The Stillness Of You by Julie Bale Read Free Book Online

the thirst I was feeling.
    Ben advanced on
me, his steps slow and assured, like a lion or a tiger on the
prowl.
    Instinctively, I took a step back, my belly clenched, my
heart beating so fast I was pretty sure both Ben and the people
behind him could hear it. Hell, the sound of it clogged my ears and
for a second I was disoriented.
    And then
he was so close to me that his musky, potent scent filled my nose.
It was like spice and mint rolled into one. Hot and cold at the
same time. It washed over me, it fell into me, and oh my fucking
god did I like it. No one who had just run for over an hour and a
half should smell as good as Ben Lancaster did.
    For one
frozen moment in time I stared up into his eyes and waited for
something to happen. His thick lashes were moist, beads of sweat
pebbled across his forehead, and his breathing was as ragged and
broken as mine.
    I opened my
mouth to say something. Anything.
    We can’t do this .
    We’re so wrong
for each other.
    Matt will kill us .
    “ Do you
feel this?” he whispered hoarsely. “You have to feel this. It can’t just be me.
There’s no fucking way it can just be me.”
    My mouth
was open but nothing came out. I felt all of it. Every. Single. Bit
of it.
    And then his
hand slid behind my neck, cradling me just above my shoulders, his
long fingers moving over my body with a hunger and an urgency that
I matched. I might have moaned, in fact, I’m sure I did because his
eyes widened, and his lips parted.
    I felt…I felt
crazy but without the crazy.
    It was
the anticipation. It was all the moments and seconds and minutes
that had passed between us over the last few days. It was that
first time I’d glanced over my shoulder and spied him in Matt’s
loft. It was his breath at my cheek the night before. It was
want.
    It was all of
that and so much more.
    “I feel you,” I
whispered.
    And then his
hot, demanding mouth was on mine, and that so much more, became
suddenly clear.
    It was
everything.

Chapter
Seven
     
    Ben
     
     
    Georgia felt
amazing.
    Better than I’d
imagined and trust me, I had spent most of the night lying in that
pullout sofa that was about two sizes too small, thinking how good
she would feel curled up against me.
    Or
beneath me. Naked. Preferably totally fucking naked.
    I had
been dying to wrap my arms around her and kiss her senseless ever
since dinner the night before. It’s all I had thought about. How I
would taste her, hold her, devour her. Christ, staring across a
dinner table and watching her eat was too much. She made eating a
meatball look like oral foreplay and the thing of it was, she
wasn’t working it. She was listening to whatever bullshit I was
saying and she was nibbling on that piece of meat and I was
envisioning her mouth nibbling something else entirely.
    It had been a
long night.
    And this
morning, watching her run to the top of the museum steps, her sweet
round ass and those trim dancer’s legs right there in front of me,
was nearly too much. I’d been battling a case of the nerves ever
since I’d laid eyes on her in the kitchen a few hours earlier.
    Me. Ben
Lancaster. A guy who had not gotten this worked up over a girl
since my older sister Amanda’s best friend, Tiffany, took my
virginity when I was fourteen. I’d been a wreck then, but shit,
there was a hell of a lot of experience between the guy I’d been—a
kid who had blown his load five seconds in—and the guy I was
now.
    I’m not
boasting but in my world women were like candy, and I might have
been a lot more concerned about the type of candy I ate than some
of the guys on my team, but I sure as hell liked to dip my fingers
in every now and again and taste whatever was there.
    My point
was that I knew my way around women, but this girl, this hot little
package with eyes that felt as if they could see into my soul, she
had me tied up in all sorts of knots.
    And she felt
fucking fantastic.
    I groaned
as her mouth opened beneath mine, it felt that good. Her