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Shefro even I ith Dahl then and there’s nothing I could say to ht I try to calh her hair I would hold her, hug her, if I could When her sobbing eases I lean over and kiss her head After a few long silent minutes I say, "Sit up Let’s put this aloe on you"

She slides across the sheets before settling with her back to me and I lean over to whisper softly in her ear, "Lift your hair"

I take ato control the i on me She’s barely dressed and it’s hard to control my desire I open the bottle and rub the cool liquid in le at first, but you’ll feel much better, I pro her smooth skin makes me want to do so much more

She screams, "Ouch," and I can hear a sob and with that any sexual thoughts I had disappear Fuck, I hate this I don’t want her to cry "I’m sorry, baby Almost done" I pat her shoulders, her back, her chest She’s beyond sunburned everywhere When I’ another sip of water

I leave the bathroom with a washcloth soaked in cold water I place it on her forehead and she grabs it Her fingers touchmy pockets, I lie down next to her and she ers over the buttons of e to touch her I settle for running h her silky-s in her lemon scent

Exhaustion hits quickly and just as I start to drift off she softly says, "Ben"

"Yeah," I mumble

"You can call rin before closing le radiates all the way from my head to my toes as a vision of his lean and sinewybehindinto my back awakens me from my dreamlike sleep and I float back to earth

"Hmm" The noise escapes oner yesterday the minute he strode out of the water There he was--a vision of utter perfection with his tight stomach muscles on display He has stunned me into silence s he says, and his utter good looks, but when I saw him on the beach--his lean form, the faint line of hair that disappears into the waistband of his shorts, the dips and ridges of his half-naked body, then when his laugh dipped fro here knowing he shared lee

Squeezinga up next to this h ed It’s not a frightened kind of scared, though It’s the saot when he first looked at o It was the sao and it thrills me, excites me, and scares me at the same time

We are different people now than hen our bodies first collided into a passion that consumed us Sure, we’ve fooled around twice since, but it wasn’t like that night I knoantsBut so s that need to happen, truths to be told, for this to ht be too much for him, or maybe too much for me Yet the past feeeks have shownto denyI have to give us a try

Deciding to wake up, I lettheir way around so I can feel hiht we hadn’t had sex, but it was still soettable The way he took care ofThe way my head fit perfectly in the crook of his neck and how I fell asleep in his ar wrong about any of it

With the light streah the blinds, my eyes slowly blink open I look around my room for him My lips curl into a smile when I spot his sneakers on the carpet As the smile spreads across h a few ss for hi tiet hio

I ached for hi no idea who he was, I felt hope cascading through ht it was finally our tiht me to clax over and over were all I could think of I’d blocked out everything else But when I found out he was Dahlia’s Ben, her long-lost fiancé thought dead, I was sickened, horrified even that she had been the one whose boyfriend I had taken without regard and I knew the flame he had lit inside ry feelings Thank God she couldn’t see insideelseto move forward She accepted what I had done, what Ben and I had done, and I was so very thankful

Then when I saw hiain I wasn’t worried about Dahlia, or River, or even my mother; I orried about myself No matter how hard I tried to shut him out I, couldn’t When I looked in his eyes the past beca I could see were the memories of how he made me feel So I let hi I wanted to feel that way again But this time I knew I needed to proceed with caution And that’s what I’ve done--until now

I sigh deeply at all the memories The issues are still there, but this tih to face them, to throw caution to the wind and accept the consequences I twistonly a fraction of the pain I felt yesterday, and a huge grin crosses my lips It’s Saturday and I have no plans Hopefully Ben and I can spend the day together--alone I’ht now that I told Tate I couldn’t work today I knew after Ivy’s event I’d be wiped He was upset, but the event he had planned for today wasn’t mine; it was his He just wantedback on assisting hi Part of me wishes I could just leave, but I’er I can take it He’s beco of my time, and his advances towardhtstand And then I start second-guessing ht nohat I should be doing My goal for this year was to focus on myself Get my life on track It didn’t include a relationship--that wasn’t in ht this ti Sure, my family’s issues will be abundant But Dahlia has accepted Ben in her life and I’m sure she can help me with River Xander will be an ass, but I can handle hiest issue of all will be ht, that he wanted to leave the past in the past, I know she’ll understand

Looking down at the clover I’ve worn for the past six years, I can’t help thinkingwhy tell hi it

My nose starts to twitch, tearingbacon in the air I sniff again, thinking aboutout of bed, I make a quick stop in the bathroom before I patter down the hall in search of hiht in the kitchen--Ben,atsto to just taste hi short of edible in his white shirt and faded jeans that hug hi low, frayed at the hem just like his shirt He is the sexiest man I’ve ever seen He has always been

I watch as he flips the slices before hiether--and how it ended I blink that sad thought away And again needing to make sure this is real--I step closer

"S’belle, you’re awake" He grins while dropping a piece of bacon onto a plate