While We Were Dating Read online

  They dove into each other, not talking, barely moving, except when she pressed him harder against the wall, when he gripped her ass, and then when he moved a hand up under her hoodie, under her shirt, to feel the soft, smooth skin there. Suddenly, Ben realized what he was doing and pulled away with a groan.

  “Anna. Anna, we can’t.”

  She hadn’t stepped away; she was still right up against him, looking at him with those soft eyes and plump lips.

  “Why can’t we?”

  He looked at her blankly, all of his reasoning from when she was in the bathroom gone.

  “You’re . . . you.” She laughed at him, and he realized how ridiculous that sounded. “I mean . . . You know what I mean. Plus, we work together.”

  Anna reached for his belt.

  “Only for a little while longer. That doesn’t count, really.”

  He was already so hard, after just a few moments of kissing her, it was embarrassing. And now she was unbuckling his belt? No, he couldn’t think straight like this.

  He stepped to the side, and her hands dropped.

  “Anna, my God, I want this, I’m sure you can tell exactly how much I want this. I’ve wanted this since the first moment I saw you, but you’ve had such a long, emotional day, and I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.”

  She pulled him back to her.

  “I won’t regret this.” And then they were kissing again, and it was, oh God, even better than before. He bit her lip, and she laughed and then sucked his bottom lip in between hers, and her warm, luscious body pressed against his, and it felt like all he’d ever wanted in life.

  Oh shit. Wait. He remembered that other reason.

  It took everything he had, but he pulled away.

  “Anna. Wait, hold on.” She stopped and looked at him.

  “I don’t want you to think that you have to do this, that you owe me this for driving you here today. I know you felt guilty about that, but I swear, you don’t owe me anything, you don’t have—”

  Anna put her hand over his mouth.

  “First of all, you seem too smart about women to think I’m, what, acting here, and that I don’t really want this.” He raised his eyebrows at her, and she tilted her head. “Okay, good point, I am an actor, and a very good one, but I promise, this is not the kind of acting I would ever do, not one-on-one. Two, when I was trying to pay you back for this in the car, I was offering basketball tickets, not me! Three: Will you please just shut the fuck up and take your clothes off?”

  Ben knew when he’d lost. Or, as the case may be, won.

  He dropped his jeans to the floor and threw his T-shirt across the room.

  “Happy now?” he asked.

  She looked him up and down and smiled.

  “Oh yes.”

  * * *

  —

  Ben’s body was just as good as Anna had been imagining. Granted, he didn’t look like one of the guys from Magic Mike XXL, and she didn’t expect him to—he hadn’t actually been a backup dancer for years. But he was still lean and athletic-looking and his chest was a gorgeous caramel brown. The man worked full-time, more than full-time, she’d seen it; how did he have this good a body? She had no idea, but she sure as hell enjoyed it.

  He let her stare at him for a while, a little smile on his face, before he reached for her. He slowly unzipped the black hoodie she’d been wrapped in all night and tossed it to the floor. Then he stopped and bit his lip, an indecisive look on his face.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked. Something had better not be wrong. She needed this.

  “Not a single thing,” he said. “I just can’t decide if I’d rather take your top off first, or your pants. On the one hand, I’m generally more of a boob man than an ass man, but on the other, your ass has been driving me wild in those pants all fucking day.”

  It took everything in her not to strike a pose at that.

  “All day?” she asked. “But I’ve been sitting on my ass for the past seven hours. How is it even possible that it’s been driving you wild?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did you forget that before we got in the car, we had been on set together for a full day, a day where you repeatedly ran up and down stairs and I had to keep looking away so I wouldn’t ogle you?”

  Oh yeah. She had forgotten that.

  “Then I would say you should save the best for last, but then, it’s all pretty great,” she said.

  He pulled her hard against him and kissed her again, his hands first gripping her ass, then moving up and down her body until she was breathless. He put his hands in her hair and tugged out her ponytail holder. Her hair cascaded down onto her shoulders.

  “My God, you’re incredible,” he said. Then he grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it up over her head.

  Thank God she’d worn her best bra today, instead of the industrial sports bra the well-meaning but clueless shoot stylist had sent over. She’d regretted the good—but not particularly comfortable—bra a few times during the seven-hour drive, but the look on Ben’s face made her mentally high-five herself.

  He traced the edges of her bra with his fingers. Up and around, swooped down into the valley between her breasts, brushed over her nipples with his thumbs, the whole time staring at her in awe. She wished she could hold on to the look on his face forever.

  Then he looked her in the eye and bit his bottom lip in the fucking sexiest way she’d ever seen.

  “I think . . . I think I’m ready.” And with that, he hooked his thumbs through her waistband and pulled her yoga pants all the way down. She kicked them across the room. And then she remembered something. She slid her thong off and tossed it to him. He caught it in one hand and smiled at her. Oh yes, this guy was good.

  She grinned. Then she turned slowly around for him.

  “Was it worth the wait?” she asked.

  There was a time when she never would have done this. When her body hadn’t been something to be proud of, but something she desperately wanted to change. When she’d covered herself up in both public and private, and known to her core that her life would improve dramatically as soon as she became a size six.

  It turned out that her life improved dramatically as soon as she learned to stop thinking like that.

  Ben pulled her back to him, ran a hand over her full, round ass, and shook his head.

  “I definitely was not ready,” he said, and she laughed out loud. He dangled her thong from one finger. “I mean, if I’d thought hard about this—which, by the way, I spent all day trying my best not to do—I would have realized you must be wearing a thong, because there wasn’t a single panty line to be seen, but again, I was trying, so very hard, not to daydream about your fucking perfect ass that it never occurred to me, and now I’m just . . . overcome.”

  She ran a finger gently up and down the outline of his hard cock, still encased in his black boxer briefs, and smiled.

  “Mmm, you don’t seem overcome here,” she said.

  “Keep touching me like that, and I will be,” he said.

  He reached around and unhooked her bra, and she let it fall to the floor.

  “Anna?” he said, after a few seconds of staring at her boobs. This was the first time in quite a while that she wasn’t even tempted to tell a man who talked to her boobs instead of her face where her eyes were.

  “Ben?” she responded.

  He put his hands on her waist.

  “Why, exactly, have we spent all this time ignoring that big, beautiful bed right behind you? Because I’m going to tell you right now, to do what I want to do with you for the next few hours, I’m going to need a bed underneath us.”

  While he’d been talking, he’d slowly backed her against the bed, and then pushed her over, so she fell onto it. He stood there and looked at her. She moved all the way up onto the
bed and smiled up at him.

  “Excellent call,” she said.

  Before she could blink, he crawled on top of her.

  “Yes, I thought so, too,” he said. And then he sucked one of her nipples into his mouth.

  Holy shit, if this was what he meant by being a boob man, she never again wanted to have sex with someone who was not a boob man. The way he licked and sucked and squeezed felt like everything she’d ever wanted. She wanted him to touch her everywhere, she wanted him to keep doing this forever, no, now she wanted him to touch her in one specific place and he wasn’t touching her there and she felt like she was going to scream in glorious frustration.

  And then he slowly slid down her body and pushed her legs open.

  “Now,” he said, as his fingers tiptoed their way up her thighs. “I said I was a boob man, and that’s true, I am. But I am also very fond of another body part.”

  She propped herself up on her elbows to watch him.

  “Which body part is that?” she asked, pretty sure she knew the answer.

  “This one,” he said. He—finally—slid one finger inside her, and she let out a deep sigh. She could feel his breath on her, which meant he was almost there, and then . . .

  “You know,” he said, “if you—”

  “You are the worst fucking tease in all of California!” she said.

  He grinned up at her.

  “Oh, you want this?”

  And then his tongue was on her. It was hard and it was fast and it was exactly what she wanted; his fingers inside her, one hand gripping her breast, and his incredible mouth and tongue making her feel things she hadn’t felt in a long time. She collapsed onto the pillows and writhed under his tongue. He kept a firm grip on her body, and she could feel the strength and power behind his touch.

  She whimpered, which made him go even faster. He pushed his fingers deeper inside her, and she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t talk, and then he squeezed her nipple and she threw a pillow over her mouth so she could scream.

  A few seconds later he sat up, a huge, smug grin on his face.

  “So, it turns out you like that particular body part a lot, too?”

  He still had his boxer briefs on—why hadn’t she taken those off of him? She needed to remedy that but was too overcome to move. Instead, she gestured at them.

  “Those. Off. Now.”

  She was delighted by how quickly he obeyed her. And then even more delighted once he did. His cock was oh so ready for her. She reached for him, but he held up a finger.

  “Wait one sec.”

  He jumped off the bed and dove for his messenger bag.

  “Here we go!” he said after he rummaged for a minute.

  A string of condoms. She knew she’d chosen the right man to both drive her across California and also service her sexually upon arrival.

  “Do you always bring condoms with you to work?” she asked, and he crawled back onto the bed.

  He shrugged.

  “Sometimes I go out after work. A man’s got to be prepared.”

  Indeed.

  She reached for him and kissed him again. This time the kiss was slower, more relaxed, more comfortable. She was in his smooth, strong arms, and right now, at this moment, she couldn’t believe the luck and chance that had landed her here.

  She snuggled closer to him. He ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her cheek. That felt great, but . . .

  She wiggled out of his grasp and ripped open one of the condoms.

  “This”—she wrapped her hand around his cock, and he breathed in fast—“has been hard for a damn long time now. I think it’s time it got some action, don’t you?”

  She could feel his eyes on her as she slowly rolled the condom onto him and then moved her hand up and down his cock.

  “Now that you mention it,” he said, “I do think that.”

  He flipped her back underneath him, so quickly that she laughed out loud. He smiled down at her and then pushed her legs open to him. God, she loved sex. How had she gone so long without it?

  “When you look at me like that—” He lowered down and kissed the hollow between her breasts. And then he slid up her body and inside her in one smooth motion.

  Holy shit. First they moved slowly together, as they got the right rhythm. But even then, when it was slow and a little awkward, it felt so good to have him inside her that she wanted to scream again, just from joy. And then, suddenly, they figured it out, and they were moving together, faster and faster. He reared up, and his fingers pinched her nipple. Her vision got blurry, and everything in her body was focused on just moving faster and harder and then he shifted slightly, and that made light explode behind her eyes and she bit his shoulder so she wouldn’t scream, and then he thrust hard into her and collapsed on top of her.

  A few seconds later, he rolled off of her, got up, and threw away the condom. He got back in bed and pulled her against him. She liked how he did that—firmly, like there was no question that that’s where she belonged.

  God, that had been so good. This felt so good. What a relief, to be this satisfied again, to have this much fun again, to feel this much joy again. To feel happy, for the first time in so long. Especially since there was a time when she’d thought she’d never feel like this again. Anna let out a long, deep sigh, and let herself relax in Ben’s arms.

  * * *

  —

  Ben was almost asleep when Anna started crying. She didn’t make a sound, but he could tell from the way her body was shaking, and from the tears that fell on his skin.

  He brushed her hair back and kissed her on the side of her head.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked. And then he wanted to slap himself. What a stupid fucking question. Everything was obviously not okay.

  He tucked the covers tighter around them and pulled her close.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should . . . explain.”

  He kissed her hair.

  “Shhh,” he said. “You don’t have to explain anything.” Wait. He released his hold on her. “But . . . if you want to be alone, I can go get a snack, or find another room, or something. Just say the word and I’m gone. I promise, it’s fine.”

  She looked up at him.

  “No, no, please don’t go. It’s not you. You’re great. This”—she gestured to the two of them—“this is great. Stay here, just like this?”

  He let out a sigh of relief and pulled her back against him. Oh, thank God, he’d been worried he was the problem, or that he’d done something to upset her without realizing it.

  “Of course. I’ll be right here as long as you need me to be,” he said.

  She looked up at him, tears still running down her face.

  “Everything really is okay. That’s why I’m crying. It’s been so long since everything felt okay. Since I felt like I was okay. And it’s been a long time for me. For this, I mean. Last year I—” She let out another sob. “I wasn’t doing well. I wasn’t okay at all. I was so . . . and now I’m not. I really am okay now. I’m sorry, you must think I’m—”

  He stroked her hair. He had no idea what she was telling him, but he knew one thing.

  “I think you’re incredible, that’s what I think.”

  She kissed him on the cheek and then settled her head back against his chest.

  “Mmm, that feels nice,” she said.

  So he kept gently running his fingers through her hair, until he could tell from her regular breathing that she was asleep.

  Eight

  Ben jolted awake, far too few hours later. What was that noise? He had to make it stop. He pulled himself out of bed, and through barely open eyes traced the noise to his jeans, on the floor in the corner. He fished his phone out of them. Seven a.m. His alarm. Right. He hit off, but the noise didn’t stop. He looked at his phone
, then around the room. What was happening?

  “My phone,” Anna said from the bed. “My purse.”

  He grabbed her purse from the desk and brought it to her in bed. She dug through it and turned the alarm off. They looked at each other in relief.

  “That was a very bad noise,” he said as he got back in bed. Then he sat upright. “Wait. Work. Work is seven hours away.” He reached for his phone again in a panic. No. Right. He’d sent out an email last night while they were at In-N-Out canceling today’s shoot because of Anna’s family emergency. He shot his boss a quick email to tell her what was going on—well, a tiny part of what was going on—and that he would work from home that day, and fell back on the bed. Only to find Anna staring at him with a small smile on her face.

  “Apparently,” he said, “the talent had a family emergency, so the shoot is canceled today. I’m working from home.”

  Anna draped an arm around him.

  “Weird how that worked out.”

  He pulled her close. Her body was so soft and smooth and supple. He felt like he could touch her like this forever.

  He also knew he might never get to touch her like this again, which made him appreciate it all the more.

  “I’m . . . exhausted,” she said.

  He let out a bark of laughter.

  “You and me both. Luckily, neither of us has to go to work today, so we can go back to sleep.”

  She burrowed her head into his chest. He rested his palm on her hip. God, did he love the way her skin felt against his. He moved his hand over just a few inches and cupped her ass. Well. That felt even better.

  She lifted her head and pulled him down to kiss her. They kissed lazily, like they had all the time in the world. Like this was a slow, rainy Sunday morning, and all they had in front of them was a long brunch and an afternoon nap. She slid her leg up his body and wrapped it around him.

  “Not so tired anymore, hmmm?” he asked. He moved his hand in between them so he could flick her nipple with his thumb.

  “Mmmm, no, I’m still sleepy.” She reached down and put her hand around his cock. “So can you do me a favor and fuck me right quick so I can go back to sleep?”