Page 70 of Ridin' Free

“Just pulled in.”

My spine straightened as my breath caught.

“You’re here?”

My excitement was indisputable even to my own ears.

“Yup.”

I looked around my kitchen, and I didn’t even stop to give it a second thought before I probed, “You still on your hog?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Want to come over?”

“Fuck, baby,” he sighed. “Yeah. I do. But I need a bed tonight, sparky. Not a couch.”

The way he said it, it was like itpainedhim to tell me no.

We hadn’t even so much as darkened the doorway of his bedroom since the night of our first date. A boundary had been drawn, and he’d left it to me to erase it.

Now, reckless as it might have been to invite him into my home—to open the door to new memories I knew I wouldn’t be able to forget when I most needed to—I replied, “I have one of those.”

My invitation was met with momentary silence, and I found myself holding my breath in anticipation.

“I’ll grab a shower and be right over.”

“I have one of those, too,” I murmured.

I heard it as he started his Harley’s engine a second later.

He ended the call without another word.

My belly was knotted in excitement the likes of which I hadn’t felt in a long time. Now anxious for his arrival, there was no chance of me paying attention to my book. I shut it off, put away my cereal, then made my way to the front of the house. I flipped on the porch light as well as the ceiling bulb in my entryway before I headed to the living room and wandered aimlessly around my coffee table.

Five nights with a real man.

Five nights with a Stallion.

Five nights was all it took to awaken a new monster in me. This one was greedy for one thing and one thing only—Benson Wright. The sound of his voice was nothing more than a tempting morsel that wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy. Now, the thing within didn’t care about the wreckage which would come as a result of indulging my desires. While it circled my heart restlessly, I was certain its intentions weren’t of the protective variety. I needed Ben, and that was all that mattered.

Not fifteen minutes later, I heard the rumble of an approaching motorcycle. Through the slats of my closed blinds, I saw his headlight flash as he pulled into my driveway.

It was in that moment when I realized precisely how far I’d fallen; how much of my already fractured heart had begun to splinter.

Call it denial or delusion—maybe even dimwittedness. Whatever it was that was doing its damnedest to safeguard my heart, to protect the home I made for myself—the fortress I hid behind—it was all but rubble now, as if he’d driven right through it on his hog—freeing my monster.

It had been six weeks since the wedding, and he was gone half that time. Yet, somehow, I’d been completely swept up in the whirlwind that was Ben. In his absence, it was easy to disguise my longing in the physical void of him. I could dismiss the weight of it, the depth of it. But as I stood across the room from my front door, my heart racing at the sound of his boots on my porch, I felt another piece of me break away.

Truth of the matter was, this—thisfeeling—it was as close to heaven as I was ever going to get. While I wasn’t a masochist, I knew the moment I opened that door and let him in, he would claim another piece of me, and I would let him. Then, when it all fell apart, when I finally got what I deserved, I knew it would be agony to pick up the pieces that were left and start again.

I’d done it before.

Only, this time, I knew it would be worse.

It would be worse, because he wasn’t a monster.

But I didn’t care.