Melting Into You (Due South Book 2) (23 page)

“This conversation is making me uncomfortable.”

“Talking about sex makes you uncomfortable?”

She shook her head. “No.” Then nodded. “Yes, a little bit. I’m not a prude, but…” Kezia rolled her shoulders and took a steadying breath. “But I’ve only slept with one man—my husband.”

Ben stilled, the teasing smile slipping off his mouth. He held up a finger, crossed to the hallway door, and shut it firmly. “Come sit with me for a minute.”

“I should go.” Blood throbbed through her arteries, threatening to flare her face bright red again.

“You can’t dump that on a guy and bail.”

“Zoe will be waiting. And I’ve embarrassed myself enough.” She wanted to slink home and not be the world’s most sexually boring thirty-one-year-old woman.

“Ten minutes. We can do this the easy way, or”—he stalked toward her—“forget the easy way, we’re doing it my way.”
He scooped her up in his arms.

She squawked and clamped her mouth shut to muffle the sound. Before she had time to struggle, he carried her to an armchair and sat down, cradling her on his lap. Even when his large hand released the underside of her knee, the spots where his fingers gripped burned. Ben leaned back, tucking her close so h
er head rested on his shoulder.

“That’s better. Now we’ll talk, and you won’t even be embarrassed by accidental eye contact, see?” He demonstrated an exaggerated craning of his neck to meet her gaze, winked, then showed her his profile as he stared at his wall-mounted TV.

Not be embarrassed? Every part of him was hard beneath her—his pectoral muscles pressed against her upper arm, and the long length of his denim-covered thighs.

And oh, the faint wisp of wood smoke on his jersey, the cologne—sandalwood, judging by the scent—drifting off his skin. Kezia forced her body to remain motionless, every molecule inside her glowing hot to the core.

“Tell me about Callum,” he said.

His Adam’s apple bobbled under tanned skin stretched taut, and her heart gave a little pitter-patter at a spot where he’d shaved and nicked himself. She wanted to kiss it better, and in wanting to so badly, pressed her lips together.

“I met Callum when I was twenty-one and shopping at a department store. He asked for my opinion on a scarf he wanted to buy for his mother’s birthday. It was hideous.”

Ben snorted. “Classic pick-up line.”

“He told me years later he knew the scarf was awful. But you must understand, I was a very sheltered twenty-one-year-old. My parents were overprotective, and my four brothers saw it as their duty to cover any of their blind spots.”

“High school boyfriends?”

She shook her head, the wool of Ben’s jersey tickling her cheek. “A mixed boy/girl primary school then an all girls’ Catholic high school. I managed to kiss my date from a neighboring boys’ school at the senior ball before my oldest brother Tony collected me at eleven.”

She’d never heard from the boy after the ball. T
ony’s snake-eyed glare may’ve had something to do with it. Either that, or she’d been a terrible kisser.

“No after-ball function for you, Cinderella?”

“Not a chance. I went straight to university after high school, and I was too busy studying to bother with the other male students my age who only ever wanted to drink beer and sleep through lectures.”

“Until you met Callum the architect.”

“He was six years older than me, charming and sophisticated. Callum could’ve been a brilliant salesman—except Dr. Joanne Murphy would’ve euthanized him if he’d ever dared show interest in a career other than architecture or medicine.”

“Maybe he bought a scarf to strangle her?”

She laughed, trying to keep at bay the memories of the good times between her and Callum. The times before she figured out she didn’t and never would belong in his and his parents’ world.

“We’d laugh about that scarf, but he loved his pa
rents. Anyway. Callum was a talker, which smoothed the path for me since I was shy with men.”

Ben craned his neck out. “Seriously? You, shy?”

“Twenty-one-year-old virgin with one sloppy kiss under her belt? Yes—shy. When this handsome man talked to me, I don’t know how I managed to stammer out my name, let alone agree to have coffee with him.”

“You started seeing him?”

“At every opportunity. I finally moved out of my parents’ home after I finished university and shared a flat with a group of other single teachers. With that little bit of distance, I kept the romance off my family’s radar.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Until I discovered I was three months pregnant with Zoe.”

His thigh muscles bunched beneath her, and she fis
ted a handful of his jersey.

“The shit hit the proverbial fan,” he said.

She nodded, her forehead bumping the warm curve of his jaw. “I told Callum and he said he loved me, and we’d get married. I was so scared it didn’t occur to me to question whether I wanted to marry Callum—or just as importantly, whether he wanted to marry me.”

“And your family?”

“My brothers plotted to kill him, my parents were inconsolable.” She couldn’t let go of his jersey. It’d soon be ruined with a stretched spot over his heart. “I expected their fury, since I’d become pregnant outside of marriage—and I got it. I expected they’d be disappointed I’d picked a non-Italian man to marry—and they were. But I believed that once Callum and I got married and they held their first
nipote
, they’d soften.”

“They didn’t?”

“Not really. Neither did Callum’s parents. I did expect that.”

“The
Murphys didn’t like you?”

“I wouldn’t say they didn’t like me. More that they didn’t want me as their daughter-in-law. Dr. Murphy even pulled me aside the evening we told them I was pregnant and we planned to get married.” Her spine stiffened in memory. “She asked me to help her in the kitchen with dessert and then remarked on how I’d barely started my career as a teacher. Wouldn’t it be better to give my relationship with Callum time to m
ature before the burden of marriage and parenthood? She’d be happy to recommend the discreet services of a colleague.”

“What a bitch. I hope you dumped the dessert on her head.”

“I wanted to, believe me. But my parents raised me to respect my elders, and I sensed making an enemy for life wasn’t in my unborn child’s best interest.”

“So you pulled up your big-girl panties and put on your screw-
you eyes.”

“I may’ve been shy with men, but I was no jellyfish that Dr. Murphy could flatten under her three-hundred-dollar leather pumps. I smiled and thanked her for her concern. Told her I already adored the little person
growing inside me and I would raise their grandchild with or without their blessing. I said I loved her son, and he loved me. She smiled at that, you know. Flicked a hand to dismiss the feelings we had for each other and got out the fancy dessert bowls that had been in the Murphy family for generations.”

“Ah. You and Callum bucked tradition and married anyway.”

“In the registry office with a few friends on both sides, and my two brothers, Nicky and Matt. None of Callum’s relatives came. Or my parents.”

Her breathing snagged, and Ben’s arm squeezed her waist.

“It still cuts you, doesn’t it? Cuts deep.”

Sure her answer would sound broken and filled with old hurts, she leaned into him. But allowing Ben’s warmth and strength to support her was a comfort she couldn’t afford. She’d learned by putting her trust in people who claimed
to love her, but let her down.

She could only count on herself in tough times.

Kezia focused on smooth, even breaths. “The Murphys helped Callum buy us a house, but my parents only made the twenty-minute trip a few times. Mamma and Papà were never rude to him. They were quiet and polite—which, if you know anything about Italian family get-togethers, means something is terribly wrong. Once Zoe arrived, Papà caved, but my mother? She loved Zoe, but things were never right between us. When Zoe was ten months old, I went to visit her. After I explained why Callum was absent once again, Mamma admitted she didn’t approve of him. Not because he wasn’t Italian or of the faith, but because he wasn’t
tenace
—tenacious and strong. He’d let me down, and he wouldn’t stick, she said. I was devastated, and I didn’t visit again.”

Her throat pinched closed, and she opened her eyes wide, trying to blink back the tears stinging in the co
rners. “The next time I saw her, she was hooked up to life support machines in the hospital. She slipped away from a second heart attack before Zoe’s first birthday.”

Ben twisted in the chair, cupping her head in one big hand and pressing a chaste kiss
to the center of her forehead.

“
Papà followed her two years later, before Zoe was diagnosed. He was spared seeing her suffer, at least.” She scrubbed a hand across her wet cheek and touched Ben’s jaw. “I think you got more than you bargained for opening that can of worms.”

He covered her fingers. “I like listening to you talk.”

“Yes, but you asked about my, ah, inexperience, and I changed the subject.”

“I shouldn’t have pressured you.” He dropped his hand from hers, stroking his fingers down her leg.

Hot tingles raced along her skin and congregated low in her belly. “If we’re going to sleep together, you should know what you’re getting…” She swallowed past the stickiness clogging her throat. “And what you’re not.”

His hand paused on her knee. “I get
you
, right? In a bed or on the floor. Naked.”

The hot tingles spread until her face caught fire. “Yes. Is that enough?”

The soft chuckle stirred her curls and fanned his warm breath over her ear. “What you’re really asking is if you’re enough. And Kez, I never imagined being permitted to touch you, let alone make love to you for a night. I should be asking you—am I enough?”

Her nipples pebbled as his hand slid over her waist and settled on her ribs, his thumb brushing slow arcs inches below her bre
ast. “Enough? You’re too much.”

He pulled back, a deep line bisecting his drawn ey
ebrows, as if her words were a rejection. She shook her head and drew his hand up to her right breast. His fingers closed on her, and she shuddered with bone-deep pleasure. Would it always be like this?

“You must understand—you kiss me, and I can’t do anything but feel. You put your hands on me, and my self-control is
andato
. Just gone.”

“I like that you have no control with me.” His voice roughened as his palm grazed the bud of her nipple through the soft synthetic fabric. “I like that you came in my arms, that I could smell you on my skin for hours afterwards.”

“Oh God.” She closed her eyes. “I’m still mortified.”

“But sweetheart, you were married for—how many years?”

“Nearly five.” She kept her eyes closed.

“I’ll make the huge assumption here that that orgasm wasn’t your first.”

“No.”

How could she explain the difference when she could barely explain it to herself? Wasn’t one orgasm much the same as another? Evidently not. Try a co
mparison between a TV dinner lasagna to the real thing cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients.

Ben was the real thing.

She hadn’t had to strive, hadn’t had to mentally trick her body into arousal and eventually climax, Ben had driven her over the precipice with little effort. God knew how she’d stand the intensity of a full night of lovemaking.

“And—hell.” He shifted, and the hard length of him pressed into her bottom. “As weird as it is discussing this—I assume your husband gave you orgasms on a regular basis?”

Kezia cracked an eye open to a narrow slit. “Our sex life dwindled after Zoe got sick.”

“And before then?”

“Sex was…nice. A little irregular, but then we were first-time parents, and work put a lot of pressure on Callum.”

“Uh huh. So. Sex was nice.” He took his hand off her breast, tipped her face up. Eyes dark with sudden hunger pierced clear through her. “You and I aren’t
gonna have nice sex, sweetheart. We’re gonna have hot, wild, sweaty sex that’ll leave us unconscious or dead.”

Oh, hot, wild, and sweaty sounded good. Sounded
fantastico
.

He twisted a stray curl of her hair and rubbed it u
nder his nose. “We won’t need riding crops or handcuffs. I’m not into kinky stuff, Kezzy. I’m into you.”

The hunger in his eyes melted to a tenderness that caused her stomach butterflies to resume acrobatic a
ntics.

She pushed against his chest. This time he didn’t try to prevent h
er from scrambling off his lap.

“I have to go.”

Tugging her skirt down, she crossed to the bar stool and slipped on her coat.

Ben wrapped the scarf around her neck as she fu
mbled with the buttons.

“Can you keep next weekend free?”