Page 42 of Hot n Bothered

I sobelle stopped dead as she entered the kitchen. Tears filled her eyes as she saw what Ben had done.

Last night she’d been too distracted when they got back. She’d dragged him upstairs to bed and had forgotten he’d made her a cake. She lost count of how many times they had fucked. She hadn’t wanted to waste a moment of time with him.

They had both passed out through exhaustion in the early hours of the morning. Ben was still fast asleep, he hadn’t even noticed when she left the bed. She ached in a good way physically, and in not such a good way emotionally.

Her heart ached at the thought of never being able to experience again what she had last night. But she knew it would. That’s why she hadn’t gone back to bed with him as she normally did. She needed to start putting the distance between them so she didn’t slip up when his family got there.

She had hoped to start putting her feelings for him away as well. But it was so difficult when he went and did something like that cake.

It was two layers, the bottom one was covered in icing books, recreating the library from Beauty and the Beast, some even had titles.

Her heart definitely throbbed when she read them, they were the titles of her books she’d told him about along with her name as the author.

The top layer was decorated like Belle’s ballgown and on the top was a stunning recreation of the rose in the glass case.

He’d also used petals from her roses to form a heart around what looked like icing on the counter in front of it that said Happy Birthday to My Belle. This was too good not to share, so she snapped pictures of it and sent them to the group.

Everyone

Katie: Wow. Hey Ben do you take requests? My nieces b’day is coming up

Cat: Perfect cake for you

Bianca: so true

Joey: You guys see that? MY Belle It’s working!

[ *message deleted ]

What was that last message?

Joey: Nothing, wrong group

Isobelle frowned at her phone. Had she imagined Joey mentioning the my Belle and something working? He’d deleted the message before she could read it properly.

Richie: Does it taste as good as it looks?

Don’t know. Came down to find it

Darren: Breakfast! Eat it all. Serve Wallace right for snoozing the day away

Bianca: Did we establish whether he had Iz smiling by the end of the day?

She sent the selfie she had sent to Darren.

Rich: Hang on. Is this the first selfie you’ve done? I think it is! Well at least the first you’ve sent to us

Rob: Looking good Iz

Katie: You need to take more pictures of yourself. You’re so pretty and we need more of you for our wall

Joey: I guess we need to let Ben off the hook, That’s our happy, smiling Iz

But seriously, send more pics of yourself. You look really good

Richie: Did we establish whether we still need to keep Darren around now Iz is officially family?

Darren: HEY!

Ben: I spoke with Belle. We can ditch the dead weight

Rich: Oh thank God

Cat: About time

Bianca: I know right

Darren: WTF Wallace!

Ben: What? You know I only hung around you for Belle

I’ll miss you Darren

Darren: Well at least my sister still sticks up for me

Wait….

Katie: ROTFL

Rob: LMAO

Darren: Do I have to use your full name on here?

I suppose we should let him stay

“Morning.” Ben’s arms slipped round her waist, his lips pressed against her neck. “Do you like it?”

It was just too hard to not melt back into him. She was just too weak around him.

“It’s beautiful. How did you do the glass?”

“Sugar glass and a lot of practice. Which resulted in a lot of disasters.”

“How many?”

“I honestly have no idea. I’ve been practicing all year. Um… hang on.”

His phone was ringing, he pressed another kiss to her neck before moving away to answer it. “Hey, where are you?... Alright, alright calm your tits.”

He opened the door with a smile and was swept up in a hug by a small, plump woman with black hair laced with grey.

“Where is she? You did warn her we were coming didn’t you?”

“Yes mum. She’s through there, can you not…” He trailed off with a sigh as she shoved him aside and practically ran up to Isobelle and giving her a bear hug.

“Oh it is wonderful to finally meet you Belle. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about you. Let me look at you.” She stepped back and looked her up and down.

Isobelle couldn’t stop the feeling of dread pooling in her stomach, or the spike of anxiety that caused her heart to pound. She braced herself waiting for the criticisms.

“Well I can see why you don’t like pictures of yourself. They don’t do you justice. You are far more beautiful in person.”

“Oh…um…um…thank you Mrs Wallace.” Isobelle’s face was burning red.

“Oh honey no. I’m Bea, I won’t accept you calling me anything else. Unless it’s mum.” She winked.

“Oh my God mum.” Ben groaned. “Can’t you stop her?” He aimed at a tall white haired man pulling cases behind him.

“Have you ever met your mother? Nothing and no one can stop her. Why do you think we’re here?” He laughed.

So that’s where he got his smile and laugh from.

“You did at least ask permission before you hugged her right love?” He asked Bea. Eyeing her when she flushed red and looked away. “We’ve talked about this love. Not everyone is a hugger like you.”

“She’s not complaining.”

“Did you even give her chance to?” He shook his head with a loving smile at her sheepish look. “Right where do you want us? Let's get these cases put away before we start on the embarrassing stories about Ben.”

“We’re in the last room at the end of the landing.” Ben said. “You guys can fight over the other two rooms. They’re about the same size anyway.”

“I’m having the biggest.” Nat called from behind everyone. “A little help?”

“You’re here for a week Nat.” Ben grumbled as he took in her two cases. “What is that?” He nodded to another smaller case she was carrying.

“It’s for my birthday present for your girlfriend, so quit your bitching.”

Wait, what? Isobelle’s brain was struggling to catch up with what was going on. She thought Ben had slipped up saying we’re in the last room. But Nat had just called her his girlfriend and he didn’t correct her.

“Oooh Peter he did it. Come and see how gorgeous the cake looks.” Bea shouted from the kitchen. “Who wants tea?”

“Oh let me do the drinks Mrs Wa… um Bea.” Isobelle amended at the look she was shot.

“You get the mugs and sort that out. I’ll fill the kettle. Now it’s just the two of us, let’s get to the important things. Has Ben been treating you right?”

“I… what?”

Bea shrugged. “He’s my son and I love him. But us girls need to stick together. So if he’s not treating you like the queen you are let me know and I’ll kick his arse.”

Isobelle laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. But no, he’s been wonderful. Always has been. Except for the pinching, that’s annoying.”

“The what?”

Uh oh. Going from the angry look on her face Isobelle felt she may have just made a mistake.

“Ben Edward Wallace! You get here this instant.”

Wow. Now that was a mum tone. Way scarier than anything her mother could come up with. Ben was in the room before she could count to ten, a guilty look on his face.

“What’s this about pinching?”

The only thing scarier than the tone was quite clearly that glare.

“I don’t do it that often.” He exclaimed. “And there’s a perfectly good reason.” He shot Isobelle a look. “You told her?”

“It just slipped out.”

“What have you done now son?” His dad asked from behind him.

“He’s been pinching Belle.” Bea said folding her arms and glaring at Ben.

“Why would you ever admit to doing something so stupid to mum?” Nat shoved his shoulder.

“I didn’t admit it, Belle told her. Did you tell her why?”

“I didn’t get the chance. I… she… um…I…” She was getting flustered, her anxiety spiking at how she screwed up yet again. She didn’t know what she could say to stop everyone being angry at Ben.

Her breathing started to accelerate with her heart rate.

Oh no, not now. She couldn’t have a panic attack now.

Why did she always ruin everything? Her eyes pricked with tears, now crying on top of it?

She was the worst. This was exactly what her mother had been saying.

She always ruined things with her childish hysterics.

“Mum, can you just calm down. Belle doesn’t know how you can be, let her breathe a bit first before you unload all your crazy around her.

” He moved and cupped her face with his hands so she was only seeing him.

“It’s alright, she’s just worried I do it to hurt you.

She doesn’t know I only do it when you’re too hard on yourself. Can you breathe with me please?”

Isobelle looked up into his eyes, his very presence grounding her enough to help soothe her nerves and follow his breathing.

“So you’re Pavlov dogging her?” Nat said bluntly, making her snort with laughter at the almost horrified look on Ben's face.

“Oh my God Natalie!” Bea exclaimed. “Really? Not even ten minutes and you take the conversation straight to the gutter.”

“What gutter? Pavlov’s dogs is a well-known experiment on conditioning.”

“But did you have to say dogging? We’re trying to show Belle what a normal family is.”

Isobelle hid her giggles behind her hand as Ben grimaced shaking his head. He moved to her side, but slid an arm around her waist keeping her close to him.

Nat snorted a laugh. “Then why did we come? Anyway back to the whole experimenting on his girlfriend. Pavlov at least gave a reward. Do you do the same?”

“Yes. I give her a kiss.” Ben stuck his tongue out at Nat, looking smug.

“I thought you were supposed to be giving her a reward?” Bea asked innocently.

Isobelle gave up any pretence of hiding her laughter at Ben's indignant. "Hey!"