his eyes fixated on my breasts.

He whirled me around, pressing me into the dresser. And when he looked up, our eyes met in the mirror. He sucked in a hard breath against my ear. Had he forgotten about the mirror? I nuzzled the back of my head into him, letting him know I was ready. I was always ready for him.

But he pulled away, pressing his palm to my back and pushing me down until my breasts hit the top of the dresser. Once again he was hiding from me. Purposely removing the intimacy from our encounters, for reasons he wouldn’t acknowledge. Reasons I might never get to know.

With my palms flat on either side of me, I settled in; the cool wood was refreshing against my cheek and stomach. He stepped away, walking over to the nightstand to grab a condom. The strip he pulled out was enough to satisfy the needs of any porn shoot. My stomach clenched. I wasn’t naive. I knew I hadn’t been the one to pop Ben’s cherry, but the thought of him with other women made me crazy. And I had no right to be, considering the circumstances. Considering
my
history.

So I blocked it out. I was here to forget. I was here to obtain the one thing I’d been searching for the last few months. Release.

And Ben was definitely a pro at giving me that.

But my determination to keep my distance flew out the window the moment his hand pressed my back. The warmth of his skin ignited something inside me I couldn’t manage to tamp down.

He traveled up my back to my shoulders, moving the strands of my hair to the side, exposing my neck. He made up for turning me around when his lips found the base of my neck and he kissed his way down. He released the zipper of my skirt and it fell, pooling around my ankles at his gentle tug.

Today I wore a garter belt and thigh-high stockings, which Ben took the time to admire when he kneeled, his hands roaming over my ass and thighs, singeing every inch of exposed skin. One hand slipped between my legs, massaging my clit through the lace thong, but it was too gentle.

I pushed back, my elbows now on the dresser, holding me up, keeping me from turning around and ravaging him. I’d do it his way, if it meant I could get what I want.

He indulged me for a moment, pressed his fingers into my folds, but then he pulled away.

“Something happened.” It wasn’t a question. He knew there was something wrong. Maybe I had underestimated his skills of perception. Or maybe we’d spent too much time together and he knew me well enough to figure it out.

“You’re going to tell me.” His fingers continued to toy with my folds, gentle, playful, just enough so that my orgasm was out of reach.

He wasn’t going to get in my head. I couldn’t let him. I had the situation under control. I just needed to relax. To reset my mind and body so I could think clearly. Think of a plan on how to control my work issue. “There’s nothing to tell.”

When his finger circled my clit, my head fell forward, dropping down to the wood.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

“I came here for this.” I looked up, right into my own reflection, loving the way my eyes had gone glassy and how my lips were swollen, my lipstick smeared. “I came here for you to fuck me.”

With a jerk to my lower half, Ben ripped the scrap of lace covering my center away from my body, throwing it off to the side. My thighs clamped tighter, trying to relieve some of the ache between my legs. But now my entire body was engulfed in flames, burning, needing the hot rub of flesh against flesh to get me off.

I widened my stance, knowing that with my legs spread he was getting an up-close-and-personal view of my most sensitive parts. “Please, Ben.” I groaned when one finger slipped inside, its penetration so quick I wondered if I hadn’t imagined it.

“You think you can show up here and use me to pretend something didn’t happen?” My entire body tensed when he smacked my pussy. “Don’t forget who I am, sweetheart. I am the king of using sex to pretend feelings don’t exist.”

He smacked my pussy again and I cried out. It felt good, and I wanted more.

“You’re not the only one who likes to play games, Grace.”

I looked over my shoulder, right into his eyes, even though I knew he was avoiding it. “I’m not play—”

With a defiant look, he smacked me once again. I turned away with a grin. He’d given me exactly what I’d wanted.

I reached out, grabbing the strip of condoms and tore one off, ripping open the foil. With the rubber between two fingers, I held it out.

“I’ll give you what you want.” He grabbed the condom with one hand and with the other, he fisted my hair, pulling my head back. Pain bit my neck with the strain, but I didn’t care. “All you have to do is promise.”

“Promise what?” My words came out strained from the stretch of my neck against his tugging hand.

I’d give him anything. Promise anything if it meant his cock was inside me in the next thirty seconds.

“You’re going to tell me why you showed up here tonight.”

Anything but that.

His hand fell from my hair and I looked over my shoulder. He was putting on the condom. He wasted no time positioning himself at my center, pressing the tip of his cock against me. He teased me, rubbing the latex-covered erection up and down my folds, and I moaned at the gentle touch.

I shook my head. “I can’t—”

“You will.” His hand went to my hair again. This time, he found my eyes in the mirror and it was my turn to gasp.

His gaze penetrated right down to my soul. I couldn’t hide from him, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. Ben would give me everything, even what I probably didn’t know I needed, all I had to do was bend to his demands.

He sunk the tip of his cock inside me, wiggling his pelvis just enough that the small thrusts had me fisting my hands on the dresser.

“Please…” I tried to push back, but his hands were on my shoulders, holding me in place.

I needed him, and my uncontrollable urge for release had won out over logic.

“I’ll tell you. I promise.” Those words were all it took for him to bury himself deep inside me.

“Ben…” I whispered his name as I lowered my head to the dresser, and let him take me.

Every touch, every stroke and grunt grounded me in the present. I’d forgotten my future. I’d forgotten why I’d come here in the first place.

I was already revved up. His toying touches of my clit and the slapping of my folds already had me at the edge. It wasn’t going to take much for him to push me over so that I could soar into a pleasure-filled chasm.

And I did. With Ben’s hands on my breasts I came, shuddering in his embrace as he continued his assault on my body. Seconds later, he followed, his grunts of pleasure muffled between bites of my neck.

“Grace…” My name was a muffled sound against my ear. His hands were like a vise on my breasts, using them as leverage to pump inside me so deep and hard I felt him everywhere. “I don’t think I can stop wanting you.”

My stomach fluttered, and not from the orgasm that had just exploded inside me. I reached up and over, pressing my hand onto his head. “I don’t want you to stop.”

I wanted Ben Lockwood to want me so much that it made him crazy. But I already knew he wasn’t the monogamous type, and I had played in groups for far too long. I wanted a man who didn’t want to share me with anyone.

My happily ever after didn’t involve a third.

If I got out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror, I don’t think I’d recognize myself.

What the fuck had just happened?

I’d used sex to get her to comply with my demands. It wasn’t something I hadn’t done before, but this time the motivation was completely foreign—I actually wanted to know what was going on inside her head.

So I’d made promises. I’d manipulated. All to get me to this point, with Grace snuggled up against me in my bed, vulnerable and sated, hoping like hell that she’d open up.

Because you’re such a talker.

When I’d opened my front door and saw her there, visibly hurting, I couldn’t help the overwhelming need to make everything all right. And in order to do that, I needed to know what was wrong.

When I had asked Grace for her help, I’d never expected that we would connect. At least not on an emotional level. I knew we already had a sexual connection that was undeniable, but I never thought it would evolve into something more. The more she burrowed herself into my life, the harder it was for me to go to bed without thinking about her, wondering if she was thinking about me, too.

“So how is it that you are only twenty-four years old and you have this incredible house all to yourself?” she asked, snuggling in deeper.

I loved how her sex-slicked skin rubbed against mine, but her generic question proved that she might not be ready to let me past the curtain. Maybe I had to go first.

“The Levins are a very generous family. So generous that they took me in and raised me as their own.”

She sat up, steadying herself on her elbow. “Everly might have mentioned once that you lived with them.”

I nodded.

“What happened to your parents?”

My entire body tensed, and I knew she felt it when the finger she was using to draw circles across my chest stopped abruptly. The question was so innocent and the answer would be so much easier if the truth was anything like what people assumed—that my parents had died. No explanation required. But real life was always so much more complicated.

“I never knew my father.”

This time it was her turn to tense, her body clamped around me as if wanting to keep me in place like I was some kind of frightened animal and any sudden movement might spook me.

“My mom stuck around, but she was no prize. More interested in her next boyfriend than taking care of me. She was always making promises she couldn’t keep. She never once helped me with my homework and was always a no-show for my art shows.”

After a while her not showing up stopped being hurtful and became inevitable.

“Max’s mom rescued me when I was eleven. She came to my house and found me all alone, eating chips in front of the television. She didn’t even pack a bag for me. My mom showed up at the Levins’ two weeks later, when she’d finally realized I wasn’t around.”

Something hurt inside my chest. It had been so long since I’d thought about that night. Not the night that Mrs. Levin had brought me home, but when my mother had rung the doorbell and stormed inside, claiming to be my parent.

“I remember her being nervous walking into the Levin mansion, with a little bit of awe and a lot of envy.”

More than anything I remembered her fidgeting when she’d sat down on the couch in the sitting room. Surrounded by expensive art and crystal glassware, she’d known she was way out of her league.

“We stared at each other for a while, then she finally asked me how I was. I think I laughed at the ridiculousness of her question.”

She had abandoned me. What kind of answer had she expected?

“Eventually, Ellie came into the room and asked me to go play with Max in the basement. To this day I don’t know what was said between them. Ellie would never tell me and my mother refused to talk about it.”

Considering my mother never showed her face at the house again, and I barely saw her after that, I had a feeling there had been an agreement made. One that Ellie had been right to withhold from me, because the truth probably meant my mother had willingly left me there.

“Even at eleven years old, I knew my mother was a flake.” Grace’s arms wrapped tighter around me. “I was essentially parentless, but I had found a sense of peace with the Levins. For the first time I had a home. I felt safe.”

The Levins were the most generous people I knew. And that didn’t even include taking care of me. They gave to several charities and Ellie had almost single-handedly run a not-for-profit organization, the Phoenix House, which Max still donated to every year in his mother’s honor.

“Where is your mother now?”

“She shows up every once in a while looking for money, and I give it to her.” I let out a heavy breath. “I thought I had already experienced loss when my mother walked out the door, but when Ellie died, I knew for the first time what it felt like to lose a parent. Ellie was the only mother I ever knew, and I still miss her every single day. She was the only woman who ever gave a shit about me. The only woman who ever kept her promises to me.”

It was weird to be lying here in bed with Grace, completely naked. But the moment her eyes met mine, I’d never felt so exposed. Because she was seeing me. All of me. I’d just disclosed my deepest emotional trauma and she was still here beside me.

“I wish I could have met Ellie Levin.” Grace rolled away, looking up at the ceiling, one hand holding the sheet across her chest. “Everly tells me the nicest stories, and Max, he always gets that look in his eye whenever she comes up in conversation.” She looked over at me. “Like the one you have right now.”

I dropped my chin, making eye contact. “What look is that?”

“Utter adoration and respect.”

She was right. I adored Ellie Levin. She’d been no stranger to adversity. She’d faced it every day of her life. She’d endured it, but she’d persevered in spite of it. Ellie had been the dictionary definition of a mama bear protecting her cubs. No one messed with Max and me. She’d always had our backs. Even when we were little assholes.

“The Levins are good people, and Max isn’t just my best friend, he’s my brother. I owe my entire life to that family.”

“Is that why you work at White Lace?” She rustled in the bed, getting comfortable on her side, facing me. “Because you feel obligated?”

There was no question that my loyalty was with Hirsh. I would do anything he asked.

“Maybe. At first, it was a no-brainer. What heterosexual male wouldn’t want to work in porn? It was fun. And it was a way for me to turn the thing I loved most in the world into a job. I tried school, but it was hard. I had to conform. I don’t deal well with boxes. So I dropped out.”

I stopped, contemplating my words. My entire adult life I had done my best to fit people, thoughts, and activities into boxes as a way to maintain my distance. But I’d never allowed myself to fit into a box.

“Enough about my sad parental situation. What about you?” I turned on my side to mimic her position. “Your parents must be really proud of you. University graduate. Small business owner and now corporate executive.”

She snorted out a laugh. “I’m far from an executive, and my parents…they don’t know about any of it.”

“Why not?” I reached out and brushed her damp hair away from her face.

“We don’t speak.” She tried to fall onto her back, but I wasn’t having that. I grabbed her shoulder and righted her.

It might not be the reason why she had shown up here tonight so upset, but there was no doubt her relationship with her parents was something she kept close to the chest. And if anyone knew about having shitty parents…

When she realized she wasn’t going to get away from me so easily, she relented. With a half-smile, she looked into my eyes. “When they discovered I was an escort, they kicked me out of the house. We’ve only spoken a handful of times since then. Basically just a check-in to let one another know the others are still alive.” She blew out a heavy breath and looked away. “I don’t regret my decision to become an escort, even though it cost me my family, because whether they acknowledge it or not, the money I made saved them from bankruptcy.”

I cursed under my breath. “So you gave them money and they never spoke to you again.”

I’d thought I had it bad. I’d simply had a mother that was an egomaniac who never gave a damn. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to experience a perfect family life, and then suddenly have it taken away. Probably a hell of a lot worse. They say ignorance is bliss, and after hearing Grace’s story, not knowing my mother’s love seems like it may have been a blessing in disguise.

She’d snuggled into herself, her hands clasped together and resting under her chin. So I wiggled closer, close enough that our noses almost touched. “But with hindsight being twenty-twenty and all, I might not have made the same choice if I had known I’d spend every day worrying about someone finding out about my past.”

I understood exactly how she felt. I had gone into porn with dazzled eyes, thinking that it was going to be the most amazing experience of my life, not even thinking about life after porn. I was too happy living in the moment to worry.

“I was naive. I chose the quick solution, not thinking about the future, and being stupid enough to believe it wouldn’t be an issue. That’s just so fucking wrong.”

I had watched Max struggle every day with people judging him. And I never understood why it had bothered him so much. I just shrugged off the people who wanted to criticize and judge me. I had been so arrogant that it didn’t even faze me. Not until I had cause to think less of myself, the day I took over as VP. It was amazing what a little self-doubt did to the soul. Grace hadn’t been the only naive one.

“I’ve waited my whole life for someone to see me. I’ve spent so much time being someone else that I feel invisible.”

In what world could Grace Nolan be invisible? From the moment we had been forced to make those damn swag bags she’d been the only thing I could see clearly.

“Funny thing is, I lie here with you and I finally feel like me. I thought I might never find her again. But you…”

I grabbed her chin between my thumb and forefinger, turning her to face me. “I see you, Grace, and there is nothing in this world that could make me see you differently.”

Her eyes lowered, a small blush creeping across her cheeks. “You give me hope that there is a man out there willing to move forward with me despite my past.”

I gave her hope, but I wasn’t that man. We both knew that. I was never going to be a woman’s knight in shining armor, because I didn’t believe in happy endings. Grace deserved monogamy. She deserved to be worshipped and adored, and I knew that as soon as I figured out where the hell I stood with White Lace, I would go back to being noncommittal, because it was the only way to ensure that I didn’t let another woman break my heart.

Every day I spent with Grace challenged the way I thought my life would unfold, but if I had any hope of coming out of it with my emotions intact, I needed to remember this moment. I might be the man to give her hope, but I wasn’t the man to give her a happy ending.

But now that I knew she trusted me, maybe she’d let me help her solve whatever problem caused her to show up here in the first place.

“Are you going to tell me about what happened?”

She sighed, letting her head fall away from me. “I made that promise, didn’t I?”

For the first time since we’d snuggled on the bed, she pulled away, and I let her. I had a feeling that she was going to need some space for this. That whatever had scared her was significant enough to have her show up at my front door.

“There’s a guy at my office.”

With only a few words, I didn’t like where this was going. My hands fisted at my sides and my jaw clenched.

“He’s the brother of my boss and…” She hesitated, her eyes lowering to the bed. I hated when she did that. Grace never had cause to look away from me. Not for anything. “I also know him from outside of work. From…”

She didn’t have to explain further. He had been a client.

That uncontrollable urge to claim her came rumbling back, rattling inside my chest.

“He remembers me and I remember him.”

I did not like where this story was going. It had nightmare written all over it. Not to mention rage attack. I might have to pummel someone into the ground.

“Is he threatening you?”

When she didn’t answer, I shot out of bed, my fists itching to punch something, to hit something hard. “Did he touch you?”

She shook her head. Thank fuck.

“I stayed late tonight. It was after hours and there was no one in the office and…He brought two friends.”

“I. Will. End. Him.” My vision went red—violent, bloody red. I vaguely heard Grace call my name from the bed, but my mind was too busy spinning. “You’re not safe there. You need to quit.” My words came out of their own volition. I paced my bedroom, unable to calm the rage that had ignited inside me.

“I can’t quit. Besides, I like what I’m doing there.”

“There’s no other option. I’m coming to work with you. Every day I will drop you off at your desk and pick you up every night.” My thoughts were too quick for my mouth and my words were stumbling out too fast. “He’s going to see me every fucking day.” I stopped. Turning to face her, I leveled her with a glare. “He’s not going to touch you.”

“You can’t show up at my work every day, Ben. He’s hardly ever in the office and the next time I see him will probably be the retirement party and the whole office will—”

“Party?” I cut her off, and she didn’t look impressed with my interruption. “You’re not going alone.”

With an exasperated sigh, she said, “Ben, you—”

“It’s Saturday?”

We stared each other down and when she finally realized I wasn’t going to give in, she threw herself back on the bed, covering up with the sheet. “Yes.”

I nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at me. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

I’d never felt this feeling before. This manic need to stand guard and protect someone, like even a tiny mosquito was a threat. I’d slay a thousand of them if it meant she’d never feel an itch.

I wanted to hide her away to keep her safe from anyone and anything.