If Ben was a reminder of my past, going home was a full frontal jump into a life I’d left behind. We strolled up the walkway, after making sure we were seen by no neighbors, and I fumbled for the key Xavier had given me months before. It was a gift, he had explained. I-meaning Olivia-could sell my sister’s home and all its belongings, or hang on to it as long as I wanted. He’d continue to pay the mortgage, keep up the utilities…whatever made me happy.
I hadn’t been back for many reasons, the most obvious being that I was sure it was being monitored by the Shadow organization. But the Shadows were in hiding, the streets empty, and the house was dark but for the single interior light that went on with a timer. I slid my key into the lock, closing my eyes to heighten my olfactory sense, but scented nothing more than dust, a few dead bugs, and a bunch of memories. After shutting off the alarm, I flipped on a light and glanced around. It looked like a waiting room for displaced ghosts, I thought, everything draped in sheets. There were no plants and certainly no animals. Nothing living had been here for a long while.
Ben joined me in the center of the room, looking about. “You don’t come here anymore, do you?”
I thought of my darkroom set up on the other side of the house, how it called to me, and how I’d resisted coming back here even for it. For any reason. Until now. “I haven’t, no.”
He looked sad at that, almost as sad as I felt.
“Come on,” I said, “I think there’s some wine in the kitchen.”
I moved around efficiently, opening drawers, and handling flatware and wineglasses I’d never thought to see, much less touch, again. I was aware of Ben’s eyes following me, and I’d have risked a look in the mirror hanging across from me in the dining area, except that it had been draped as well. Instead I caught my reflection in the face of the microwave, and though blurred, it reassured me that Jasmine’s aura was still holding. I turned, holding out a glass.
“Sancerre,” I said. “My favorite.”
“Is it?” He took a sip, though I don’t know if he really tasted it. He was too focused on me. There was that predatory look I’d seen back at Dog Run, though this time I didn’t mind it at all. “I never knew that. But then there’s a lot I never knew about you. Here’s to some things never changing.”
The flash of sarcasm meant he was recovering from his shell-shock, but I merely clicked my wineglass against his, and said nothing. His expression softened.
“I meant what I said before, Jo. I don’t care where you’ve been, what you’ve done. I wonder, of course, but I can see you, I can touch you. And I can see you’re about to say something to try and take that away, like this is a mistake, and you must have reasons for that as well, but…” He paused, shaking his head, and ran a hand along his mouth. “Fuck your reasons.”
I put my glass down. “Ben-”
“And fuck that reasonable tone too.”
“Ben.”
“That’s right,” he said, backing me into the counter. “My name is on your lips, something I never thought I’d hear again. So if you don’t want me to start questioning all the things you’re not saying, you’d better just say it again.”
I was ready to argue, to bolt, but one look into his implacable face, and I couldn’t help it; I licked my lips. “Ben.”
“Again,” he said, inches closer, watching me fiercely, seeing me as few people ever did. He always had.
“Ben,” I complied, whispering, being seen.
“Again.”
“God,” I reached for him. “Benjamin. Ben Traina.” I slid my limbs around him, wrapping myself up tight; pelvis, chest, lips meeting his, forcing him to lift me, climbing into him, losing myself. Saying his name. “Mine…”
He pulled back at last, smiling as he stared into my eyes. “That’s all I need to hear.”
He carried me to the bedroom that way, as I nibbled at his neck and ear, and the corner of his mouth, the hard warmth of his body sparking into mine. He flipped on the light with his elbow, but I reached over and flipped it back off, uncurling myself from him long enough to yank the dust sheet from the bed in a single flourish and discard it in the corner. Then I raised the blinds and opened the windows, allowing the stars and distant streetlights to bathe the room in an ethereal glow. A cricket chirped from beyond the window screen, and a night-ferried breeze swept the room like the wide caress of a cool hand. It would only last for a couple of hours, I knew. Then the scorching sun would be back, and we’d have to face each other in the stark light of day. Face those questions he wasn’t asking as well. But I turned back to Ben anyway. If a couple of hours was all we had, I didn’t want to waste a minute.
We filled ourselves on each other, and once we were sated, sweaty and loose-limbed, lying in a tangle in the middle of the bed, we opened our bruised and swollen lips, and simply talked. How many people get the chance to talk to someone lost to them forever?
“I knew it. I knew you weren’t dead,” he said, leaning on one elbow, toying with my hair with his free hand, while I passed the single glass of wine I’d brought back to the bed between us. He took the sip I pressed to his lips, and some dripped down his chin. I leaned over and licked it off, my thigh curving up and over his hip. “I felt your presence inside me, around me. Like you were watching, though not like the angels in a far-off place. Was I right?”
I nodded. “About one thing…I’m definitely no angel.”
“Tough talk, tough girl,” he said, running his hand under the covers, along my side. Chills popped up on my thigh, and he smiled. “I always liked that about you. Except…now you really are tough, aren’t you?”
Now his hand moved to my left arm, where scars from my latest battles rose like Braille on the otherwise smooth skin.
“Find it unattractive?” I asked, dodging the question.
“Obviously,” he said, slipping a hand between my thighs. I was still wet from our lovemaking, and his fingers slid along the soft skin with gentle ease. I sighed into them, my eyes fluttering closed. His voice, however, had them winging back open. “So how did you do that? That leapy thing?”
“I thought you didn’t care.” I sure didn’t at the moment.
“I said it didn’t matter, and it doesn’t.” His fingers explored me, brushed me open, slipped inside. We both sighed. “I didn’t say I wasn’t curious.”
I opened to him further, lazy and unguarded. In body and speech. “And remember what I said? All of life is one big dream. What if you’re dreaming now? What if your real life awaits you on the other side of night? You’ll wake and I’ll be gone.”
He rolled over on top of me so fast I didn’t have time to save the wineglass. It tipped, spilling chilled, fermented juice between us, dribbling down my chest, soaking into the bedsheets as I stared up at Ben, startled. His eyes were wild now, and filled with the questions he was trying so hard not to ask, instinct telling him if he pushed too hard, I’d be just that…lost to him. And Ben wasn’t going to let that happen without a fight.
“You’re the only woman who’s ever been strong enough for me. Did you know that?” He scraped his nails against my wrists as he pinned me beneath him, and I simply lay there, open to him, not exactly proving his point. “I like that, you know. A strong woman needing me.” He lifted himself up, one hand on each side of my head, and shoved my legs open with a thigh.
I swallowed hard and traced the tattoo circling his right bicep, following the waves of pattern with my battered fingertips. I couldn’t speak. I was quivering inside, and I lifted to meet his flesh, though he pulled back, smiling at me in the dim light.