Page 7

CHAPTER 6

T RINA

My mouth feels like I’ve been eating sand. It’s so dry and rough. And my head is killing me. I should get up and take something for it, but I don’t want to yet. I try to force myself back to sleep, to the delicious dream I was having.

I’ll go to my grave with the secret that I’ve been having sex dreams about Ben Donley since the day he broke my heart almost a decade ago. But this last one, Jesus, it differed from any I ever remember having before. Hell, different from how sex with Ben actually was. We were so young, and the sex was good, but neither of us really knew what we were doing. We were simply learning together how freeing it was to be physical with someone and to have sex with them when there was emotional intimacy. Before it all blew up.

But dream Ben last night… Oh. My. God. He upped his game. I keep my eyes closed, thinking about him covering me with his body while he backed me up against a wall, bringing his lips to mine. At first, he kept the kisses soft, almost a caress against my closed lips. But when my mouth parted on a soft moan, his tongue dipped in between my lips and gently explored me until I couldn’t take it any longer and tugged on his hair, pulling him toward me and deepening the kiss. That led to wandering hands, and I can almost still feel what his large, yet gentle hands were like as dream Ben cupped my breasts before he brought his mouth down to suck on one of my hardened nipples.

I’m annoyed that I’m not falling back asleep because now I’m horny as hell. So, I decide to go with it and try to recall the rest of the sleep sex. Before I know it, I’m full-on fantasizing, making up quite the scenario in my hormone crazed brain. Who needs dream Ben when I can think of these scenarios without him?

My mind imagines us frantically pulling our clothes off and dream Ben bringing his mouth to mine. When we’re fully naked, him backing me up until my knees hit the bed and I fall onto it–all without us breaking the kiss. I can’t help it and reach up to caress my own breasts. I squeeze my nipples as I think about Ben’s wavy black hair being all I can see as he lowers his mouth to my pussy. That’s all I can take, so I glide one of my hands down my body to find my clit, which is aching for attention right now.

Right as my finger finds the throbbing bundle of nerves, the mattress beside me shifts and my hand freezes in place. My eyes fly open so fast that the blinding light of day causes a stabbing pain to shoot through my temple. Yet I don’t make a sound, lying perfectly still and looking up at the ceiling.

It was your imagination. The bed didn’t move.

I count to ten in my head, trying to get up the courage to peek to my side, when a thought strikes me like a hammer in the head. Why am I naked? I never sleep naked. Mustering all the courage I can find, I peek to the side and am instantly filled with an intense panic when I realize why dream Ben seemed so real last night.

Because dream Ben wasn’t a dream at all…

I’m frozen in place for what feels like forever, but is probably only a minute or two before I come up with a plan. If I can get out of here before Ben wakes up, there’s a good chance he’ll never remember it was me here. I mean, he had to be bullshitting me about not kissing another woman in a fucking decade, right? And he probably lied about only being with three women since me. Maybe it was all an elaborate ploy to get me back into his bed. Another goddamn conquest for him.

Yes, this is the perfect plan. I’ll get out and he’ll be none the wiser.

I scoot to the side of the bed and allow myself to slither off the edge onto the floor, then army crawl across the room until I find my underpants, bra, and shirt. I quickly slip on my underpants and shirt—the bra can wait—and spot my jeans across the room. As I drag myself across the floor, the soreness between my legs dashes any hope that we hadn’t actually had sex, and that all of his parts stayed out of all of my parts. I feel like a woman who’s been thoroughly fucked, and I can’t even fully remember it.

Once my pants are in my hands, I silently stand and tiptoe over to the small desk in the room so I can hold on to it while I slip my bottoms on. I’ve got one leg in and am about to put my other leg through the hole when my eye catches on my name and I stop dead in my tracks. Not only my name, but my signature, too. Next to Ben’s signature.

“No,” I whisper to myself. “No, no, no. This cannot be happening.” Suddenly, I’m breathing way too fast and too shallow as lightheadedness overcomes me. I forget all about my stealthy escape plan. My hands drop my jeans with still only one half of them on me, and they shake as I pick up the piece of paper. I stare at it as it quivers in my grasp. “Shit. No, this isn’t real. Fuck.”

“Trina?” Ben’s rough morning voice rips me from my haze. I look up in time to see him pull up his boxer briefs. How did I not even hear him get up? He walks toward me slowly, like I’m a cornered feral cat. “It’s okay. We were drunk. I’m aware you never would have done this if you were sober.” He’s clearly looked around and put two and two together, realizing drunk us made a huge mistake. But he doesn’t yet know how enormous.

I sneak a glance down at his left hand, then at mine, bile filling my throat at what I see.

I shake my head frantically as Ben prowls closer, his right hand held up in front of him, palm facing me as he approaches. Damnit, how does he appear so delectable even minutes after waking up from a night of debauchery?

“We won’t tell anyone, okay? You can forget last night ever happened.” The air in the hotel room is stale and humid, making it even more difficult to get a good breath. Slowly, I extend the piece of paper to him in explanation. I have no words.

Ben reaches for the paper, never taking his eyes off me until it’s in his hand. When he glances down at it, I watch as his eyes bulge and his mouth drops open. It’s clear he doesn’t remember last night either.

When he lifts those smoky blue-gray eyes up to mine, he simply whispers, “We’re married?”

* * *

BEN

Trina’s eyes are glassy with tears I’m sure she’s refusing to shed, her breathing rapid and shallow.

“We have to fix it. Today,” she practically screeches.

I push down all the emotions—hurt, insecurity, wounded pride—that are fighting for space in my brain right now from how intensely she’s reacting to this. Did we do this with a clear mind? No, but her reaction is as if this is the worst thing that could have happened to her.

This is where I’ve gone wrong with her in the past. I selfishly let my own insecurities and wounded ego come first and hurt her. Right now, she needs me to be solid, not put my hackles up because she’s not thrilled she accidentally married a man she strongly dislikes, if not despises.

“Okay. We’ll try to fix it. But we can’t today, Trina. It’s Saturday. All the offices we’ll need to reach out to will be closed until Monday. We?—”

“No, no, no, no…” Trina folds her body in on herself, holding her palms over her face and shaking her head.

I want to comfort her, but I’m not sure how. So, I simply watch her for a moment. I take a chance and cross the rest of the way to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. Wrong move. Her head flies up, and she pulls away from me like I’ve burned her.

I back up a few steps and take a few breaths, giving her some space.

She puts her other leg in her pants, and I watch as her eyes dart around my hotel room, stopping when they settle on her shoes near the door. Before I can say anything else, she flies over to the door, grabs her shoes in one hand, and whirls around to face me.

“This isn’t real.” She tosses something in my direction, whips around, and takes off out the door.

My first instinct is to follow her, to make sure she’s okay. I make it to the door before I realize I’m only in my boxer briefs, so I quickly find my pants from last night on the floor and throw them on. After that, I bolt out the door to search for her. As I make it around the corner to where the elevators are, I make eye contact with Trina, standing twenty feet away from me. Her face pales as she gasps, turning away right before she disappears into the elevator box.

The frantic tapping that can only be her pressing the button to close the door before I can get to her is the only sound I hear as I approach the elevator. “Trina, wait!” I call out. But she doesn’t and I watch helplessly as the elevator door closes between us.

Defeated, I walk back to my room, thankful that I remembered to grab my room key before I ran out. When I enter the lonely room that still smells like the floral perfume she’s worn for years, I lean back against the closed door, shutting my eyes in frustration. As I finally get the energy to open them, the bright sunlight shining in the eighth story window glints off something on the carpet. I make my way over and pick up the thin gold band, realizing with sadness that this must be what Trina threw before she took off out of the room.

When I glance down at my left ring finger, I see a plain, matching ring. Slinking down to the ground, I lean against the foot of the bed, staring at the band on my finger while I clutch her ring in my closed right fist. I can’t take my eyes off the smooth gold and can’t help but go down the rabbit hole of what could have been.

A lump fills my throat as a choked-up sensation overcomes me when I consider that, in another life, if I had made different choices as a twenty-one-year-old man, I might wear a wedding ring matching Trina’s because she chose me. Not because we got drunk and somehow ended up married.