Benjamin (The Johnson Clan Book 1) Read online

  It was imperative that I learned the language of Lia’s body. That my bear and I could decode what she wanted, what she needed.

  I absently pressed the elevator button, then I turned my full attention back to Lia. Tonight she was wearing a sheer black blouse tucked into a short leather skirt. I could see the outline of her lace bra through the shirt, and when I pulled her into my chest, I could feel the prick of her hardened nipples pressed against me.

  Her long legs were wrapped in a fresh pair of black nylons - I bet she pictured me ripping them off of her when she slid them over her silky smooth legs. Her hair was twisted off her neck, revealing the long stretch of glistening skin. I couldn’t resist brushing my lips over her neck, tasting her as the elevator ascended.

  She was braver tonight. She leaned into my embrace, and I felt a curious hand explore my chest.

  We arrived at the hotel's top floor, where the pool and spa were located. When the doors parted and Lia smelled the mixture of essential oils and chlorine that fill the air, she glanced up at me, confused.

  “I closed the spa down for us tonight,” I explained. “It’s all ours.”

  “How?”

  “I know a guy,” I winked.

  The spa’s pool overlooked the glittering Charleston skyline with giant floor-to-ceiling glass windows. As the sun set over the river in the distance, the pool was flooded with an orangey-pink glow pouring in through the glass and tinting the rippling water of the pool.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think this sure as hell beats the YMCA in Jacksonboro,” she marveled, glancing around. Then she frowned, “But I didn’t bring a swimsuit…”

  “Me neither,” I whispered. I strode across the tile pool deck towards a lounging chair, and I started to strip off my black suit. Lia watched apprehensively, then she took a deep breath and sauntered towards me, her fingers working down the buttons of her blouse.

  She was learning fast.

  I kicked off the legs of my pants and threw them over the chair, then stripped off my white dress shirt while I watched Lia wiggle her leather skirt over her hips.

  I saw her eyes exploring me. She was gnawing at her bottom lip again as her eyes traced over my bare chest. And then her gaze found the bulge in my black briefs, and her eyes lingered.

  Lia was getting confident. She knew what she wanted, and if she played her cards right, I might just give it to her.

  But first, I leapt across the pool deck and dove into the water, breaking the still surface and surging through the sting of brisk coldness that wrapped around my body. I stayed underwater for a few seconds, letting the cold sink through my skin until my body adjusted, then I popped my head through the surface and slick back my hair.

  “Impressive,” Lia said. She was sitting on the pool’s edge now, wearing just her panties and lace bra. Her legs are dipped into the water, softly kicking back and forth. “How’d you learn to dive like that?”

  “I used to be on the dive team when I went to boarding school,” I explained, swimming towards her. “I got kicked off when the coach found Adderall in my locker.”

  “Such a bad boy,” she bit her lip again, and despite the brisk water, I felt my cock start to harden. There was nothing between us now. No clothes, no interruptions. No reason not to pick up where we left off the other night.

  “I’m not supposed to see you anymore,” she blurted out suddenly.

  “Huh?”

  She looked down, fixing a strand of loose hair behind her ear.

  “The headmaster called me into his office. Apparently, some of the other parents were upset with Harper’s new arrangement, and...”

  “What?” I felt a flash on anger, imagining the sort of stuck-up parents that would complain about my niece in the first place. I saw how great she got along with the other girls from her class at the party tonight. I knew Harper wasn’t causing problems.

  “...and I guess the headmaster found out that I went with home with you and Harper the other night,” she said, glancing up at me.

  “Yeah, you did. Because you give a shit,” I nodded. “Because you’re a great teacher, and you’re committed to your students. They should be praising you for that, not lecturing you.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Lia said, blinking at me.

  I nodded, agreeing that we shouldn’t let it ruin our night.

  “Besides,” she said with a sneaky smile, “I still came, didn’t I?”

  “You did,” I said. “Very naughty of you, Miss Lewis.” I gazed up at her. “Why did you come tonight?”

  She shrugged. Her legs kicked in the water, this time gliding over my submerged hips.

  “Do you know what you want yet?” I asked her. She glanced up at me. Her face was soft, but her eyes are on fire.

  I planted my hands onto her knees, stopping her from kicking, and then I spread her legs slowly apart.

  I could feel her heart racing as I pressed my body between her legs. I ran my palm up her smooth stomach, my handprint leaving a wet trail on her skin. My fingertips pried under the bottom of her lace bra and I press my hand inside, cupping her breast. I squeezed and she took a deep breath, leaning into me. Then I pulled down the fabric of her bra, revealing her perky perfect pink petal.

  She wrapped an arm around my wet neck as I bent forward, taking her nipple between my lips and tugging. First, I clamped down gently, but as her grip around my neck got harder, so did my bite; I sunk my teeth into her soft skin, then I sealed my lips around her nipple and suck until she whimpers with pain.

  I immediately released my bite and sat back, admiring the red ring my lips left around her breast. My cock was throbbing underwater and I knew she could see it, even through the soft waves of the pool.

  Her soft pink nipple was tender, stinging from my bite and I brought a wet hand up from the pool to rub the pain away, milking her gently as her whimper turns into a moan.

  “Benjamin,” she murmured, her voice strained as she leaned into my chest. “I… I…”

  “Lia,” I said firmly, “Don’t be shy. Don’t hesitate, just tell me what you’re thinking. That’s the only way this can work…”

  She sat back suddenly and her eyes focused on mine.

  “I’m a virgin.”

  13

  LIA

  I didn’t know why I ran away, but I did.

  As soon as I blurted out the truth, I didn’t even wait for Benjamin’s reaction before I pulled my legs out of the pool and dashed across the deck towards the first pair of doors I could find.

  I slipped into the foggy glass doors, and I found myself stepping into a dense fog of steam. It wasn’t just any steam. It was a rich, heavenly steam, perfumed with eucalyptus and ylang-ylang and jasmine, a fragrance that immediately eased the tension in my shoulders and worked away the knots of stress that had wound themselves up in my head.

  I stepped through the tile chamber and took a seat on the built-in bench, letting my head slump back against the wall. I pinched my eyes shut, taking in a deep breath of the soothing steam, and I wondered what Benjamin was thinking.

  I opened my eyes, glancing at the door, and then a terrible thought entered my head. What if he doesn’t come after me? What if he leaves me here?

  I gulped, but before my mind had a chance to wander to the tiny, dark corners where my vulnerability and insecurity liked to hide, the door to the steam room opened, and Benjamin stepped inside.

  He was dripping wet from pulling himself out of the pool and everything in me wanted to run towards him. I wanted to throw my arms around him and do all the things he kept daring me to do. Feel his skin against mine, and learn once and for all if he was right about all those things he said.

  For years, I’ve refused to let my virginity define me. While my close friends and confidants had viewed it as some sort an untapped potential, “like a passport full of unstamped pages,” Polly joked once, I’ve never felt any pressing need or urgent desire to shed my virgin status. In fact, in the la
st few years, I had grown to appreciate it. I liked not belonging to anyone. I liked that nobody knew me better than I knew myself.

  But now Benjamin was turned my world upside down, because with one flick of his tongue my body relinquished control. He knew me better than I knew myself. And I thought I’d be scared or hurt by that, but instead I was fascinated. I wanted him to know me more and for the first time in my life, I wanted him to take the piece of me that nobody else could have.

  I wanted Benjamin to take my virginity.

  But as he crossed the steam room and sat on the tiled bench beside me, I sensed his sudden reluctance.

  “You should have told me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” he scoffed, shaking his head. “You always ask such ridiculous questions.”

  I heard a hint of flirtation in his voice, and hope inflated my heavy heart.

  “Does it change anything?”

  “Of course it does. If I had known that you were a virgin…”

  His voice trailed off, and he shook his head again as he sighed heavily.

  “What?” I demanded. “What would you have done differently, if you had known?”

  He did not offer me an answer, so I tried again.

  “What happened to all that stuff you said about sex?” I pressed. “About it not needing to mean anything to be fulfilling?”

  “Your first time should mean something.”

  “Why?” I demanded. “Why should it?”

  “Because,” Benjamin said, his fiery eyes met mine in an intense, pained gaze. “Your first time might be the only time it can mean something. And if it doesn’t, then you’ll just end up being a cynical shell of a person like me who craves a connection that he can never seem to find.”

  “So having sex ruins people?” I snapped.

  “No,” he said firmly. “But people can ruin sex, and if you share your first time with the wrong person--”

  “Are you the wrong person?”

  “No,” he said again, his eyes burned through mine.

  “Then why won’t you take my virginity?”

  “You shouldn’t talk like that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t know what you’re asking for.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “You can’t.”

  “That’s not your decision to make,” I reminded him. “I don’t need you to dictate how I should feel or what I should want. I know what I want… I want you.”

  He was silent, and my heart continued to pound in the thick steam.

  “And you want me,” I reminded him. The desire burned inside me mixed with anger, and I needed to prove him wrong just as much as I needed to have him inside of me. I climbed onto his lap, wrapping my legs around his hips and planting my hands on the waistband of his briefs.

  “You want to be my first,” I whispered, sliding over his lap and feeling the sharp ridge of his cock rising up under the fabric of his briefs. “Come on, Benjamin. I’ve been brave. I’ve put myself out there. Now why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking for a change?”

  “You’re a little cock-tease,” he said through gritted teeth. “I think you’re a guppy trying to swim with a shark. I think you’re in over your head.”

  “You think I’m afraid of you,” I whispered, pressing my lips into his chest. I didn’t know where this side of me had been hiding all of my life, but now that she had been exorcised, I couldn’t stop myself. I was out of control. I was drunk on the thrill of feeling Benjamin’s body pressed against mine.

  My panties were slick from my excitement and I needed him to rip them off. I needed him to make me feel those things again. I needed him to work his magic, make my body bend and burn in response to his touch.

  “You should be afraid of me.”

  “Why?”

  “Stop asking stupid questions,” he muttered, pressing his lips into neck as his hands wrapped around my bare ass cheeks. He spread my ass apart, sinking his fingers deeper into my skin until I yelped with pain.

  “Then give me one good reason why you can’t fuck me,” I dared him.

  “Because,” he warned, squeezing tighter, digging his nails into my flesh. “I can’t just have meaningless sex with you, Lia.”

  I took a deep breath, my head spinning with what he just said. We were past the point of being shy. We were beyond being bashful. I felt his cock throbbing between my thighs and the only thing separating us was wet fabric.

  “Don’t make me ask twice,” I whispered.

  He released his grip on my ass and I feel his open palm swat my skin. The pain stung my skin, but as it trembled through my slit it turned to pleasure and my entire body ached for him to be inside me.

  He stood up suddenly, wrapping my legs around his waist so he could carry me, and then he was pushing us through the door back to the pool. The cool air was a shock, replacing the hot steam that my skin had gotten used to.

  He tossed me down onto an empty pool bed and then he was digging through the heap of clothes he left by the side of the pool.

  He dropped down to his knees and grabbed my panties, working them down my hips. Then his lips crashed between my legs, finding the same spot that brought me waves of bliss before.

  I was instantly on the brink of coming, but he stopped when he tasted the climax building up inside of me.

  When I saw him pulling down his briefs, I understood why. He was going to finish the job with his cock.

  I sucked in a deep breath when I saw him exposed, thick and throbbing, glistening with desperation to get inside of me. I whimpered, wondering how he was supposed to fit inside of me, and Benjamin glanced down at me.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to fuck me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I want you inside me.”

  That was all the invitation he needed. He thrusted into me, not taking his time, and I felt my walls scream as they open around his thick shaft.

  He planted his palm over my chest, pressing me into the bench as he thrust again, and my body shattered. But then my cells started to fuse back together, my muscles mended themselves, my skin adapted, and I felt something other than pain.

  I felt my hips buck up, inviting him deeper inside of me. He grunted as he indulged me. And all at once, I felt the explosive orgasm rip through my entire body.

  What Benjamin did with his mouth was incredible, but feeling him inside me as my body burst around him it was better than anything I ever could have imagined.

  It was bliss.

  It was like dying and coming back to life again, all in the span of a few seconds.

  I couldn’t stop myself from moaning, and my cries mixed with his grunts as he climaxed too.

  And in that moment, I realized that I would never be the same again.

  14

  BENJAMIN

  The phone rang on my desk and I picked up the receiver without glancing at the digital caller-ID screen.

  “This is Benjamin Johnson.”

  “Benjamin!” a familiar voice gushed, and I immediately felt my shoulders clench up. I hadn’t heard that voice in years, but it immediately filled me with the same sense of dread that I felt the last time my sister Celeste called.

  The circumstances have always varied, sometimes she would be calling from a holding cell at jail, other times she would be on the side of the road, calling because she just crashed her car, but she couldn’t call AAA because she was drunk.

  I wasn’t sure what I hated worse, the years and years of those surprise phone calls, begging me to come to the rescue and clean up whatever mess Celeste had gotten herself into, or the years of silence that followed.

  But now things were different. I had been waiting on this phone call. I had been counting the days, wondering when Celeste would finally show some semblance of remorse or regard for her daughter.

  “Celeste,” I said finally, exhaling and forcing myself to stay calm. There were so many things I want to s
ay to my sister. But I knew there was no point in getting them off of my chest now. I needed to figure out what the plan was. I needed to know where she was, how long she would be there, and what steps she was taking towards building a stable home for Harper.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner,” Celeste said. Her voice sounded soft and shy. A far cry from the anger I had gotten used to in years past.

  “Where are you?” I asked, ignoring the apology. That was another thing I’d gotten used to. Empty apologies. My sister was never sorry for the bad decisions that she made, and she was never sorry for the impact that her actions had on the people around her. If anything, she was sorry she got caught, sorry she had to spend a night in the drunk tank instead of downing shots at the club, sorry she had to look after a screaming infant instead of jetting off for a five-day bender in the Virgin Islands with her famous friends.

  “I’m in the hospital,” she sniffled in a small voice. “Benjamin, I think I really fucked up this time.”

  “You say that every time.”.

  “God, I know.” Her voice cracked and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

  “Harper is ok,” I said. That should have been the first thing she asked. How was her daughter? Was Harper ok? Was she safe? Was she happy? Was she asking any questions? Was she asking why her mother hadn’t come home yet? My bear roared in anger. She was ours to protect now, even from her own mother.

  “I knew she would be,” Celeste said sadly. I wanted to slam down the phone, because I was disgusted with how selfish my sister was.

  “No,” I said, “You assumed that she was ok. You assumed I would take care of things for you, just like I always do. Or if I didn’t Mom and Dad would step in. None of that is fair.”

  “Benjamin…”

  “Celeste,” I cut her off sternly. “This isn’t about you and me. If you want to let your life go up in smoke, that’s your prerogative. But you can’t take that sweet little girl down with you.”

  “I know, I… I…”

  “No,” I stopped her. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. I don’t. There’s nothing you can say that would justify the way you abandoned your daughter.”